Robert Neill
Main Page: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Robert Neill Excerpts
Mr Pickles
This is a normal administrative process. I will check with my ministerial colleagues, but I believe a London borough—Barking, I think—is currently putting out a consultation with regard to article 4 and betting shops in the area.
There is a misunderstanding here. Where this measure relates to a sole property, we would expect notice to be served, but where it is served generally to an area, the normal process by which we inform the public about planning applications, decisions and appeals would apply.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I agree that to permit a local authority to opt out entirely from permitted development measures would be draconian, but does my right hon. Friend accept that there are underlying concerns that article 4 directions may not operate as well in practice as in theory? Is he therefore prepared to consider what further steps might be taken by his Department and local authorities to refine the way in which the article 4 system works?
Mr Pickles
Absolutely, and that is why we are looking towards Lord Taylor’s advice in respect of tweaking the article 4 process. It has undergone a number of changes. It changed under the last Government in 2008, and we made a change in 2010, so article 4 is not set in concrete—it is not buried under a back patio.
Hilary Benn
The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point. I was going to raise it in a moment, but I shall raise it now. The Planning Minister told the Select Committee that the development would be limited to 50% of the garden, but the consultation document does not say that. It says 50% of the curtilage of the house. As the Royal Town Planning Institute has pointed out, the two are self-evidently not the same. I would happily give way at this moment to the Secretary of State if he could clarify a simple question. Is it 50% of the garden or 50% of the curtilage?
Hilary Benn
Gladly, but the House will have noticed that the Secretary of State, who is responsible for this, cannot answer or is unwilling to answer a very simple question in the House today.
Robert Neill
Will the right hon. Gentleman answer this very simple question? Given his new-found concern for back gardens, will he explain why his Government persisted in regarding back gardens as brownfield development, resisted attempts to reclassify them and permitted more building on back gardens, which was reversed by this Government?
Hilary Benn
I make no apology for having a brownfield-first policy when we were in government. One of the reasons why more and more development is going to be seen on greenfield sites is that in revising the national planning policy framework, the Government have weakened the extremely sensible brownfield-first policy.
There was a hurried consultation on permitted development rights. Reference has already been made to the fact that although the consultation closed on 24 December last, anyone who looked this morning on the Communities and Local Government website to remind themselves of what the Government’s response was, given the great hoo-hah that there has been and the many views expressed, would have found this simple statement:
“We are analysing your responses. Visit this page again soon to download the outcome to this public feedback.”
I find it extraordinary. Given the extent of the concern and the discussions that have been taking place at the last minute with colleagues on the Government Benches who are immensely concerned about the matter, how is it that all these months after the closing date for the consultation, the Government have not even been able to publish what people said and to respond to it?
I am not surprised that the Government have not been keen to do that because of the extent of the concern expressed. Two arguments have been made. The first was that the Government’s proposal would boost economic recovery. That view is not shared by those who should know. When the Planning Minister was asked by the BBC what would be the economic impact of the measure, he replied, “I don’t know.” The truth is that nobody knows. The Select Committee was not persuaded by the economic argument. It said that the case that the Government had put was
“so tentative, broad-brush and qualified as to provide little assurance that the financial benefits suggested will be achieved.”
Even Anglian Home Improvements, who know a lot about building conservatories, said that the proposals would on their own
“achieve little if anything in terms of securing economic growth”.
If the Government wanted to boost the construction sector and the building of conservatories, they could do a lot worse than to reduce the rate of VAT on home improvements to 5%, as the National Federation of Builders has suggested.
The second argument and the substantive one is that it should be made much easier for people to be able to extend their homes. The Secretary of State knows, as we have heard in this debate, that about 90% of those planning applications for extensions beyond the existing permitted development rights are approved. That shows that the planning system is working to allow these extensions, but what it also shows is that the planning system works to weed out the 10% of applications that are not acceptable. The right hon. Gentleman wants those 10% to be able to go ahead, come what may. That is the consequence of what he is proposing.
Robert Neill
As a former sous-chef in the Department, I have no doubt that if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says he wishes to achieve a workable and viable compromise, he means it. I trust him and believe him because I know him, and I hope all my hon. Friends think the same.
Very little weight can be attached to the Opposition’s cynical approach. Having spent nearly two and a half years as a ministerial sous-chef stripping away the centralised control that the Labour party placed upon planners in this country and the constraints it placed on local authorities, I think that it ill behoves Labour Members to talk the language of localism.
Robert Neill
I will make some progress before giving way.
It is well known that throughout the history of planning legislation in this country there has been a concept of permitted development. That is not new; it goes back to 1947. It has always been accepted that it is legitimate, for reasons of public policy, from time to time to adjust the criteria that determine what constitutes permitted development, and that has always been done at national level. The difficulty with the Lords amendment is that it would allow a complete opting-out of any adjustment to national policy at a local level, and that seems to me to be nothing other than a needlessly blunt instrument. However, I accept that there is an issue about the operation of article 4 in practice. I know that from my own dealings with local authorities and from my own experience as both a Minister and a councillor.
Lyn Brown
The hon. Gentleman is very kind. I was going to ask him whether he thought that the policy was consistent with the Government’s localism agenda. I think he would agree with me that it is not. Does he agree with me that Newham council has an issue with developments on back gardens that are used as dwellings but are uninhabitable, unsanitary and completely against cohesive communities?
Robert Neill
There is a real issue in Newham and other parts of the country about developments in back gardens. When I was in the Department, it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), then the Housing Minister, who did more to tackle the issue than any Minister before him, and that is now being carried on by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). This Government are helping to deal with the issue the hon. Lady raises on behalf of her constituents.
I accept that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, with his experience of the matter, understands that we need to find an article 4 system that actually works, rather than the well-intentioned but draconian outcome proposed by their lordships. Rightly or wrongly, concerns have been raised about how article 4 actually operates on the ground. That relates in part to the point my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) made about a degree of risk averseness among local government officers in recommending them to their members.
Mr Stewart Jackson
Does my hon. Friend not agree with me, however, that it would have been easier to persuade the House of the merits of these proposals if the indicative costs of, say, the enforcement action likely under the new regime, and indeed the indicative economic benefit referred to by the Secretary of State, had been made more explicit in the course of the debate?
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I accept the basis on which he does so. Equally, however, there is no doubt a great deal set out in the consultation. I very much hope that the consultation contains some constructive proposals on how we might make an article 4 system work more effectively in practice. I understand his point, but the details are particularly indicative and speculative in these cases because, in general, the Government have rightly taken a policy of not seeking to intervene in local authority applications for article 4 directions, which is a genuinely localist stance. We have in fact made the position more localist by requiring only notification of the article 4 direction, rather than approval by the Secretary of State—a general move back towards localism, which the previous Government never did. That is why I think that, rather than thinking about the indicative costs, we should look at finding a constructive means whereby local authorities have the confidence to use article 4 directions, knowing that they will work and will not create a disproportionate burden.
Bob Blackman
My hon. Friend has vast experience in local government and in planning law. Does he agree that one of the reasons for the impetus behind the campaign to allow local authorities to opt out is the Government’s proposal to double the amount of permitted development that will be allowed? In some parts of the country it will work, but in others it will not. That is the concern of local authorities, MPs and councillors.
Robert Neill
I understand my hon. Friend’s genuine concerns—I do not doubt the good faith with which they are raised—but, equally, I hope he accepts that my problem with the Lords amendment is that it would import a blanket approach to something that has always been adjusted nationally, although however much it should or should not be is a matter for debate. If we are going to change that, we ought to give it rather more consideration.
My other difficulty with the Lords amendment is that it would make a very significant shift in policy by adopting that blanket opt-out approach, without any consideration of that in the consultation. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s stance will enable that to take place.
Mr Betts
The Select Committee looked at the Government’s proposals and we concluded that the case for the change to permitted development rights for domestic extensions has not been made. The Government’s impact assessment estimates costs of between £5 million and £100 million, which shows the lack of clarity in their thinking. The impact assessment made no estimate of the social and environmental impacts. Reference has been made to the 90% of proposals that currently gain planning permission, but of those some are changed because of representations on the consultation arrangements that are made as part of the planning consideration. We should be concerned not only about the 10% that are turned down but would be accepted under permitted development rights, but those that are never submitted for planning permission because they are so awful that people know they would be turned down if they were submitted.
On localist issues, what can be more local than an extension to a house? This has no national significance. The Planning Minister has accepted that it will not have any significant impact on economic growth in the country as a whole—it is a local matter. In that case, why not accept amendment 7? The Secretary of State has argued for the use of article 4 instead. Article 4 is time consuming, cumbersome, subject to challenge and potentially costly. It is really meant to be used as an exception rather than as a general rule. The Secretary of State must clarify whether article 4 will achieve the same effect for local authorities as amendment 7, and, if not, what is the difference between them. If the same effect can be achieved under article 4 as under amendment 7, then why not retain amendment 7?