Pubs and Planning Legislation

Debate between Robert Neill and Grahame Morris

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I regret to say that I had departed office by then, although I am delighted to say that the then pubs Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), came down to the constituency and looked at the site—without in any way prejudging the outcome. It was simply that our local councillors, the community and I were quickly on the case. There were some issues—I shall come on to them—where I agree with my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West, but at the end of the day it was possible to do it under the current regime. Does that mean that we cannot improve the regime? No, we can always improve it. Much planning policy develops incrementally in the light of experience.

[Grahame M. Morris]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

Let me make a bit of progress before giving way again.

First, we should look at ways of being more proactive about developing the assets of community value regime across the piece. Secondly, we need to do more to encourage the adoption of neighbourhood plans, which enable a greater degree of granularity than in ordinary planning documents. If they are linked to a robust local plan—more and more authorities are introducing those—that, too, provides an opportunity to have plans locally that are attuned to the need to protect pubs in particular areas. That would be a good way forward too.

In the case of Mottingham’s public house The Porcupine—a much-loved asset—I had a lot of sympathy with what was said. Enterprise Inns quite cynically ran that pub down, and it is right to say that many of the pub companies have a bad track record of running down pubs essentially to improve their balance-sheet position. Enterprise Inns has long been doing that; it has a deliberate disposal policy. I totally agree with the hon. Member for Leeds North West that that is what we need to address. The debate is about the nuance of how best to do that. In that case, the public house was sold without notice to the community. That is an aspect of the way in which the regime works that we could look at again in the light of experience.

Happily, the Mottingham residents association and our local councillors were in touch with me quickly and we were able to make an application to the local authority, which swiftly had the matter placed on the agenda for the planning committee. A decision was taken and the pub was listed. The local authority, after a hearing, rejected the application. The supermarket Lidl that had bought The Porcupine site appealed. Representatives of the local community and I gave evidence at the public inquiry. I am delighted to say that the inspector rejected Lidl’s appeal, and the time for Lidl to challenge in the High Court has now expired. It was a win for the local community.

We were able to engage the services of the excellent Richard Harwood QC, one of our leading planning lawyers, who put up an exceptional case—[Interruption.] Actually, he was instructed by the local authority. Tribute should be paid to him. He understands the issues and did a great job. I have one or two of his suggestions for further improvements, which I shall put to the Minister in a moment. The point is that this can be done under the current regime, but can we make it easier? I would always like to make it easier for communities to help their pubs in the future.

In the debate on the Infrastructure Bill, the Minister announced certain changes to the assets of community value regime, which I welcome. I would like further clarification of the statement that the secondary legislation would be brought forward at the earliest opportunity. One advantage of doing these things through secondary legislation or planning policy guidance is that we can be more fleet of foot than if primary legislation is used. Can the Minister tell us when this legislation will be introduced? Can he confirm that this will apply to public houses and other assets of community value that have already been listed? That seemed to be the sense of what was being said in his statement, but one or two lawyers have said that it would be good to have absolute clarity on that point. I hope that that will not be difficult to achieve.

We could look at encouraging local authorities to do as the Mayor of London has done. When I read the inspector’s report on The Porcupine case, it was clear that he gave considerable weight to the fact that this was an asset of community value. In fact, the Government’s reforms bit, and were effective in this case. The inspector also gave considerable weight to the policies in the London plan that were introduced by the current Mayor of London to strengthen the protection of public houses in London.

Those policies resulted from a report by Steve O’Connell, the Conservative London Assembly Member for Croydon and Sutton, called “Keeping Local: How to save London’s pubs as community resources”. I recommend it to any Member, as there is no reason why other planning authorities cannot adopt that same useful approach. A number of specific policy lines have been put into the London plan. Members interested in this should look at policy 4.48A, the whole of policy 4.8 and policy 3.1B, all of which deal with the ability of boroughs—indeed, an obligation is placed on them—to bring forward policies to retain, manage and enhance public houses, where there is sufficient evidence of need and of community asset value and viability in pub use. Authorities are also tasked with the need to develop policies to protect valued community assets, and the London plan specifically refers to pubs in that context. Policy 3.1B also specifically refers to the need to protect pubs.

The Mayor’s “Town Centres Supplementary Planning Guidance”, which is given effect by the London plan, also strengthens the position of pubs, including specifically taking into account the continuing viability of use of the public house, the history of vacancy, the prospect of achieving reuse at market value and whether or not it has been effectively marketed. Some of the pubcos go through a sham exercise in marketing, which was exposed in the inquiry into The Porcupine. Frankly, the pubco had simply gone through the motions, and we were able to call an expert who demonstrated that this was not a genuine marketing exercise. These are things that we could sensibly seek to tighten up, and we could do so without direct interference by the Government, but they might like to think about strengthening the guidance to reflect what is already good practice in London in that regard.

There are a couple of other things we could do that would not be too onerous and would still maintain the balance that we always need in planning policy, involving flexibility when needs and circumstances change and vary from area to area. More could perhaps be done to increase the weight given to the harm caused by the loss of non-designated heritage assets. If the asset—often a pub, but it could be a church or something like it—is a listed building, it obviously gets much more significant protection. It might be worth looking at the operation of paragraph 135 of the national planning policy framework to see what could be done to increase the weight given to the harm that would come from losing assets that are of community value, but do not have the status of being listed buildings because of their architectural merit. Something might not be of great architectural merit, but it could still be of great value to the community. We should look at ways of providing help on that.

[Robert Neill]

Yes, that is something that it would be good to prevent. I am aware that the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) wanted to intervene earlier. I did not mean to be discourteous to him. Would he like the opportunity to intervene before I finish? If I have covered the point, well and good.

[Grahame M. Morris]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, he mentions the services of a top barrister, but would it not be much simpler and less bureaucratic—I have heard him arguing for the need to cut costs many times—simply to accept the proposal in the motion? It proposes a simple change to

“put pubs into the sui generis category”,

which would achieve the same ends, be administratively simpler and cost local authorities nothing.

[Robert Neill]

The proposal is initially very attractive, but having looked at the operation of use class orders during the two and a half years when I was a Minister, I warn the hon. Gentleman that we need to be little careful about some of the intended consequences of changes to use classes. I would not rule it out entirely for the future, but we should approach it carefully, incrementally and on an evidence basis. I hope, too, that the decision in The Porcupine case—something of a test case—will make it easier for us to succeed in subsequent legal challenges. We all want the same thing—there is no dispute between us about the objective—so it is the means by which we achieve it that we are debating.

Another suggestion is that we accept extending the need for planning permission to the demolition of commercial buildings, which would be quite straightforward. That was a risk in the Porcupine case, and the hon. Member for Leeds North West raised the issue of what happens if a pub is knocked down, when the building is gone and the chance for restoration to a pub is pretty much lost. My suggestion would be possible following the SAVE Britain’s Heritage judgment in 2011—on my watch—about the Mitchell’s brewery site in Lancaster. The need to give notice before exercising permitted development rights to demolish has been helpful as a result of that judgment because it has enabled article 4 directions to be made. That worked in Lewisham in the case of The Baring Hall public house just over the boundary from me—in the constituency, I believe, of the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), whom I am delighted to see in her place on the Opposition Front Bench today. That did work, but we might be able to build on it and make it simpler to achieve.

Finally, let me salute the work that CAMRA has done over the years. CAMRA was a great help to us during The Porcupine case, and it might be able to help us again. Now that we have a site that is vacant—not demolished, I am delighted to say—we need someone to offer to take it off Lidl’s hands and make it commercially viable. CAMRA might be able to take on a brokerage role, working with other bodies, because it contains some very bright and commercially astute people. It could perhaps bring together those who have the money with which to acquire a site—and might be interested in acquiring it—and the local community and local authority.

This has been a very useful debate. If I have adopted a slightly different tone from some other Members, that is not because I am not as passionate about pubs as anyone else—as many will know—but because I want to find a suitably nuanced way in which to achieve our shared objective. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Robert Neill and Grahame Morris

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on his speech, and I commend his statement to the House. This is a difficult settlement for anyone to have to achieve, and my hon. Friend has done it as well and efficiently as I would expect him to. It is a settlement that I would have commended to the House when I was a Minister.

I welcome the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) to his new position, but he made a disappointing speech. Frankly, it was full of wind and rhetoric, and contained very little analysis. The truth is that the Minister has delivered the best possible settlement for local government that he could in these difficult circumstances, and he has worked tirelessly to do so. I will tell the hon. Member for Corby why he is wrong. He failed to answer a question when I intervened on him earlier. While we are wedded to a four-block formula, we will always have difficulties with the way in which we deliver resource to local government. We are stuck with it for this Parliament, however, so let us be sensible and realistic about it. The Government have done the best they can in the circumstances. The paucity of imagination among Opposition Members is striking; they will not move away from that point.

Such a paucity of imagination also exists among some of our coalition colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) has made a powerful speech, and much of his analysis was broadly correct. However, when I was the local government Minister and I sought to reform the system by giving more recognition to rurality and bringing greater efficiency into the system, I was baulked at every turn by our coalition partners, who had no desire to make any change. That is the reality of public life; we have to live with what we have.

I believe that it is wrong when an efficient local authority such as my own in Bromley—which will, I trust, freeze its council tax tonight—is not rewarded for its historical efficiency. For years, we have started from a lower base than others, yet we get no recognition for that in the spending formula. That needs consensus to be taken on board. It is offensive that we do not adequately take on board the cost of running services in rural areas, although many of us tried to do that. I was surprised that my coalition colleagues were more concerned with protecting the position of the metropolitan authorities. Sheffield and Stockport were more important to them than protecting the issues affecting their people in the south-west of England. The reality is that they were unwilling to engage in a serious debate on the reform of the four-block formula.

That is not the fault of the Minister. He has done the best he can with the hand that has been dealt to him. In a future Parliament, however, we might have to think about what we should do with local government finance. That will not be done under these coalition arrangements, and it will not be done unless we are more honest about giving incentives to local authorities to recognise hard work.

My local authority has benefited to the tune of some £5 million through the new homes bonus, because we have worked efficiently and effectively. We have sought to do that in connection with our new business rates. We have worked hard, yet I see nothing in the formula that will reward us. In the London system, we are not rewarded for our historical efficiencies, and that is wrong.

We need to take a more sensible approach in order to get through this current period. The Minister has done that fairly and efficiently, but we now need to think more sensibly about what we do in respect of a system that rewards growth and hard work, and rewards local authorities for driving up their own economic base. Some Labour Members raise their eyebrows at that, but Newham council is a local authority that has worked hard to drive up its economic base and does not get a reward under the four block system. Unless we are prepared to deal with the four block system, we are doomed to a perpetual dance around—a bit like the last act of Eugene Onegin and the Polonaise—redressing a formula that is fundamentally flawed.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I do not necessarily agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis, but does he accept that it is possible to do both: we can incentivise growth, economic development and housing development, and still address need, without the requirement to destroy the equalisation elements of the formula?

[Robert Neill]

I think we all accept that there will always be an element of equalisation in the formula, but if the system becomes entirely about equalisation, rather than about incentivisation, we will be getting into the wrong place in terms of bringing in market economics and growth. I want an element of equalisation in any formula—everyone does—but I say seriously to the hon. Gentleman that he misses out the importance of recognising that efficiency should be written into the formula. We are in a binary resource-versus-needs equation at the moment in the way the four blocks operate, and there is also an inefficient means within the blocks. I worked this out once and found that about 297—I may have lost a couple along the way—bits of regression and analysis in the formula are worked out. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) nods, because she had to suffer about 300 in her time—we have scaled it back a bit. This is a ludicrously complicated formula, it does not get to the heart of where need is, and very often the interactions of the bits of the regression and analysis are counter-intuitive. So unless we are prepared to sit down in the new Parliament—it will not happen in this one—to examine seriously the formulation for local government finance, we will not get anywhere.

The Minister has presented a workable, sensible and effective proposal that will take us through until the general election and beyond. This House needs to take on board the fact that we will be having these same circular debates time and again unless we are radical about the need to change local government finance for the future. Such change will come after the general election, but all of us, if we are serious about local government, need to get a grip on that and be prepared to think outside the box of where we currently are. That would be in all our interests.

Public Service Pensions Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Grahame Morris

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I take on board my hon. Friend’s point, and we must be realistic in all areas of this discussion. Longevity creates a pressure on the scheme, as well as providing greater life opportunities for people who have retired. It is, in part, a result of greater fitness and better health among the population, which can—among other things—enable people to work for longer. That applies in pretty much every other kind of activity, and we cannot regard any scheme as exempt. I accept, however, that there are particular pressures on firefighters, although I suggest to the House that the Government’s proposals recognise that and provide a sensible and evidence-based mechanism for dealing with it.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the informed contribution from a former Minister. Does he acknowledge that, besides the pressures of longevity, there are risks in increasing contributions for employees? For the firefighters fund, 7% is the magic figure in terms of opt-out. I understand that a poll by YouGov, commissioned by the Fire Brigades Union, indicates that a larger number—12% —of people are very likely to opt out, and that 25% are likely to opt out when the new contributions come into effect.

[Robert Neill]

When I was a Minister, it was precisely for that reason that I included in the agreement a provision for a review of opt-outs in the firefighters scheme before decisions were taken on increases in years 2 and 3. That was in accordance with the proposals set out by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We have built in a mechanism to review that risk, but I hope we will find that it does not materialise. I come back to my point that we must probably move away from our slightly entrenched positions on this issue, and be prepared to look sensibly at how to strike an appropriate balance based on the evidence.

We all want the strongest possible pension schemes for those in our public services. I have referred to the two sectors with which I have been most closely associated, and to which I feel the strongest personal commitment, but one could say similar things about many other sectors. If there is a Division tonight, I would not support the Bill without hesitation if I did not believe that we had put in place a framework that will enable us to deliver on our obligations. There are technical matters to address, but I am confident that we will be able to do so as the legislation proceeds. The Bill deals with an important and necessary reform, and I commend it to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and Grahame Morris

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I have met representatives of metropolitan fire and rescue authorities and meetings continue to take place at an official level, and we will meet representatives of any fire authority, regardless where in the country they come from. In Tyne and Wear, the formula grant per head at £29 is significantly above the average, which reflects some of the risks. In fact, the formula was updated by this Government to give a greater weighting to population density.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I refer the Minister to the answer he gave a few moments ago to my hon. Friends in relation to risk assessments. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the excellent report that was carried out on fire deaths and injuries by the County Durham and Darlington fire and rescue brigade, which showed that poor health, social issues and deprivation are key contributory factors to high levels of fire risk. We are losing 40 firefighter posts, so what risk assessments were carried out before cuts to central funding were made to the Durham and Darlington fire and rescue brigade?

[Robert Neill]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he has not grasped the point that the risk assessment is dealt with at a local level by the integrated risk management plan, which is consulted upon with the local community and then approved by the fire authority. Durham’s funding per head has been maintained over two years at a steady level of £21 per head. It is worth saying that all metropolitan fire authorities have had increases in their capital grant of 50% to 80%, which is significantly more than under the previous Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and Grahame Morris

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I can confirm the message that I left with my hon. Friend’s office at the end of last week: I am very happy to meet her as a matter of urgency to discuss the matter.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

T3. On his recent visit to the north-east, the Prime Minister claimed that his West Oxfordshire council was facing much higher cuts—23% over two years—than anywhere in the north-east. However, that cut of 23% amounts to £775,000. In comparison, Durham county council, which covers my area, is facing cuts of more than £60 million—that is, £28 million in formula grant, plus £32 million in area-based grant. Will the Secretary of State accept that my constituents will struggle to understand this particular concept of fairness, and that, regardless of percentages—