National Planning Policy Framework

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir David. Quite unusually, on Tuesday afternoon, members of the Labour party went through planning issues in this very Chamber. It is interesting that we have returned to business as usual; we seem to have these Thursday afternoon planning debates regularly, at which Government Back Benchers raise planning issues from their constituencies.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing this important debate and making a truly excellent speech. I agreed with almost every word. He did an excellent job of pointing out that we should be developing new homes and our communities in line with the wishes of local residents, and that if we have a plan-led system, we should be doing a lot more to ensure that local plans are in place. Indeed, he demonstrated very clearly what happens when a plan is not in place and local communities feel at the mercy of developers because of the presumption in favour of sustainable development. He also made an excellent point about the need to look at resources for planning departments. In a minute or two, I will address many other issues that were well dealt with in the Communities and Local Government Committee’s report.

The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) made important points about local authorities grabbing the opportunity to develop a local plan and seeing it as a positive thing, as well as about the need to simplify plan making. I totally agree with him on that. I was pleased that he raised the issue of reforming the compulsory purchase order system, which the Chancellor indicated he was keen to do some time ago. Will the Minister say whether he thinks that that is likely to happen in the next few weeks?

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) gave an excellent example of what happens to villages or other neighbourhoods when a local plan is not in place. I really agreed about the need to have more transparency, particularly in our land options system, so that local communities know who owns land, who is selling it and at what price. That would be helpful.

The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said we needed good-quality plans that really involve local people. If plan making is done properly, local people should have a say over what the local plan contains. Unfortunately, our experience is that that does not happen as often as it should. There is often a degree of consultation, but not participation, in plan making, and that needs to be reviewed.

I have seen the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raise constituency planning issues in this room a number of times. She made a good point about the need to have appropriate infrastructure in place to support additional housing. She said it can be difficult to get community consent if that infrastructure is not there. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) raised an important issue about green spaces. He also raised the problem of getting a designation, which some of us were probably not aware of. I am sure the Minister was listening and will seek to rectify that problem as soon as possible.

As always, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) made an excellent case for more localism. He also did a good job of exposing what is wrong with the Government’s changes to permitted development rights and use classes—a point taken up by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), who pointed out the particular challenges emerging in London because of what has happened to section 106. We have therefore heard about lots of issues relevant to the national planning policy framework.

As I indicated earlier, the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government did us a great service in carrying out its detailed review of the NPPF, which it published at the end of last year. Essentially, its concludes that it will take a number of years for the NPPF to bed in fully, but that there are significant concerns about its operation, which need to be addressed. It argues that we need the system to be adjusted, rather than subjected to a complete overhaul or withdrawn, and I very much concur. I have made it clear since the NPPF became operational in 2013 that the Opposition are in favour of it; we want to see some tweaks to it, but we would not wish to change it substantially.

The Select Committee set out a number of issues that could be looked at, and it is worth running through them fairly quickly—some were raised by hon. Members, and some were not. The Committee said that the loss of ancient woodland should be “wholly exceptional”, and it wants that put in the NPPF. It also said that local plans should be simpler and more accessible; hon. Members mentioned that. In addition, it believes that developers’ expectations should be set out in the local plan, and that local plans should be reviewed regularly.

The Committee said that all land with planning permission should count towards the five-year land supply; that might help to address some of the issues hon. Members have raised. It also said that where neighbourhood plans support development in the green belt, and where that is supported by local authorities, it should not subsequently be overturned by NPPF considerations, provided that it is part of a local plan. I cannot imagine that that set of circumstances will arise very often, but where they do, that point of view should clearly be taken on board.

The Committee said there should be a more dynamic plan for high streets and town centres. That should sit outwith the local plan, so that high streets are not set in aspic, with it being difficult to make changes; there are frequently changes to retail and changes of use on the high street. The Committee said there is a need to issue new guidance on the timely delivery of infrastructure; that would help the hon. Member for Congleton deal with some of the issues she raised. It also believed that the Planning Inspectorate should issue a document on the points learned from considering local plans, which would be extremely helpful for councils that have still not adopted a local plan. Furthermore, it said there should be a standard approach in guidance to assessing viability, and that we should have an agreed methodology for assessing housing need.

The Committee made an interesting suggestion, which would help a lot of hon. Members who have raised issues today, when it said there should be provision for the partial adoption of local plans. If significant parts of a local plan are not contested, they could be adopted, leaving more time further down the line to consider other issues. The Committee also said the Government should consult on placing a statutory requirement on councils to have an adopted local plan in place, and the Opposition have committed to that. Again, that would help Members with a number of the issues raised today.

The Committee suggested that the Government consider what incentives might be necessary to support the duty to co-operate, so that it works more effectively. It said that there should be further clarification of the relationship between neighbourhood plans and local plans. The Opposition have been clear that we want to integrate neighbourhood plans into the plan-making system, so that we start with neighbourhood plans and work up to the local plan, ensuring that neighbourhood plans have the full weight of the local plan system behind them. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that.

The Select Committee thought we should review the sequential test to see whether it gives enough protection to town centres. It said that there should be data on land availability, and that it should be updated. It noted that there should not be changes to section 106 agreements in the way we heard outlined earlier. In particular, we should not have a system where only five section 106 agreements can contribute to a piece of infrastructure. I know nobody who supports that policy, which leads to difficulties funding infrastructure in practice, as the Minister is no doubt aware.

The Committee said additional steps should be taken to promote neighbourhood planning. It thought we should revoke permitted development changes, particularly as regards A1, A2 and C3. It said local authorities should see planning as a front-line service and not target it for cuts. The Minister will know that huge issues are emerging in the planning system to do with whether local authorities have the capacity to deal with planning applications or, indeed, as the hon. Member for The Cotswolds said, the resources for ongoing forward plan making. The Committee said the Government should see what they can do to strengthen neighbourhood plans, particularly with regard to engaging developers in the process. As we know from a number of the plans that have been or are being developed, it is difficult to get developer input, but that is vital.

The Committee was therefore very thorough in its review, and it highlighted a number of issues, which we can discuss. However, the Government response to its detailed report was somewhat disappointing, to put it mildly, because it did not really accept any of the recommendations. For the most part, it seemed that one of two answers was given to each recommendation. One type of answer was, “We do not need to do this, because the system is working very well at the moment, thank you,” or “We are doing this already, and we do not need to take on board what the Select Committee says.” I paraphrase, rather than giving the Government’s responses to every recommendation, as those are in the document. Alternatively, the response was “We do not agree.” There were a few warm words about putting a bit more support into neighbourhood planning, and linking that to plan making; but outside that, there was nothing of great significance with respect to making local plans statutory and setting a time scale.

There are five things that the Minister should do in taking on board the issues raised today, and to deal in a more serious way with the issues raised in the report. There should be a statutory requirement to produce a local plan with an accompanying time scale, so that communities are not, for lack of one, left at the mercy of developers and inappropriate development. There should be a review of the resources available to local planning authorities, so that they can deal adequately with planning issues and plan making. There should be a common methodology for assessing housing need, to make comparisons possible between areas. There should be a strong link between neighbourhood and local plans. Even if the Minister does not accept our approach, he should accept the need to clarify the relationship between the two. Lastly, there should be much stronger measures to support brownfield development, including considering what resources can be diverted into reclamation, to give local builders and developers an incentive to build on brownfield rather than greenfield land.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. As many other hon. Members have done, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on securing the debate. He outlined key issues in our planning reforms and the national planning policy framework. I intend to deal with specific issues that have been raised, as well as talking more generally, and I hope to cover pretty much every point that has been raised. After all, I have plenty of time, and I thank hon. Members for allowing me that freedom.

I am pleased that the underlying message from pretty much every hon. Member who spoke this afternoon is that, putting everything else aside, we all agree that there is a need for more housing. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds that if we are to deliver more housing, and to be able to continue delivering it in the numbers we want, it is important that those houses are the right ones, designed to a high quality, and built in the right place at the right time.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend and other hon. Members recognise our success in simplifying the planning system. I was a member of the Committee that considered the Localism Act 2011, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) was the Minister, along with the current Minister for Universities, Science and Cities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). My hon. Friend outlined superbly the importance of the change that has happened whereby some 7,000-plus pages on planning, including the guidance notes, have been reduced to just 50 pages now. That guidance is recommended to all hon. Members wondering what bedtime reading to choose this evening. We achieved that important simplification.

I always find it interesting—that is the best way I can put it, to be as polite as possible—to hear Opposition Members giving their thoughts about the planning system and pointing out where it does not work. I say that with a wry smile because, having been a councillor for 11 years and a council leader for about half that time, I well remember talking to colleagues across local government—as I do now as a Local Government Minister—about their frustration at years of top-down control. We talked about the people sent from Whitehall in a suit telling them what to build, regardless of whether it was appropriate for them. What happened in that period—apart from the financial crash that so heavily hit the building industry and people’s ability to borrow to buy a home—was that a stranglehold was put on planning. That is partly what led to rates of building, when Labour left power, similar to those of 1923. We have had to rebuild from a rate of 80,000-odd homes a year being built under Labour to the present rate of about 150,000. By 2017, as my hon. Friends have mentioned, we will hit 200,000. I lambast Labour for its lack of ambition in saying that it will do that by 2020. We will hit that kind of figure, on our current trajectory, in 2017.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Will the Minister give way?

[Brandon Lewis]

I want to finish this point. I find it slightly ironic when I hear the hon. Lady talking about how we must link neighbourhood and local planning. In essence that is correct, and I believe in it. However, it comes from a party that was responsible for the top-down system I mentioned, in which there was little local involvement. It is a party whose shadow Secretary of State wrote to district council leaders last summer to outline some of the things he wanted to do; those who read on to the second page will have realised that he was talking about taking power away from district councils, in particular, and moving back to a more regionally based system. If they did not like it, they would just lose their planning power, effectively.

Of course, the leader of the Labour party has made clear his ideas about what will happen when there is an urban area that wants to build, but it neighbours a rural area without the capacity to take on that development. The duty to co-operate does not mean that it can take on that capacity; the development will be forced on the rural area. I struggle to see how any area will accept that as true localism. It simply is not. It is going back to a top-down system of control, under which Labour failed to deliver homes year after year for 13 years.

I have sympathy with what the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) said about ancient woodland. I talked to the Woodland Trust last week about the importance of environmental development. When I talk about good-quality development, I want it to be clear that we want trees and nature to be part of the environment. I was pleased to hear recently that Barratt Homes has worked out a deal for a secondment from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to work with Barratt and make sure that it develops a good environment along with its homes. It is important to move away from the practice of many years of building big housing estates—nice as some are, with lovely homes in them—where there is one area of green in the middle, which, after six months, has a sign saying “No ball games, no children, no looking, no touching.” I say that tongue in cheek, but the reality on some estates is kind of like that. People never get to know their neighbours, because there is no community interaction. An important way to encourage such things is the development of communities where retail space is mixed with residential and commercial space, and with good, usable community space. I am keen for that to happen, as I said earlier this week, in the Ebbsfleet garden city, in Northstowe and in Bicester, which I visited last week to see the development. It is a great way to move forward, and neighbourhood planning can play a part in that.

Hon. Members will appreciate that as a Minister I have a quasi-judicial role in the planning system, so I cannot comment on specific proposals—a couple have been mentioned today—or individual plans. However, I will cover the issues touched on today in more general terms. We all agree, across the parties, on the importance of getting plans in place. They set the framework in which local decisions should and must be made. The Government have returned power in plan making to the local level wherever possible. As I have said and my hon. Friends have mentioned, we revoked the last Administration’s unpopular and undemocratic regional strategies. We have enabled communities to bring forward neighbourhood plans, the most important and exciting development in planning that has happened in this country in decades.

We have reformed local plan making so that inspectors may propose modifications to a plan only if invited to do so by the council. I must be clear about that, given some of the comments that have been made today. Furthermore, the NPPF strongly incentivises plan making, encouraging all councils to engage their communities and put plans in place as soon as possible, and to ensure that those plans are kept up to date. Some of my hon. Friends have given examples of frustrations that they have encountered in putting plans in place. It has been a pleasure to hear my hon. Friends talk about some of the issues in their areas. Cheshire East was mentioned, which I visited in a previous capacity, to attend a public meeting on planning. It was a wonderful experience, as it always is when I visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) with her. However, I have to say that Cheshire East is an example of somewhere local people are quite right to be frustrated and irritated at the behaviour of their council and its failure to deliver a local plan.

My hon. Friend touched on the fact that Cheshire East council had the support of a retired inspector whom we sent in to work with it. I wish that the council had listened to the advice so that the plan was in a better place. I understand the frustration of residents, bearing in mind that they can look only next door to another local authority that, in the same time frame, has delivered its plan sound and finished. There is no excuse for Cheshire East’s failure thus far.