Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Finding a way to build the new homes we need while ensuring that we safeguard our green spaces and protect the character and quality of life in our urban and suburban neighbourhoods is one of the biggest challenges we face in modern Britain. We clearly have to respond to the concerns of the many young people who are finding it difficult to buy or rent the homes they want in the places where they want to live. In my view, however, it is also crucial that we do all we can to protect our open spaces, which play such an important role in the towns and cities of this great country of ours. As an MP representing a constituency that includes substantial areas of green-belt land, I am very much aware of how important it is to maintain full green-belt protection. I welcome the fact that the Bill is entirely consistent with that aim. It is crucial to prevent the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas, to conserve wildlife habitats and to provide crucial opportunities for outdoor health and sporting activities.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend also acknowledge that we need to conserve the ecology of such areas, especially through the use of hedgehog superhighways?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[Mrs Villiers]

I warmly agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment and commend his hedgehog campaign.

A number of provisions in the Bill will be helpful in delivering the new homes that we need and to which the Government are committed. We have had some helpful insight into how clauses 1 to 6 will help to strengthen neighbourhood planning and make it more effective. Establishing a register of prior approval applications for permitted development rights under clause 8 will also be welcomed, not least because of the concern felt about such rights. More visibility and transparency will be helpful in that regard. Clauses 9 to 30 look as though they will make the eye-watering complexity of some aspects of the compulsory purchase system somewhat easier to navigate. I hope that that will assist some of the major regeneration schemes.

However, a concern has been raised with me by my constituent Dr Oliver Natelson about the provisions in clause 7 on pre-commencement planning conditions, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) has spoken eloquently. Dr Natelson was worried when media coverage of the announcement of the Bill in the Queen’s Speech indicated that obligations to carry out archaeological and wildlife surveys would be “swept away”. I welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification on that today, and I invite the Minister to expand on it and to confirm that clause 7 will not restrict the power of local councils to impose the planning conditions necessary to make a development acceptable, including those relating to wildlife, habitats, flooding and heritage.

I would also urge the Minister to consider an important point that is not covered by the Bill. It relates to vacant public sector land. An example in my constituency is a site in Wood Street in High Barnet that is owned by the NHS but has not been used for many years and is becoming increasingly derelict. No matter how many times I raise this with the NHS, nothing seems to happen. In my view, it should take a decision either to use it for healthcare purposes or to sell it on so that it can be used for new homes or open space.

I should like to illustrate some of the general issues underlying the Bill and its objectives by considering the situation in my Chipping Barnet constituency. Over the last five years, around 5,300 new homes have been delivered in the borough of Barnet, including more than 2,000 affordable homes. This is the biggest programme of house building in outer London, and Barnet’s Conservative council plans to deliver another 20,000 homes over the next 10 years. In order to do that while conserving our precious green spaces and protecting the character of our suburban environment, the council has embarked on a number of large regeneration projects. These include four of the borough’s largest housing estates, one of which is Dollis Valley in my constituency. These regeneration projects are due to deliver 7,000 new homes—4,000 more than were previously on the estates—with a mix of social rent, affordable and market rate homes to buy. Although this work started over 10 years ago, it has much in common with the council estate regeneration strategy announced by the Government in February. By 2020, it is hoped that the council will have built 500 new council homes. So far, 40 have been built but the pace of delivery is increasing.

A key consideration in relation to planning and house building, whether in national debates in Parliament such as this one or in local discussions on development proposals, is whether the local infrastructure can cope with the new demands being placed on it. Locally in Barnet, work is under way to try to deliver this in relation to the housing schemes I have mentioned. For example, 10 new or replacement schools are planned across the borough at primary and secondary level, as well as new college and university buildings. I also warmly welcomed the recent opening of the Hope Corner community centre as part of the Dollis Valley regeneration scheme in my constituency, and I thank Barnet Council and Barnet Churches Action for enabling that to happen. I am sure that the community centre will be a great asset for the many new homes that are already being delivered as part of the regeneration.

However, issues surrounding infrastructure are sometimes difficult or impossible to resolve. In my constituency, that is particularly true when they relate to local roads and transport. This was one of the many reasons I opposed the redevelopment of Cat Hill on the boundary of my constituency. It is deeply regrettable that my constituents are already suffering the negative consequences of Enfield Council’s decision to grant planning permission for that project. I am also concerned about a proposal to redevelop the North London Business Park in the Brunswick Park area of my constituency. Many residents are strongly opposed to this plan, and understandably so. I try to support new homes where I can, but that application is just not acceptable. Some 1,200 new homes are proposed, including five blocks at least seven storeys high, with other blocks of up to 10 storeys high. As my constituent Gilbert Knight put it in his representations to the planning authority, this would be

“massive in scale and out of keeping with the surrounding low-rise residential areas”.

Another grave concern is the proposal to create an entrance to the site from Ashbourne Avenue. A similar proposal was rejected back in the 1960s because the roads could not cope with it, and I sincerely hope that it will be rejected again for that reason. That is one of the many reasons I am resolutely opposed to this development, alongside ward councillor Lisa Rutter.

I should like to move on to some happier examples in which the planning system looks as though it will deliver new homes in a way that is much more acceptable to local residents and much more in tune with the local environment. New Barnet provides an example of how active community associations can shape the character of their local neighbourhoods, defeat plans they do not like and still deliver significant numbers of new homes. In a four-year battle, the Save New Barnet campaign group defeated attempts by both Asda and Tesco for new supermarkets in the area. Rather than just opposing the plans, residents put forward a credible and workable alternative for new homes. Eventually, both supermarket giants gave up the struggle and decided that it was best to work with rather than against the local community. New homes have been built on the Tesco site, and around 364 are now likely to go ahead on the Asda land. There are still issues to be resolved, not least in ensuring that section 106 money goes to benefit the immediate surrounding area rather than being spent further afield. None the less, this is an illustration of how a system that has a very active role for local communities is not incompatible with delivering new homes, which is why I thought it was appropriate to refer to it in a debate on this Bill.

In conclusion, although the Bill provides some useful improvements to a number of aspects of the planning system, there are still some important issues with which to grapple. I will leave the Minister with a few questions about the Bill and the Government’s approach to delivering more homes. First, I would like his views on the calls by local authorities to be able to recover more clearly the costs of the planning process through the fees that they levy on applications made. Secondly, what further steps can be taken to ensure that landowners build the homes for which they have been given planning permission, rather than land banking them? Thirdly, what further action can be taken to help London residents to buy property in the capital and compete with investment buyers from around the world who are pushing up prices?

Finally, I wish to draw the House’s attention to some picturesque fields in the northern part of my constituency in High Barnet. This is known locally as Whalebones because of the whalebone gateway that frames the entrance to the land. With its field of geese, it is a local landmark that is held in great affection. Sadly, it is now under threat from development.

In my speech this evening, I have sought to emphasise some of the big efforts that are being made to deliver thousands of new homes in my local borough through regeneration and brownfield development. We need new homes, and this Bill will help to deliver more of them. We can build them without sacrificing vital green spaces such as Whalebones. That is why I will be campaigning with determination to protect this much-loved enclave of green space, which matters so much to my constituents in Chipping Barnet.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (First sitting)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

Which, of course, can only happen at a certain time of year.

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Q I possibly take a slightly different view from my colleague of newts and bats. There is some anxiety about the Bill, probably based on a misunderstanding of what the changes on pre-commencement conditions actually involve, so this discussion is very helpful from that point of view. I have constituents who are keen to see local authorities retain the power to ensure that proper surveys are done in relation to wildlife and archaeological heritage. From what I understand from the debate on Second Reading and from what you have said today, the planning authorities will retain the power to impose conditions of that kind; there will just be a change in how that is done to ensure that it involves the developer at an earlier stage and does not necessarily have to happen right at the start, before the whole process has begun.

Mr Whitaker, can you explain, in simple terms, at what stage of the process surveys of that kind can be required? I can then reassure my constituents that the Bill will not prevent an archaeological survey if it is necessary, and that the aim is to ensure that it happens in a way that causes less delay and cost to developments. It is obviously important to ensure that such work is done before a final decision is made on a planning application.

Andrew Whitaker: You are absolutely right and we agree with you. There are many stages in the planning process at which a local planning authority can reflect the community, in many instances, by asking what are the important things that need to be considered as part of the development of a site. They can do that when they allocate the site in a local plan—they can set out various matters that will need to be addressed as part of the development. That can be done by the community themselves at a neighbourhood plan level; it can be done as part of the pre-application and consultation discussion, with the potential applicant, of the issues that the local authority will want to be addressed via the planning application process; and it can then be discussed as part of the planning application process itself, prior to a decision being made. It can also be addressed as part of a planning condition attached to the planning permission.

At all those stages, one can quite legitimately raise any issue that one sees as being key to the planning decision, whether that is archaeology, bats and newts, or any other issue—for example, drainage is often seen as causing delay. Some of those issues will be so critical to whether the development is allowed to go ahead that they should, of course, be addressed very early on in the planning process.

If my local plan allocated a site but said, “This is a difficult site to drain. We will want to see all drainage details sorted out as part of the planning application. We are not going to leave this to a planning condition because it is fundamental to how much development you are allowed to put on the site, depending on your drainage scheme”, the developer would accept that as a constraint and would submit a detailed drainage scheme with their planning application. It is up to the local planning authority to then say, “Okay, this is an important issue for this site. Is the proposed drainage system capable of mitigating the drainage issues and should we approve the planning application on the basis of the scheme submitted with it?” The problem we see is that a lot of local authorities say, “We haven’t got time to do that now. We will make a planning condition that says that, prior to the commencement of the development, we want to agree a drainage system for the site.”

As I have previously explained, frequently, all that happens is that you submit exactly the same drainage system as was submitted with the planning application, or the same mitigation for wildlife, or the same detail that you knew was critical to the determination of your planning application later down the line as a pre-commencement planning condition, rather than it being sorted out as part of the original planning application. We think there are lots and lots of points along the planning journey at which the things that are key to the development of sites can be sorted out. The Bill does not change that at all.

[Mrs Villiers]

Thank you. That is helpful.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Q I was pleased to hear that answer, Mr Whitaker, because that issue was on my mind as well. You suggested earlier that planners might focus on the essentials of preconditions. We have to be clear about who determines what the essentials are. For example, when is a bat more essential than a ditch? I think you have made it quite clear, and I do not think that those of our environmental colleagues who are listening will feel you are trying to steamroller over the environment. Can you just give me a yes or no?

Andrew Whitaker: Yes.

Roy Pinnock: He is not.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Q Part of this has been covered by John Mann’s questions, but just to be clear, it seems to me there are far fewer neighbourhood plans in big cities than elsewhere. It would be useful to understand from you what you think the main cause of that is. Is it because it is very difficult to identify a community small enough to be viable for a neighbourhood plan within a bigger urban area?

Jonathan Owen: I think it is that, and I think those communities need support from their local planning authorities. Of course, the absence of a parish or town council in those areas means there is no institution that can drive it forward and raise funds through precepts to support the neighbourhood plan, with an ongoing democratic existence over time.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Q One of the things so many communities want is to have an influence on how their communities look and feel, what nice places they are to live in and all of that. Do you think the changes proposed in the Bill will help that? Will people really feel that they are going to influence the places in which they live?

Ruth Reed: I think it would be helpful if it was explicit that provision is made for enabling the capacity for local communities to express what they want out of the quality of their environment. I do not think it is explicit. It is implied that there will be funding provided for guidance, but it does not say that that should be what it is. I think it would be good if the Bill made a clear statement that good design will be brought forward through this process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

Q Have you done any work to understand good practice or the resources necessary to engage effectively communities that might not naturally have the capacity or inclination to engage in strategic planning?

Carole Reilly: We have. We undertook an internal review early days, thinking, “Why is this going on?” because we always seemed to be speaking mainly to the parish council. I have to say that that is one of the elements of the Bill that I feel most disappointed with—it does not go far enough. There was a manifesto commitment to encourage neighbourhood planning across the country, but I think we could be sitting in this room in 10 years’ time and, if we have not done something very significant around urban and deprived areas, we will still be having 10% to 15% of forums doing neighbourhood plans.

Some of the issues are very straightforward. Parish and town councils have a place, a building, a phone, a clerk and an address where people know to go, so they are easy to do. When we did all the asset transfer work at Locality, people understood district councils better than counties. People understood where to go. Those councils also have a big infrastructure, like a number of other bodies, to inform them, “This is an opportunity, take it!” and they have a bank account that they can get going straightaway.

In urban areas, who is your neighbourhood? Is someone on the next street your neighbourhood? Where is the boundary? Is it coterminous with another one you know, such as your political or health boundary? What is it? That is really difficult. Who are the leaders on that? I think it is a major problem that neighbourhood forums have a five-year lifespan. From the start, that does not build in long-term thinking.

There is a problem about funding for implementation for forums, so while my first reaction would be to say that CIL is an issue, it and the new homes bonus scheme only channel funding to areas where there is growth already. If we look at those forums in deprived, urban areas, where CIL is set but set at nought, 0% of nought is still nought, so it makes no difference. These issues could be helped in terms of big-picture stuff. A national policy that tried to balance regeneration and planning would be really helpful so that people can understand what a neighbourhood plan can do for an area where there is actually not a lot of housing demand—there is not a problem because there is not a shortage—but where there is a shortage of employment. Using your neighbourhood plan to understand employment space and encourage and generate that would be great.

The reason why it does not happen in urban areas is that there is not already a thing or a vehicle to do it. In poorer areas, there is an issue about personal investment. If you do not own your own home—if you live in private rented accommodation—you have no investment there, and there is nothing to lose. If you are time-poor, you are not going to get involved. There are also things about skills, transient communities and a general point about focus.

I think a huge amount of work can be done. There have been promotional campaigns on neighbourhood planning, but I think we need something much more targeted and focused, something that works with the people that we know on the ground—the local planning authority—and supports them. We also need to fund it, so it is about a very proactive, promotional mobilisation campaign that targets specific groups to take it forward, otherwise we will be still be at the same picture.

[Mrs Villiers]

Q I would very much like to ask Matt Thomson about one of the points made in your recent report, “Safe Under Us?” about housing development on the green belt. Obviously our planning rules say that such development should be made only in very exceptional cases, but I am alarmed by the research that CPRE and the London Green Belt Council have done, which seems to suggest that inspectors are now deeming general housing pressure and housing need to be sufficiently exceptional to justify green belt development. Could you expand on that?

Matt Thomson: Well, you have put the case that I think CPRE would make very eloquently. Despite the fact that Ministers have said on several occasions that housing demand on its own is not sufficient justification to grant planning permission on green-belt land, it is of concern to us that neither local authorities nor the Planning Inspectorate have necessarily enforced that in all cases, and certainly not in a number of cases that are of concern to CPRE.

Secondly, under the same principle, it is very clear, in our view, in paragraph 14 of the NPPF that, while local authorities should plan to meet their objectively assessed need in full, the requirement does not apply in green belt areas and other areas listed in footnote 9. However, councils are planning for growth—despite being restricted by green belt—and releasing land from the green belt to meet that growth need at an increasing and higher rate than regional plans were doing before they were abolished, largely for the reason that they were proposing development in the green belt. Yes, that is a great concern to us. Housing need obviously needs to be met somewhere and there is still some way to go in order to overcome the problem of how housing need should be met while protecting the green belt and other areas of landscape importance and so on that we would expect to be protected.

[Mrs Villiers]

Q Is there a legislative fix to this? Should we be thinking about adding something to the Bill to resolve the problem?

Matt Thomson: Strangely, we are not calling for that. Our position is that the NPPF should be enforced, as the policy is clearly worded at the moment. At the moment, our feeling is that local authorities, which are hard-pressed to get local plans in place and to meet their unrealistic housing targets, are granting planning permission and releasing sites from the green belt through their local plans simply because they do not feel like they will get the support from the Planning Inspectorate and the Secretary of State if they choose to do what the NPPF policy actually tells them to.

[Jim McMahon]

Q I want to try to get under the skin of trying to encourage planners to come forward in areas of deprivation. In previous sessions, we have heard about a conflict between identifiable neighbourhoods of scale. Planning tends to be easier where a village can be identified that is very defined in its own right, but a lot harder in urban areas. Is that partly because, in urban areas, local is extremely local—the street or collections of streets, rather than defined villages and towns on a bigger scale? Could more support be given even more locally so that people could have a say? Perhaps clusters of communities might be able to come together with a bit more support than is currently offered.

Carole Reilly: In urban areas?

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Tracey]

Q As a quick follow-on question—where a constituency like mine comes under pressure, because we are a rural constituency surrounded by big areas we are having to co-operate with, what are the mechanisms for challenging their assessed need? That is where the calculation figures are often seen to be well away from what we would expect.

Gavin Barwell: One of the things I was alluding to for Mr Malthouse was whether we can look at a more objective method of saying what need is. The starting point, it seems to me, is the household projection figures. One of the concerns people raise with that is that we have taken the decision we took on 23 June, so migration levels may well be lower. It is worth saying that what the projection numbers do is look at past trends and roll forward, so they are already assuming a reduction in the level of migration over the time period and they are updated every few years.

The starting point, as I said, is those household projection figures. Then if I were running a council, I would be looking at what the market is telling me. In other words, what is the ratio of house prices to salaries in my area? If that ratio is very high, we have not been building enough houses; so we need to do a bit more than the household projects would suggest, if we are going to try to get that ratio down. To me, those are the two things you would be looking at, but if what is being said is that it would be helpful to have more certainty about what those numbers are, and to have more confidence in them, I agree with that and that is something we are looking to do.

[Mrs Villiers]

Q Obviously the key concern that has been raised by some of the campaign groups, such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is that local authorities are being driven to propose green belt development because they cannot meet their targets and they cannot make the duty to co-operate work. So in order to avoid the risk of having their local plan rejected altogether they are putting forward green-belt or greenfield developments. What is the incentive on a local authority—on the other end of a duty to co-operate —to accept somebody else’s housing targets? I do not see how the duty to co-operate can work effectively if you are saying that local authorities have to somehow persuade their neighbours to accept their housing needs. I would be grateful if you could explain how the duty to co-operate is supposed to work.

Gavin Barwell: There are some local authorities that genuinely want to go for growth, and therefore they are almost happy to take extra housing because they have made a strategic choice that that is what they want to do in their district. Those are probably not the kinds of authorities in the areas my right hon. Friend and I represent or the areas immediately around them, where land is very much at a premium. One of the things we need to look at in the White Paper is what more we can do to provide those kinds of incentives. To me, a lot of that is about much more explicit links between housing numbers and infrastructure. I actually want to get down to the level of having very bespoke conversations with individual authorities saying, “If you were going to take an extra x thousand in your area, what does it need to make it work? What would make it politically acceptable?” and then trying to have those kinds of bespoke deals.

There is also a real role for all of us to provide some political leadership here. What many people imagine is that if we do not build the homes, the people will not come. Actually, evidence in London in recent years shows that that is not true; they do come, and you end up with people living in beds in sheds at the end of gardens and things like that. We do not want to live in a city like that, so Mr Tracey is absolutely right—we need to have confidence in the numbers and we need to believe that they are genuinely what is going to happen in a given area. But then there is a moral duty on us to make sure that we provide housing, once we have confidence in the figures, to meet that level of need.

Sometimes that is going to involve difficult choices. I have tried to avoid being parochial so far, but I will just give a Croydon example. In my constituency—it has been really interesting to see over the nearly 20 years that I have been involved in local politics—essentially an explicit choice has been made to build very high in the centre of Croydon in order to protect our green belt. If someone had come to Croydon 20 years ago and said, “We are going to have seven or eight buildings over 40 storeys in the town centre,” they would have been laughed out of town. Confronted with either not meeting the housing need we have—people can see the housing need all around them—or building on our remaining parks or green belt, people have actually said that this is a better option. It is near where the infrastructure is—the East Croydon station route into London and all those kinds of things.

In some parts of the country there are no easy ways of doing this. It is a question of having an honest debate about what the options are. I certainly believe that in parts of London higher density is part of the solution. Even that is not an easy sell to people because it does change the character of an area, but we need to think—what are the alternatives?

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that time has beaten us in this session as well. I thank the Minister and his team for the full and frank engagement with the Committee, which is really appreciated.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Jackie Doyle-Price.)

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Fifth sitting)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes]

It is my view that a clause that requires an exchange of letters and makes agreement to the principle of pre-commencement conditions the preserve of the applicant rather than the local authority does the opposite. It does not encourage best practice; it encourages a much more litigious and formalised approach to negotiation, which does not allow for genuine engagement between applicant and planning authority. It would be far better to resource planning authorities properly to undertake those detailed discussions with applicants, so that they can agree and discuss the issues that are important to local communities and ensure they are properly addressed, with as many as possible being within the planning permission itself rather than within pre-commencement conditions. However, there is a role for pre-commencement conditions and it is a very important one.

Finally, we should remind ourselves of what pre-commencement conditions seek to achieve and why they are important. Conditions cover many aspects of application, such as the choice of materials, which is sometimes belittled as a trivial matter but is in fact so important in determining the impact that a new development will have on a community in the long term. Once something is built, it is there certainly for the rest of our lifetimes and perhaps those of future generations. What a development looks like, the impact it has and how sensitively considered the materials are plays a really important role in how acceptable it is to the local community.

Conditions also cover issues such as sewerage capacity, which influences whether residents will have serious problems, sometimes in their own homes, in the long term. They are a key means by which local authorities can safeguard the interests of local communities and ensure the quality of new development. Of course, they should not be overused or misused, but where that occurs it is a symptom of the lack of resources rather than wilful misuse or poor practice.

I argue that the setting of conditions should be the preserve of democratically elected local authorities, not contingent on the agreement of the applicant. Local authorities must be properly resourced to undertake pre-planning discussions, to review properly the content of applications and to agree as much as possible within the framework of the planning permission itself, in order to minimise the use of conditions. The clause is simply misdirected. It is trying to treat the symptom of a problem, rather than the cause. I hope the Government will therefore reconsider it.

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this Committee under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I have what amounts more to an intervention than a full speech. I spoke about this clause on Second Reading and received some useful reassurance from the Minister, but now we have the more relaxed circumstances and timings of a Committee, I would like to reiterate broadly the importance that many of my constituents place on matters relating to the protection of habitats—that includes bats and newts—and landscape and flooding.

It would be helpful if the Minister expanded on his remarks on Second Reading to explain how it will still be legitimate for the planning process to consider such matters and how there will still be opportunities for local authorities to require research to be done into them, so that planning permission can be granted on the basis of full awareness of the facts. While the clause as drafted will help streamline the planning process, it must leave planning authorities with the ability not only to take matters such as habitats into account, but to require developers to provide the appropriate surveys and research. Will the Minister explain at what stage that is still open to the planning authorities? I am sure my constituents would be very grateful for that.

[Gavin Barwell]

I should say at the outset that the three amendments we are debating do not deal with the pre-commencement and application issue. We have rather drifted into a clause stand part debate, but I will try to respond to all the points colleagues have made.

This is probably the moment in the Bill when there is the strongest disagreement between the two sides of the Committee. Let me start on a consensual note. The hon. Member for City of Durham asked me to accept that this was a wide-ranging power, compared with the one in the previous clause, and I do accept that. The Government have sought, in drafting the legislation and in some of the other things we have done, to provide as much reassurance as possible.

We have put two provisions in the Bill that it might be helpful to clarify at the outset. The clause does two things: it gives the Secretary of State the power to prescribe certain types of planning condition, and separately it requires that pre-commencement planning conditions may only be made with the agreement of the applicant. So there are two different issues, and the amendments we are considering deal with the first part of the clause. We will come to the amendments that deal with pre-commencement later. It might be helpful to the Committee to put that on the record.

On the Secretary of State taking the power to prescribe certain types of conditions, I can offer three pieces of reassurance to the Committee. First, the Bill makes it very clear that the Secretary of State may use that power only to back up what is in the NPPF—the basic tests are written into proposed section 100ZA(2), which is inserted in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 by the clause. One of the amendments deals with those four tests, which I will come to later. Secondly, proposed section 100ZA(3) makes it clear that the Secretary of State, before making any regulations, will have to carry out a specific consultation on them, so each time the Secretary of State seeks to use the powers under proposed section 100ZA(1), there will have to be a public consultation. That is written into the Bill to provide reassurance about how the power is to be used. Thirdly, when we published the Bill, we also published a consultation paper setting out how we believed that we would want to use the powers, were Parliament to grant them to the Secretary of State. I will refer to that consultation paper later on in what I have to say.

The point of principle is the point of difference, so let us start with evidence. I would argue that there is a lot of evidence to show that there is a problem, but first I point out that the Opposition have fallen into one of the traps that has bedevilled the housing debate in this country for 30 or 40 years—a trap into which many of the people who have come into my office over the past three months have also fallen—and that is to set out an either/or choice.

For the first two months that I was doing this job, I asked everyone, “Why do we not build enough houses in this country?” People would reply, “It’s all the planning system’s fault,” or, “It’s all down to the major developers, who are banking huge chunks of land. If they released those, we wouldn’t have a problem.” Some people came into my office and said, “Do you know what? It is impossible for people nowadays to own their own home. We should just give up on home ownership and put all the focus of housing policy on renting,” but others say, “There has been too much focus on renting. People want to own their own home. Everything should be about helping people to own their own home.” I believe such choices to be completely false.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Seventh sitting)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gavin Barwell]

If I may, before I turn to the specific amendment, I would like to make introductory remarks about the amendments that we are debating here, and the next couple, which sit together, to a degree, in policy terms, although we shall debate them separately. This is really about our proposed approach to ensuring that all communities benefit from the certainty and clarity that a local plan can provide. I hope that what I say will provide helpful context.

The planning system is at the heart of the Government’s plans to boost housing supply. It is not the only thing that we need to do to build more homes; but certainly, one of the crucial ingredients of the strategy that we shall set out in the White Paper will be to release enough land in the right parts of the country to meet housing need. However, rather than having a top-down system in which central Government decide where the housing goes, the Government passionately believe in a bottom-up system where communities take the decisions. There is one caveat: that councillors should not be able to duck taking the tough decisions. In my view, my role in the system is to ensure that each community in the country takes the necessary decisions to meet housing need. How they do it should be a matter for them.

A second objective, looking at the matter from the viewpoint of those who want to build homes, is that the planning system should give them certainty about where the homes can be built, and where they should not try to build homes. That is why we have a longstanding commitment to a local plan-led system, which identifies what development is needed in an area, and sets out where it should and should not go, and so provides certainty for those who want to invest.

Local planning authorities have had more than a decade to produce a local plan. The majority—more than 70%—have done so. However, not every local authority has made the same progress towards getting a plan in place, and there are some gaps in parts of the country where plans are needed most. We have made clear our expectation that all local planning authorities should have a local plan. We have provided targeted support through the LGA’s planning advisory service and the Planning Inspectorate, to assist them in doing so. We have also been clear about the fact that local plans should be kept up to date, to ensure that the policies in them remain relevant. If that is not happening it is right for the Government to take action.

We invited a panel of experts to consider how local plan-making could be made more efficient and effective. The local plans expert group recommended a clear statutory requirement for all authorities to produce a plan. We agree that the requirement to have a local plan should not be in doubt. However, as long as authorities have policies to address their strategic housing and other priorities, they should have freedom about the type of plan most appropriate to their area. In fact, the constituency of the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is an example of a part of the country where a decision has been taken to work with a strategic plan over a wider area, rather than 10 individual local plans.

Effective planning, which meets the housing, economic and infrastructure needs of the people who live in an area, does not need to be constrained by planning authority boundaries. We want more co-operation and joint planning for authorities to plan strategically with their neighbours, ensuring, together, that they can meet the housing and other needs of their areas. There are opportunities to improve the accessibility of plans to local people. The amendments that we propose will strengthen planning in those areas.

New clause 4 enables the Secretary of State to direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document—the documents that comprise an authority’s local plan—if he considers that that will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in one or more of those authorities. Where we direct authorities to prepare a joint plan, the local planning authorities will work together to prepare it. They will then each decide whether to adopt the joint plan.

The country’s need for housing is not constrained by neighbourhood, district or county boundaries. The system needs to support planning and decision making at the right functional level of geography.

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly subscribe to the sentiments that my hon. Friend the Minister expressed at the start of his remarks about local councils and communities making decisions. How is that reconcilable with the position in London, where, although borough councils have important powers in this policy area, they can effectively be overridden by the Greater London Authority? If we were really localist, would we not be pushing decisions on housing down to our borough councils?

[Gavin Barwell]

Actually, most of the statutory responsibilities in London still sit with the London boroughs, but their plans do have to conform to the strategic policies of the London plan, as my right hon. Friend knows. There is a debate about such matters. An interesting distinction is that the London plan cannot allocate specific sites, in either my right hon. Friend’s constituency or any other part of the capital. It can set out some overall strategic policies, but it is then essentially for the borough plan in Barnet, Croydon or wherever else to decide where the development in their area goes, subject to the overall strategic policies.

The Government’s view is that the balance is right, and that there is a case for strategic planning across London, but clearly it would be possible to argue otherwise. Indeed, there was a period during which the capital did not have a body to provide strategic planning. There is absolutely a legitimate debate to be had. It might reassure my right hon. Friend to hear that I would be opposed to a situation in which the London plan could allocate particular sites contrary to the wishes of Barnet Council, because that would undermine the kind of localism that she refers to.

We have been clear that local planning authorities should work collaboratively so that strategic priorities, particularly for housing, are properly co-ordinated across local boundaries and clearly reflected in individual local plans. We have already discussed the duty to co-operate, and separately we have set out our commitment to strengthen planning guidance to improve the functioning of that duty. The Government recognise that it is not currently functioning in an ideal way.

Following a call for evidence and discussions with a range of bodies, including planning authorities, the development industry and the community groups, the local plans expert group drew attention to the difficulty that some areas are having with providing for the housing that they require, particularly where housing need is high and land is heavily constrained. Such challenges can be compounded when the timetables for local plans coming forward in neighbouring areas do not align, and the plans are therefore not informed by a common evidence base. We need to ensure that such challenges—they are real challenges—do not become reasons for ducking the tough decisions that need to be made to ensure that we build the housing we need.

A joined-up plan-making process, in which key decisions are taken together, will help local planning authorities to provide their communities with a plan for delivering the housing they need. The idea of joint planning and working collaboratively with neighbours is not new. Local planning authorities can already choose to work together on a joint plan and as part of a joint planning committee. There are many examples of their doing so. Indeed, I recently met representatives of Norwich City Council at the MIPIM exhibition. They told me about the way in which they are working with South Norfolk and Broadland districts to produce a combined plan across the three districts. I have already referred to the example in Greater Manchester, with which the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton will be familiar.

We will continue to support and encourage local planning authorities to choose the most appropriate approach to plan-making in their area, whether they are working on their own or with others to prepare a joint plan. My first bit of reassurance to the Committee is that I envisage the power we are taking being used sparingly. Where effective planning across boundaries is not happening, we must take action to help local planning authorities to make progress, to provide certainty for communities; otherwise, we risk delaying or even preventing the delivery of housing that is urgently needed.

New clause 4 will enable us to do what I have just described. It amends the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to enable the Secretary of State to direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint plan. The power can be exercised only in situations in which the Secretary of State considers that it will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in one or more of the authorities. The change will apply existing provisions for the preparation and examination of development plan documents. It also provides for the consequences of the withdrawal or modification of a direction.

New clause 4 will also amend some existing provisions—sections 21 and 27 of the 2004 Act—to ensure that, should the Secretary of State need to intervene more directly in the preparation of a joint plan, there is a mechanism for recovering any costs incurred from each of the relevant local planning authorities. Costs will be apportioned in such a way as the Secretary of State considers just. If the Mayor of London, a combined authority or a county council prepares a joint plan at the invitation of the Secretary of State, they will be responsible for apportioning liability fairly for any expenditure that they incur. Government amendment 26 will provide for the regulation-making power conferred by new clause 4 to come into force on the passing of the Act.