Examination of witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2000
MRS MAVIS
MCDONALD
and MR JEFF
JACOBS
80. Mr Jacobs, what are you designing?
(Mr Jacobs) I am not designing anything. Both the
Deputy Prime Minister and Nick Raynsford, as members of the Committee
will know, made recent speeches against the background of the
preparatory work of the Urban White Paper and other things we
are doing to emphasise the importance that they attach to good
design, good quality of development in housing, in particular,
and they have said what they have said against the background
of the emphasis placed by the Urban Task Force on this. They do
not see it as a matter just for the Government—I will come
back to that in a moment; but they do see that there are a number
of things that we can do on the way to preparing the Urban White
Paper. We are trying to do some of those things. Firstly, and
I apologise for the timing of this, as Mr Raynsford has already
done so to the Chair, the message of good design, higher quality
housing will be reinforced in the new planning policy guide on
housing, PPG 3, which we hope will be out shortly. There will
be a strong message of reinforcement in that.
Chairman
81. Can I interrupt, that word "shortly".
(Mr Jacobs) Shortly is exactly as much as I can say
on that point. I have said—and Nick Raynsford has apologised
only this week in a letter—we are sorry about the delay.
It is partly, indeed mainly, because both the Committee and a
substantial number of the respondents are asking for more, not
less, detailed advice about some of the policies and elements
of the PPG and we are having to do the new draft in concert with
producing what we hope will be three bits of good practice guidance
that we will put out simultaneously. This is more than just revising
the draft PPG. I hope we are weeks away.
82. In selecting the word "shortly".
(Mr Jacobs) I hope we are weeks away.
83. Can you just repeat that, "weeks away"?
(Mr Jacobs) I hope we are just weeks away.
Mrs Dunwoody
84. The minister was very courteous when he
said, in effect, "Do not be rotten to my civil servants because
it is not their fault." One understands this but the reality
is that we have heard this morning time and time again that design
is the core issue, you start from good design and everything else
falls into place. The relationship between where you build your
factory, where you put your jobs and the quality of the building,
everything starts with design. What you have done here is you
have listed the Government's broad objectives, and although I
am prepared to believe one can interpret them in almost any way
you like about the quality of that the reality is that you do
not start from that core.
(Mr Jacobs) I am sorry, I think we are addressing
that, not least because PPG 3 will as a matter of fact be coming
out as—
Chairman
85. We do hope it will be coming out, Mr Jacobs,
as a matter of fact.
(Mr Jacobs) As I said it will be coming out ahead
of the White Paper. We are trying to get on with this issue as
soon as we can. Nick Raynsford and I have to tried explain the
reasons why some of this delay is occurring and I can only apologise
for it in the way he has and I have already. I did, however, want
to say in addition that we have produced some material already,
we produced good practice guidance to which the Committee referred
in its earlier report on PPG 3. We are working with CABE, the
Commission on Architecture and Built Environment, on the other
good practice design guide which the Committee was very keen that
we should move quickly along with on good design in planning.
The reason for the delay on this is because we are not satisfied
yet we have the quality product and that is why as soon as CABE
was set up we asked Stuart Lipton and his team to look at it and
we are trying to move that on.
Chairman: When is that coming?
Mrs Dunwoody
86. Is that also coming shortly?
(Mr Jacobs) That is on the back of PPG 3.
Mr Gray
87. Sticking with this question of time, if
it comes out after the Public Spending Review and after PPG 3
am I right in thinking it is the Autumn we are talking about before
the White Paper is out?
(Mrs McDonald) It could be late summer, early autumn.
Mr Gray: Would it be a proper and appropriate
matter to the brought out or announced during the Labour Party
Conference?
Mrs Dunwoody: We do not talk about policy at
the Labour Party Conference.
Mr Gray
88. From a civil servant's standpoint is it
the sort of matter that could be brought out in a political context
or should it be brought out in a policy context?
(Mrs McDonald) I think the ministers will wish to
decide when they publish the White Paper. I think the Deputy Prime
Minister is already on the record as saying that he thinks documents
of key policy, such as White Papers, should be published when
they are ready.
89. I often wondered what the female equivalent
of Sir Humphrey must be, I think you are it. Do you think that
urban policy projects have so far been effective in reducing urban
policy?
(Mrs McDonald) I think there is a lot of evidence
and quite a lot of evaluation undertaken by the Department that
shows that various programmes designed to implement urban policy
have had various kinds of success. Over time we have been, hopefully,
learning what works and what does not work and developing subsequent
programmes so that more of the key principles are established.
Something like the urban development corporations were pretty
widely thought to be successful in one of their keys tasks, which
was clearing derelict land and promoting physical regeneration,
but then not necessarily as successful as they might have been
in lifting the basic economic activity in the area. Similarly,
programmes like Estate Action and the earlier days of the Single
Regeneration Project were quite successful in a number of ways.
What our evidence has shown and what the evidence of other commentators
has shown as well is that actually it is very important to address
economic, physical, social and environmental issues together and
that will be a key principle for the whole of the White Paper
as well as developing urban programmes. It is also essential that
there is a longer term commitment if you are going into an area
to do any kind of holistic regeneration. You cannot just move
in, finish the programme and move out. We have some examples where,
if there is not the proper continuing management of the local
community, very, very good physical work can quickly be overturned.
Absolutely key is the real involvement of the community as partners
in deciding at local levels what works, what the key priorities
are and what is needed. I think probably the New Deal for Communities
programme, which is the latest package, as it were, has gone furthest
in trying to involve all of those principles.
90. What is your reaction to the PIU's report
this morning which is, broadly speaking, in the words of the Telegraph,
"Blair's poverty policy in chaos"? Because there are
so many of these zones and projects and packages, the one thing
it is not is the word you used, "holistic".
(Mrs McDonald) As the PIU report said a lot of people
have made it very clear to the Department and the Government that
too many policies have been developed down a vertical path they
are still not sufficiently cross cutting. Apart from the work
on Neighbourhood Renewal, which the SEU is doing, which, again,
is a critical piece of work which will draw on the Urban White
Paper, the Spending Review itself is looking both at the number
and range of area based initiatives and whether that is a sensible
way to continue for the future. Also looking at ways of providing
for a better co-ordination of the kind of which the PIU report
is part so the decisions at national level are not taken without
a clear view of what the likely local impact is on the ground
and that there is better linkage into the regional level of government
and feeds backwards, up the line, into the formulation of policy
to try and avoid decisions which lead to a worse impact for those
who are worst affected by them.
Mrs Ellman
91. How are you going to make building on brownfield
sites easier?
(Mrs McDonald) That is a great subject covered by
Lord Rogers, and I am sure you have heard from him. There are
really two sets of answers to that question, one about planning,
which I am going to ask Jeff to deal with first, and the other
things about mechanisms which you might use in specific areas
to help local people address the issues of regeneration.
(Mr Jacobs) First of all, it is clear that the Government
wants to prioritise brownfield and greenfield development. That
was the background against which the 60 per cent national target
for additional housing was set. That target will be reasserted
and incorporated into PPG 3 when it is issued and it is the background
against which regional planning bodies and strategic planning
authorities will necessarily have to prepare their work on regional
planning guidance and development plans. The PPG 3 document will
then go on to set out the more detailed framework for maximising
the release of previously developed land. There are several components
to that. Firstly there is the introduction of the sequential approach
to the identification and development of areas and sites for housing
development, with clear preference given to brownfield before
greenfield. Secondly, there will be a requirement for recycling
targets to be set at regional and local levels to contribute towards
achieving the 60 per cent target. Thirdly, there will be an expectation
that regional planning bodies should work in close cooperation
with other stakeholders-which include the new RDAs and but also
taking account of the work that the Housing Corporations and local
authorities themselves are doing on preparing regional housing
statements-with the aim of getting draft regional planning guidance
prepared, which takes a realistic and responsible approach to
planning for future housing, assessing both need and capacity
of both land and existing stock to cope with it. Fourthly, there
will be an expectation that regional planning bodies and planning
authorities look across their boundaries; this is making the point
about the need for there to be cooperation between neighbouring
authorities where there may be concentrations of brownfield in
one area and one authority and lack of it in another. This work
will be done against an expectation that local authorities should
undertake urban housing capacity studies to support all of the
work that I have described. We have produced the National Land
Use Database as a starting point for that. But it is only a starting
point, it is a snapshot, against which urban capacity studies
need to be carried forward. We will be producing, again on the
back of PPG 3, some good practice guidance on capacity study work.
92. Will it be addressing the practical problems
to brownfield sites, regeneration, and things like land assembly
plan issues and problems to do with dereliction and pollution?
You have not mentioned any of those things, are you identifying
those or any others?
(Mrs McDonald) I think the answer is yes. We are looking
at all the recommendations that Lord Rogers made that would address
these kinds of issues. We have already set up three urban regeneration
companies as pilots to see whether that kind of model for broad
strategic master planning of an area works and whether it works
within the existing range of powers that are available in the
Department and whether anything more is needed there. We are talking
to colleagues in the Treasury about fiscal incentives which might
operate at a national and/or local level. It is for the Chancellor
to look at national taxation issues and to announce decisions.
At local level we are looking at what might be done. If we look
at examples of American models, for example, using the local tax
base differently. Proposals for that will come out in the Department's
Local Government Finance Green Paper as well as being included
in the Urban White Paper. There is an on-going review of the compulsory
purchase powers, where again, we pick up the kind of recommendations
that came from Lord Rogers' Report and, of course, the report
on Unpopular Housing, about the ease of land assembly and whether
any assistance can be given to problems there. There is a raft
of what we might call tool-kit measures being examined which would
help for practical purposes.
Mrs Ellman
93. How important would you say it is to prohibit
building on greenfield sites in order to encourage building on
brownfield sites?
(Mrs McDonald) The Government's target is 60 per cent,
assuming there will probably be some need for some greenfield
development. Indeed across the country there will be areas that
will come up in the context of the Rural White Paper where housing
is needed because the local people need housing and they cannot
afford particular types of housing. To say there will be no development
on any greenfield site anywhere would not be correct. What is
clear is they are very targeted on achieving the 60 per cent target
and they are focusing hard on the mechanisms that will deliver
that in local planning systems and what we can do on regeneration.
(Mr Jacobs) It is, perhaps, worth adding to that,
I think. My recollection is that the Rogers Task Force said that
on present policies the Government would be hard put to achieve
its 60 per cent target. It is against that background that we
are putting in place the draft policies, which I am trying to
describe as best I can ahead of PPG coming out, to try to put
as much pressure into the system in planning terms on brownfield
before greenfield. As Mrs McDonald said it is a 60/40 target against
the background that there will be a need for some greenfield development.
94. How seriously do you take criticisms about
the lack of integration with government regeneration initiatives
at a local level?
(Mrs McDonald) Very seriously. Both the PIU Report
and the work SEU is doing on urban renewal have taken a lot of
evidence and involved a lot of people who are involved on the
ground in trying to work the current systems. There is a continuing
feedback to us that there are too many initiatives. There are
also too many budgets, too many separate strands of funding. Unless
ways can be found to make local activities easier it will reduce
the capacity for success. There is a lot of work going on to design,
to try and find, both, mechanisms and ways of creating partnerships
so that a different and a much wider range of people can come
to the table with their own ideas to work in an area. I think
the New Deal for Community issues have been quite successful in
bringing in both the community, health and police and other NGOs
as well as the fairly standard local authority partners that we
see in some of our earlier regeneration programmes.
95. Do you support the suggestion for an Urban
Policy Board?
(Mrs McDonald) It is one of the recommendations that
we are looking at, I do not know where ministers will go on that.
What we are clear about is the need for people to be talking to
each other about the issues. The forum we have at the moment for
doing this with local government is a Central/Local Partnership.
There is an issue on the agenda for that quite regularly. We have
meetings with the Local Government Association on that and separate
meetings with the Core Cities Group. We have the Local Government
Association in the team which is developing both sets of White
Papers. I do not know what the final outcome will be in terms
of a board, but in terms of the principle of pulling together
joint working with the stakeholders I do not think there is any
doubt.
96. From a departmental point of view would
more joint working and joint decision making be seen as a threat?
(Mrs McDonald) No, I do not think so at all. One of
the key matters in the current Spending Review is the cross-cutting
elements of the Review, particularly the one on deprivation, and
focusing not just on regeneration programmes but on how main programmes
can contribute to solving the problems. What is clear is, we need
a much better statement of objectives of what programmes are after
and targets so that the wider application across Whitehall of
what each department is doing can be more clearly spelt out rather
than just very focused outputs that might be a key priority in
one department. You can achieve crime reduction measures through
a variety of programmes, it might be a key priority for the Home
Office but we can also achieve it through various aspects of transport
programmes and various aspects of housing programmes. We can be
clearer about what can be achieved and be more articulate about
that by means of setting clear targets.
97. If your Department was asked to do less
or to do things differently at the request of somebody outside
would that be taken as a criticism?
(Mrs McDonald) I hope not. I hope as a Department
with experience in working with other departments to manage programmes
which are already cross-cutting we can show we can be open minded.
I think we need to take on more outside advice, we have to be
very, very clear about what works on the ground and what does
not work on the ground.
Mr Stevenson
98. Urban regeneration is, by definition, a
multifaceted, very complicated policy issue. In your briefing
note, your submission to the Committee, you identify unemployment,
crime, poor health and low educational attainment as key outcomes.
I think we would all agree with that but my question to you, Mrs
McDonald, is this, given that the present local government finance
system heavily discriminates in favour of areas in the south at
the expense of local government areas in the Midlands and the
north, you did indicate that the local tax basis is important
as part of this boundary review, how important do you think it
is that that discrimination in favour of the south of the country
is addressed so that urban areas in the rest of the country, through
their local government activities, can effectively begin to address
those key outcomes?
(Mrs McDonald) I am not an expert on the current composition
of SSAs.
99. Can I give you an example and may give you
a cost adjustment? Areas of Surrey get about £240 per primary
pupil more than my local education authority and about £360
per secondary pupil. That is the area of cost adjustment. That
is an enormous amount of resources that does affect the key outcome
you have identified, below educational attainment.
(Mrs McDonald) If I can say again, and try not to
be unhelpful, I just really do not know what the current composition
is of SSAs.
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