 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Housing and Regeneration Bill |
Housing and Regeneration Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Hannah Weston, Committee
Clerk
† attended the
Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 15 January 2008(Afternoon)[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]Housing and Regeneration BillClause 14The
HCA as the local planning
authority
Amendment
moved
[this day]: No. 2, in clause 14, page 7, line
10, at end
add—
‘(8) Before
exercising its powers under this section the HCA shall undertake formal
consultation with the local authority and organise public information
and consultation meetings with local community organisations and local
people, in respect of any development in the designated area.’.
—[Grant
Shapps.]
4
pm
Grant
Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield) (Con): I was outlining the
purpose of the amendment, which more or less says that formal
consultation should take place. Rather than being the informal process
that the Minister referred to, whereby this benign agency and
benevolent Minister in the future always look to do what is best for
the local areas, it should be enshrined in law. A presumption of
consultation should be built into the Bill; indeed, more than just a
presumption—a requirement. That is what the amendment would
do.
It is true to say
that from everything we know of the Bill so far, much of its structure
replicates that of, in some cases, the authority that it might
replace—in this case, the local authority. As such, it can
circumvent a large number of requirements that are incumbent on a local
authority before it pushes through its plans. I am thinking of district
or local plans, which are years in the making. The plans go out to
consultation and the authorities talk to local people, consider a
variety of different aspects, publish the plan in draft and then
publish the final copy. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of
the House have been involved, at one time or another, with their
area’s district or borough local plan. We know that that
document takes a huge amount of time, energy and effort to prepare. As
its requirement to exist is already laid down in law, it is reasonable
that that should mean something. The problem with the clause without
amendment No. 2 is that the Homes and Communities Agency can ride right
across whatever has been decided locally. That endangers the fabric of
local democracy—the purpose of electing people who carry out a
district plan or, depending on the area, a local plan—and the
good work that is done in the plan, and there would be no point in
having it in the first place.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government (Mr. Iain Wright):
I
welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Benton. It is good
to see you.
The
hon. Gentleman has got to the crux of the argument on the clause and
the amendment. Does he agree that if the agency has local development
plans conferred on it, it will be required under the statutory planning
framework to go out to consultation if it wishes to amend them? It will
have the same responsibilities as the local planning authority, and
that is where consultation would come in. Is that not the
case?
With all due
respect to the Minister, that is not really the issue that we are
debating. We are saying that there is a form of retrospective
consultation, which comes in only after the HCA has, in effect, ridden
into town and taken over some of the responsibilities. Before that
happens—before it gets that power—it should first have a
duty to consult local authorities. The argument that the Minister
presses is that once it has decided to take over those powers it will
then, under other clauses in the Bill, have a duty placed on it to
consult. Our argument is that it is right to consult up front, and with
good reason. For example, in an area where the local authority has
already looked at its district or local plan and decided that building
houses in a particular location is a good or bad idea—it has
already gone through not only the consultation to create that local
plan, but also a great deal of local consultation to discuss the issue
with local residents and has come to a determination, which let us say
in this case is no—it is perfectly possible, with the
legislation as it stands, that the HCA will be able to ride into town
and override all that local decision-making
process.
Mr.
Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op): I urge the hon.
Gentleman to be careful about using emotive words. My concern relates
not just to this amendment, but to others that we have debated. There
seems to be a competition between the Conservatives and Liberal
Democrats to see who can be most slavishly loyal to the local
community. Can he see any circumstances in which the local opinion of
which he is so supportive might not be appropriate? If we look back a
long time to when his party was last in government, it rode over any
local opinion in relation to setting up out-of-town shopping
centres.
Grant
Shapps:
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention gives me
an opportunity to say that I am absolutely, slavishly loyal to the
desires of local people, but that simultaneously I want more houses to
be built. An easy way of squaring the circle is to say that local
communities must have the power in their own hands—they must
have the ability—so that they are incentivised and know that the
services are going to follow where the houses are to be built. In
particular, as is the case in my constituency, they must be reassured
that their local facilities, such as hospitals, are not going to be
closed down when the Government are insisting that thousands of homes
are built in the local area. It is pretty much common sense to say that
if the Government were to frame legislation that incentivised local
communities, rather than bash them over the head when they suspect them
of being nimbies, they would find that much more housing was built. The
problem with the entire direction of the Bill—the clause in
particular is a good way of highlighting it—is that the
temptation is to think that everything has to be run from Whitehall. It
does not; it can be run from local
communities.
Alistair
Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con):
Will my hon. Friend take into account—is he
aware, indeed—that the operation of housing finance and local
authority taxation has now reached the stage where in some areas
building more houses costs the council money? They do not get anything
back from it in local tax and more money goes out of their area. What
incentive is there for them to build houses, which we all want to see,
and to reach the Government target? Surely the approach that bottom-up
is best is the right way to
go.
Grant
Shapps:
My hon. Friend makes an outstanding point because
it shows precisely where the Bill has missed the game in town. It
should enable communities to expand where they want to—where
they are incentivised to. One of the ways to do that would be to allow
them to take the gain from having a wider and larger council tax base,
but the Bill does not address the issue. It fudges it; it insists that
those matters have to be run centrally. They do not. If 10,000 more
homes are built in one’s patch, those people will pay council
tax. If they pay council tax, politicians can stand for election in
that area with a reasonable expectation of offering lower council tax
or improved services, but only if the Bill allows for it. However, it
fudges it and it misses the point.
Mr.
Wright:
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the
word “incentivise” a number of times. Will he therefore
welcome the concept of the housing and planning delivery grant of
around £510 million, which my right hon. friend the Minister for
Housing announced several months ago? It is precisely for that
purpose—to ensure that where local authorities have the
responsibility to identify where housing needs are necessary, they will
be incentivised. Why did his Front-Bench spokesmen go out and say that
that was blackmail? Surely those statements are at odds. The grant is
either incentivising or it is blackmail. I do not understand the
Conservatives’ position on
this.
Grant
Shapps:
I thank the Minister for that as it gives us a
chance to clear something else up. I welcome the grant. It is a small
way—relatively small, in housing terms—of incentivising.
It takes over from the earlier grant, which was, I think, the housing
plan and I welcome that. However, I was also the one who said that it
looked like blackmail because—I shall explain this clearly to
the Minister—it comes from the same Government who still fail to
recognise that local people should be put in the driving seat. The
figures involved when compared with the cost of building 3 million
homes over a period of time, or even the limited time when the grant is
available over the next few years, are relatively trivial. It is
symbolic of how the Government think that all they need to do is to
hand down money from above. That is not how we should go about
incentivising communities. I am pleased the Minister has a real
interest in incentivising and that the clause has sparked his interest
in the subject.
The
way to incentivise communities is to use the money from within the
community with reformed section 106, the wider council tax base and by
not having one part of the Government working against
the interests of another part of the Government—for example, when
a hospital is closed but more homes are built. If we get the whole
system working in tandem, true localism will mean that we work to
incentivise from the bottom up. The Minister seems to believe that the
only way in which we can incentivise is to push money down from the top
and direct it centrally. In a sense, that is the problem with the
Government’s
approach.
Grant
Shapps:
I want to ensure that we address the detail of the
clause. I will take an intervention if it is on
that.
Mr.
Raynsford:
I refer the hon. Gentleman
back to the evidence session, our third sitting on the morning of
December 13. I think he was in Committee then. He will recall me asking
representatives from the Campaign to Protect Rural England about the
individual circumstance of a development on a brownfield site—an
infill development in an urban area with more than adequate
infrastructure, hospitals, transport, all the rest—that was
turned down by the local authority because of the feelings of local
people who did not want housing on that site. Without the ability of
the developer to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate and its decision
that the development was in accordance with the London plan, those
houses would not have been built. Does he recognise that it is not just
a question of incentivising communities? There are tensions and
conflicts, and we have to have a framework where the Government can
ensure that the overriding need for housing is met where it is
essential, and that where communities are wrong to oppose new housing,
that can be
overridden.
The
Chairman:
Order. I must ask members of the Committee to
make their interventions a little
shorter.
Grant
Shapps:
I am grateful for the intervention none the less
because it gives me the opportunity to say that the problems in the
market are a result of the marketplace as it is—of our planning
laws as they are. When those circumstances happen, and I recall the
right hon. Gentleman’s exchange with the CPRE, they are because
of the status quo. However, the Bill is not about the status quo; it is
about changing the future. There is barely a politician in this country
who is not elected on the basis of being anti-development, because
politically that makes sense in their
areas.
Grant
Shapps:
Surely the right hon. Gentleman
recognises that he is one of the very few exceptions up and down the
land. The reality is that local people have legitimate concerns. The
problem with the framework of the legislation in terms of planning and
housing is that it fails to recognise those legitimate concerns. I am
trying to describe a situation, with the help of the clause, that would
shift us to a position in which people in this country could, finally,
be elected on the basis of being pro-development politicians. When that
happens over
two or three electoral cycles—when we have people in this country
who have stood for election saying, “Yes, I’ll back those
10,000 houses over there, but in return we’re going to keep this
local hospital open. I’ll back those 10,000 houses, but
we’re going to use section 106 to rebuild our town centre.
I’ll back those 10,000 houses, but we’re going to keep
the council tax receipts to ensure, over a tapered period of time, that
we can provide better services to the local
community”—and when there is something in it for local
people, they will vote for
it.
The
Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is moving slightly
away from the amendment. There has been a tendency to do that. I am
trying to be as free as I can, but we must stick to
it.
Grant
Shapps:
I am grateful, Mr Benton. I am slightly goaded by
questions that take me off into the wider area, as you rightly point
out.
4.14
pm
Sitting
suspended for a Division in the
House.
4.29
pm
On
resuming—
What I want
to reflect on is the Minister’s earlier intervention, which
suggested that, because consultation would take place after the HCA had
taken over a development, that would be sufficient. We on this side of
the House argue that that is not sufficient; that, for all the reasons
that we were debating and discussing for the 10 minutes before the
Division, it makes sense to require that sort of consultation in
advance. The amendment simply states:
“Before exercising its
powers under this section the HCA shall undertake formal consultation
with the local authority and organise public information and
consultation meetings with local community organisations and local
people, in respect of any development in the designated
area.”
The purpose is
quite simple: to ensure that local people cannot be ignored in a
process that might otherwise ride roughshod all over
them.
Sir
George Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con): I congratulate
my hon. Friend on what he has just said, and he need make no apologies
for the passion injected into some of the earlier sections of his
speech. I want to support amendment No. 2, which seeks to soften any
injustice that might be done between the existing local plan and the
proposals that the HCA have for that area.
I think I am right in saying
that every part of the country is now covered by a local plan. The plan
has gone through an exhaustive procedure, the Minister has had the
power to intervene and amend it if he so wishes, and it is then
adopted. The thrust of planning policy for the past 20 years has been
to inject more certainty into the planning process, so that people know
that what is in the local plan is going to happen, and it is less
likely that an appeal will succeed. That is the context in which clause
14 and amendment No. 2 should be placed, as clause 14 allows the HCA to
become the local planning authority.
We discovered this morning that
the Government have at present no plans to use those powers in any part
of the country. I found that a helpful comment. In an intervention a
few moments ago, the Minister said that the HCA would have the same
responsibilities as the local planning authority. Will he confirm that
when he replies? The local planning authority has to go round quite a
protracted course in the preparation of the local plan. The Minister
said that the HCA has the same responsibility: will he confirm that it
will have to do exactly what the local authority does when it comes up
with its alternative proposals for the designated area?
It would also be helpful to
know whether the Minister can call in something that the HCA proposes
to do as the local planning authority. Is it susceptible to the same
power of intervention—in respect of what it is seeking to
do—as a local authority? Is it the case that, under this clause,
the HCA, if it were designated for the whole of a local authority area,
could simply produce a new local plan? As I understand it, that is
exactly what is proposed.
In an earlier debate, the
Minister said that the objective of the HCA in this part of the Bill
was to give additional help and support to a local authority. I take
that to mean help and support in enabling the local authority to
deliver what is in the plan, which is a wholly admirable objective. But
this is something slightly different: the proposal is not help and
support for the local authority in doing something that it is
struggling to do, but a change to the land use of the area of the local
authority. Will the Minister sketch in the circumstances in which those
powers will be used, and the process that the HCA will go through as
the local planning authority? Will he confirm that it will indeed have
to do exactly what the local authority did when it came up with its
original local
plan?
Lembit
Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): If the Minister is
confident that it will be incumbent on the HCA to respect the
responsibilities outlined by the two previous speakers, will he cite
where in legislation that commitment is enshrined? Such a commitment
would ensure that the HCA fulfils the obligations that have been
highlighted and that the amendment seeks to put back
in.
Mr.
Wright:
May I ask the indulgence of the
Committee, and of your good sense, Mr. Benton? We
were talking about something this morning, and I promised to go for a
walk and look into the skies to seek clarification. I had a very
pleasant walk in St. James’s park, and I would like to put on
record the issues raised by the Committee regarding my amendments to
clause
14.
The
Chairman:
Order. I have no objection in principle to
putting those matters on the record, but I doubt whether it is
appropriate to do so under this amendment. I suggest to the Minister
that he refers to them in the clause stand part
debate.
Mr.
Wright:
That is extraordinarily helpful,
Mr. Benton. I do not want to undermine your
authority, but Mr. Gale gave the Committee the
impression that we would not be having a clause stand part debate.
However, I am happy to take your point on board.
We
have had a very interesting debate and teased out an awful lot of the
fundamental, if not ideological, differences between the two main
parties. I was fascinated by the hon. Member for Welwyn
Hatfield’s somewhat contradictory position: being in favour of
incentivising local authorities, but when it happens saying that they
are being blackmailed and that it is a top-down approach. The
£8.5 billion that we have pledged to affordable housing, which
is a 50 per cent. increase on the previous comprehensive spending
review period, is a massive incentive that will be spent locally. Local
authorities are key to this
matter.
Grant
Shapps:
I do not want the Minister to remain confused, so
I will try to explain what he views as an contradiction. It is not a
contradiction. One element is the reality of the situation as it stands
at the moment. We welcome the money that will come down in order to
encourage development, but I ask him to keep it in mind that that is
not the reality that we would like. We are able to dream that in the
future we will have legislation under which that would not be the best
way to handle housing development. Therefore, we can both praise the
amount of money and call it a cynical bribe if future legislation is
not very different from this
Bill.
Mr.
Wright:
I maintain—I saw this on Second
Reading—that the hon. Gentleman fully agrees with more homes as
long as they are nowhere near his area. That is the sense that I get
from Tory Members: “We do need more houses, but nowhere near
us.” There is an element of, “Lord make me pure, but not
yet” about it. I think that there is a touch of
hypocrisy.
Lembit
Öpik:
If the Minister holds that point of view,
surely he should take on the amendments to ensure that the Conservative
party cannot mess up the noble plans that we all claim to have for
building new
houses.
Mr.
Wright:
That is an interesting—and
short—interjection. [
Interruption.
]
Obviously, I fully agree. To be fair, the Liberals do not have many
supporters, so they have to say themselves that they are brilliant.
However, I am happy to concur with that point. This has been an
important debate about quite an important amendment. The whole
Committee would share the view that public engagement, including
consultation on policy development and service design, is an important
part of a modern, representative
democracy.
Alistair
Burt:
I cannot let a particular point
go. The Minister was keen to indicate that Conservative Members are
fierce in defence of their local areas if they feel that they are
inappropriate for development. He used that to indicate that we are
against development. He must address the point that Cabinet Ministers,
including the Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member
for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly), have been featured in the press as being
fierce opponents of planning developments in their constituencies. He
cannot avoid the point that
Members will act in defence of their own interests. That applies to
Members on both sides of the House, including Ministers. I cannot see
that he can get away from
that.
Mr.
Wright:
To that I say that it is
entirely consistent for hon. Members to reject planning developments in
their areas when they are inappropriate in terms of poor
design—that is a particularly important point—or if they
do not think that they are in the right areas; I would encourage hon.
Members to reject such planning developments. That is not inconsistent
with saying that we need more homes. On my own patch, there is a real
need for affordable social housing and I can think of a particular area
where it would be appropriate. I do not think that the local authority
will put something there, but I will be campaigning for more homes in
that area. It is right and proper for Members of this House to be
representatives for our own constituencies. Hon. Members should have a
view as to where appropriate developments could take place. That is not
contrary to my
point.
Alistair
Burt:
May I just finish my point? If
what the Minister says is the case, he should move away from rhetoric
that says, “Oh, it’s only Members on the other side who
do that”, because that was what he said. It is like using a year
zero argument—he suggests that nothing happened before 1997, and
only Conservative Members object to housing developments. That is not
the case. If he is now making the point that Members act correctly when
they defend the interests of local communities over a development that
they think is inappropriate, or when they support planning developments
that they think are right, he should acknowledge that that affects
Members on both sides of the House. It is not a party matter as he
indicated.
Mr.
Wright:
I appreciate that comment. I
respect the hon. Gentleman enormously and I think that his views are
sincerely held. However, I spend a lot of my time answering
correspondence from Members on both sides of the House. A high
proportion of correspondence from Opposition Members relates to
development and housing, and says, “We don’t want
development in our area”. Contrary to that, I receive letters
from Labour Members that say, “Can we have more houses
please?” There is a dividing line between the parties on this
matter. We welcome the need for more homes and embrace it. To address
the significant challenges that we have had for a generation, we need
more homes, but I think the Opposition believe that we do
not.
Alistair
Burt:
We must finish this point,
because we will not agree on it. He made a strong point, but it sits
ill with the action taken by the former Secretary of State for his
Department, the right hon. Member for Bolton, West, because she would
cause the Minister concern on those grounds. The Opposition do not
accept what the Minister said. Those on the Conservative Front Bench
have made it clear that we want more development. As my hon. Friend the
Member for Welwyn Hatfield—he is leading the fight—said,
we want to encourage more development and to help the Government. We
are doing that by indicating that a bottom-up approach is better than a
top-down approach. That is the issue between the parties and I do not
believe that we will agree on it. For the record, that is the
appropriate description of the position of the Conservative Front
Bench.
Mr.
Wright:
I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s point,
and I too want to move on. However, I reiterate that my correspondence
tells me that there is a party political divide on the
matter.
It is right
and proper that consultation is recognised as a key stage of engagement
with public and stakeholder organisations. It ensures that decisions
are informed, because we will listen to those who might be affected by
new proposals. I would suggest that the Government have done more. We
are going back to the year zero approach that was described in an
earlier sitting. Since 1997, the Government have done a lot to ensure
that local people have much more say on decisions that will affect
them, which is right and proper.
I believe
that that was the sentiment behind the amendment. Although I fully
respect the intentions of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, there is
a danger that the measure would lead to a situation in which
consultation is an end in itself. The purposes that would be served by
such a consultation are served via other routes, and the amendment
would add another layer to an already robust process, and a level of
unnecessary bureaucracy.
To provide an
example, I shall address a point made by the right hon. Member for
North-West Hampshire. If development plans are conferred on the Homes
and Communities Agency—that is a big “if”, because
such a situation would be rare—it would have to engage in
consultation before preparing the development plan documents. The
agency would need to undertake a formal procedure for accepting
representations on plans, hold a public examination of the plan, and
comply with the inspector’s binding recommendations on it. In
short, it would involve exactly the sort of thing that a local planning
authority, possibly a local authority, is required to do. That level of
consultation would be required if the agency took over planning
powers.
Mr.
Wright:
I should be happy to look at the Bill afresh on
that matter, but I can say that the sentiments of the Bill are entirely
in keeping with it. The clause goes into some detail on the
matter.
Placing on
the agency a requirement to undertake formal consultation with the
local authority, and to organise public information and consultation
meetings with local community organisations and local people in respect
of any development in a designated area, as set out in the amendment,
is unnecessary. Any development would have to be in accordance with the
development plan. I have already set out the level of consultation that
would be required for the agency to make changes to the development
plan documents. In addition, it would have to publicise any
applications for development that were made, including any that it was
involved with—that will help to address the potential conflict
of interest—so that interested parties could comment, as they
can with any other proposed development in any part of the local
planning authority’s area.
4.45
pm
The requirement
for additional consultation would be of no benefit to local
communities, as it would add no value to existing consultation
requirements, and
would slow down the regeneration activity that is likely to be
desperately needed in such areas. Fewer homes would be built more
slowly. As we have seen from the cross-party consensus in the past few
minutes about building more homes, which I very much welcome, that is
not what the Committee wants. It certainly is not the purpose of the
amendment. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the
amendment.
Grant
Shapps:
I have listened carefully to the Minister’s
arguments. The only one that I want to refute is the idea that I am
against development. I am in favour of 6,000 new houses being built in
my constituency, 2,000 of which have already been built. I invite him
to come to Welwyn Hatfield and explain to local people why we should
have 10,000 new homes at the same time as our hospital was last week
slated for closure. I hope that he will accept my invitation. In
return, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Amendment
made: No. 28, page 7, line 10, at end
insert—
‘(8) The Secretary
of State may by order amend the definition of “planning-related
provisions” or “relevant functions” in subsection
(7).’.—[Mr.
Wright.]
Question
proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Wright:
I sought clarification and enlightenment over the
lunch break and I should like to update the Committee regarding
Government amendments Nos. 23 and 27. I think it may help if I put
things into context. When an area is designated under clause 13,
functions may be conferred on the Homes and Communities Agency. Clause
14 sets out the functions that may be conferred, including local
planning authority functions, for all or in specified permitted
purposes, and functions that are non-local planning authority functions
but are planning-related.
Government
amendment No. 27 sets out which non-local planning authorities have
those planning-related functions. In this morning’s sitting, I
gave the example of a district planning authority function in relation
to enforcement notice registers. Another example would be the hazardous
substances authority. If functions are conferred concurrently, the HCA
would continue to have a role in the designated area for which it has
planning powers, but it will also have some responsibility regarding
hazardous substances. Those would work together.
As I said
this morning, Government amendments Nos. 23 and 27 are intended to
clarify which functions that are not local planning authority functions
may be conferred on the agency under the designation order. The hon.
Member for Welwyn Hatfield mentioned the Mayor of London. We had an
interesting debate on the Floor of the House during oral
questions about the Mayor. The hon. Gentleman seemed concerned that the
planning functions of the Mayor could be conferred under the Government
amendments. I assure him and the Committee that that is not the case.
The powers of the Mayor are not touched by the
amendments.
Mr.
Robert Syms (Poole) (Con): I wish to raise the issue of
section 106 agreements and money. If the agency took over an area of a
borough, it would effectively, as the planning authority, have to
negotiate
section 106 agreements and other planning gain. What would the
relationship be between the agency and the local authority? I do not
necessarily expect an answer today, but will the Minister reflect on
that and drop a line to the Committee about how it would work? I
presume that there would still be an arrangement with the local
authority, because it would have education and others things to do. It
is quite important, even if this never happens, that some thought is
given, if the HCA becomes a planning authority, as to how the
section 106 agreement for planning gain would
operate.
Mr.
Wright:
The hon. Gentleman is extremely courteous in not
expecting an immediate response. His presumption is correct, but I will
clarify that, and ensure that he and other Committee members have sight
of anything with regard to
that.
Clause
14, as amended,
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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