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Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Planning |
Planning Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall,
Committee Clerk
† attended
the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 29 January 2008(Afternoon)[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]Planning BillClause 143Planning
obligations
Amendment proposed
[this day]: No. 421, in clause 143, page 66, line 8, at end
insert—
‘(za) in subsection
(1) delete the words “interested in land in the area of a local
planning authority”;’.—[Robert
Neill.]
4
pm
Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
The
Minister for Local Government (John Healey):
Welcome back,
Mr. Illsley. I am glad to see that you are in rude
health.
I
was setting out the way in which an obligation is formally registered
as a land charge. It serves as a permanent restriction on the land,
whereby that planning obligation will transfer to any successor in
title who owns that land. The amendment would remove the need for a
person to be interested in land in order to conclude a planning
obligation with the local authority. Therefore, the planning
obligation, which hon. Members are concerned about, would not attach to
particular land in the way that it currently does under section 106 of
the Town and Country Planning Act
1990.
I
began my remarks by saying that I have some sympathy with the proposal
and recognise that this concern has been raised by practitioners. I
recognise that under section 106, a developer who is seeking to acquire
an interest in land through a compulsory purchase order cannot enter
into a planning obligation, while at the same time the existence of a
planning obligation may be an important factor in deciding whether a
local planning authority grants that planning permission in the first
place.
In
practice, the way through that problem is generally that the developer
negotiates the terms of the section 106 obligation before acquiring the
land and submits in draft for the approval of a local planning
authority. The planning authority then comes to a preliminary view on
the application and indicates whether it is minded to approve the
application, subject to a prior completion of a planning obligation.
Assuming that it is minded to grant consent, the applicant then goes
about securing an interest in the land, which can take the form of a
legal option to purchase the land, subject to the planning permission
being granted. Often, in such circumstances, those three elements are
brought together and concluded simultaneously.
Although
that process can be cumbersome, the alternative approach that would be
put in place by the amendment, not just for major infrastructure
projects under the infrastructure planning commission but much more
widely under the Town and Country Planning Act system, would cause more
problems than it would solve. The mechanism of a planning obligation
relies on a charge being placed on the land, which makes the terms of
the obligation enforceable against subsequent owners of it. That works
because any prospective purchaser gets notice of the planning
obligation before buying the land and is fully aware of the burdens or
responsibilities that come with it. At the same time, the purchaser
gets the benefit of the planning permission issued in relation to the
planning
obligation.
In
contrast to that, the amendment would allow persons to enter into
planning obligations even when they do not own an interest in the land
in question. It would therefore be impossible to place a land charge on
the land. That would make enforcement increasingly problematic,
particularly if there was a change of ownership. A planning obligation
in those circumstances would be more like a personal contract that is
enforceable against the original parties but would not be passed on to
subsequent land
owners.
Although
I accept that the procedures that are necessary under the existing
section 106 terms can be rather awkward, the answer is not to alter
fundamentally the nature of a planning obligation from a covenant
attached to the land to a contract that is more personal in nature. I
hope that I have given the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst
sufficient reassurance and that he will withdraw the
amendment.
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con):
Welcome back, Mr. Illsley. I hope that things are improving
vocally for you. I am grateful to the Minister for his full
explanation. That is helpful. I will obviously speak to those who have
raised concerns with me. We are all agreed about what we want to
achieve. Perhaps everything will be sorted out before Report so that
everybody is satisfied. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
143
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 144Blighted
land: England and
Wales
‘(2A) In section
150(1)(b) (notices requiring purchase of blighted
land)—
(a) for
“21 or” insert
“21,”,
(b) after
“notes)” insert “or paragraph 24”,
and
(c) after
“Schedule 13 and” insert “(except in the case of
land falling within paragraph 24(c) of that
Schedule)”.
(2B) After
section 165 (power of Secretary of State to acquire land affected by
orders relating to new towns etc. where blight notice served)
insert—
“165A
Power of Secretary of State to acquire land identified in national
policy statements where blight notice
served
Where a blight notice
has been served in respect of land falling within paragraph 25 of
Schedule 13, the Secretary of State has power to
acquire compulsorily any interest in the land in pursuance of the
blight notice served by virtue of that
paragraph.”
John
Healey:
These two amendments are technical amendments for
the purposes of what might be termed integrating new categories of
blight within the general blight provisions of the Town and Country
Planning Act. A national policy statement which identifies a location
as either suitable or potentially suitable for a big infrastructure
project may, of course, create blight at that location, reducing land
values and making it harder to sell the land. Blight may also result
from an application being made for an order granting
development consent, which authorises the compulsory acquisition of the
land through the IPC. This clause is therefore intended to
enable people in those circumstances to gain access to the normal
provisions set out in statute in the Town and Country Planning Act.
Those are provisions whereby people whose land is blighted can obtain
compensation. The amendments make a couple of changes that are needed
to make that work properly.
Amendment No.
445 gives the Secretary of State the power to acquire land when a valid
blight notice is served as a result of a national policy statement.
Having the power in practice means that the Secretary of State is
obliged to purchase the land when a valid blight notice is served.
Without the amendment, there would be no one to whom the owners of the
land could sell their land. Amendment No. 446 is another technical
amendment which identifies the appropriate enactment. Essentially it
ensures that people would get the compensation to which they should be
entitled for any loss in the value of their property due to blight. It
allows us to define the appropriate enactment for compensation in the
case of national policy statements and nationally significant
infrastructure projects. Both amendments are important. They
ensure that we get the framework right. I commend them to the
Committee.
Robert
Neill:
We do not have a problem with these amendments.
They are sensible. I reassure the Minister that I will not put out a
press release about the increase in the amount of
blight.
Amendment
agreed
to.
Amendment
made: No. 446, in clause 144, page 67, line 34, at end
insert—
‘(3A) In section 170
(“appropriate enactment” for purposes of Chapter 2) after
subsection (8)
insert—
“(8A) In
relation to land falling within paragraph 24(a) or (b) of that
Schedule, “the appropriate enactment” is the enactment
which, by virtue of the order granting development consent, provides or
is treated as providing for the compulsory acquisition of the
land.
(8B) In relation to land
falling within paragraph 24(c) of that Schedule, “the
appropriate enactment” is the enactment which, if the order
applied for were made, would provide or be treated as providing for the
compulsory acquisition of the
land.
(8C) In relation to land
falling within paragraph 25 of that Schedule, “the appropriate
enactment” is section 165A.”’.—[John
Healey.]
Clause
144, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
145
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 146Local
development
documents
Dan
Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): I beg to move amendment
No. 571, in clause 146, page 69, line 18, leave out paragraph
(a).
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 572, in clause 146, page 69, line 40, leave out paragraph
(c).
Dan
Rogerson:
I welcome you back to the Chair, Mr.
Illsley, for round 10 of our detailed deliberations on the Bill. The
amendments were suggested to me by the Guide Dogs for the Blind
Association and concern the provisions for consultation on local
development documents. That organisation is concerned that some of the
consultations up to now have not borne fruit in amending important
documents. The system has not worked as well as it would have liked and
it would be even worse to remove those provisions altogether, as is
proposed in the
Bill.
The
amendments would protect the provisions for consultation that have been
won in the past. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say
about the concerns of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association on how
people’s views have not been taken into account, in particular
those who have visual impairments and have particular needs for the
built environment to cater for
them.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government (Mr. Parmjit Dhanda):
Thank you,
Mr. Illsley. It is good to see you back
in—[
Interruption.
] I was going to say in
fine fettle, but it is good to see you in fine-ish
fettle.
I hope to be
able to give the hon. Member for North Cornwall some
reassurance on our ongoing commitment to consultation with the public.
The amendments would change the proposed amendment of the Planning and
Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 under the clause so that statements of
community involvement remain subject to public examination. How best we
carry out public examination is the key to this issue. In practice,
examination is done by the Planning
Inspectorate.
The
first reason for wishing to remove the public examination of statements
of community involvement is that the process is very costly and
time-consuming for local authorities. That is not the main reason, but
it is a reason. They should be getting on with genuine engagement with
the community and not preparing for legalistic hearings or written
representations with the Planning Inspectorate, which local authorities
tell us they are invariably doing at the moment. The process also takes
up a great deal of inspectorate resources. Most importantly, the
Planning Inspectorate is not the best organisation to assess community
engagement.
Officials
are in discussion with the Audit Commission to see how the proposed
comprehensive area assessment process will assess engagement overall. I
think that that might be a better way forward. We want to see community
engagement joined up across the local authority to reduce duplication
and make matters easier for the public to understand. A joined-up
strategy for this
matter would be sensible, rather than having
different compartments. Having a separate public examination for
planning matters is something of a hindrance. With that reassurance, I
hope that the hon. Member for North Cornwall will withdraw the
amendment.
Dan
Rogerson:
I will not press the amendment to a
vote, but I hope that the Minister will reflect on
the sentiments that have been expressed by one group, which has seen
fit to contact members of the Committee with its concerns. No doubt
there are many others, representing many people across the country, who
feel that there are shortcomings in the consultation procedure. The
Minister has set out ways in which he feels that the process can be
made more effective but remain meaningful. With those assurances and on
the basis that that is delivered, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
4.15
pm
Mrs.
Jacqui Lait (Beckenham) (Con): I beg to move amendment No.
427, in
clause 146, page 70, line 13, at
end insert—
‘(6A) After
section 37
insert—
“37A
Primacy of national policy
statements
National policy
statements shall take precedence of all other planning documents or
planning
guidance.”’.
I
shall try not to tax your voice too much, Mr.
Illsley.
The
somewhat draconian, as it reads, amendment is intended to tease out
from the Government another aspect of national policy statements, which
we have already indicated that we approve of in principle. We have
previously had a debate on consistency between national policy
statements, planning policy statements and planning policy guidance.
The purpose of the amendment is to get the Government’s view on
how local development plans will fit into the national policy statement
framework, and which, in their view, will take
primacy.
If
local people and local authorities spend a great deal of time
developing a local development plan—amendments have been tabled
to try to streamline that system, because the Government’s Act
has not delivered the development plans with the speed that they
wanted—which then collides with an infrastructure project, to
which they have rooted objections, the local development framework will
not necessarily fit nicely into the national policy statement. I hope
that the Government have thought that through. We have tabled the
amendment so that they can share their thoughts with us on which would
win: local communities or the
Government?
Mr.
Dhanda:
I hope that everyone can be a winner. I do not
think that the hon. Member for Beckenham’s amendment is
draconian; it asks some fair questions about how everything fits
together, and I will attempt to make that clearer in the next few
minutes.
The amendment
proposes to amend the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to give
precedence in the town and country planning system to national policy
statements over all other planning documents or guidance. That is why
the hon. Lady was suggesting that it was perhaps draconian, but that is
what it does.
Were the
intention of the amendment to facilitate the progress of renewable
projects through the town and country planning system, which it is
not—although, reading through it, it could have been—I
would have had some sympathy for the outcome. But I consider that the
amendment would be inappropriate and
unnecessary.
Under
the town and country planning system, there is already a statutory
requirement for regional planning bodies and local planning authorities
to have regard to national policies and guidance when preparing their
local development plans. Therefore, under the Bill, once a national
policy statement is published it should be fully reflected in relevant
development plans, regional spatial strategies and local development
frameworks.
Under
the town and country planning system, planning authorities decide on
applications in accordance with the development plan, unless material
considerations dictate otherwise. That means that the relevant national
policy statement would influence local authority decisions below the
threshold for the IPC, if it contained policy that applied to
infrastructure generally, and not solely to nationally significant
developments. Decisions by the relevant authority on any non-nationally
significant infrastructure projects would be made in accordance with
the development plan, which would need to reflect national policy,
including the relevant national policy
statement.
Mrs.
Lait:
I perceive a circular argument here. Given
that it will take some time for national policy
statements to be put in place and that part of the purpose of the Bill
is to speed up the local development framework process, if a local
authority area is affected by a big infrastructure project, as foreseen
under the national policy statements, will it have to assume that it
will have an infrastructure project without knowing, or will it have to
start going through it again? Would an infrastructure project not be
regarded as significant enough for the LDF to be redrawn, given that a
lot of the amendments would make minor changes to the LDF, so that the
whole process would not have to open again? I hope that the Minister
sees why I am saying that it is a slightly circular argument, and it
would be useful if we could break the
circle.
Mr.
Dhanda:
It is important to get across that local
development plans need to consider everything in the
national policy statement—I hope that I am
getting that across to the hon. Member for Beckenham. Perhaps her
perspective is that the two must be in conflict with each other. From
my experience of local development plans, they are not some kind of
one-hit wonder, but evolve over time, and it is really important that
they evolve with consideration.
The hon. Lady
has been quite specific about the possibility of a nationally
significant infrastructure project within a locality and how the two
fit together. I agree with her that it is important for that to be
taken into consideration, and I am sure that local authorities will
want to do so as part of their local development plans. In short,
existing arrangements will ensure that national policy statements are
taken into account when deciding relevant planning applications. I hope
that that is of help to the hon. Lady and that she will withdraw her
amendment.
Mrs.
Lait:
The best thing to say is that that gives us food for
thought, and we might come back to it on a future occasion. I beg to
ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
146 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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