Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
RT HON
MARGARET HODGE
MP AND DR
SIMON THURLEY
2 JULY 2008
Q60 Chairman: But in advance of the
next session, will the rest of the Bill be published over the
course of the next few weeks?
Margaret Hodge: It really depends
on Parliamentary Counsel. I have had this before, you think you
have got your policy ready but as Parliamentary Counsel are always
overworked you cannot engage them in the actual drafting of clauses
until you are pretty close up to the wire, so they are now engaged.
On the conservation area clauses we have got to get it to them
by September. It is in a fit state, I do not think there are problems
with it, and I am confident we will have it ready for the next
session of Parliament.
Q61 Helen Southworth: There has been
a lot of positive response to the Bill and the concepts behind
the Bill, but one of the serious concerns that is being expressed
is around the relationship with Communities and Local Government
and the importance of having Communities and Local Government
completely engaged with the Bill in order to achieve the outcomes.
Can you explain to us why they are not co-sponsors and why they
are not actively participating in this process?
Margaret Hodge: They are actively
participating. They are not co-sponsors because it is a heritage
bill and therefore we have taken the lead on it, although I will
have a CLG minister sitting with me when we discuss the clauses
of the Bill in committee so that we can show ourselves to be joined
up in that way. Planning is absolutely vital as a tool for ensuring
that we provide proper protection to our heritage assets. The
two go hand-in-hand and it is the planning tools which enable
you not just to protect the asset itself but protect the environment
around the asset, so they are absolutely key. We also think from
the planners' point of view that heritage is hugely important
in what we today call the place-making agenda. There are endless
examples. I always use the example of the very first adjournment
debate I did with this particular set of ministerial responsibilities
which was around an Iron Age fort in Berwick in Elmet. It is awful
but I cannot remember who the MP was but nevertheless what was
really interesting—
Chairman: Alan Beith?
Q62 Philip Davies: No, it is not
that one. It is in West Yorkshire.
Margaret Hodge: The interesting
thing was that for this Iron Age fort in this small village getting
the archaeological digs right and protecting the heritage was
absolutely central to creating a sense of place, a sense of belonging,
a sense of community, and a sense of the cohesion in the village.
It is absolutely central to what we are doing and we are working
closely with them. There are a lot of features and clauses in
the Bill where we reflect that integrated approach. What we are
doing about, for example, merging conservation area consent with
planning permission, I think demonstrates the inter-linking and
the imperative of the two working together. The new duty to ensure
that local authorities keep Historic Environment Records is another
way of trying to bring heritage into the mainstream of planning.
I am feeling pretty confident about that. The other thing to say
to you is I think DCLG are equally engaged. I have talked to Baroness
Andrews a lot about these issues. She recently gave a speech in
which she talked about her commitment to revising the two planning
circulars that we need to ensure are updated. They are currently
doing two bits of consultation around World Heritage Sites to
see how planning could be incorporated into World Heritage Site
sponsorship and improvement. They are also doing one around consents
for World Heritage. We are as one. They just are not co-sponsoring
it because we think it is ours, but we want to work with them.
Q63 Helen Southworth: Are we going
to look forward to having some more direct evidence of Community
and Local Government involvement? There is a very strong body
of opinion that says they need to take some fairly urgent action
in terms of reviewing, for example, Planning Policy Statements
15 and 16.
Margaret Hodge: Simon may want
to add to this. English Heritage, DCMS and DCLG are working together
on revising both those pieces of guidance, PPG15 and PPG16. I
think you have been working quite closely with them, have you
not?
Dr Thurley: English Heritage feels,
together with most of the people I think you have taken evidence
from, that the revision of PPG15 and 16 is absolutely fundamental
to this; you cannot have the new Bill without that. Baroness Andrews
has recently given a commitment that that is going to go ahead,
as far as I understand it, at a speech that she gave recently.
Q64 Helen Southworth: Do we have
a timetable for that?
Dr Thurley: You would have to
ask the Government that but what I can say is—
Margaret Hodge: They are going
to publish the drafts of those, they have said, before Christmas.
Dr Thurley: English Heritage is
committed and is already working with DCMS to try and get a draft
of that together. In fact the statutory English Heritage committee
this very morning considered a paper which would feed into that
paper. Work is actively underway on that and I think that it is
extremely important that the Government keeps the pace up to retain
confidence in the sector that this new planning guidance will
come out on the same time-frame as the Bill, otherwise I think
there would be a lack of confidence in it.
Q65 Helen Southworth: Particularly
in regard to the need to disseminate the guidance across a very
wide area and amongst a very disparate group of people in order
to ensure that it is effective.
Margaret Hodge: This is clearly
a key component of ensuring that we get the Bill working in practice.
I have had several conversations with Kay Andrews who is the Minister
I deal with on these issues. She is signed up to it. My understanding
is that English Heritage, our officials and CLG officials are
working closely together and she has given this commitment that
the draft will be out before Christmas. I would have thought given
the time-frame we are not likely really to get introduction until
probably the New Year. The Queen's Speech is quite late this year.
I do not know.
Q66 Helen Southworth: If we are talking
of the draft before Christmas when are we talking of the actual
planning guidance being a requirement on authorities?
Margaret Hodge: Assuming we get
legislative time next session, it will not be enacted until July,
September, whenever, and then there is a little bit of time that
is taken. English Heritage already has the money for training
and they will be doing the training of local authority officials
so that they know how to work within the context of the new Bill/Act.
I think we are probably talking about 2010 for implementation.
If we get the draft planning guidance out by Christmas that is
in plenty of time to get everything ready.
Q67 Helen Southworth: So the intention
is to have the Bill and the planning guidance going live simultaneously?
Margaret Hodge: Yes.
Q68 Chairman: So your expectation
is that Bill is going to be later on in the next session?
Margaret Hodge: To be honest,
I do not know, it depends on Government priorities. Those sorts
of discussions have not taken place yet.
Q69 Chairman: I merely leave with
you that the evidence we received yesterday was absolutely clear
that the planning policy guidance is fundamental to this and therefore
it is difficult to consider the Bill without it, so if you could
make that point to your DCLG colleague I think it will be appreciated.
Margaret Hodge: Indeed.
Q70 Rosemary McKenna: There have
been some expressions of concern about the resourcing of the Bill.
We understand that the predicted net cost of implementing the
Bill of £1.72 million is already under review. Do you expect
the figure to rise considerably?
Margaret Hodge: On the whole,
we think that it is a pretty cost-neutral Bill because it is a
Bill which has a lot of streamlining of processes in it. For example,
at the moment we have this rather cumbersome system where a request
to list a particular building goes first to English Heritage for
consideration and then comes to the Department. English Heritage
will have full responsibility for that. We are merging things
like the conservation area consents and planning permission. There
are quite a lot of ways in which we think there will be savings
in the Bill. However, we have taken the best methodology we can
to get to the costings that you have in the impact assessment.
We will keep them constantly under review to ensure that they
work. We have funded English Heritage through this Comprehensive
Spending Review period to deal with a lot of the set-up costs,
but we recognise that there will probably be additional costs
falling to them which will have to form part of the consideration
for the next Spending Review. On local authorities we have guaranteed
that if there are new duties which create a funding pressure,
they will be met. At present it is a bit swings and roundabouts
for local authorities because they have savings in the proposals
as well as new duties but we will keep it under review. The final
thing to say to you, Rosemary, is that we will also consult. We
are not doing this as DCMS working on its own; we are working
with the Local Government Association and we are working with
English Heritage and other partners, so we are trying to be as
open and as transparent as we can on any costs that could be incurred.
Q71 Rosemary McKenna: So you are
quite confident then that the local authorities should not be
too concerned about the proposals if they raise real concerns
on funding?
Margaret Hodge: Local authorities
will always say they need more money and local authorities will
always say that they are not funded sufficiently to carry on their
duties, but you could turn round and say their funding settlement
over this Spending Review period has been above inflation, so
they have not done badly. We have also taken away the ring-fencing
of about £5 billion-worth of expenditure for local authorities,
so that gives them much more discretion as to how they do it.
So far we think a fair additional cost to local authorities out
of the proposals is about £400,000, and we have put that
in, but they will save £500,000 simply by the merging of
the two consents, the conservation area consent and the planning
permission consent, and we will keep it under review. Let me just
give you one fact which is interesting because there will be new
duties on local authorities, there will be new assets which will
be eligible for being considered as heritage assets, but actually
if you put all those new assets together they will only represent
about 0.5% of the total heritage asset base, so it is not a massive
increase, and the purpose behind many of the propositions was
to enhance heritage within our communities but also streamline
present procedures, and that is money-saving.
Q72 Rosemary McKenna: Thank you.
On to something quite different, the National Trust have told
us that they would "rather have no legislation than a Bill
which does not have the means for its effective delivery".
Do you think that is an overreaction?
Margaret Hodge: I did not know
they had said that. In the discussions I have had most people
have welcomed it for all sorts of features that it has got: the
single unified system is better; we can have much better consultation
processes; we are bringing many more assets together. It is the
first modernisation for goodness knows how long, half a century
or something, of the way in which we protect and promote our heritage
environment. I hope the National Trust supports that. I am pretty
confident, because of the open and consultative way in which we
have drawn up the Bill and the fact that you are having this consideration
of it here in the Select Committee, that we are going ahead with
something which we think is affordable. There will always be people
who say, "We need more money," and always people who
say, "We have not got enough professionals working in this
part of the system or that part of the system," but we do
not do badly now and I think under the new regime we will serve
Britain better in terms of its heritage assets.
Q73 Chairman: You said we do not
do badly now. Let me put to you one submission we have from the
Country Land and Business Association who say that whilst they
welcome the Bill in general terms "[...] it is not the answer
to the current crisis in the heritage protection system".
They say that there are few things more valuable to heritage than
a really good conservation officer. We know that in large numbers
of local authorities there are no conservation officers. Even
where there are, they go on to say, they are usually overworked,
often demotivated because conservation has low status in most
local planning authorities, and they get little time. This leads
to unnecessary costs and delays and diverts spending from maintenance.
It discourages people from owning heritage at all. There is a
perception that the system is unreasonable and inconsistent. Buildings
are decaying and losing value because their owners think they
cannot get consent. They conclude that what it really needs is
perhaps £50 million to £100 million extra devoted to
heritage by local authorities. The £1.72 million, which is
the predicated cost of this Bill, which you are saying will be
met, is clearly going to be nothing like sufficient to meet that.
Margaret Hodge: Let us just say
that at present local authorities appear to be coping pretty well
with 32,000 applications each year for listed building consent
(under the old terminology). I have looked at the figures of officials
in local government and on the conservation side between 2002
and 2006, which is the period I looked at, there have been 84
more building conservation staff in local authorities. If you
look at the archaeology side of it, there has been a 5% increase
in the number of staff employed. Again, we are back to this of
course we could do with more money and of course we could improve
the speed at which we have consideration of applications, but
I do not think we are doing badly. Again, Simon can say a bit
more about the age profile of the people but it is not a bad age
profile. It is not as bad as other professional sectors that I
have to deal with. It looks as if we will be all right for 20
years on the age profile that we have got. There is a job to be
done to encourage every local authority to really value its heritage.
We have got some excellent local authorities and we have got some
less effective local authorities and that is part of the devolution
of power. One of the mechanisms that we have tried to employ to
encourage more local authority commitment to this is to have a
member in each local authority who is called the "historic
environment champion". We have got to the point now where
70% of local authorities enjoy those people. Again, that is trying
to lift it up. Both English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery
Fund put money into training. English Heritage have a professional
placement scheme and the Heritage Lottery Fund have a bursary
scheme. I do not think we are doing badly. Interestingly enough,
Chairman, where I do think we could do with much more money is
investment in the heritage assets themselves. There we are always
running to keep still to try and maintain the structures of our
invaluable heritage assets.
Q74 Chairman: You say that the age
profile is not too bad but we have received direct evidence from
both the Local Government Association and the Institute of Historic
Building Conservation that due to a skewed age profile a large
number of conservation officers are due to retire in the next
five years. Meanwhile the stream of new officers is drying up
with undergraduate courses at the Universities of Derby, Huddersfield,
Northumbria, Glamorgan and Preston all having recently been discontinued.
Yesterday we heard from the IHBC who said to us: "I have
made the case anecdotally about the near impossibility of recruiting
at the moment; it is a profession that has been allowed to decline."
You do not agree with that?
Margaret Hodge: I do not. Can
I ask Simon because English Heritage have done some work around
these figures.
Dr Thurley: I can either answer
now in detail or later in writing about the age profile of conservation
officers. Of course the IHBC do not have a total monopoly on all
conservation officers. Not all of them are actually members of
it. I think if you look at the figures, it does not look as if
there is going to be a great exodus in the next few years. I think
there is a slightly wider point, and perhaps it is a more strategic
point to make about it, which is I think the CLBA are right to
be concerned because there are problems and I do not think anyone
is pretending that the Bill is going to answer all the problems.
The Bill is one of what I would describe as three things that
need to happen in order to deal with the problems that the CLBA
and others are highlighting. The Bill is one; training is the
second and the Minister has already said that the Government has
been keen to support our training efforts and I could give you
quite a lot of information about what that is; and the third thing
is dealing with some of the philosophical issues around conservation,
trying to combat the old idea that conservation is about stopping
change, about stopping things from happening, and trying to help,
particularly people who have that particular approach, to adopt
an approach that says this is about managing change and about
trying to find good solutions which are going to be beneficial
to society. My answer to your question would be that the Bill
is part of a three-legged stool. You take any one of those away,
you take the training away, it does not work; if you take the
efforts to get people to think differently about conservation
away, it does not work; and you if you take away the improvements
which the Bill offers, it does not work. With all three together
I think that the CLBA and others will find that those problems
are being tackled in a really quite effective and strategic way.
Q75 Helen Southworth: Could I ask
you following what you have just said about the role of DCMS as
the champion of heritage, the Bill is providing a very significant
opportunity for building on that role. Could you describe to us
what you are going to be doing in terms of roadshows around the
country, profiling, and working with DCLG for example to demonstrate
good practice using heritage as a driver of regeneration? What
are we going to see over the next 18 months to get the profile
up and to get people enthusiastic to use this change opportunity?
Margaret Hodge: One of the things
I have tried to do since I have had this job is to strengthen
the links between culture and heritage and regional development
agencies and the local authorities because I think probably we
have not punched up to our legitimate weight in all sorts of ways—the
importance of heritage in place-making, the importance of heritage
for tourism, and the importance of creativity and culture and
the creative industries in regional and local economies—and
I think there is a big job to be done to work on those authorities
that do not get it, building on the excellent practices of those
that do. Interestingly enough, I am going from giving evidence
this afternoon to a meeting with all the RDA chairs just to talk
there about how we can strengthen the links in recognising place-making
and those sorts of issues. We are trying to get local authorities
in their local area agreements to push this up as one of the issues
on which they want to be measured. Indeed, one of things we have
announced today is we are not going to use the regional culture
consortia as a mechanism for trying to impact on both local authorities
and regional development agencies, but we are going to task English
Heritage and our other big NDPBs—the Arts Council, Sport
England and the MLA—to work together to get a much better
hold of all our agendas in all the regional strategies and in
the local area agreements. There is a task to be done. Have I
got a programme for roadshows? To be honest, not yet, but it is
a good idea and I will take that away and I will think about it.
Q76 Chairman: Just before I move
on, this is a resourcing question: we understood yesterday that
there are discussions taking place between the LGA, English Heritage
and DCMS to revise the estimate about the cost to local authorities
of implementing the measures in the Bill. Can you give us an undertaking
that whatever figure emerges from that discussion that is the
figure which will be funded by the Government to local authorities?
Margaret Hodge: Yes.
Q77 Chairman: And will it be ring-fenced
or will it just be part of local government funding?
Margaret Hodge: No, we will not
ring-fence because we leave discretion to local government now
as to how they choose to spend it. I think local government would
be furious if we attempted to ring-fence those resources.
Q78 Chairman: So there must be a
real danger that it will just disappear into the local government
pot and actually heritage will not see the benefit of this?
Margaret Hodge: There is always
that danger if you do not ring-fence money but you have to balance
that against the discretion of local authorities to respond to
different priorities as they see them within their local communities.
That also has to be balanced against the fact that they will have
new duties in the Bill and they will have to fulfil those duties,
so a mixture of persuasion, showing good example, and a regulatory
framework as proposed in the Bill I think probably is a better
way forward than trying to ring-fence money.
Q79 Philip Davies: There are an estimated
37,000 listed buildings at risk in England and there is already
statutory action that can be taken to prevent demolition of buildings
without consent or unauthorised work. I was just wondering, rather
than adding more duties and regulation and rules, whether any
review had taken place of whether the existing regulations that
were there were being properly implemented and enforced at the
moment?
Margaret Hodge: Part of the purpose
of the Bill is to streamline procedures. I have mentioned a couple
of examples of that already, the fact that we are not going to
have this duplication of effort by English Heritage in considering
whether or not a building should go on the register and then DCMS
considering that. We are also merging the conservation area consent—and
I think it is going to be quite a big change—and procedures
for planning to put planning at the heart of conservation, so
we have, we believe, undertaken in the preparation of this Bill
an exercise which cuts out unnecessary duplication. If the Committee
have other ideas which we should consider that is entirely within
the purposes of this pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill.
Beyond that I am quite satisfied that we do exercise the enforcement
powers pretty well at present. In an odd way there is a negative
to prove that in that there are no judicial reviews, as I can
see at present, of most of the actions we take, and where we do
have enforcement action, it tends to be on listed buildings where
perhaps a developer has done something without proper permissions
or against conserving the special interest of particular buildings.
The third thing I would say to you in response to that is that
there are plenty of powers there. What you need to get is what
Simon talked about which is local authorities signed up to it,
to get the will to make this a priority within the authorities.
You need to deal with a fear that could emerge in the Bill that
they might be involved in compensation claims if they get it wrong.
You just need to help them through training to get on with it.
I suppose the very final thing I would want to say to you is that
enforcement ought to be the very last tool we employ. What I hope
we will get out of the new culture that emerges, particularly
in local authorities in the context of the Bill, will be much
greater support for those who have responsibility for heritage
assets so that through support they can conserve them and look
after them properly rather than us or any of the public agencies
having to take action through enforcement.
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