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The noble Lord anticipated much of what I have to say and I will explain my reasons for saying some of those things. But the problem with the noble Lords’ amendment—I would have thought that the Front Benches opposite would both respond to this—is that it imposes a new and challenging duty on local authorities. It does so without consultation or discussion with the people who have to make it work about how best to do that. That is not how we do things. We work and consult local authorities. We make sure that they have the resources and the skills to make something real of this. I am sure that noble Lords and RIBA have enough experience to know that this cannot and should not be done by imposition, which is what this amendment does.
Lord Tyler: My Lords, I have been listening very carefully to the Minister. In the new clause that she introduced immediately preceding this debate, we have imposed a very similar new imposition on local authorities in relation to climate change. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, this is precisely the same situation. We are seeking to ensure that new and particular emphasis is given to two very important characteristics of design in the Bill.
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the noble Lord makes my point for me. The climate change duty requires a 12-week consultation period. Climate change duties have been addressed by local authorities in different ways in recent years. The climate change duty carries a consultation requirement. This is an imposition on local authorities which does not bring that.
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Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I am puzzled; I hope the noble Baroness can help me to understand why she says that it would be a new duty imposed on local authorities, and therefore an improper one to impose without consultation, if she also says that it is a duty that is already legally established through the planning policy statements.
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the legal duties imposed by the planning policy statements are themselves worked out in consultation with those who have to implement them. This is imposing something through primary legislation; it is different. The noble Lord has already suggested that I might use the argument that it takes resources away from activities which are fundamental in themselves. I am not making an excuse for using that argument; it is fundamental.
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Our local authorities are under great pressure. We discuss this continually in this House. They are scarce of resources. At the moment one of their priorities is to get their local development frameworks in place. We need those local development frameworks to be as broad and as sufficient as possible and to include the quality of design. I am concerned that if we impose such a duty, especially if we do it without local authority consultation, we will put another obstacle in the way of finishing local development frameworks.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, I apologise because we need to get on. Producing local development frameworks at the moment includes a core issue of design. It is there already, so what is the objection to having it in the Bill?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, for the reasons I have said, and I am in danger of repeating myself, I do not believe that the best way to do this is through a statutory duty imposed through this Bill without any consultation with local authorities. Of course local authorities can take the opportunity of their LDFs to do just what we want them to do. I hope they are listening to this debate and that they will do that. I am not offering these reasons by way of excuses. We genuinely believe that the way to deliver good design is not to add to the legislation but to ensure that existing policy works better and is applied consistently by regional and local planning bodies. We are investing in that. Our aim is genuinely to support local authorities in providing clear design strategies and policies and to advise not just local authorities but developers. The pre-application process is as critical as anything in getting a higher standard of quality among applications. I would like to see that rather than more applications turned down on the basis of poor design. The noble Lord and I agree that we need to build the ambition, the capacity and the leadership skills so that local authorities can make it absolutely clear that they will not settle for second rate but will demand better of other people, including developers, when they are putting forward the planning applications.
The most effective way of doing this is in partnership with key organisations in the public and the private sector. Given our debate, I am going to take the time to say what we are doing. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has alluded to some of that. We have had debates in this House about design that are focused on the need for greater skills and capacity, particularly of local planning authorities to deliver improvements. We are putting more money into training planners and making sure that design is an integral part of their training. We are also funding the Academy for Sustainable Communities and CABE to build the skills and knowledge needed to make better places. CABE is providing an increasing range of services to help local authorities with their master plans through specific scheme proposals with local design strategies. The housing and planning delivery grant helps local authorities to earn additional funding to help to finance the development of their own skills and capacities and to bring in additional skills, such as urban design expertise. The ASC has developed a leaders’ network, a national membership for chief executives and senior managers who lead
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We have designer champions, encouraged by CABE, in place in over two-thirds of our local authorities at the strategic level. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has already addressed the issue of the CABE training programme that is seeking to develop a nationwide network of accredited assessors within local authorities to develop the expertise that will enable new housing schemes to be evaluated against the Building for Life criteria.
We also want to promote and embed good practice and innovation through design coding. The Building for Life benchmark has already been mentioned, which provides sources of external advice on design, especially at the pre-application stage. That is very important. I should mention the recent review by RIBA on the valuable resource to be found in design panels and which highlights its positive and helpful work. We are now looking urgently at how more use can be made of these panels. We support CABE’s work on the national design review. We want to see that go further, as well as the work done by regional and local panels. We are exploring with CABE and other agencies how far existing review panels are meeting the need for external advice and what more we can do to help to maximise their potential. We will look at the opportunities that the creation of the new Homes and Communities Agency will bring and we are following up the sub-national review to strengthen design review panels and other support. The HCA is now working closely with CABE to extend the resources available.
I believe that the partnership is beginning to produce results, although I agree that we have a long way to go. We have to continue to signal that achieving good design is a key government objective by supporting the organisations that are keen to deliver it. Above all, we must support our local authorities. Our new chief planner, who has just taken up his post, will take that forward as one of his first priorities.
I understand that noble Lords are disappointed that it is not possible for me to accept an amendment that looks so appealing and has been explained so well by my noble friends. However, I hope that they will understand that it is not as simple as that, and that the way to achieve results is not by imposing a duty without consultation, but by working in partnership to support ambitions and recognising the challenges of building capacity.
My noble friend Lord Howarth concluded his eloquent speech by referring to the debates of the Victorians on the options they faced in terms of architectural style, which of course has become a sort of architectural theology. I believe that the debates we have had on design have been extremely important in that they signal to everyone in the community that it is something we in this House and the Government as a whole take very seriously.
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Lord Tyler: My Lords, the noble Baroness has laid great stress on the need for consultation. Given that this amendment has been tabled on the Marshalled List for a number of days, can she tell us whether she has received representations from the Local Government Association to oppose it?
Baroness Andrews: No, my Lords, I have had no contact with the Local Government Association. On the other hand, I have had no contact with the Local Government Association on a number of points.
Lord Low of Dalston: My Lords, if one of the Minister’s objections to placing this duty on the face of the Bill is that it has not been consulted on, would she be willing to consult on such a change to the legislation with a view to bringing it forward when a future legislative opportunity presents itself?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, all I can do is ask the chief planner, who I have already prayed in aid, to get in touch with all local authorities to raise the issue with them. In that way, I think that we will inspire a lively debate about the best way forward. I can certainly assure the House that I will do that, and it is to the credit of this House that we will be able to have that sort of conversation with local authorities.
The changes we have made in both the Bills that have been referred to today, which have been driven by and enthusiastically supported by my noble friends, are a testimony to the serious nature of our debates. I hope that noble Lords will recognise that we have engaged in a debate that is not confined to this Chamber—there is a national debate about good-quality design producing quality of community and place—and that my noble friends on the Benches behind me will feel that we have been able to indicate that we will continue to make progress.
Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part with such eloquence. I was also glad to have the support of Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Palmerston. I am disappointed that the Minister is not persuaded even by these, let alone by the force of the contemporary, arguments and—may I say?—national need. But I am grateful for her support for the positive initiatives that she describes to develop the good design culture among planners, including the very interesting suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Low, to which I think she agreed, that the chief planner will consult local authorities about how they can incorporate good design. I look forward to hearing more about that. Meanwhile, I shall read Hansard carefully and see how best we should take our widely shared cause further. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 191 [Determination of procedure for certain proceedings]:
Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 128:
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The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 128 takes us to the provisions in this Bill relating to appeals against determinations of planning applications in the current regime. This matter was debated at the last stage. Since then I have seen the letter which the Minister sent to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. I had not, at that time, seen it. I have also had an e-mail exchange with the Minister. I have to say that I have not been reassured, although I did not expect to be reassured because there are fundamental differences of principle between us. The Government approach this as an administrative matter, “this” being a provision to restrict the appellant’s choice of method or procedure for his appeal. The Government’s assurances are that no one is disadvantaged by the proposal, and that all relevant factors will be taken into account by the Planning Inspectorate when determining the most suitable procedure. It will be for the Planning Inspectorate to take that decision, having applied criteria which I acknowledge. The Government also say that the procedure must be proportionate to the complexity of the subject matter.
It is suggested that parties will have—and currently have—a free choice as to whether their appeal is determined by written representations, an informal hearing or a public inquiry. That is not the case at the moment. They can demand the opportunity to appear before and be heard by an inspector, but it is the Secretary of State—or, in practice, the Planning Inspectorate—who decides whether the appeal will be determined following an inquiry or an informal hearing. The current position is that parties cannot clog up the system by insisting, for instance, that a householder’s extension be dealt with by an inquiry. An appellant can insist on being heard. The Planning Inspectorate will take account of the party’s preferences, but can decide whether the hearing will be an informal hearing or a public inquiry. We would all expect a small household case to be dealt with by an informal hearing. The advantage of this is that parties have the opportunity to come face to face with the inspector. They can see the whites of the inspector’s eyes and the inspector can see the whites of their eyes. There is great importance in this.
The Minister recently said, in an exchange for which I have thanked her, that the Government are in no way,
but again talks about clogging up the system,
I thought to myself, “Well, who is impacted on?”. Yes, others will be in line to have appeals heard, but we are talking only about an appellant and the local planning authority in each case. It is not as if the third parties have rights of appeal. The world in general, in that sense, is not being prejudiced.
Part of the Government’s aim, in all that they are doing in the Bill, is to promote confidence in the planning system. We have heard quite a lot about the fact that delays undermine everyone’s confidence and the system’s effectiveness. Clause 191 will undermine confidence in the system. Applicants—at this stage, rather, I should call them “appellants”—will see this
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Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, at one point in this argument I thought there was a difference in understanding about the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has outlined. In her letter to me, the Minister suggested that the appellant could insist on an inquiry and an oral hearing. In fact, as she has made clear in her reply to the noble Baroness, the lawyer who has been involved in this says that at present parties can insist on the right to appear and be heard but the inspectorate decides whether it is to be a hearing or an inquiry. So, on that issue, there is now nothing between us.
The difference comes down to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was making about whether there should be an opportunity for a face-to-face discussion so that there could be oral questioning of the inspector. That is a fairly evenly balanced question. The amendment that has been tabled would take out the whole of Clause 191. I am not sure that that would be right; it would be back to the drawing board. But in these small inquiries there ought to be a right for the appellant to have the opportunity to be, as the noble Baroness put it, eyeball to eyeball with the inspector.
This is a small matter. We are discussing, inevitably, individual householder applications; we are not talking here about big planning inquiries. It is a simply a question of a difference of view. The impression I have been left with by the correspondence and what was said in the earlier debate is that the Government are overpersuaded about the amount of time that inspectors are involved in this—the number of days they allocate, and that sort of thing. Clearly anyone who is running the inspectorate has to take account of that, but in the end the planning system has to have the confidence of those who are going to use it. To tell an appellant that the whole thing has to be done by written representations and that they will not have an opportunity to see the inspector will undermine confidence in the system.
On the whole, I agree with the point the noble Baroness has put forward. It is admirable that we have eliminated what appeared to be a difference of understanding over procedure. Having done so, though, we then have to recognise the difference, and I come down on the side of the noble Baroness.
Lord Patel of Bradford: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, together with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has raised these issues before. As she rightly said, many of the merits of this clause have been debated in Committee. It is clear, however, that we have not provided enough reassurance and I hope in the next few minutes I will be able to provide reassurance that we have put in adequate safeguards to ensure that no one will be disadvantaged.
We are introducing this measure because the existing appeals system is under severe strain and does not always serve the purposes of those who choose to appeal, or indeed those affected by an appeal, as well as it might. The system can be disproportionate in the
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I understand the view that this proposal is unnecessary because at present, even if parties choose to present their case orally, the Planning Inspectorate has the discretion to choose a hearing over the more labour-intensive and lengthy inquiry. While this is true, we should not underestimate the work involved in holding an oral hearing. Hearings may be more informal than inquiries but they still involve three days of inspector time, in contrast with an appeal dealt with by written representations, which only involves one day. The efforts that all parties put into arranging and attending a hearing process are considerable.
We appreciate that there is a point of principle at stake here. The noble Baroness said that appellants and local planning authorities should always have the opportunity to put their case orally, even for straightforward appeal cases. We would not agree with that. We do not believe that people will be disadvantaged by having their case dealt with by written representations when it is a non-complex case which can be easily understood in writing. There is another point of principle at stake here. We should remember that this is not just about the appellant or local planning authority in any particular case; it is about serving all customers of the appeal system well.
Opting for hearings which are unnecessary results in delays to other kinds of appeals, which may involve complex issues and merit hearings or inquiries. Furthermore, it can disadvantage third-party interests when they have to give up a day of their time and possibly travel some distance to a venue at their own cost. In many simple cases, such as those involving visual or physical impact on a neighbour, I am assured that the inspector does not learn anything that was not apparent from the written material and the site inspection. The question has to be asked: can it be right to spend more time and public money on an oral process which will take at least three times as long and lead inevitably to the delay of other cases, such as much needed housing or important infrastructure proposals, which merit a hearing or inquiry process?
It is important that we introduce more proportion and clarity into the appeal system so that the procedure selected better reflects the relative complexity of the issues. Ensuring that all cases are dealt with by the most appropriate appeal method will lead to quicker decisions, saving everyone time and money.
We note that concerns have been expressed that this measure will mean that proper debate on development proposals will not take place. Let me say for the record that this is not a measure to prevent the proper
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It may be worth outlining the number of safeguards we have built into the process to ensure that the right procedure is selected for each case. Clause 191 would simply enable the Planning Inspectorate, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, to apply published criteria, which Ministers have approved, to determine the most appropriate procedure for appeals and call-in cases. These criteria have already been published and consulted upon in our consultation paper entitled Improving the Appeals Process in the Planning System: Making it Proportionate, Customer Focused, Efficient and Well Resourced, and they will be kept under review. Further consultation may be appropriate from time to time.
The criteria will be operated in a transparent and fair way. They will ensure that any case that is complex or controversial, and thus would benefit from a hearing or inquiry, will be dealt with in this way. The criteria will also ensure that people in vulnerable groups are given a fair opportunity to put forward their case, which may mean that a hearing or inquiry is appropriate even where this would not normally be justified by the complexity of the case.
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