Land Use Framework — House of Lords, 2021-10-28
Topic: Agriculture
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate today for the near unanimity around the Chamber on the need for a joined-up set of principles and a framework. I will come on to talk briefly about my reaction to what the Minister said, but I thank him for his response The very personal maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, was quite heart-breaking, really; I felt moved. I am sure that, with his range of backgrounds, he will be an adornment to our House. I particularly liked his identification of the potential for a variety of roles for land managers in future; this is indeed an opportunity for land managers to think about what they can do to deliver some of these pressing national priorities I turn to the Minister’s remarks. I feel that to quote the NPPF as the overarching set of principles that guide all of this is probably giving a role to the NPPF that it cannot really bear. There is no doubt that it has to be supplemented with a whole range of other regimes, some of them already existing and others non-existent. The Minister quoted the bus strategy, the transport plan and the nationally significant infrastructure project regimes; all of these are prepared by different parts of government, and I do not believe the NPPF brings those together. It does not bring together the particularly pressing issues of carbon and biodiversity, nor does it do much to try to bring some shape and direction to the changes that are going to happen in land use as a result of the changes in agriculture As far as ELMS are concerned, I think we are now piloting the pilots; it has been piloted again and again, and it is getting to a stage where farmers are beginning to despair and are looking for leadership. If we are not careful, we will stumble into a set of solutions for agricultural land, with no national or indeed local oversight, that is driven entirely by the perceptions of 100,000 farmers and what they think ELMS mean. That is quite a dangerous place to be Another dangerous place to be is illustrated by that heart-breaking statistic about the number of local groups that are springing up all over the place because they are very unhappy about what is happening with land-use decisions. I personally worry about being cast as a nimby, because I am campaigning in north Bedfordshire where—just to show the lack of valency in the local nature recovery strategy process—the recovery strategy has identified an area in need of protection as being a high-quality area for nature recovery, but it is in the local authority’s planning system as somewhere to put 6,500 new housing units, in an area badly served by transport and other infrastructure. So local nature recovery strategies are not proving to be the answer either It was a bit of a giveaway at the very end when the Minister, in his account of the objectives of the new planning system, talked about houses, infrastructure, development and economic benefit but did not once manage to mention climate change or biodiversity. I believe we are seeing a huge divide between the formal planning system and these many quasi-planning systems that are growing up around other bits of government policy, and that is not the way forward Still, having campaigned to get greater clarity in this area, I am not going to give up. What I heard around the House was that people agreed that there need to be some overarching principles that are not directive but enabling, and not prescriptive but releasing—they are the words that I heard—because the right outcomes will not happen by chance. So I urge all noble Lords who have been convinced of the value of the debate today to lobby their Liaison Committee representative. On 15 November, the Liaison Committee will make a decision on the next series of ad hoc Select Committees, and a land use Select Committee is on the shortlist. If noble Lords feel that that would be a good idea, I ask them to go and lobby their representative. That is probably against the rules of this House, but what ho I thank all involved today. I have now completely forgotten what form of words I am supposed to use, but I have already moved my Motion.