Neighbourhood Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Julia Frances Cumberlege (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said about listening to people. As a councillor—I have been a parish, district and county councillor—I know that you resolve matters only when you see the people who are complaining about a certain issue, and you have to dig quite deep to find out exactly what their concerns are. That is so true of building a neighbourhood plan, where the examiner is concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is also right about the words we use. We had a debate last time in Committee on the word "modification", and we have had debates on "substantial" and other words. I appreciate that it is difficult for my noble friend Lord Bourne to have a definition that will hold water in all sorts of different circumstances. However, where the neighbourhood planners are meeting the examiner, those are the sorts of things they can discuss, and each can understand what the other means when they use certain words The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is absolutely right about building relationships with people to achieve what you want to achieve. In this new entrepreneurial world, that is the only way forward. I think about what we are doing in the National Health Service with long-term conditions and maternity services. We are giving people their budgets to spend as they wish, because we believe that those people know best the care that they want. The results are amazing. Therefore we have to trust the people and think carefully about the way we involve them in all sorts of aspects of government, including planning. What the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said about disputes and the unhappiness they can cause was so true. Do let us iron them out before we get too far down the line My noble friend Lord Bourne rightly said that my amendments are faulty. I absolutely accept that. I am not a planner; I have not had the Local Government Association and various others behind me. Probably, these words are not quite right. However, I think that my noble friend understands that we can go further on this. I was interested that in our discussion in Committee he said that he accepted that something must be going wrong with some of the plans that have been produced. He said: "I am happy to look at that to see how we might address it. The general position is satisfactory, but I accept that something can obviously be done to make it more watertight".—[Official Report, 31/1/17; col. GC 214.] That has been his view throughout the discussions we have had and the discussions I have had with his department We therefore need to go further on this. We need to ensure that at Third Reading we get something in the Bill that is more watertight and which ensures that the work of the examiner is respected. As the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said, they are honourable people, but they are working in a difficult situation. They are too constrained. We therefore need to open this up and ensure that planners, local people and the examiner get together to iron out some of the difficulties that there are. They need to see each other, talk to each other and take the measure of each other. With the generous undertaking my noble friend made, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.