Neighbourhood Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-23
Topic: Housing
Andrew Lansley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, perhaps I may interject on this group, although not in relation to Amendment 5. I am sure that the noble Lord understands that, if one were to incorporate that amendment as it stands, one would in effect create in statutory form a small subset of factors which might and should be taken into account in determining a local planning authority’s strategic priorities but which in no sense encapsulated what those strategic priorities might be. The alternative seems to be to incorporate pretty much everything in the National Planning Policy Framework into a statutory provision setting out what the strategic priorities should be. I think that the legislation is right as it is: it is the job of the local planning authority to set its strategic priorities, and those should be set out through the consultation and then through any subsequent process of approval of the development plan However, I want to talk about Clause 9 and Amendment 8 in particular. I would have thought that the Secretary of State would invite a county council to take over the development plan process from a district council only in extremis. I cannot quite see how the Secretary of State could enter into such a plan other than in the most extreme circumstances. The county council is not in any shape to do this. I think that my own county council would be horrified at the prospect of that happening. If district councils are told that if they do not get on with it, this will happen, they will regard that as an empty threat. There is even a fear that if district councils which resisted completing their development plan process—there are very few of those because they know how important the plan is for the local community—thought that they could hand the responsibility over to the county council, that might be an attraction rather than a deterrent Therefore, I am not sure that I see the purpose of Clause 9. If the Government feel that they need a toolkit, including a measure that they could take in extremis, it must be set out as that. However, your Lordships will recall that Schedule 2 says that the Secretary of State can do this in circumstances where he or she, "thinks that a lower-tier planning authority are failing or omitting to do anything it is necessary for them to do in connection with the preparation, revision or adoption of a development plan document" That is far too sweeping. So I apologise to my noble friend on the Front Bench, but I rather like Amendment 8. It helps because it sets out straightforwardly that this should happen where the development plan process is not making, or could not make, progress because there is no timetable or capacity and the authority is not trying to attract the necessary capacity. I do not think that Amendment 8 could be incorporated into the Bill, not least because it should include the words "in the view of the Secretary of State"; otherwise the questions of whether the authority had a satisfactory timetable, or whether it was thinking of inviting a district authority to do the job, would become completely open to argument. The Secretary of State must have the power, and it must be the Secretary of State’s view that the local planning authority is not doing what it ought to do by reference to a timetable or to alternative capacity In responding to this short debate, will my noble friend say that he will at least take this amendment away and look at it with his colleagues to see whether there is a mechanism—acceptable to the Government at Third Reading—for demonstrating that the Government would enter into a process of this kind only in extreme circumstances?