argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, my name is associated with Clause 144 stand part, and I agree entirely with what my noble friend Lord Greaves has said. I regard this as a very important issue because it effectively cuts out local authorities from the planning process on a nationally important infrastructure decision. Simply permitting an applicant to go straight to the Secretary of State to secure approval seems to me to be the wrong approach. What my noble friend said helps us to solve the problem.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the Government’s position in great detail. Having heard it again, I am even more sure that it is wrong. Sorry about that, but when you find out what things actually mean, sometimes you think they are okay but sometimes it confirms your view that they are wrong. The idea that 500 houses are a minor part of a development, in any area, is nonsense. In terms of their impact on a community and how it operates, 500 houses anywhere are a lot of houses. I accept that if such a development is directly associated with the infrastructure scheme and required for it in a functional way, it is reasonable for one application to take place. However, the only real argument that has been put forward is that it is a good idea to build next to a new infrastructure because new roads and access will be put in. In planning terms, it might be a good idea, or it might not be. In planning terms, it might be a very bad idea because of the disadvantages of living next to whatever the new infrastructure is. Or it might be a very good idea. That is a decision that ought to be taken by the local planning authority. It just seems unnecessary to say that 500 houses that are not related to the infrastructure scheme at all, but are simply next to it, ought to be taken away from the decision-making of the local authority. The only argument that I can think of is that it is again just more convenient and easy for the developers. That is the second time today that I have said that too much of this Bill seems to be about making life easier for developers and blow the consequences for everybody else. I am unhappy as I think it is the wrong decision. We might bring it back on Report; but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, at last we arrive at perhaps the remaining flashpoint in the Bill. I rise to move Amendment 102CL and speak to my other amendments in the group. There are two other very useful amendments from noble Lords in the group Clause 145 is a major, very controversial innovation. It may be the first step towards the privatisation of development management and yet it was dumped on the Commons on Report. There was a very short explanation by the Minister, one speech by Clive Betts MP at 1 am and the Minister refused to answer his questions—there was no reply from the Minister Here we are in the Lords at the very end of the Bill, at the end of the afternoon on day nine of nine, and we must try at least to give it some intelligent consideration. I have no doubt that the issue will come back on Report anyhow. The Government are saying that this is intended to be a pilot, but the Bill appears to give the Secretary of State untrammelled powers to introduce this provision to any extent he or she wishes at any time in the future, so the question of how it can be limited is an issue that the Committee ought to look at.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The noble Lord is very entertaining although I am not sure what his speech has to do with this Bill. But if a local authority requires planning permission for the conversion of a piece of a field into a garden, that is precisely because government regulations in the general development order, or whatever it is now called, require that to happen. If the planning system is not working well—and every time I get a chance to debate planning anywhere, including in your Lordships’ House, I announce it to be bust, because I believe that it is bust—it is almost entirely the fault of the national Government and detailed national rules and regulations, which tie the whole thing down.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Other
Donald Foster (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am sorry but the Minister specifically said yesterday that it would be before the House rises. That is for the Minister to sort out, but can she give us an assurance on this? The assurance that her colleague gave us was that, before we leave this Chamber, we would have a copy of it in our hands so that, should we wish to, we can refer to it in any subsequent amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Donald Foster (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I apologise, but will the Minister answer my other question about the technical consultation? It may have been a drafting error by the Government, but paragraph 8.1 specifically says: "Nor is this about preventing local authorities from processing planning applications or forcing them to outsource their processing function" If that is correct, the first amendment in the group, which would mean that local authorities would have choice in the matter, is presumably accepted by the Government. Alternatively, this is an error and the Government have gone out to consult on a document that contains a fundamental error about the purpose of this section of the Bill.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, there is a lot there to look at, read and think about. In the last argument there was some confusion between compulsory outsourcing and being forced to be subject to competition. Those are different things. I think the Government are saying that some authorities may have a designated person or persons forced on them in their area, but some clarification would be very helpful. The Bill certainly says that that is possible I thank everybody who took part in the discussion. Some were more entertaining than others. The noble Lord, Lord True, took us into the details of planning committees, which some of us have spent far too much time in our lives chairing, being members of or whatever. On the point about the relationship between the committee and its planning officer regarding applications where the committee may overturn the recommendation of the officer, there are applications where it is obvious which way they will go: that they will be rejected, or passed. While people may argue one way or the other, there are no sensible reasons and it is a fairly cut-and-dried case. But in most cases where recommendations are overturned, they are arguable both ways. If the planning committee overturns cases where it is not arguable both ways, it is not a very good committee. It is behaving pretty irresponsibly, really Under those circumstances, the reports written by planning officers are balanced. They will put forward the reasons an application has been made and the arguments for it; they will put forward the objections to it and the reasons it might be turned down; then they will come down on one side or the other. If the committee takes a different view and it then goes to appeal, a sensible inspector will look at all the original reports and everything else and he will come to the view that it was a perfectly reasonable decision by the committee.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Other
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): It is a very constructive point. There is time to discuss this part of the Bill further before Report. We are coming back straight to Report, but I do not imagine we will get to Part 6 for quite a while; for several days, anyway. I ask the Government to convene meetings of people around the House to look at the practicalities. If the Government can persuade us that in a practical sense, this will work, or that it might work—that it is worth trying—we can think about practical, working amendments to it. If they cannot persuade us, some of us will want to remove it all. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I put this in a separate amendment because I wanted it set out and because it is the fundamental thing that people outside the system are going to complain about with regard to private provision of the processing of planning applications. The potential for conflicts of interest is high. The Government say they will produce regulations to stop that and make sure it does not happen. We will see how they do that. There is a perception of conflicts of interest in a system that, as was said earlier, is already believed by many people to be utterly biased towards large developers and against ordinary people—rightly or wrongly, there is a widespread belief that that is the case. If, instead of being processed by local government officials, planning applications are processed by private companies, people will look for the links between those private companies and developers putting in applications and, whatever safeguards the Government put in, they will find them. They will find family relationships, school relationships, board memberships and so on—all manner of relationships. It is a huge can of worms If the Government are going ahead with these pilots, this is a fundamental issue that they have to tackle and do their very best to get right. I doubt they can get it right but it is at the heart of this proposal. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Other
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will. That was extremely helpful and I will read it carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I too want to get home tonight, and if helps the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, I shall not move the next group of amendments, because I think that we have more or less finished the debate on this for tonight.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Briefly, my Lords, there were suggestions earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who is no longer in his place, that the planning system needed an improvement. I apologise for tabling this amendment in a rather strange location in the Bill; that was by accident. I tabled it to suggest that it was time for the Government to pursue an inquiry and reforms to the plan-making system, as opposed to the development control system Since then, I have discovered that such an investigation has been taking place. I have a copy of a report which came out a few days ago—I think it was on 16 March—called Local Plans: Report to the Communities Secretary and to the Minister of Housing and Planning from the Local Plans Expert Group. I confess that I have not yet had time to read it, owing to the requirements of research on the Bill, but it is an excellent step forward. I hope that its contents are as good as I am billing them and that we will be able to have a slightly more relaxed debate in your Lordships’ House on this matter, by some mechanism or other, before the end of the Session There are defects in the development control system. While nobody is perfect, everybody who gets involved in that system is frustrated by some of the things that have to happen. Nevertheless, it has been my view for a number of years—I have expressed this in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions—that the main inefficiencies and problems in the planning system are with plan making rather than development control. Plan making is cumbersome, bureaucratic, top-down, top-heavy and not very democratic. Reform is needed, particularly if local plans are to be the basis for planning in principle, so I am delighted by the document that I have received. In order to give the Minister a chance to reply, I beg to move this amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Matthew Owen John Taylor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Obviously I will not seek to press these amendments but I very much welcome what the Minister said. I would have liked to have spoken at great length about how much I welcome what is clearly a cross-party consensus on moving forward on this basis. It has the potential to provide a huge and new opportunity for local communities to deliver fantastic places, not just fantastic homes that people can afford.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Public Lands
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who has a long-standing engagement in Cardiff, I rise briefly to move this amendment. The Government have said that the clauses are intended to aid regeneration projects on brownfield sites through allowing covenants, easements and other rights to be overridden more easily by public bodies. However, the clause would also affect covenants and rights held by the National Trust to conserve some of our most special and valued places for everyone to enjoy. I declare an interest as a member of that august organisation, as I am sure are many Members around this House. Typically, these covenants and rights apply to land surrounding National Trust-owned land, to buildings or land not owned by the trust but which have historical significance, or to beautiful or wildlife-rich landscape worthy of protection. Crucially, the rights held by statutory undertakers such as utility companies and Network Rail are already sensibly protected from the scope of the clause, because of the important public benefit that these rights give. I contend that National Trust covenants and other rights give comparable public benefits, and this should be recognised in a similar way. I hope this is an unintentional oversight by the Government and that they will see it as a helpful amendment and will accept it. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Other
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister most warmly for those very encouraging words. I shall obviously discuss the matter with the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, over the recess, but, being mindful of the time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Public Lands
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I declare my interest as the vice-president of the Open Spaces Society, as well as my other outdoor activity interests, which are in the register This amendment is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The noble Lord makes it sound as though the countryside of England is a nightmare. This is absolutely not true. There are perfectly workable procedures for dealing with the kinds of circumstance described by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. In particular, Defra has found a mechanism through the stakeholder working group, which represents people from all parts of the countryside, from recreation to landowners and other users. This is a mechanism by which changes in the law take place by agreement and consensus. It has been extremely successful, has worked very well and continues to do so. To drive a coach and horses through that at this or at any stage would be very unwise. I hope that the Minister will explain that, apart from anything else, the amendment really does not belong in this Bill.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Other
Richard Newby (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have been a cause of trouble on the Bill, in that I was very keen that we finished exactly at 7 pm. That seems to me now to be ridiculous. Everybody wants to finish at 7 pm. In the last hour we have wasted a quarter of an hour arguing about whether we finish at 7 pm or 7.15 pm. My very strong view is that we should now continue to the end of the Bill, which we will do very shortly.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Public Lands
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful that we have the opportunity to discuss these amendments this evening. While my name is to both of them, I shall speak only to Amendment 119 The Government have rightly launched a national flood resilience review, which is due to report in the summer, but that review will come too late if the Bill paves the way for 1 million new homes without due regard for their flood resilience. New homes increase flood risks for developments and for surrounding communities. Concreting over a catchment speeds up run-off, increasing the likelihood of flooding. After the 2007 floods, the flooding review by Sir Michael Pitt recommended sustainable drainage as a way forward, which moved the Government to bring forward the Flood and Water Management Act. It was suggested in the Act that there should be further use of SuDS, with soakaways such as swales, ponds and other natural means to ensure that sewer networks were not overwhelmed during periods of heavy rainfall. We all know that well-designed SuDS can contribute to water quality, to coping with overheating and to biodiversity. But this Government delayed implementation and then abandoned that approach altogether, in favour of an "expectation" that major planning applications would include SuDS This was not because of the costs. Defra recognised, in its own consultation document, that, "sustainable drainage systems are generally cheaper to build; and maintaining them will be cheaper (or need be no more expensive), than the … cost … required", in conventional drainage. The result of this expectation that the SuDS approach would work is that last year Barratt Homes, the UK’s leading housebuilder, included no provision whatever for sustainable drainage in a third of its developments. The Committee on Climate Change has analysed 100 planning applications in areas of flood risks and found that fewer than 15% proposed SuDS. If the Government wish to challenge that evidence, what monitoring are they doing at a national level of the uptake of SuDS The National Policy for the Built Environment Committee of the House of Lords, on which I and other noble Lords sat, has looked at this issue. In its report last month, it argued that the Government should take a more proactive approach to the provision of SuDS. In legislating to provide for new homes, we must seek to contain the time to plan for them—absolutely. But we need a process ensuring that new homes are built to a standard that will protect them from flood risks and not exacerbate risks for established communities. I shall not list the many organisations which have written to the Minister in support of this amendment, because we do not have time. I will merely beg to move and hope that other Members might pick up some of the points that I know need to be raised.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Briefly, I thank the Minister for her recognition that the issue of sustainable homes is serious. I have two quick points. The Government’s defence for not accepting the amendments seems to be that they want to ensure that the new arrangements have time to bed in. I am grateful that they are offering us more information about the stakeholder meetings. I am sure the Committee will agree that stakeholder meetings bear no comparison to national monitoring of the situation, both of the number and quality of SuDS. The evidence we have seen from major housebuilders and the adaptation sub-committee shows that this is not working Secondly, I am grateful to the Government for confirming that costs are not stopping them moving on this issue, it is the issue, as they put it, of undue delay. My argument would be that one extra stage in the process of planning is worth the price that will be accruing to the benefit of home owners, the wider community and the environment from the introduction of SuDS. On that basis, I will go away with colleagues and consider the response. I thank colleagues around the Committee who have joined in promoting this cause. We may well wish to return to it on Report.
Refugees and Migrants: Royal Navy and NATO Interception in Mediterranean — House of Lords, 2016-03-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Judith Anne Jolly (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we welcome the inclusion of RFA "Mounts Bay" in the NATO maritime task force, and that of the Wildcat helicopter. Will the Minister tell the House, for the operation as a whole, what arrangements have been made for NATO ships to dock in Turkish ports should the need arise, and for the safe onward passage of migrants after the processing of their claims for asylum?
Refugees and Migrants: Royal Navy and NATO Interception in Mediterranean — House of Lords, 2016-03-07
Topic: Immigration
Jeremy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as my noble friend has said this is a welcome move, if a small and rather late one. But have we not now reached a position where Her Majesty’s Government’s policy is to rescue such refugees as they find with their lives endangered and then to abandon them, because they will not take a single one of the refugees now fleeing for their lives from the Syrian battlefields? Yet we are perfectly happy, of course, to criticise Europe for not being able to cope with a million of them. I am not allowed to use the word "hypocrisy" in this Chamber so let me confine myself to saying: does the Minister not find that, overall, that is a pretty discreditable policy?
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-12
Topic: Housing
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I wish that I were persuaded. The letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said that migrants, "may contact the Home Office to establish whether this is the case" The clear implication there is that the migrant himself may establish the position, not ask the Home Office to make sure that, if and when a landlord inquires, the landlord is given that information Of course, I am aware of the landlord’s statutory excuse. I do not want to be too harsh, but I wonder whether the person in the Home Office who has been drafting this has had any recent experience of trying to rent a property. Not that long ago, on the question of the rollout of the 2014 Act, two or three Members of this House explained very clearly that as landlords they, and indeed most landlords, would want to get on with letting and not have gaps in that letting. The information that I and other noble Lords have received is not that the situation is working well—that is not the position. I am glad to hear that there has been some revision of procedures, but it seems to me that by denying that there is a problem, there is denial around looking at how to solve that problem It seems to me that this is not considered a big deal. Perhaps I can simply urge the Minister to urge the Home Office to take this as a very serious concern. If there is a different way of assisting tenants—and my goodness, this House is spending a lot of time talking about the housing crisis at the moment—and making the whole process that much easier, avoiding the concerns about discrimination that we have debated in this context at some length, then I urge him to do that. I am clearly not going to make any progress on this now, but I will not let it go: I will keep asking questions about it.