Localism Bill

Public Bill Committee, 15 February 2011.

Clause 75

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I would like to raise a couple of quick points with the Minister with regard to the provision of written notice, although the situation was perhaps cleared up somewhat during our earlier discussion on what happens when the owner of the land cannot be traced by community groups wishing to nominate land.

Under subsection (2)(a), the owner is required to be notified in writing by the authority. If the owner can not be traced, does this preclude an asset’s inclusion on the list of community assets? What safeguards are there for untraceable owners, who are addressed under subsection (5)(c)? Will the land simply not be included? Will the Minister explain why local authorities are not being encouraged to use existing powers under section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 and why this new power seems to be discretionary, certainly as the consultation suggests.

Furthermore, would the owners themselves have to be notified or would an agent acting on their behalf suffice? It is not clear from clause 87 whether it is likely that an agent could be likely. For example, if a community in Westminster wished to list a piece of land, it might well find it belongs to one of two people: the Crown or the Duke of Westminster. In the first cases, clearly the Crown Estate would be the most appropriate body to be notified, whereas Grosvenor Estate would be most appropriate in the case of the Duke of Westminster. However, the Bill seems to indicate that written notice must be given to the owner of the land—to the individual. I am sure there is precedent for this in legislation, so would be grateful if the Minister would enlighten the Committee and clear that one up.

Will the Minister tell us why there is a need for the Secretary of State’s powers under subsection (5)? Why will not the clause work without that addition? We would like to hear the explanation because that is another one of those powers of the Secretary of State that may or may not be necessary.

Given that the Minister is already discussing the Bill’s focus on the importance of social value in the community, what he is considering as the local connection as set out in paragraph 4.3 of the consultation paper that is linked to this clause? Will he give us some idea of the possible criteria, which we started to discuss in previous debates? Would a business based in the area be considered as having such a connection? Where would the burden of proof lie and who would adjudicate if a connection was considered to be too tenuous? Is there any legal basis for the term “local connection,” given that it will impact on those able to be given written notice under this chapter of the Bill? I would also welcome the Minister’s advice to the Committee on whether he feels there is a need to set out in subsection (3), which cites

“consequences for the land and its owner”

of being listed, a provision to make clear that compensation might be available?

The Mineral Products Association has drawn to my attention to the fact that the Bill gives the right to anyone to nominate an asset of community value, but there is no requirement to inform the owners, including leaseholders of any land, that such a nomination has been submitted. It would appear that the first an owner might know about the matter is when he is informed that there has been a designation. Will the Minister confirm that that interpretation is correct?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

It is good to be resuming our proceedings on the Bill. First, an agent could accept information or notice on behalf of an owner, as with other proceedings. As the hon. Lady says, there are established procedures to follow. Quite a number of her questions are about precisely the issues covered by the consultation, such as what might be defined as a local connection. We touched on that in our debate last week when we mentioned British Waterways and canals that might span several local authorities, and the kinds of situations that might arise as a result; that relates specifically to local connection.

Regarding untraceable owners of land, a provision will be made in the regulations for local notices and notices on land, and that topic is also raised in the consultation document. The hon. Lady may have the same problem that I have in my constituency, because even in a heavily urbanised area, we have many little snippets of land that turn out not to have any traceable ownership. Indeed, they are quite often the little corners that the community feels should be preserved as woodland, or that might be turned into a playground and might be useful. The hon. Lady will see in the consultation document questions that will allow us to address that point when we see the responses.

On a connected point, the hon. Lady asked about informing the owner of the land. We plan to put into regulations that local authorities should tell the owner before they decide to list land. That, again, is in the consultation. The hon. Lady raised a number of good points, all of which we have mentioned in the consultation. We are not saying that we have exactly the right answers to all those questions, and we are waiting to see what responses we get. It is our intention, however, that there should be notification of owners, local notices and notices on land.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

The Minister’s response flags up our deep frustration with the whole process, whether in this clause or any other clause. A good consultation is out there, but it should have taken place well in advance of the Bill to enable us to legislate having considered the responses, which I am sure will be many and varied. It is difficult to produce a good piece of legislation without having that evidence before us. Does the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 need amending? Is it ineffective? Why should it not simply be used by local authorities, in relation to this clause?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I do not believe that the 1976 Act is ineffective, but it is right for us to consult on exactly what procedures we employ. The legislation may require some amendment to deal with the processes that we are discussing, but those are exactly the kinds of issues with which the regulations will be designed to deal. I understand the hon. Lady’s concern that she has not got every i dotted and every t crossed, but I am sure that if we had come with every i dotted and every t crossed we would have been criticised for not being in a position to respond to the comments of right hon. and hon. Members in Committee and in the House.

I remind the hon. Lady that the consultation includes her and her colleagues in the Labour party as well as members of the public and other organisations. I am sure that the points that she has registered in the Committee will also be taken into account during the consultation. I hope that with those assurances the Committee will adopt clause 75.

Clause 76

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I beg to move amendment 109, in clause 76, page 54, line 32, at end insert

‘and this review must take no longer than 12 weeks’.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, York Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 110, in clause 76, page 55, line 10, leave out ‘appeals’ and insert ‘an independent appeals process’.

Amendment 190, in clause 76, page 55, line 10, at end add—

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Amendments 109 and 110 would introduce two small but important changes to the Bill. They would create important safeguards in the review process by ensuring that a review must take place relatively quickly and that any appeals process must be independent. Neither amendment would change the intention of the clause, but both would increase public confidence in the process by making it more transparent and efficient.

Amendment 109 would require any review to take place within a 12-week time frame. That would not be arduous, and it would reassure landowners that they will not be left hanging while awaiting the outcome of a review, which could drag on. We have suggested a precedent of 12 weeks—approximately three months—because that is the length of time that the Government believe would be necessary for the Secretary of State to make major planning decisions, which are referred to him under the planning provisions of the Bill. If the Government believe that the Secretary of State can make a decision within three months on a major, complicated planning process, I can see no reason why a local authority could not conduct a review in a similar period. From the CBI’s evidence, it seems that it is keen for Ministers to amend the Bill to make that three-month deadline compulsory. We need to wait and see what the Front-Bench team do next week in their response to that evidence. However, we have a chance here to put a time limit in the Bill that would offer some reassurance to landowners.

Amendment 110 seeks to ensure that any review of the appeals process is appropriately transparent and independent. We want the powers and processes that facilitate reviews to be credible and to be trusted by the public. In their consultation document, why do the Government seem to feel that an owner whose asset has been listed will accept an internal review by the local authority? To that end, we have concerns about subsection (6)(d), which states that the Secretary of State must make

“provision for appeals against the decision on review.”

An appeals process is appropriate, but we would be far more comfortable if the review process was independent and if that independence was clear. The Co-op expressed its concerns in its submission, which stated that it supported the right for an asset owner to make representations as to why an asset should not be on the list in cases where, for example, there is a clear case that inclusion would harm their commercial interests or free operation. It went on to discuss the implications of costs incurred, and we will come to that under the provision on compensation. The Co-op believes that the process could, as it stands, damage the relationship between the local authority, the community and commercial interests. If the local authority also manages the appeals process, that could further damage that relationship, which is why we would like an independent appeals process.

Will the Minister clarify whether the right to review applies only to land that is included, whether the community has no right to request a review, and whether that right sits solely with the landowner, in a similar way to third-party right of appeals? If that is the case, an independent review would strengthen the process and be more acceptable to the wider public.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I rise to speak to amendment 190, which deals with vexatious applications. From the evidence that we have received, we know that there is real scope for abuse here. There is scope for people to try to use the arrangements to stop developments or proposals to which they object. We heard convincing evidence from a variety of sources, including the CBI, business interests, country landowners and others, about the danger of that provision—desirable as it may be in principle—being abused. The Minister recognised that, because on Thursday he said that the process for considering applications for registering assets of community value

“is designed to ensure that we do not have vexatious, silly or inappropriate nominations included on the register.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2011; c. 506.]

That is fine as an expression of intent, but the Minister’s expression of hope will not deter people if they see the process as a means of stopping, or at least delaying, something to which they are opposed. It is therefore essential that we have a clear sanction to ensure that people who have abused the system have to pay compensation. That is a proper safeguard.

Looking at the provisions in clause 82 that deal with compensation, there is nothing there that deals with vexatious applications. That is why I tabled the amendment and why I have used the same language as the Minister, to a degree. I used the term vexatious; I did not use the word “silly”—I thought I might have difficulty with the Clerks in getting that agreed as parliamentary language. The purpose is to give effect to the Minister’s intention to deter vexatious, silly or inappropriate nominations. I hope, therefore, that the amendment appeals to the Minister. I certainly hope it will appeal to the hon. Member for Bradford East, who spoke very forcibly about interference with property rights. I am sure that he will be attracted by this safeguard for individuals who might see their property under threat as a result of a vexatious application to register a particular asset as an asset of community value.

I hope that the amendment will get a sympathetic reception from those on both sides of the Committee, and that we can incorporate a specific provision to deal with the issue, if not necessarily in the wording that I have put forward. I accept entirely that, as the Minister says, clause 82 is where such a provision ought to go, but as I have pointed out, there is no specific provision in that clause for measures dealing with vexatious applications. At the very least, I hope that the Minister will say that the Government will bring forward an amendment to include such a provision in the relevant clause—that is, if my amendment cannot be accepted; it would be much easier if it were accepted.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

Let me respond to the various points that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, made on amendments 109 and 110, and then deal separately with amendment 190.

As far as amendment 109 goes, I was interested to see that the hon. Lady thinks that 12 weeks should be the number. I refer her to the wording in paragraph 9.4 of the consultation document, leading to question 23:

“We propose that there ought to be a consistent timescale for the internal review to take place and we suggest that this should be completed within 6 weeks of the local authority receiving a written request for an internal review by the landowner.”

The intention expressed in the consultation document is that the interval should be six weeks, rather than the 12 weeks that the hon. Lady suggests. I am ready to take her amendment to be a response to that question, indicating that she thinks six weeks is perhaps drawing it too tight, and that 12 weeks would be more appropriate. Would she like to indicate whether that is the case? We also see the need for such a safeguard, but we would draw the line a bit tighter than she would. I advise the Committee not to accept her amendment, but to await the consultation responses and see whether something nearer to six weeks is better than 12 weeks. However, I assure her that it is our intention that there should be such a limit.

Amendment 110 is not necessary. Clause 76(5) and (6) provides for owners to have a right of appeal if they are dissatisfied with the outcome of the internal review in any case. If a right of appeal is added, we would see that as being an independent appeal to a court and tribunal. Again, we have posed that question in the consultation document, asking whether provision should be made for landowners to appeal to a court or tribunal if they are dissatisfied. We think that that is appropriate, but we await the consultation responses. If there was not an external right of appeal established by regulations, a person who was dissatisfied with the outcome of the internal appeal would still be able to use the nuclear weapon of judicial review.

We think it right to have a simple internal review process, to fix the problem internally, as one would with other complaints coming to the council about performance or provision of services, and that there should be reference to an external body only if that fails. The consultation document refers to a court or tribunal. If it were decided not to go down that line, of course there would still be the ultimate safeguard of judicial review.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, also asked whether the right of review would apply only to land included in the listing. The answer is yes. If she asked a more sophisticated question that I have misunderstood, perhaps she would come back on that.

I turn to the amendment of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, which I recognise is designed to be helpful. However, it seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how the process works. He refers to a vexatious application. I think he means—if he thinks a little more about it—a vexatious nomination. It is not an application in the sense of a planning application by an owner. We are talking about an external party nominating a building or a plot of land for listing. The essential feature of the decision on whether to list land will relate to the nature of the community asset, not to the person who has made the nomination. If a local site meets the definition of “community value” set out in the regulations, it must be listed, regardless of whether the applicant had good or evil intentions.

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that under clause 72, which we agreed last week, regulations setting out the criteria that local authorities should consider when deciding whether an asset is of community value are now part of the Bill. We have suggested that one of the criteria for assessing what is an asset of community value could be evidence of the strength of community feeling about supporting the asset’s being maintained for community use.

Let us describe the vexatious applicant as Mr Vexatious. If Mr Vexatious puts in front of the local authority the idea that a particular piece of land or building should be listed, the local authority would not take his nomination at face value. It would apply the tests set out in the regulations provided for under clause 72. An important part of that would be evidence of the strength of community feeling. If Mr Vexatious is on his own, that criterion will obviously not be met. There will be other criteria, excluding the kind of building and land that cannot in principle be included, such as homes and housing, and giving guidance about the nature of community asset value, which we also discussed in relation to clause 72.

Heidi Alexander (Labour, Lewisham East)

Can the Minister foresee a situation where the local authority’s judgment on whether an application is vexatious results in a huge amount of controversy, frustration and contention about the process?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

A decision would not be, “This is a vexatious application”—or more correctly, a vexatious nomination. The decision would be taken after looking at a particular piece of land or building and assessing it objectively against the criteria in the regulations provided for in clause 72; the question would be, “Is this in fact an asset of community value?” As hon. Members will see from subsequent clauses, there is a requirement to list decisions reached, both in favour and against, together with reasons. We will discuss, no doubt, why that is a good idea at the appropriate time.

The transparency of the process is the protection that there is against what might be described as wildcat acceptances of a nomination, which are not supported by the use of the objective criteria in the regulations. So, really, the nature of the nominator is irrelevant to the subsequent process. If an authority takes a decision that is unreasonable for any reason, the owner will have—as we are also discussing—an opportunity to seek an internal review and if still dissatisfied by the outcome of the consultation, to take the matter to a court or tribunal. Indeed, if the consultation moves in another direction without a separate external reference point, it can be taken to judicial review.

So I want to say to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich that I appreciate his helpfulness and the spirit in which he has tabled the amendment. But I think that it is based on something of a misunderstanding about the process that the local authority has to undertake whenever an application appears on its mat for consideration as an asset of community value. So I would say to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View that I do not think that we need her amendments 109 and 110, although one might be taken into account as a response to question 23. And I would say to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich that I do not think that we need amendment 190 either, because the safeguards that he seeks to introduce are already in the legislation before us.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am afraid that I do not find that convincing. The real world is not like the scenario that the Minister has painted. It is not a question of “Mr Vexatious versus a community”. Very often there are different community groups that have a different view about what is desirable in a particular area. I can give the hon. Gentleman a real-life example that I have lived with for the last five years. The equestrian Olympic events are going to take place in Greenwich park. The large majority of local residents in our borough—including me—welcome this and see it as a very attractive proposition. But there was a relatively small but extremely vocal group of people, very well-heeled with access to legal expertise, who were strongly opposed to this. Had this provision been in place, I have absolutely no doubt that, among those people, some would have sought to designate part of the course proposed for the Olympic cross-country equestrian event as an asset of community value in order to make it impossible for this to happen. That would have been a complete show-stopper for one of the most important Olympic events taking place in this city in 2012. That is the risk: people will try to abuse these provisions in order to stop developments that they regard as undesirable. The Minister must be aware of that and know the likelihood of the use of this provision by groups of people, who may appear entirely sincere and well intentioned, in order to stop something probably supported by a larger number of people in the area and, even if that is not the case, which the local authority would simply not be able to proceed with if they listed the asset as one of community value.

Now, the gist of the Minister’s argument is that it is up to the authority to take a decision. But he and I know that, when pressed by very vociferous community groups, which possibly even threaten legal action, as is not unknown, local authorities can bow to such pressure. He will know of many cases where local authorities have refused planning applications possibly because of very strong pressure from vocal community groups, despite, in their heart of hearts, probably thinking that they should have been approved.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

Maybe I just do not understand this, but it is being taken in a direction that I was not aware that it was going in. My understanding is that the whole purpose of this is to include assets on a list so that when it came to a point of disposal, the local community could have a say in what happened to that. If the right hon. Gentleman is right—what he is suggesting is that assets will not show on a list—it seems to be that it can actually influence what the owner of that asset does while in ownership, even if there is no sale contemplated. I did not know that was the case.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

It is about disposal, as the hon. Gentleman says, but equally the presence of a particular area or item on a list will have a blighting effect on any proposals for subsequent use. I am sure that those who are able to get expert legal advice would find all sorts of ways to challenge a use that they do not want of something that has been listed as an asset of community value, and that is the risk.

The response that the Minister has given has simply been a process-driven approach, which seems very unconvincing in a real-world context, so I ask him to think again. He knows that clause 82, which deals with compensation, makes no reference whatsoever to circumstances of a vexatious application. Unless there is a clear steer from this House or, in the absence of a decision here, from the other place that any vexatious application can be challenged and will be subject to compensation claims, I think we will see misuse of this provision—which most of us welcome—because of the lack of clarity in the detailed arrangements. Many of us have said this in previous debates.

It would be far better if the Minister—even if he cannot accept the amendment—did not just say it is not necessary, but gave a very clear indication of what the Government intend to do to deter vexatious applications. His earlier answer implied that it was simply a matter for the local authority to assess on an objective basis and decide whether this was an asset of community value. As I have said, under pressure from highly vocal elements in a community, local authorities will often take the line of least resistance and place something on a register. That would have serious adverse consequences in the long term that many people would regret. At the moment there appears to be absolutely no safeguard against that and, if the Bill proceeds without the kind of provision that I am advocating, I fear that all of the anxieties—voiced by the CBI, business interests and others—that this will be abused in order to stop desirable development, will come to pass. That would be a tragedy.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, York Central)

I take it from that speech that Mr Raynsford is seeking to press his amendment to a vote when we reach that point in proceedings. Perhaps the Minister would like to respond?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

It might be helpful to the Committee if I did. I gave a process-driven answer because this Bill is about setting in place the mechanics—a process. Of course a process must take the real world into account, but so too must the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. I say again, there is no such thing as an “application”—the word does not appear in the Bill. I think he means nomination, which, like a nomination for an Oscar, can mean anything or nothing. It is not until you receive the Oscar that it actually comes into play.

It is extremely likely that Greenwich park will turn out to be an asset of community value in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I do not want to prejudge any consultation or legislation, but if ever there was an asset of community value in his constituency I think that is it. The listing of Greenwich park as an asset of community value has absolutely no bearing on whether part of that park is used for a horse show for three or four weeks during the Olympics. The right hon. Gentleman knows that he is stretching the point to reach an argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East made it clear that that argument does not stand up, in shorter words and more eloquently than I could. Let us have a Division if the right hon. Gentleman believes it is worthwhile, but I put it to him—and I hope that this will not go amiss—that he is backing the wrong horse.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Let me respond briefly to the Minister’s comments on the 12-week period. We thought 12 weeks was more realistic and appropriate in the circumstances in part because of the pressure now being placed on local authorities to reduce staff numbers, and I would like that recorded. I beg to ask leave to withdraw my amendment.

Clause 77

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I have a quick question. If a land has been unsuccessfully nominated, various processes and appeals may have been gone through. Will the Minister explain the logic and reason for maintaining the list? The Federation of Master Builders thinks it particularly onerous, which links in with my previous concern, and its written evidence says:

“The provisions will create an additional administrative duty for local authorities already struggling to meet their current obligations on drastically reduced budgets. The administrative duty is likely to be considerable as they will have to resource the maintenance of two registers, processing of applications for land to be listed, communication with applicants, management of the review process, monitoring, and enforcement.”

I want to understand the Minister’s logic as to why we need the second list.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

It is important to take a look at subsection (1), which makes it clear that the list relates to nominations made by community organisations. Although I accept the point made by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich that there could be a vexatious community organisation, those nominated by communities would be on the unsuccessful nomination. There are two overlapping reasons why that register will be useful. First, it will enable communities to view the reasons why a community nomination was unsuccessful, thus making the decision transparent and accountable. Secondly, it will help community organisations to prepare any subsequent nomination more effectively—not necessarily a subsequent nomination for that particular item—because they will understand more fully what the criteria are and how they apply in the circumstances of their neighbourhood and community. From the local authority’s point of view, if it receives a nomination for an asset that has already been unsuccessfully nominated, it can easily check the reasons for that, and consideration of the subsequent nomination can then be speeded up, focusing if necessary on any fresh evidence or fresh reasons given. In itself, I do not see that as onerous. The data will exist. No doubt, in this day and age, they will be computerised as they are dealt with, and their maintenance will be straightforward.

The clause allows for regulations to be made that specify the form of the list, the content of entries, how an entry can be modified or removed, and what should be done in cases where there are multiple owners, occupiers or estates with interest in the asset. There is no reason that the list should not run on from a list of successful nominations with a second part, which would be a list of unsuccessful nominations. That does not need to be the bureaucratic nightmare that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View hinted that her representations had dredged up. In the interests of transparency for the community, and for efficient administration on the local authority’s part, I hope that she sees that this is the appropriate way to go.

Word has reached me that I need to make it clear to the Committee that, in regulations, it is likely that a community nomination will include a local individual, so, perhaps I gave a misleading impression that Mr Vexatious would not have the refusal of his application listed. Then again, perhaps in the big picture, it might be just as useful for people to understand why Mr Vexatious was unsuccessful as it is to understand why others were successful.

Clause 79

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I beg to move amendment 116, in clause 79, page 56, line 22, leave out ‘C’ and insert ‘D’.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, York Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 117, in clause 79, page 56, line 31, at end insert—

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

It is important that the Committee has an opportunity to debate fully some concerns that groups have expressed in their written evidence. At this stage, the amendments are likely to be probing, unless the Minister says something outrageous. He has not done that yet.

Amendment 116 is a consequential amendment relating to amendment 117, so we will not spend time on it.

Amendment 117 would introduce the right of first refusal for community groups on land that is to be disposed of, where it is listed as land of community value. A similar system exists in Scotland, where the community has the right of first refusal, and it has time to try to raise the necessary funds before an asset is placed on the open market. That model, however, has been criticised for the bureaucracy involved and the way that private sector interests have been marginalised. The amendment, therefore, does not propose to introduce that model.

We seek to introduce a community right of first refusal on an asset that is already used for public benefit. The right of first refusal would relate only to assets that were on the list of land of community value and which were held by the public or third sector. The amendment specifically would not give the right of first refusal to communities in relation to privately held assets. That should reassure business, because such assets would still go to the open market, in which the community would bid after a moratorium period, as in the Bill. We feel, however, that where a community asset is held by the public or third sector for the community’s benefit, there is a strong case for giving the community the chance to bid for that asset in advance of it being subject to competition on the market. We believe that where an asset is used for the public benefit, the presumption should be in favour of maintaining the asset for public benefit.

The Co-op expressed concern about that issue in one of its submissions:

“The initial moratorium (interim window) period of a suggested 6 weeks may be unnecessarily ‘long’ where it is clear that there is no community interest from the outset. Therefore there is a case that the length of time could be reduced or removed by Local Authority discretion. Relevant community groups should be able to express an interest in a shorter space of time given that the full ‘window of opportunity’ would then come into effect. Communities should be given as much support as possible by local authorities to bring forward a business case to ensure that the ‘full window’ mechanism is not invoked unnecessarily or simply used to delay the valid private sale of an asset.”

Although that take on the matter is slightly different, the Committee should consider it as part of its discussion of the clause.

This limited power, which will not damage private landowners’ interest in their own land, will add an extra level of community protection. We hope that the Committee will give it fair consideration and its support.

The Real Power for Communities campaign, which is supported by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, London Civic Forum, Runnymede Trust, Age UK and many other voluntary and community organisations, has expressed genuine concern that, without this power, community groups would have to compete against others in the open market. It flagged up that 5,000 community assets are currently under threat from the Treasury fire sale of community assets because the Government do not desire to see them in community use. To date, only 200 assets have been bought back by the community.

Community Matters goes further in its belief that this clause is a threat to youth and community centres, libraries—despite the rather interesting comments at the weekend from the Culture Secretary in which he eschewed localism in favour of central control over libraries—and heritage buildings.

I hope that the Minister will look at the amendments and listen to the concerns being voiced by some very influential groups in the voluntary and community sector.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

The right of first refusal is intuitively attractive until one begins to think about it. I am pleased that it excludes private property, for reasons that I have already mentioned.

However, I have also mentioned that in 2000-01 Bradford sold off some 57 former middle schools because we were desperately in need of funds for the reorganisation of schools from three tier to two tier. We sold those schools at the market rate to get as much money as possible. There is an argument, and I hope that people are not too offended by it, that it was a deeply conservative act, because many of the schools that we sold off were created by the school board formed in 1875 following the great Liberal William Forster’s Elementary Education Act 1870. I will bore you to tears on that subject very soon.

One could argue that using the funds generated is a very useful way of recycling an asset into other assets of community and public sector value. Perhaps I have misunderstood the amendment, but the recycling of the money that we received at market value enabled us to extend and build new schools, which was a very good use of the money. The money was not lost to the community; it was recycled into other purposes.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

This is not about giving the community a cut-price deal; it is about giving it the right of first refusal. The community may well have to pay market rate for an asset, but it will get the first bite of the cherry.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

This might strike up a conversation or dialogue, but I am not sure what “first refusal” then means. Without going to market, how does one know that one is receiving as much as possible for an asset?

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Carry on.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

I am asking you to intervene.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

The right of first refusal gives the community an opportunity. Generally speaking, a community group is not a business going to market looking for properties. The property is on the list and, therefore, is up for disposal. A community group will need a little more time than the average business to organise, plan and decide whether it wants to buy the asset. There will need to be community-wide discussions on such things. Giving communities the right of first refusal provides a breathing space. As a limited time period is involved, it does not necessarily affect the market value or potential income.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

I thank the hon. Lady.

Heidi Alexander (Labour, Lewisham East)

I have a short comment and a short question. The amendment proposed by Opposition Front Benchers is particularly important with regard to the next couple of months. While the Localism Bill has yet to be enacted, local authorities all over the country are taking decisions in setting budgets for the next financial year. As we know, possibly hundreds of libraries may have to be closed—fortunately, I hope, not in my local authority, as we may have found other community solutions. It is incredibly important in the next two months, indeed year, to allow community groups in the new world of localism the time to get to grips with what assets may become available and exactly how they might finance a bid for them.

As for my question, the Minister of State and I touched on the matter at the Communities and Local Government Committee yesterday. The question is relevant to the clause, but also more generally to this area of the Bill. Will the Under-Secretary of State say a little more about the work that the Department is doing on the definition of best value? That will be an important consideration for local authorities in relation to this area of legislation. What progress is being made on possibly reworking the definition of best value, as I see it having a direct impact on this area of the Bill?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I make it clear that the Bill already provides a power to enable, through regulations, community groups the right to make the first offer. In other words, both public and private owners will be able to sell their assets to a community group while that window of opportunity is open.

I am not sure that we have precisely explored the window and how it works. The principle of it is that there will be an interval during which that asset, if it is about to go on the market, cannot be sold until the community groups have had an opportunity to consider whether they want to proceed and make an offer. There is a six-week initial period when there is an opportunity for any relevant community group to come forward and say it is considering making an offer. Then there is the moratorium, on which we are consulting for three to six months—we will wait to see what views come back—during which time the community group can put an offer on the table. That, therefore, gives those community groups an advantage over other purchasers, who would have to wait until the end of the moratorium. To that extent, amendment 117 does not grant additional rights to such community groups.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The Minister is describing this as though it is simply a matter of properties placed on the market. Will he confirm that under clause 80(3) it is perfectly possible for a

“a grant, assignment or surrender of a qualifying leasehold estate”

or part of it, to be caught by this? Therefore, a business that is simply proposing a transfer of an element of a landholding to another party for a particular consideration, with no intention of marketing on the open market, could be caught by that.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

The right hon. Gentleman is right that it covers leaseholding as well as outright ownership. That is simply to reflect the fact that if there was a leasehold of longer than 25 years, it would be treated under the Bill in the same way as outright ownership. I hope that is an accurate answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question. In other words, the shape of the Bill at the moment achieves what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View wanted to achieve with her amendment. So whether we call it a right of first refusal or a moratorium during which a bid or an offer can be made, one gets essentially the same outcome.

The hon. Lady quite rightly pointed out that the Scottish system has turned out to be rather slow moving and not to have produced the benefits that people expected of it. It was also specifically a rural rather than an urban policy. The hon. Lady and I are on the same page here—that is not the way to go. There would be a cost in introducing a formal proposal along the lines that she has suggested, which is estimated to be £14.7 million every year in new burdens cost to local authorities. It is right that the matter should be aired and I hope that, having heard the discussion, the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I beg to move amendment 111, in clause 79, page 57, line 5, after ‘authority’, insert

‘following consultation with appropriate bodies for a period of not less than 12 weeks,’.

I can be brief. This amendment would add a requirement for consultation into the process that the Secretary of State has to follow before prescribing regulations pertaining to the moratorium period. It is an added protection for business, which was slightly concerned that this clause is anti-growth whereas the Bill is designed to support economic growth.

The standard length of time for a consultation is 12 weeks and that is the period that we have put into our amendment. I know that occasionally the Government ignore that 12-week period, as we saw over Christmas with the housing consultation process. We think that the 12-week period is appropriate. We want to ensure that consultations, where possible, are held to a high standard and are carried out with time for considered responses to be presented.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

The amendment would commit the Government to consult on the length of the interim moratorium, the full moratorium and the protected period. The protected period is the interval of time after an unsuccessful nomination has fallen and before a new nomination can be made in respect of that asset. I do not think that point had been made in the debate. We absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. I should point out that we have started that consultation. That is what the consultation document is. It will run for 12 weeks and it seeks views on the length of the interim moratorium period, the full moratorium period and the protected moratorium period.

So we have anticipated what the hon. Lady wants to achieve with the amendment. I can certainly assure her that when we draft the regulations, we will carefully consider the responses that we receive. We are promoting the consultation widely; in fact, I have probably mentioned it a couple of dozen times myself this morning. We are speaking to many interested parties throughout the process. If the hon. Lady would like to direct more publicity about the consultation to other organisations, or to channel them to us, I would be delighted. But we do not need amendment 111 because we are already doing exactly what it asks.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I am sure that assiduous readers of the Committee papers and the proceedings in Hansard will pick up references to the consultation and rush out to put submissions in. Clearly, it is important that people participate, and I am sure that a number of those who have already submitted documents to the Committee will want to make submissions to the consultation. My amendment was probably tabled before the consultation was released, so I am glad that we were on the same wavelength on that one at least.

We have had short debates on the amendments, but other issues have been raised about the clause. This is where the chapter starts to have some teeth, and it would be remiss of the Committee to let the clause go without looking again at some of its implications. The submissions received on the subject were wide-ranging, and the queries and concerns that were raised by outside organisations and groups deserve our attention and consideration.

The Development Trusts Association and bassac, which are soon to merge to form Locality, do not feel that the clause is strong enough, but conversely, groups representing pubs think that it goes too far. I am concerned to hear from the Minister that he is satisfied that he has struck the right balance. If he is not, will he further consider some of the later submissions, before the clause is considered again on Report?

A submission from the Development Trusts Association states clearly that the moratorium must be a minimum of six months, and all such comments can be fed into a consultation process. The association would also like to have a provision for an extended moratorium for when community groups initially make progress and then stall, as we have seen in some of the Scottish examples. It says:

“Our experience across the country is that community asset acquisition, even by the most capable and well-established community organisations, takes typically from six months to a year to progress to the point of purchase…Anything less will mean that community efforts will end in frustration.”

In contrast, the British Beer and Pub Association is worried that the moratorium, far from allowing for the preservation of pubs as functioning community assets, will prevent them from continuing in business:

“This would mean that when an asset is put up for sale a ‘moratorium period’ would come into play during which time the Community would have the chance to get together a group and the means to buy the premises or the lease or tenancy in order to prevent the pub or other asset from changing use. This would appear to come into effect whether or not the sale of the property as a going concern to another party had been agreed…This would in effect blight the business-to-business sale of viable pubs which would be subject to this procedure, where there is no intention to remove that facility from the community.”

I am sure that the pubs Minister, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who is not in his place at the moment, will want to look into that, and we have a debate in the House tomorrow that I am sure will revisit some of the matters. Both sides of the Committee probably agree that it would be the worst possible outcome if the provisions backfired and ended up depriving communities of community assets.

The clause needs to balance conflicting views. Gareth Elliott, from the British Chambers of Commerce, has said:

“Our concern there, again, is whether that could be used as an anti-development tool. One view is that assets such as land that are put up for development could be given a sort of village-green status, which has happened previously, especially around Bristol. The moratorium could impact on the value of an asset that a business owned, and it might make it difficult for the business to dispose of or expand on that asset.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 27 January 2011; c. 114, Q191.]

The BCC, too, feels that it needs more reassurance.

I am interested to know what the Minister thinks about the moratorium period. There are conflicting and extremely polarised views, and it will be interesting to see just how much consensus there is, and who will adjudicate, when ultimately we get the result of the consultation.

The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who will lead the debate tomorrow, made a strong case on Second Reading about the moratorium, and I am sure that he will be encouraged to respond to the consultation as well. He felt that a six-month moratorium was appropriate and would give communities enough of a chance to seek the necessary finance.

Given the divergence of views on the matter, I just want reassurance from the Minister on what will happen when we have the outcome of the consultation. It will be helpful to know when he expects that to be. Will it be at a time when we can give further views, perhaps following consideration of the Bill in the Lords? Is there a time scale on the consultation? Will the Minister please bear in mind the concerns raised outside the House?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I thank the hon. Lady for the constructive manner in which she approached this part of the Bill.

I agree that clause 79 is crucial to this part of the Bill. It affords something that has not been available before and which community groups, and often councils themselves, have wanted for a long time. That is the capacity for local neighbourhoods and communities to get a handle on and safeguards over the facilities on which they depend.

The clause creates a window of opportunity for eligible community groups to organise themselves to get a business plan together and raise the funding that they need to buy an asset that they wish to keep for their local neighbourhood. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View is right: there are tensions in the process, which we discussed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East brought them into sharp focus in the debate.

There is tension between different rights and interests, and there is potentially tension between the wish of a local community to use the assets in its neighbourhood and the wider interests of economic growth. Therefore, we have spent some time working through a provision that balances those interests effectively, and various aspects of that have already arisen in the debate. There has been discussion about exactly what an eligible community interest group is, and we have a route in the legislation to deal with that.

This is the main debate about the periods of time for the different windows in the Bill. Our view is that a full window of opportunity of six months represents an achievable time frame for community groups to organise themselves and to raise finance, and it would not be a disproportionate inconvenience for asset owners. However, that is part of the consultation. The interim window should be six weeks, which is the time in which a community group has to register an initial interest.

If no community bidder has come forward, the protected period beyond the moratorium, in which the owner is free to sell the asset, should be 18 months. However, we are very keen to receive views on the suggestions. I agree with the hon. Lady that, in that respect, the consultation, which ends on 3 May, is important. It is also important not to put in place something that displaces existing good practice, because local authorities and other owners are often willing to collaborate with community groups.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I am pleased to hear that the consultation is likely to end before we complete our deliberations on the Bill. It would be helpful for the Committee to have some sort of breakdown of the submissions that are specific to clause 79, and ideally to have sight of some of those submissions when we are preparing for the final stages of the Bill.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I agree with the hon. Lady that it would be good if we could do that, and maybe I will know shortly whether that is possible.

I was about to say that, according to the information at the Department, in 2010 87% of local authorities in England reported that they were already engaged in some community asset transfer action. We know that well over 200 rural communities have taken village shops into community ownership, so we should not assume that nothing has happened anywhere so far. We need to build on good practice, and we certainly do not want inadvertently to create a system that prevents any of that.

The hon. Lady has made the point that it might be necessary in some circumstances to have longer than six months. If it is public land—if a local authority or a Government Department holds the asset—there is nothing to prevent the owner of that asset from saying to a community group, “Of course you can have longer. We will let the process take whatever it takes.” It is right for owners of assets in the private sector to have some certainty, which is why we propose that window of six months, responding to some of the concerns that lay behind what my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East had to say. Again, if strong voices in the response to the consultation document said that the moratorium period should be longer, we would want to take that into account.

We have thoroughly rehearsed what I consider to be an innovative and powerful new tool to empower local communities, the heart of which is in clause 79. I hope that the Committee is ready to approve it.

Clause 80

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Earlier I raised the question of the definition of disposal, and I would be grateful if the Minister said a little more about the implications of clause 80. As he acknowledged in his response to my intervention, it is not simply a question of open market disposal of a freehold property. The drafting of the clause allows grants, assignments or surrenders of qualifying leasehold interests to fall within the provisions. I specifically identified the potential scope for a transfer of assets within a company for commercial purposes, which, if it involved a transfer of a leasehold interest, would—as I read the provision—be caught by that.

Let us look at a real-world scenario in which, let us say, a developer is assembling a package of land with a view to carrying out some future development. Very often, that is a long process in which different elements have to be acquired, and some possibly have to be sold as part of that process of exchanges of land. I can well imagine a circumstance in which either a local community group that was hostile in principle to the concept of a development, or—this is where it becomes much more complex—a competitor or rival commercial interest that sees the scope for a development by one of its competitors and sees the opportunity to frustrate that development if certain elements of land within the area being considered were designated assets of community value, might try to use the procedure to frustrate the potential of their competitor to assemble the land for development.

All those possibilities should give us pause for thought, because we have been warned repeatedly by many interests, including business interests, that this particular provision could be used to frustrate desirable and necessary developments. This pretty loose definition seems to me—perhaps the Minister will tell me if I am wrong—to cover a whole range of circumstances, not just open market disposal of assets. There is considerable scope for these provisions to be abused in order to pursue purely commercial interests, using a front group of community activists to get a particular building listed as an asset of community value.

Uncertainty is always cited by developers as a factor that is likely to inhibit development, and if there is not enough uncertainty there already, look at subsection (7) of the clause:

“The appropriate authority may by order amend this section.”

A Henry VIII power once again. The Secretary of State—because that covers the Secretary of State: it is only written that way because it also applies to the Welsh Government—has absolute power to amend this provision. So the definition of what a disposal is could be amended at the say-so of the Secretary of State. The produces huge uncertainty. Why is that necessary? Why is there that scope for the Secretary of State to amend provisions that ought to be as precise and clear as possible, in order to avoid these uncertainties and potential difficulties?

I was not happy with the Minister’s previous response on the issue of vexatious applications or nominations for inclusion on the register. The uncertainty that is implicit in the definition already set out in the clause, and in particular the scope for that to be amended in any way that the Secretary of State chooses, could prove very damaging. It could contribute to the purposes of this part of the Bill—which we support as being generally well-conceived—being frustrated by abuse and by inappropriate use for purposes that are different from those the Government say they support. So I hope the Minister can explain exactly how wide the scope is for the application of these provisions, what circumstances will be excluded, and how the Secretary of State may intend to use those extraordinary powers in subsection (7).

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I will certainly say to the right hon. Gentleman that there are many circumstances where it is open to members of the public, community groups or whatever to recommend to local authorities that they should take certain action. That is particularly the case with heritage buildings and conservation areas. I am sure he is right that some of those nominations are made with secondary intentions about the preservation of heritage. But local authorities have a set of criteria that they apply as to whether a building should be heritage listed, or whether they will designate a conservation area, or whether they will introduce an article 4 direction in respect of heritage features. We should be more aware of the capacity of local authorities to deal with those matters than the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

I do not dismiss, however, the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes about the assembly of land for major redevelopments, for example. Particularly in the urban context, that may be a situation where there are going to be legitimate areas of discussion between community groups and developers about the future use of land. There will be an opportunity to examine some of those issues during the consideration of later clauses relating to neighbourhood and community plans. One would suppose that with the passage of this Bill, most communities that share the intention the right hon. Gentleman describes would want to pursue that through the planning route rather than the community nomination route.

What the placing of a piece of land or a building on the register will do—if a local authority decides to do it—is give a community group the right to an interval of time when it can make a bid to purchase that land. It does not give it an automatic right to succeed, or a timeless period in which to succeed.

We therefore have a proportionate mechanism that gives local community groups the opportunity to get their toe in the door, but which does not unreasonably constrain landowners in going about their proper and appropriate business. The ring-holder will be the local authority, which will decide whether a building or piece of land is accepted on to the register. As we have discussed, that is a transparent process, with the reasons for or against, in the case of a refusal, being available for all to see.

I do not, therefore, discount the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and it is important that we have a mechanism that deals with them. The clause does that, but his words today and any that he submits on the consultation document can clearly be taken into account as we proceed.

That brings me to clause 87. As the right hon. Gentleman said, that clause refers to “appropriate authority” because it concerns Wales as well as England. The provisions provide an opportunity to conduct a review of the operation of clause 80 and, if necessary, to make changes in future years without returning to primary legislation. Given that this is such a new procedure, and given many of the issues that we have debated, which involve complex decisions about the proportionality of the mechanisms, it is entirely right that clause 87 should be there to provide that opportunity.

I may have misled the Committee earlier when I talked about the protected period after an unsuccessful window. I may mistakenly have said that it was 18 months. In fact, the overall period is 18 months, and the period of the moratorium is 12 months. That should now be clear and on the record.

Clause 82

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

I beg to move amendment 120, in clause 82, page 58, line 2, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘must’.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, York Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 121, in clause 82, page 58, line 4, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘must’.

Amendment 112, in clause 82, page 58, line 18, leave out first ‘the’ and insert ‘an independent’.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

The amendments are in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay. Let me make this short and sweet. The amendments are about replacing “may” with “must”. I have made my point about the inclusion of private ownership ad nauseam. I was battered down by the weight of opinion on that, so the very least that we can do is insist that compensation is made available, rather than suggesting that it may be made available.

The need for compensation could derive from a number of situations. There may be a loss of value as the result of the very fact that an asset is listed. There may be a lost sale as a result of the moratorium. The moratorium may delay a sale or result in a loss of value. The amendments would make it clear in the Bill that there was an obligation to pay compensation. I am aware that there is an argument that the courts may provide for people who are adversely affected, but I would hope that somebody who was selling land would not need to resort to the courts and could be catered for by including the word “must” in the Bill.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

The hon. Member for Bradford East makes a very interesting point, together with his colleague the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay who is at the other end of the Bench—they are a bit like bookends at the back there. I am surprised that the clause does not at any point set out the circumstances in which compensation might, or indeed would, be granted. We heard in relation to clause 79 that business clearly has a major concern. We know how strongly the hon. Member for Bradford East feels about business concerns, and I do not think anyone on the Committee wants to see businesses or landowners being done out of a fair deal or not being able to claim, quite properly, compensation. I, too, am not quite sure why there is a permissive nature to the clause. We will wait to hear what the Minister says before deciding whether we will support the amendment if it is pressed to a vote.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East and for St Austell and Newquay for their amendment because it gives me the opportunity to say that we have already indicated the Government’s commitment to establishing a compensation scheme. I reassure my hon. Friends that there will be a compensation scheme. We had some interesting semantic discussions at an earlier stage about the “may” and “must” and “might” and “will” language that appears in legislation. I am certainly not a parliamentary draftsman—for which I am rather grateful, to be honest.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, York Central)

Probably we are, too.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

Yes. I want to assure my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East and for St Austell and Newquay that their amendment is not necessary because we are extremely sympathetic to their intention. We have already said that there will be a compensation scheme. I say to my hon. Friends that it is right to put on the record that that is the case. Of course, in that familiar document much referred to today—the consultation paper—views are invited on some of the issues surrounding how that scheme might be arranged. Section 12 of the consultation document and questions 36 to something like 42 cover that. I encourage my hon. Friends to respond specifically to those questions and to withdraw their amendment.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Some of the concerns that Labour Members had resulted from evidence that we had received in writing and orally during the course of the witness sessions. We were concerned that within the process there was no scope for an independent review of these decisions. We had a discussion earlier today about the need for an independent review, and the Minister said that there was an option to go to judicial review. I suspect that businesses that are most likely to be affected and landowners will have no hesitation in doing that. Actually, this could prove to be quite a costly and long-drawn-out process.

The previous Government were looking at the whole issue of community assets and set up the Quirk review in 2007. One of the key outcomes was:

“Any sale or transfer of public assets to community ownership and management needs to realise social or community benefits without risking wider public…concerns”,

but with this there are wider concerns among the public and business. Pete Redfern from Taylor Wimpey said in the witness session:

“If I may, I will pick up on the assets of community value. We hear the assets of community value described as pubs and post offices—things that are in existing, formal, community use. There is a desire to protect them, so we can understand the provision. We accept that that has gone into the Bill relatively late in the drafting and that therefore there is not an awful lot of detail. Our fear is that it has huge potential for abuse.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 86, Q141.]

The company was also concerned about delays and impacts, and financial risks to business as a part of the process.

There needs to be a strong package so that business can have confidence and faith in compensation, but none of that is clear at present. I still think that on Report, obviously following the outcome of the much-vaunted consultation process, we may need to see something a little clearer on the compensation element, and I suspect that hon. Members who have already spoken are equally concerned. Therefore, I would like to come back to this on Report if we are not wholly satisfied.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

Clause 82 gives the appropriate authority—the Secretary of State, in the case of England—powers to provide for the payment of compensation to owners of listed land, if it should be necessary. It lists aspects of the compensation scheme that may be specified in regulations. I say that in respect of amendment 120, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East. We recognise that it is likely that payment of compensation will be necessary to balance the interference with the rights of property owners. Our current view is that such compensation should be available to private property owners and should relate to costs directly incurred as a result of the operation of the scheme, but we are keen to hear the views of interested parties through the consultation process and will be taking those views carefully into account.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View now knows that the consultation responses will have been published by the time we reach further stages of consideration of the Bill, and I look forward to her being satisfied by those responses and by the construction of the clause. I ask the Committee to give approval to it.

Clause 88

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I have a few quick points to make on the clause, which sets it out that a community nomination could be

“part of a building… part of any other structure, and… mines and minerals, whether or not held with the surface”.

I am hoping that the Minister can shed some light on why minerals are included, as they are the software to the hardware of building and land. The Mineral Products Association has concerns that interchanging the terms “assets of community value” and “land of community value” is misleading—we touched on that earlier. It appears that the designation of “assets of community value” could apply not just to land, but to buildings and any uses of that land, including mineral working. The MPA would like clarification on that.

A similar concern is that such designations could be applied to areas with a mineral interest. The local authority with responsibility for designating assets of community value will not, in many cases, be the mineral planning authority. Therefore, to prevent the unnecessary sterilisation of mineral resources, it is essential that the agreement of the mineral planning authority is obtained on each decision, and that it is consulted and kept informed.

Mineral deposits, rather like rivers, are no respecters of boundaries. The minehead might be in one place, but the mine’s lode and underground workings could extend some miles further, so an asset of community value could apply to an area further along the mine shaft. The problem is similar to that with rivers and I would welcome the Minister’s comments on it.

Other issues have been raised with me. For example, a company might have a landholding that it intends to quarry at some stage, because it knows that there is a mineral deposit underneath it. The community, however, decides that it wants to list the land that it sees on the surface. The owner does not want to sell, but wants to dig a big hole, which will change the nature of the listed land. How does the Bill address such a scenario?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

First, items (a) to (c) simply relate to the standard definition in the Interpretation Act 1978. I am reliably informed that it covers every sort of land, and that mines and minerals are part of that. That represents the parliamentary drafters at their best again. The hon. Lady also asked a relevant question, drawing on the example of mineral extraction, about whether the provision may be used to sterilise future growth and development. The answer is that the land will still be in the ownership of the extractor. It will be dealt with through a planning application—having participated in a debate on Friday on open-cast coal mining, I have become slightly more expert on this—and the process includes a range of things, including environmental impact assessments and so on. In other words, the case of which she speaks will be covered by planning legislation, not a community asset listing.

Following that logic, one can apply for planning permission on land that one does not own, so, even in the event of a community holding land, it would not be out of order for an application to be made over its head in relation to that site.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

A mine shaft could go for many miles to the east of a minehead, and it could go underneath a piece of land that had been listed because there was something else on it. If the mine owner needed to put a significantly sized ventilation shaft on that piece of land for safety reasons, but it had been designated for a particular purpose, would that be problematic?

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I think that it might be problematic, but not for the reason suggested by the hon. Lady. Clearly, that mine shaft would have to be on land that was owned either by the mine owner or by someone whom they had persuaded to give them permission to use it. That seems to me to be the relevant consideration, rather than whether there was land of community value in the general neighbourhood. That is covered by planning and, possibly, other legislation, but it is certainly not relevant to the clause.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

I have an example to add to the debate. My constituency includes an area called Chat Moss, which comprises 30% of the land area of Salford. It is the largest area of grade 1 and grade 2 farmland in Greater Manchester, but its main contention in assets of community value terms is that it is an ancient piece of raised wet moss land. The contention is between companies that want to extract peat from it and charities such as Lancashire Wildlife Trust that want to return it to peat bog.

I offer that example, and I am sure that the Minister knows Chat Moss. Such issues can become contentious, and I expect that this one will. Planning is difficult, but I am sure that Chat Moss will be one of the first pieces of land of community value put forward for listing by the local council.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I cannot say that I know Chat Moss as well as the hon. Lady, but I have certainly travelled across it by train on many occasions. There are already plenty of situations in which one interest wishes a different outcome from another. Sometimes it is community groups or a wildlife trust on one side, and on the other might be landowners who want to exploit the land for one purpose or another. She has given a good example of a case in point.

However, such matters will be resolved by the planning system. I do not want to discuss specific applications too specifically, but, in principle, a wildlife trust that could show local connections and the participation of a relevant body would be in a position to bid if the land came up for sale. That is the point at which the legislation will become operational. The fact that land is listed as land of community value does not become a relevant consideration unless the land is being disposed of, or is intended to be disposed of, by the current owner. Whether it should be exploited by the current owner is a matter to be handled through the planning system, which will be dealt with in a subsequent part of the Bill.

Clause 89

Hugh Bayley (Labour, York Central)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 203, in schedule 8, page 287, line 3, leave out from ‘documents)’ to end of line 4 and insert—

Amendment 204, in schedule 8, page 287, line 10, at end insert—

Amendment 205, in schedule 8, page 287, line 12, leave out ‘omit paragraph (a)’ and insert

Amendment 153, in clause 90, page 61, line 4, leave out ‘or’ and insert—

Amendment 195, in clause 90, page 61, line 5, leave out lines 5 and 6 and insert—

Amendment 196, in clause 90, page 61, line 8, leave out ‘or (b)’ and insert ‘, (b) or (c)’.

Amendment 154, in clause 90, page 61, line 7, after ‘(a)’, insert ‘or (ab)’.

Amendment 197, in clause 90, page 61, line 13, at end insert ‘and

Amendment 155, in clause 90, page 61, line 15, at end insert—

Amendment 156, in clause 90, page 61, line 17, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—

Amendment 198, in clause 90, page 61, leave out lines 17 to 20 and insert—

Amendment 157, in clause 90, page 61, line 20, at end insert—

Amendment 199, in clause 90, page 61, leave out lines 21 to 30.

Amendment 200, in clause 90, page 61, line 31, leave out ‘have regard to’ and insert ‘act in accordance with’.

Amendment 201, in clause 90, page 61, line 36, at end insert—

Amendment 202, in clause 93, page 63, line 39, leave out from ‘report)’ to end of line 41 and insert ‘—

New clause 3—Purpose of planning—

New clause 4—Sustainable development—

New clause 5—Mitigation and adaption to climate change—

New clause 7—National planning policy framework—

New clause 9—Joint planning documents—

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

The town and country planning system is, along with the national health service, one of the enduring monuments of the post-war settlement secured by Clement Attlee’s Labour Government. Such post-war legislation represented an acknowledgement of the need for Government intervention in certain areas, in the public interest. It was a classic example of good government acting to empower each and every individual, asserting crucially the public interest in the development and use of land. However, as with the national health service, the system faces an uncertain future as a result of major reforms proposed by the Government, particularly those set out in the Bill.

It is with some bewilderment that my colleagues and I have watched the unfolding chaos that has come about as a consequence of the Government proposals. I have no doubt that many on the Government Benches share our sense of foreboding. Certainly, almost every organisation that we have spoken to about the proposed changes is of the same opinion; the Government have thrown the planning system into utter chaos. We should not be surprised because, as we understand it, that is what Ministers intend. In their vocabulary, according to the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), chaos is a good thing. He has made it clear that chaos is desirable in pursuit of the Government’s public policy objectives.

If chaos is the objective, Ministers should be congratulated on their delivery. The proposed changes to the planning system under the Bill and the actions taken by the Secretary of State to scrap the regional spatial strategies will deliver chaos by the bucket load. We accept that the planning system that the Government inherited was, like any planning system, capable of improvement. We agree that increased input by local people and local communities for the future of their areas and their built environment is absolutely vital to the success of any planning system.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way because this is an area of great passion for me. In the consultations that I have undertaken in the past two years, I found that the one thing that united everyone was the fact that the planning system was broken.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

It is certainly a system capable of improvement. However, I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that it is broken. Later I will discuss the strong views that I have heard that favour the Opposition’s position. Our planning system needs not the chaos that will be unleashed by the Government, but sensible reform in the public interest.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that despite his comments on planning, one thing that was universally accepted—certainly by local authorities, people and a large proportion of the businesses that we have seen and that made representations, including the British Council of Shopping Centres—was that the end of the regional spatial strategy was a good thing? It was one of the core centralist things under the planning system, and ending it was a really big step forward.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

The regional spatial strategies will go, but along with the Government’s proposals will come chaos, which I will expand on later. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt want to respond. The Bill as it stands will not deliver.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he and the Labour party support the abolition of the regional spatial strategies?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

No, we do not. The regional spatial strategies will go, and with them a number of key objectives that will not be met by what the Government are proposing. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman listens to all the concerns, including those that have been widely expressed, and then he can intervene again later on.

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

Does the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that with the regional spatial strategies will also go a huge layer of bureaucracy, which took up a huge amount of time for local government officials and members? They could have better spent that time in their local communities.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

It might help the debate if I could actually make the argument to which hon. Members can respond. The Bill, as it stands, will simply not deliver on many of the Government’s publicly stated objectives, which will harm the public interest in several areas. The Government claim—I summarise—that the planning reforms will contribute to economic growth, lead to increased levels of house building and empower local people. I am surprised that they have not claimed that they will wash whitest. It is clear, however, from the evidence given to the Committee, to which the Committee should listen, that without significant amendments, the Bill will lead to stasis in the planning system, stifle economic growth and house building, threaten advances on climate change and the protection of the environment, empower the few, not the many, institutionalise inequality in the planning system and downgrade democracy, particularly the role of democratically elected local councils.

Iain Stewart (Conservative, Milton Keynes South)

To pick up the hon. Gentleman’s last point about diminishing democratic control, I refer him to the situation in Milton Keynes, which had been told by the previous Government how far it should expand. In Milton Keynes, now that we have reached the initial planned size of the new city, we want to make that decision ourselves. Why is that not democratic?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

We will come to the heart of the undermining of the role of elected representatives when we reach the rather extraordinary proposals on neighbourhood forums. Milton Keynes is an admirable city, and I wish it well for the future. It will no doubt want to meet growing demand for local economic and housing development, and the hon. Gentleman will no doubt share my view that the last thing we need is nimbyism that impedes either of those objectives.

The Opposition believe that tabling amendments to strengthen the duty to co-operate, which is currently nothing more than a duty to talk, is essential to put sustainable development at the heart of planning, to strengthen the duty to consider climate change, which does not apply to the provisions of the Bill on neighbourhood planning, and to provide a statutory basis for the national planning policy framework. All those measures are essential for the proposals even to begin to amount to a planning system that is fit for purpose. Making such changes is all the more essential as a result of the Secretary of State’s actions to date, because it is clear that we do not have a planning system that is fit for purpose.

The abolition of the regional spatial strategies and, crucially, how it has been handled has thrown the planning system into complete confusion. It has created a vacuum at the heart of the planning system that will not be filled until the Bill receives Royal Assent, which could be as late 2012. The way the current planning system has been torn up for the proposed new system has proved nothing short of a disaster for house building. The proposed replacement will not offer the necessary framework to resolve greater-than-local issues.

Henry Smith (Conservative, Crawley)

Does the hon. Gentleman not concede that the old, top-down regional planning system was highly undemocratic? As a local authority leader, I remember it being a disaster in terms of the number of houses built, which was the lowest since the 1920s.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

As I shall argue later on, the current system is capable of improvement, but what is being proposed will not even begin to address the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about substantially increased house building.

We can all agree that not everything can be, or indeed should be, decided at national level. Local decisions and local participation are all vital if we are to ensure the best outcomes for planning and service provision, but it is essential that we recognise that not everything can be decided and managed most efficiently at local level; in particular, housing, waste management and sustainability. They are all, necessarily, cross-boundary issues; they are larger than local. To ensure efficiency and quality, those types of services must be organised at a level that encompasses more than simply the local.

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

How many layers of government do we need? We already have the influence of the European Union on those issues, and we have a national Government. Is it not sufficient that local communities decide their destiny on those issues without the intervention of yet another layer of government at regional level?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

With respect, I find that intervention somewhat surprising, because what is being proposed is a duty to co-operate, which relates, at least in theory, to more than just one local authority area. As I will argue in some detail, as it stands the duty to co-operate is a vapid concept incapable of delivering sub-regional strategic planning on a range of key issues. If those key issues are not addressed properly, there will be serious consequences not just for the planning system, but for the Government’s own stated public policy objectives.

The Government’s decision to scrap regional spatial strategies and replace them with nothing more than a duty to talk poses huge risks to all the issues that require larger-than-local co-operation. The removal of the regional spatial strategies was sudden and no transitional mechanisms were put in place to help local authorities adapt to, or even understand, the new system. The negative impacts of the sudden removal of what was a regional spatial strategy planning framework have already been felt across different sectors, including housing, which I will discuss later.

For all their weaknesses, the RSSs provided crucial, much-needed guidance to local authorities on issues that cross local authority boundaries; in particular, housing, infrastructure, energy supply and waste management. I stress again that they are all larger-than-local issues that are hugely important to everyone, locally and on a sub-regional basis, and that, crucially, they require co-ordination at a level above that of the council to guarantee effective and efficient provision. The RSSs—again, for all their weaknesses—provided that much-needed co-ordination, yet the Government have scrapped them without putting in place any meaningful transition mechanisms, and as it stands the duty to co-operate will not work either.

It is important that hon. Members on the Government Benches listen to the evidence given to the Committee. David Orr, of the National Housing Federation, said:

“Removing regional spatial strategies, without putting anything in their place, was a short-term mistake”.––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 65, Q109.]

Peter Redfern, the chief executive of Taylor Wimpey, said that the hasty abolition of RSSs, without anything in their place, sent councils and developers “the wrong signal”:

“After the attempt to change RSS policy overnight, people shut up shop, not because they were anti-development but because they didn’t know where things were going.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 80, Q131.]

He is one of many in the private construction sector who has said that, both to the House and certainly in meetings I have held. The hasty removal, therefore, of the RSS has created a dangerous policy vacuum that has left too many local authorities stranded, sometimes in a state of confusion, and unable to understand exactly what is now being proposed for the future. For housing, the removal of the regional spatial strategies has been nothing short of disastrous. We know from the evidence of the National Housing Federation that plans for more than 200,000 homes have been scrapped.

Heidi Alexander (Labour, Lewisham East)

My hon. Friend might be interested to know that when the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government discussed the research commissioned by the National Housing Federation, the Secretary of State referred to the numbers of new house builds pulled out of the planning system, and described the research as somewhat iffy. I was quite concerned that he characterised the research in that way, and wondered whether my hon. Friend had any comment to make.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I am surprised at the typically cavalier approach of the Secretary of State—if Henry VIII can be cavalier—because the evidence was painstakingly researched and, as far as I am aware, with the exception of the Secretary of State, no one has challenged its validity.

The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark) rose—

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

Until now.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

Now is the moment. In fact the organisation that published the research gave it limited force. The report of Tetlow King said that the data were speculative, unofficial, subject to testing and examination, and only to be considered approximate, and that the majority of authorities are still sitting on the fence, or unprepared to comment. Even the people responsible for that evidence, therefore, caution against its being used as it was. I think that is what the Secretary of State had in mind when he said it was iffy.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I was not going to give these examples, but now I shall: it is not speculation that plans for 9,600 homes were scrapped by Bristol city council or that plans for 3,000 were scrapped by Exeter city council. Nor is it speculation that 10,750 planned homes were scrapped by North Somerset, or that 9,002 planned homes were scrapped by North Hertfordshire and Stevenage.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

The bulk of those examples are from the south-west, which has not even adopted a regional strategy, so it is hard to see how the revocation of regional strategies could possibly have influenced those decisions.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

It is the uncertainty generated by the Secretary of State and the decisions that have subsequently been made. The evidence is clear. Does the Minister challenge the figures? They come from the councils themselves.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Perhaps my hon. Friend will also bear in mind the fact that it is incontrovertible that the Secretary of State’s decision to try to abolish the regional spatial strategies last summer was struck down as unlawful in the High Court.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

It was indeed, and the cavalier failure to consult is likely, unfortunately, to lead to too much litigation in the years to come. I stress once again that the abolition of the regional spatial strategies and the absence of any significant transitional arrangements have created a mess.

What, then, of the alternative?

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

From my experience in the north-west of England I take issue with what the hon. Gentleman has said. In my experience as a councillor in Warrington the regional spatial strategies throttled some of Warrington’s development plans. That sub-region—a term I use with some hesitation as it is not one I like—comprising the new Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester unitary authorities, and Warrington—has now been set free from the regional spatial strategy’s big north-west plan. The authorities are free to work together, and they are doing that well on a range of issues, from prosperity and waste to alcohol harm reduction.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I know Warrington well and have travelled there many times over the years, because of the British Nuclear Fuels Ltd centre at Risley, just outside Warrington town centre. With respect to the hon. Member for Congleton, it would be interesting to hear what the warm glow in Warrington amounts to in terms of practical steps, new homes and new economic development.

It is one thing to have a belief that is almost messianic in its fervour for what it can deliver—that is not the case for the hon. Lady, but it is sometimes the case for the Secretary of State—but it is another thing to point to what has been delivered or to argue convincingly that something will be delivered. Once again I stress that the body of evidence to the Committee was overwhelming and clear: unless the duty to co-operate is significantly strengthened, that vapid concept will not deliver on the Government’s stated public policy objectives.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

I want to take the hon. Gentleman back to the issue of principle that he addressed earlier in his speech, and to the correct level at which decisions about housing should be made. Let us take as a hypothetical example that his constituents in Birmingham—whom he speaks of with great pride—do not want additional housing in their area. That is probably not the case. They probably want more affordable housing but let us assume that they do not, and that that is also the view of Birmingham city council. Does the hon. Gentleman think that someone sitting above the city of Birmingham should have the right to override that decision?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

The straight answer to a straight question is that if we believe there is a serious housing need that needs to be met, the idea that nimbyism should be allowed to frustrate the delivery of that much-needed housing is not acceptable. That raises difficult issues, including how to have a sensible sub-regional framework while also taking proper account of legitimate local concerns and sensitivities. I shall come to that issue later, but it is at the heart of the debate.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that answer, which I think was yes, he does believe that someone should have the right to overrule the city of Birmingham. Will he clarify two points? Who is the “we” he referred to when he said that if we believe that there is a pressing need for housing, there is the right to overrule the people of Birmingham? Does he think that his constituents share his view?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

On the hon. Gentleman’s latter point, the view of the constituency is clear and overwhelming, not least because of the mismanagement by Birmingham city council of its housing stock. There is a waiting list of 35,000 and growing, and a big demand for affordable homes both to rent and buy. On his former point, it will be interesting to hear from hon. Members who might believe with sincerity that the proposed framework will deliver more homes, for example. What is the evidence for that? How will they argue that point? How will they disregard the concerns expressed by those who have given evidence to the Committee? We look forward to that debate with some eagerness.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way one final time?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I will, one final time.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

The hon. Gentleman asked about the evidence. If he looks at other spheres in life, does he generally find that people are more likely to do something when they are incentivised to do it, or when someone tries to compel them? Which does he find more effective?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s speech later. The issue of incentive is important. However, the delivery of key public policy objectives such as housing, transport, waste management, infrastructure development or more general economic development requires sensible sub-regional planning arrangements, of the kind that are not included in the Bill because of the vapid concept of the duty to co-operate and to pick up the phone and talk, which is about as far as it might go.

James Morris (Conservative, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

The hon. Gentleman keeps describing the duty to co-operate provision as vapid, but there are many examples of such things around the country. I am thinking of the area I represent in the black country where four local authorities have demonstrated their ability to work collaboratively on a range of issues. Why should they not be perfectly capable of making the strategic decisions that he is referring to when he talks about sub-regional planning?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

Of course it is to be welcomed when local authorities co-operate sensibly to deliver what their communities need, but the key question is this. What happens if they refuse to co-operate with one another? What happens if the duty to co-operate simply stops at sending a letter and being told to take a running jump? Where do we go then? Hon. Members will have to address that in the course of this debate.

The new system that we are putting in place must deliver on the issues that require strategic planning. Those issues include housing needs, climate change mitigation and adaptation—in particular, flood risk—economic development including retail needs, energy needs and capacity, biodiversity, natural resource use including waste management, and transport. I stress again that the overwhelming body of evidence that came before the Committee in relation to all those issues—everyone was saying the same thing—was that without effective sub-regional planning, they would be immensely difficult to deliver.

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

One of the problems was that the planning was not sub-regional; it was regional—it was too big.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

Local authorities can and should take initiatives to meet needs. If that is right—unless the hon. Lady is saying that all those who have given evidence are suffering from a delusion about the need for sub-regional planning in relation to certain key issues, whether voluntary or structured—how will it be achieved through the Bill?

We now come to what the Bill does not say. Does it have anything to say about housing need? Nothing. What does the Bill have to say about economic development? Nothing. What does the Bill have to say about climate change, biodiversity and our country’s future energy needs? Nothing. The Government’s proposed resolution for those vital, greater-than-local strategic issues is a duty to talk and to shuffle paper. Not one of the organisations whose representatives we have met thinks that the duty to co-operate as proposed in the Bill is sufficient or in any way capable of dealing with the strategic issue that I have just mentioned. Indeed, if we look at the body of evidence that has been given to us, we see that we could assemble the friends of the Government’s proposals for a duty to co-operate in a telephone box.

Matt Thomson of the Royal Town Planning Institute says that his organisation is concerned that

“the revocation of regional strategies will result in the loss of important policies at the strategic level that were directly driven by local communities.”

The Federation of Small Businesses says that the Localism Bill lacks clarity as to how a new sub-national approach will work. It fears a regional planning system deadlocked by indecision or obstruction as a consequence of what is being proposed.

Liz Peace of the British Property Federation describes the duty to co-operate laid out in the Bill as “spineless”. There is no incentive to co-operate and no penalty for non-co-operation. Ms Peace warns of the danger that the duty as it stands will be a meaningless “tick-box exercise”. She says that

“it shouldn’t be, ‘Well, we wrote to the local authority next door and it never replied’—tick, carry on.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 98, Q165.]

Environmental groups are particularly concerned. Friends of the Earth says:

“The Bill falls short on tackling those issues which rely on local action but which cannot be dealt with solely locally.”

The Woodland Trust says that the duty to co-operate

“seems to amount to little more than a duty to exchange information.”

For pressing, larger-than-local issues, such as environmental sustainability, co-ordination at a larger-than-local level is crucial. The powerful evidence given by Dr Hugh Ellis of the Town and Country Planning Association, echoing those sentiments, was particularly interesting. He asked

“what we are going to do with the major issues like climate change and renewable energy”.

When he came before the Committee, hon. Members will remember, he talked about

“forms of development that play out at a regional or national scale”.

He asked this question of us,

“will the sum total of 350 individual local authority decisions on carbon deliver the effective action we need on climate change—or on housing or on retail development?”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 27 January 2011; c. 140, Q231.]

The House Builders Federation has said that the duty

“must be considerably strengthened in the Act if issues of larger than local impact are to be adequately incorporated into development plans.”

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case. Can I remind him that the Government do not even have the courage of their own convictions? Although they say that they are abolishing regional spatial strategies, there is one notable region of the country that will continue to have a regional spatial strategy: the London region, which is now presided over by the predecessor of the hon. Member for Henley, so he is probably very familiar with it. That is, in effect, the Mayor’s London plan. It will not be left to local authorities to take decisions, and they cannot take decisions if they contravene the London plan. If the Government believe it is right everywhere else in the country, why are they not doing the same thing London?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. It is one law for Boris and another law for Britain.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

Does the hon. Gentleman feel there is any difference between the identity of the city of London and that of the whole of the south-east of England?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

As far as I am aware, there is not a council covering the south-east of England. The hon. Gentleman will hear later about some of the concerns that are being expressed in the south-east of England about what might happen if the Government do not hear the evidence and act to strengthen proposals to ensure that there is effective sub-regional planning in the south of England.

We are determined to hear the voice of those who have come before us, even if the Government parties are not. Jessica Bauly, head of sectoral affairs at the CBI, told us:

“At the moment, as the Bill is currently drafted, it is not clear how that duty to co-operate could be strong enough and enforced.”—[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 27 January 2011; c. 118, Q201.]

Indeed, the CBI urged members of the Committee to strengthen the duty in terms who should be engaged, the activities upon which they should be engaged, and the engagement that is required. It has said that the duty to co-operate is not strong enough to ensure that sub-national infrastructure is delivered.

Are all those who have said those things suffering from a delusion? Are they failing to see something that the Government have seen? If that is the case, we shall wait for what will no doubt be a gripping account of why they all have it wrong and the Government have got it right.

Adequate infrastructure provision is under threat by the removal of the RSSs and, crucially, the weak duty to co-operate contained in the Bill. Again and again, fears have been expressed—not just by all those to whom I have referred, but by local councillors, developers and authorities—about how to co-ordinate infrastructure projects at the sub-national level. With the abolition of the RSSs, which played an important role in co-ordinating between the national and local level for infrastructure provision, how are local authorities to assess larger-than-local needs and provide adequate infrastructural access? It is clear that the duty to co-operate in the Bill as it stands is a poor and insufficient replacement to the co-ordination offered to councils by the regional spatial strategies.

James Morris (Conservative, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

One of the missing links in the hon. Gentleman’s case is democratic accountability. The regional spatial strategies were deliberately remote from ordinary people, and there was no link between them and the level of democratic accountability that is provided for in the Bill.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I await with some eagerness the answer to the question that I posed earlier. If the hon. Gentleman is so confident that the new arrangements will work, why did all those who gave evidence to the Committee express the alternative view? Are they wrong and the hon. Gentleman right? As a man with an interesting past on these matters, I have no doubt that he will make an erudite contribution, which I look forward to hearing.

James Morris (Conservative, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

I take the point that the hon. Gentleman makes about some of the contributions from business groups, but evidence from ordinary people—I am sure that he has knocked on their doors in his constituency—is completely absent from his comments. They have absolutely no idea who is making decisions about spatial planning in their area or why they are being taken, and they are frustrated by the system’s inflexibility to respond to their needs.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I believe in democratic accountability with a passion, so I look forward to the debate on neighbourhood planning—the capacity of three men, three women and a dog, in the Dog and Duck, to constitute themselves as a neighbourhood without any kind of serious accountability to the communities they represent. If we, as I do, believe in democratic accountability, it should apply to all the provisions of the Bill.

Instead of the duty enshrined in the Bill, there should be a framework for the delivery of development and services across a broad area, allowing for proper decisions to be made about housing, transport infrastructure, national resources, the most sustainable locations for particular projects, and protecting important social and environmental assets. Without such a framework, we risk losing many of the benefits of co-ordination that we had in the past, and this could lead to more local disputes, as well as piecemeal delivery of key national goals on climate change and the environment.

There is a crucial need for clarity and a strong strategic planning framework that includes the larger-than-local issues. How are they to be adequately addressed unless that is done? However, the duty to co-operate, as it stands, is passive. One hopes that people will come together and co-operate, but unless there is enthusiastic co-operation, which cannot be guaranteed under the Bill, the provisions will have at best a marginal impact on issues of concern expressed in evidence to the Committee. At worst, the Bill’s provisions could have a seriously negative impact.

There is no specific product, in terms of evidence or guidance, that the co-operation has to achieve. There is no indication of the important issues on which bodies should co-operate. The duty talks of co-operation with neighbouring authorities but makes no mention whatsoever of the need for much wider spatial co-operation. We have proposed an amendment to the duty to specify the kind of co-operation required while allowing the specific bodies to respond as they want to the issues in question. For example, we would involve local enterprise partnerships rather than neighbouring authorities only because otherwise the process will not work for issues that require wider spatial co-operation, such as landscape and catchment area planning issues.

In contrast to the Government’s policy, our proposal sets a spatial framework for local planning. That would ensure that there was a meaningful debate about the consequences of development and consideration of the cumulative impacts of local development. It would bring local authorities together, providing a forum for managing larger projects, such as transport schemes, that cut across local authority boundaries but are not large enough to merit national planning. Such strategic planning would provide the means of managing debate between local authorities and resolving disputes over the level and general location of development.

I have discussed some of the areas that the duty should cover, but it is important to look at what has happened in the past as a result of such co-operation and at what we may lose in the future. To return to the south-east, examples of necessary co-operation include the Thames basin heaths and the Dorset heathlands. The Thames basin heaths delivery plan forms part of the arrangements for delivering housing growth around the Thames basin heaths special protection area. Likewise, local authorities in south-east Dorset and across Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey have set up formal co-operation mechanisms to manage the pressures on sensitive lowland heath that result from development.

The Thames basin heaths delivery plan involves no fewer than 11 authorities. For it to work, all the authorities must adopt a common approach to mitigation, otherwise house building around the SPA will not be possible, even if local authorities want such developments to go ahead. However, under the Bill, it is highly unlikely, to say the least, that an effective mitigation solution could ultimately be delivered in the absence of mechanisms for mediation and the strategic approach provided by the regional tier. Such a solution can be provided at the moment, but that cannot be guaranteed in the future.

An analysis of SPAs in England shows that many cover multiple local authorities. Twenty-eight SPAs contain no fewer than five local authorities, and six contain at least 10. Many SPAs are in areas of development pressure where there are big demands for housing and economic development. Crucially, local authorities need to work together to ensure that the conservation objectives for SPAs can be met, as well as to provide the necessary economic, social and housing benefits for their areas. To achieve that in the future, there must be more than just a duty to talk.

I turn now to planning and the deployment of renewable energy. Regional strategies have provided a range of mechanisms to facilitate the planning and deployment of renewable energy by creating a strategic approach and mapping areas of opportunity and constraint in what were known as regional energy capacity studies. Their revocation will result in the removal of a range of targets, including carbon dioxide reduction targets, renewable energy generation targets and climate change adaptation objectives. Previously, those helped to translate EU and national aspirations into effective local delivery.

The Yorkshire and Humber regional spatial strategy, for example, contained the ENV5 policy, which promised to support growth in the microgeneration industry by promoting new building developments that made greater use of decentralised and renewable or low-carbon energy sources. The role of local authorities is central to enabling the Government to meet the legally binding target of securing at least 15% of all their energy from renewable sources, but it is unclear which mechanism in the Bill will help them to do so.

Renewable energy projects can be controversial. Local authorities will have different constraints and capacity, which will have an impact on site selection for renewable energy facilities. The regional tier provided a mechanism for mediation between local authorities, but that will no longer happen.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

I remind the Committee that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 203, in schedule 8, page 287, line 3, leave out from ‘documents)’ to end of line 4 and insert—

Amendment 204, in schedule 8, page 287, line 10, at end insert—

Amendment 205, in schedule 8, page 287, line 12, leave out ‘omit paragraph (a)’ and insert

Amendment 153, in clause 90, page 61, line 4, leave out ‘or’ and insert—

Amendment 195, in clause 90, page 61, line 5, leave out lines 5 and 6 and insert—

Amendment 196, in clause 90, page 61, line 8, leave out ‘or (b)’ and insert ‘, (b) or (c)’.

Amendment 154, in clause 90, page 61, line 7, after ‘(a)’, insert ‘or (ab)’.

Amendment 197, in clause 90, page 61, line 13, at end insert ‘and

Amendment 155, in clause 90, page 61, line 15, at end insert—

Amendment 156, in clause 90, page 61, line 17, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—

Amendment 198, in clause 90, page 61, leave out lines 17 to 20 and insert—

Amendment 157, in clause 90, page 61, line 20, at end insert—

Amendment 199, in clause 90, page 61, leave out lines 21 to 30.

Amendment 200, in clause 90, page 61, line 31, leave out ‘have regard to’ and insert ‘act in accordance with’.

Amendment 201, in clause 90, page 61, line 36, at end insert—

Amendment 202, in clause 93, page 63, line 39, leave out from ‘report)’ to end of line 41 and insert ‘—

New clause 3—Purpose of planning—

New clause 4—Sustainable development—

New clause 5—Mitigation and adaption to climate change—

New clause 7—National planning policy framework—

New clause 9—Joint planning documents—

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

May I intervene for a moment before my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington continues his speech? There was quite a debate—

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. I think that this is a point of order.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

No, it is an intervention.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

For good order, let us say that it is a point of order.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

I do not want to make a point of order.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

I wanted to make a key point to clarify something that has been knocked backwards and forwards between us. It needs to be said strongly that this is not a question of having regional strategies or the new regime and nothing else.

I have received a helpful note from the planning officers of Salford city council who said, first, that revocation of regional strategies

“will give the city council much more freedom”.

That is what they feel, and I am sure that Government Members will agree with them, but they then went on to say:

“the loss of regional strategies will leave no statutory mechanism for agreeing the planning strategy across more than one local authority”,

which is the point that my hon. Friend was making. They also stated:

“The Government has indicated that Local Enterprise Partnerships may wish to consider planning matters but it is not clear whether any statutory basis will be given to this…The revocation of the regional strategy will result in the loss of some of the planning policies on which the city council currently relies. This will leave a policy gap.”

It is possible to be glad about the change, but to be uncomfortable with the new regime because of what it is missing, so I thought that it would help if we explained that that is our position.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

I thank my hon. Friend. As she rightly said, it will be for the Government, in celebrating the change, to explain in due course precisely how the new world will work.

This is a convenient moment to refer to delivering sustainable economic growth in the north-west, because planning at a strategic level enables places to develop in a complementary manner, and has contributed to economic renewal and regeneration. For example, it has established clear priorities, policies and actions for how the development of the more prosperous south of Greater Manchester can best support, rather than undermine, the regeneration of the northern areas of Manchester. It has also established how to develop the roles of the conurbation as a whole and of individual town and city centres in Cheshire and Lancashire, such as Warrington, which the hon. Member for Congleton referred to, as well as Chester, Preston and Liverpool.

Strategic planning has worked in the north-west to enable local authorities broadly to agree the required amount, distribution and priority locations for housing, employment land, infrastructure and types of business across the region, thereby promoting mutually reinforcing growth. A common approach to the promotion of environmental quality has improved the image of the region as a whole as a place to live, work, invest, visit and study, thus bringing real benefit to all areas in the region. I hope that the Government’s response will deal with our concern that there is no indication as to how that will satisfactorily be addressed in the Bill.

Waste policy is not the most headline-grabbing area of government, but it is one that demonstrates the clear need for strategic planning. In 2007, the east of England accepted 3.1 million tonnes of waste from London for landfill. Increasingly, each part of the region will take a share of London’s waste so that the burden does not fall entirely on the local authorities that are closest to London.

Strategic planning in the east of England has ensured that the issues of how much waste each authority will be obliged to take, and how the waste will be treated, are dealt with fairly across the whole region. Evidence from local authorities demonstrates that when dealing with a big partner such as London, individual authorities will not necessarily have the time, expertise or influence to address waste on their own as effectively as they would in some kind of strategic arrangement. Waste disposal is therefore a classic example. If there is no strategic arrangement, we might end up with demands being made of the closest local authorities to London, while other local authorities say, “Well, we do not have to play our part any longer.”

The examples that we could cite are endless. The success stories include the strategic approach to sea level rise in Lincolnshire and elsewhere. In Yorkshire and Humber, strategic planning has ensured that energy projects have been provided in the right locations. In the east midlands, green infrastructure plans are now being prepared that would not have happened without the regional push. In the south-east, through the process of spatial planning and work on the south-east plan, it was agreed where infrastructure investment should be focused in terms of hubs and spokes. The need for strategic planning, however it is achieved, is overwhelming.

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

May I return for a moment to the hon. Gentleman’s example from the north-west? I have lived and worked there for a considerable number of years, and in my experience—I believe that this view is shared by a number of people—some of the sub-regions outside the major cities did not feel that their voice was heard as loudly as it should have been. Will the hon. Gentleman address that issue?

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

That could well be the case. If a dominant local authority simply ploughs its own furrow, that might be at the expense of other local authorities, which is yet another argument for some form of sensible, strategic approach that avoids the big acting in a way that is not in the best interests of smaller local authorities.

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

That is exactly my point. The north-west region was that big regional authority, and those of us who worked in the region and were representatives of the sub-region felt that the major cities had a predominant influence.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

It is arguable, however, that the arrangements were an attempt to accommodate the range of interests in the region. Without an effective strategic approach, will Manchester be in a better position to take advantage of its size, influence and economic power? Yes, it will. Will that be in the best interests of adjacent local authorities? No, it might not be. With respect, the hon. Lady and I are making a similar point about the importance of the totality of interests within the region being properly accommodated and about working together for a strategic approach.

The need for strategic planning, based upon all those examples, is overwhelming. The provisions for it in the Bill, however, are woefully inadequate, and elements border on the incompetent. Our approach carries support from 20 different organisations. They constitute a remarkable coalition of economic, housing, environmental and planning interests, and they include the Town and Country Planning Association, the Construction Products Association, Friends of the Earth and Shelter. It would be fair to say that it is an alliance of the unusual suspects rather than the usual ones. In line with the body of evidence that the Committee has received, they all say fundamentally the same thing: they want the Government to hear their voice. We therefore urge the Government to advance proposals to amend the duty to co-operate to ensure that we have a strategic approach and a level of co-ordination that will deliver on crucial areas such as housing needs, climate mitigation and adaptation, economic development, energy needs and capacity, biodiversity, natural resource use and transport.

The debate is not simply about the inadequacies of the Bill’s provisions on the duty to co-operate, although we have exhausted that at some length. A number of our measures should be included, and—we hope that the Government will agree—they will improve the Bill immeasurably. They put sustainable development at the heart of planning, strengthen the duty to consider climate change and provide a statutory footing for the national planning policy framework.

New clauses 3 and 4 would put sustainable development at the heart of the planning system. At a time when the country is facing unprecedented challenges on economic recovery, climate change and increased urbanisation, the need for us to achieve sustainable development and effectively to address these issues has never been more present. The abolition of regional spatial strategies has removed many of the mechanisms that have provided an impetus for action towards achieving sustainable development and helping to monitor progress. Looking to the future, therefore, achieving sustainable development must be at the heart of the planning system and the Bill.

The Bill contains a number of provisions that Ministers tell us are designed to empower local communities and enable them to shape the places where they live and work. We have said from the start—if there is common ground around a sacred principle—that we are all in favour of responding exactly to how we best empower local communities and enable them to shape the places where they live and work. We have a number of concerns about how the provisions have been designed, however, to which we will return later, but we hope that the Government will accept the need for a set of minimum standards to ensure that planning at all levels delivers true integration of economic, social and environmental policies and objectives.

It is also absolutely vital that short-term measures to drive economic growth, and the abolition of important Government advisers such as the Sustainable Development Commission, do not lead the country into decisions that are unsustainable in the long term. Somewhere in the planning system consideration must be given to how actions that we take now will impact on future generations. In short, the Government need to be clear about the purpose of planning. Do the Government agree that the purpose must be to achieve sustainable development, accompanied by a statutory definition of sustainable development? That would help to provide greater certainty in local decision making and identify the common goal towards which we should all be working. The framework, as put forward in new clauses 3 and 4, would ensure that local authorities could determine the criteria that need to be applied in their area, in accordance with local circumstances, to ensure that their communities and development are sustainable and fit within the overarching definition.

Numerous concerns have been expressed over the sidelining of sustainable development. There is uncertainty about how the Government will achieve sustainable development and how their commitments and goals will be taken forward. The funding for the Sustainable Development Commission, which was the watchdog and adviser to the Government on their sustainable goals, has been withdrawn, which leaves the status of the 2005 sustainable development strategy uncertain. The national planning policy framework was developed to replace planning policy statements and the planning policy guidance. We are not sure what policies and principles will flow from that and how they will be taken forward from Planning Policy Statement 1: “Delivering Sustainable Development”.

By addressing sustainable development in the Bill—by including a purpose for planning, a definition of sustainable development and stronger duties to achieve it—the Government could, if they so wished, provide the certainty for which so many of our witnesses have called. The Bill is simply incomplete without such measures. It is also incomplete without our proposed measures on climate change. Each of us knows the immense challenges that we face as a consequence of climate change. Climate change is perhaps the greatest long-term development affecting mankind, both nationally and internationally.

The Committee on Climate Change’s fourth annual report recommends that the Government make a 60% cut in carbon dioxide emissions on 1990 levels by 2030. In the view of the committee, the 60% target is the minimum effort consistent with the 2050 target. It must be an imperative of public policy in whatever sector, including in relation to the planning regime, that we work to achieve the necessary reductions in carbon emissions. According to a Friends of the Earth study, around 80% of UK emissions occur through locally based activities, ranging from heating and powering our houses to local transport.

It is clear that our planning system can pay a major role in reducing our carbon emissions. Spatial planning could shape decisions for new and existing developments around the need to reduce carbon emissions. It could give us the potential to get the right development in the right place, in a fair and transparent way. Planning could be informed by the imperative of sustainable development. Local communities could be given real opportunities to take action on climate change by encouraging community-based development and active participation in plan making.

For all those reasons, spatial planning is a way in which we can deliver on the ambitions set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. At present, however, no significant framework for spatial planning is outlined in the Bill, and the duty to consider climate change applies only to the preparation of local development frameworks and not to neighbourhood planning.

Our proposal would ensure that alongside our approach on strategic planning and sustainable development, climate change would be at the heart of the local plan-making process. We should strongly encourage local plans by local people. Without hesitation, I say that citizens’ involvement in the development of local plans is to be encouraged. However, why should the same obligation not apply to local plans as to other areas of the planning process? Section 182 of the Planning Act 2008 created a new duty on planning authorities to contribute to the mitigation and adaptation of climate change by amending section 19 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. That applied to development plan preparation, as defined in part 2 of that Act. Given the importance of climate change, we ask the Government to accept our proposal and to ensure that the duty is effective on all aspects of the planning process.

The new provisions in the Bill on neighbourhood planning have been drafted so as to avoid the climate duty by amending the principal Act: the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. That would mean that neighbourhood planning bodies, as proposed, will be under no direct legal obligation to consider mitigation or adaptation. There is a bizarre inconsistency in the Government’s approach, so we look forward to the Minister’s explanation.

Do the Government seriously expect the carbon emissions for each neighbourhood forum and local development plan magically to add up to our national target on climate change? We accept and welcome proposals about greater involvement and participation at local level. As I constantly stress, that is common ground among all parties. However, the Government cannot be so naive as to believe that there are no things that, given their very nature, require co-ordination instead of somehow happening by themselves.

New clause 7 would give a statutory basis to the national planning policy framework. As a result of decisions taken by the Government and the proposed planning reforms outlined in the Bill, there is currently a great deal of uncertainty in the planning system, much of which is unnecessary. The revocation of the regional strategies—the way in which they operated will be a thing of the past—has already led to judicial review and threatened judicial reviews. The evidence, including the evidence that the Committee received, is that there has been a hiatus in decisions due to the uncertainty around which policies are to be applied to planning applications.

There is also considerable uncertainty around what the NPPF will be, what it will look like, its status within the planning system, and the process for its development and adoption. The Government seem to want to rely on a provision in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act that advises local authorities to have regard to national policy and guidance, but we do not think that that is sufficient. Providing a statutory basis for the NPPF would help to provide certainty and allow the Government to increase confidence in the planning system, which is absolutely crucial, including if we want a serious strategy for growth in our country. Confidence in the planning system has been badly damaged by the decisions taken thus far.

The new clause would also help the process of identifying and agreeing the purpose of the document, as well as to ensure that it is given appropriate recognition and weight in plan making and planning decisions. Our approach would also ensure consistency between the NPPF and other planning documents. The NPPF, which we welcome in principle, must be a strategic planning document that sets out national economic, social and environmental policies and objectives, as well as outlining minimum standards to be applied across planning at all levels to ensure consistency and to provide further detail on what sustainable development means in the planning system.

The Government are committed to including a presumption in favour of sustainability in the NPPF. Given the important matters that the NPPF is likely to address, it is vital that it has legal status and is enforceable, rather than being a voluntary document. It is equally important that processes for consultation, publicity and parliamentary scrutiny are defined and that minimum requirements are imposed to ensure that public participation can occur in a transparent process, with ordinary people knowing how they can contribute towards and influence the development of the NPPF. It is also important that the NPPF is subject to impact assessments so that impacts arising from the policies within the NPPF can be fully and properly assessed, and so that the NPPF is drafted to avoid, minimise or mitigate adverse effects. It is also completely unclear how the NPPF will sit with the current national policy statements and what their relationship will be, but perhaps we can tease that out in the debate.

In short, the Government need to explain how these documents and initiatives fit together to achieve national objectives, as stated as public policy objectives. The Government need to clarify what the hierarchy of planning documents will be and outline what the process will be if there are inconsistencies between policies.

The planning provisions in the Bill are perhaps more notable for what is missing from them. That is little wonder, because I think perhaps the Secretary of State has been distracted by his focus on the trivial—nay, occasionally absurd. I have the latest departmental missive from the Department for Communities and Local Government to employees in the jolly green giant. It states:

“The corporate plant contract has been cancelled due to recent cost cutting measures. Corporate plants in Eland House are now in need of some green-fingered friends to ensure their survival”—

I kid thee not. It goes on to state:

“If you can find a few minutes every couple of weeks to provide some TLC”,

which I think is tender loving care,

“in the form of regular watering and occasional feeding, please volunteer.”

The message was sent on behalf of the Secretary of State, and it goes on to state that “indoor plants”, which I thought he had got rid of,

“are not only pleasant to look at but also improve our air quality by producing oxygen for us to breathe, regulating humidity and neutralising chemicals like the formaldehyde emitted by office paper. All the plants will be labelled with names and watering/feeding instructions.”

I suspect that none of them are called Eric. The document goes on to state what someone should do if they are able to help. With the greatest of respect, if the Secretary of State had concentrated a bit more on having a planning regime that worked and a bit less on plants in his office, perhaps we would be in a better place.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has used a light point to try to make his case. However, surely he agrees that it is taking care of the pennies that takes care of the pounds. If the previous Government had done that in DCLG, we would not have the deficit.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

Was that a planted question?

We need a planning system that is fit for purpose. As my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South and I have acknowledged, regional spatial strategies will go. The debate is therefore about not whether someone is for or against what existed in the past, but what will work in the future. Crucially, that requires a strengthened duty to co-operate that will deliver the future economic growth we require and meet housing and infrastructure needs.

What citizens want are jobs, homes at an affordable price, good public transport and good roads to drive their cars on. We need a strength and duty on climate change that will help us to deliver our national climate targets, because what the citizen wants is to bequeath to his or her son or daughter a better future. Crucially, that involves tackling global warming, as well as practical measures that mean someone can pay less on their energy bills and when they drive their green car. We need sustainable development to be put at the heart of the planning system and to be the very purpose of planning. We also need clarity by placing the NPPF on a statutory footing.

I hope I am not being naive, but we believe that there is a degree of common ground on some of these objectives. I hope that Ministers will recognise that, hear the voices of those who say, “Think again,” and amend the Bill so that we have a planning system that is fit for purpose.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I was extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington for taking us back to the post-war years this morning, because that is where I want to start. He talked about the great socialist triumph after the war, but he failed to mention that the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 came in two parts: the first part was about the nationalisation of development value, while the second was about the planning system. Fortunately, the nationalisation of development value did not survive very long, and it took a Conservative Government in 1951 to remove that legislation.

The surprise is not that the planning system is broken, but that it has taken so long, and so many different attempts, to try to fix it before anyone has grasped the problem as a whole. It is no surprise to me, and it should not be to my colleagues, that the Labour party takes a centralist view of life. It has always been thus from the very beginning, and the experience between 1945 and 1948 demonstrates that.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I think that I had got to the point in my story where I went back to the late 1940s to prove that the Labour party has always been ruthlessly centralist in the way it has approached planning—a theme that emerged from the regional spatial strategies. In the late 1940s the Minister with responsibility for planning was Lewis Silkin, who was famous for the creation of the new towns initiative. An example that shows the centralisation that ran from that through to the regional spatial strategy is his appearance in Stevenage to tell people there that they were going to have the first new town. I shall quote briefly from “Austerity Britain”, which describes the visit in vivid detail:

“To shouts of ‘Gestapo!’ and ‘Dictator!’, Silkin informed the seething horde that ‘It is no good your jeering: it is going to be done.’ Proceeding to the ministerial car, he discovered its tyres had been deflated and sand poured in its tank. In a referendum, a majority declared themselves ‘entirely against the siting of a satellite town at Stevenage’.”

The name plate at Stevenage station was replaced by one that read “Silkingrad”.

I want to move on to housing numbers. In his opening speech, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, seemed to confuse numbers—the numbers that he said were being taken out of plans—with houses. They are nothing of the sort. They are numbers—not even real numbers, but fictitious numbers that arose from repeated attempts to get series of economists to come up with the right number. I remember participating in what passed for a consultation exercise on the south-east plan, the regional spatial strategy for the south-east. It was quite clear that the original numbers put in by councils, which were based on solid evidence—they certainly were in the case of my councils—simply did not deliver the number that the Government had in their mind as the right one.

The councils’ numbers were simply thrown out, and a different set of economists were brought in to decide what the numbers should be. When they failed to reach the answer that the Government wanted, yet another set of economists were brought in. So we have numbers, not houses. The hon. Gentleman and I would be absolutely in agreement that we need more houses; the debate on the new clauses in the group and the whole business of the regional spatial strategy is principally about the best way of delivering them. He asked for proof that the system that we are introducing will work and I will give him that in a minute.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I look forward to it.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

The right hon. Gentleman laughs; he and I have debated the issue in public on many occasions, in one way or another. If ever there was an example of how not to do a consultation, it was the regional spatial strategy. It was so remote from a real engagement programme. Certainly in the case of the south-east plan, even local community leaders, of which I was one, had to fight to get on to the initial discussion programmes that the regional assembly conducted around it. The attempt that was made to try to get parish and town councils to wade through volumes of information and come up with an answer—that was the consultation programme—was really not on. That was never going to happen and it was an insult. They rightly believed that they were not being taken seriously.

Now for the proof that the system works—the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, picks up at that point. One of the things that I did before coming to the House was run a company that did engagement and consultation programmes for communities facing large, often contentious, property and planning developments. I can tell the Committee of my experience, and that of many colleagues. It is a great shame that in the evidence session we did not hear from any of those involved in the engagement and consultation industry—though I recall asking a question of British Land on this—because their experience would have been the same: it is about engaging people who are faced with a planning application early in the process.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

If that was the view on the Government Benches, I am surprised that Ministers did not nominate anybody. It is down to the Government Whip to put forward the list; it was open to Government Members to have nominated someone from that industry.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

Of course, in a short space of time it is not possible to have everyone here, but what was missed by our not having someone from that industry give evidence is made up for by my being on the Committee, so I suggest that the hon. Lady is no worse off. However, I would have welcomed confirmation of my point, so that I could convince Opposition Members that what I am about to say is right. My experience is that by engaging communities right from the very beginning we end up with the most astonishing results. Although I no longer participate in that business, there is the question of former client confidentiality. However, there are plenty of examples of that full engagement process producing something that far exceeds the expectations of the local community and what the developer wants. Bringing the community and the developer together is a means that is tried and tested, and that is now best practice; in his evidence, Adrian Penfold from British Land referred to that. Certainly there are examples aplenty of how, particularly among larger companies, that is best practice, because it works. Many of our big volume house builders are changing the way that they operate and their culture in order to adjust to the new system that the reforms in the Bill represent; they know that they will give them a competitive advantage.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

The hon. Gentleman is right: of course community engagement ultimately results in better development. However, he also made the point that it is tried and tested. It has been going on for an awfully long time—since well before the Government brought forward their pre-election papers. I can cite evidence from parts of London where that was happening, and from district councils in other parts of the country. That is good practice; the issue is ensuring that good practice is disseminated, even within the existing system, however flawed parts of it may be. He is not talking about something new and whizzy that has resulted from the “Open Source Planning” paper.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I am convinced that the hon. Lady is on my side; she has given examples of how the approach works. Nobody is saying that it was invented for the purpose of the Bill. I have just given examples of how, in my previous life, that experience has come through. We are saying that if the approach is best practice for individual developments, and particularly for large developments, then there is a heart to it that is applicable at a wider level. That is the concept here. I find the attitude—particularly the Labour party’s attitude—to nimbyism appallingly patronising to communities, many of which have been forced into nimbyism out of frustration, because there was no other way they could participate in the process. A good example of that is the fact that even as a senior county councillor in my county, I had to fight to get anywhere near the seminars that were run on what passed for underlying economic assumptions in the south-east plan.

We come to the question of sustainable development—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman seems to have glossed over the proof that he was going to offer us to show that his proposals work. He has offered a hypothesis, and a bit of experience from a couple of housing schemes on which he advised developers. On that basis, he claims that he has proof that we should dismantle the planning system and put his half-baked proposals in its place. Will he do the Committee the service of giving us more hard evidence, rather than just his views?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

As insult from the right hon. Gentleman is a compliment indeed, and I take it as such. The proof that the proposals should be adopted is found in the numerous examples of cases where they have worked. It is a case of proving something by doing it. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to consult with others who have been in this game—there are a number of reputable companies that operate in that way—he will see the consistent picture that comes from their work. That is how they make their living, and if he wants financial proof, the fact that they make money out of such schemes is a good example. The approach works, and people get paid for taking it.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Perhaps, then, the hon. Gentleman will tell us why the chief executive of the largest house builder in the country suggested in his evidence to us that if the proposals are put into effect, it will delay by one to two years the length of time that it will take house building to return to the level that prevailed under the previous Government.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I would be delighted to do that. Throughout our many sittings, the right hon. Gentleman has concentrated on the figure of seven to eight years, without referring to the bit that came before the mention of that figure, where it was stated that under the current system, a return to previous levels could take six to seven years. What we have there is a commonality of one number—seven—plus or minus one year. The factors that might affect that figure are macro-economic achievement, rather than planning achievement, and they affect the availability of mortgages. The right hon. Gentleman may have seen the announcement made by Taylor Wimpey today or yesterday about securing 95% mortgages as a means of getting the mortgage market going again. That is clearly a major factor in Mr Redfern’s thinking, and the onus should not be put on one year—if it is one year—and the planning system alone.

I will move on to sustainable development.

Jack Dromey rose—

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I will not move on to sustainable development.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

The hon. Gentleman eloquently said that the figures are but numbers, and suggested that such things were meaningless. Why has David Orr of the National Housing Federation said that

“Removing regional spatial strategies, without putting anything in their place, was a short-term mistake”?––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 65, Q109.]

Was Peter Redfern wrong when he said that the Government had sent “the wrong signal” in the way they had conducted themselves? He went on:

“After the attempt to change RSS policy overnight, people shut up shop, not because they were anti-development”—

he is right about that—

“but because they didn’t know where things were going.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 80, Q131.]

Are they both wrong? Are they suffering from an illusion?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that there is some confusion in this area and in what people are saying. Research commissioned by the National Housing Federation expected figures for houses to increase to at least 280,000 or 300,000 homes by this time next year. We should not discard the effect that the new homes bonus will have. One district in my constituency is set to receive a new homes bonus that will probably be greater than its recent annual turnover—if I can use that term to describe a council. These are significant sums of money that will get the housing market moving. I have no objection to numbers; they are essential for everyone to work with. However, one of the serious, central questions on this matter concerns the ownership of those numbers, which needs to be with the local planning authority and local residents.

If the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, is not going to intervene, I will move on to sustainable development. I agree with a lot of what he said about it, and I agree that it needs to be at the heart of the planning system. What I would disagree with is putting it into the Bill. The question is where the policy best goes and where the greatest flexibility can be given to it.

We have made it clear—I certainly have, as the author of “Open Source Planning”, and many of the Bill’s reforms are based on its principles—that the presumption in favour of sustainable development is an overriding policy. It is what I might call a super-cross-cutting policy, but a policy none the less. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that planning has generally been divided into things that have to be done by legislation and things that can be delivered by policy. The difficulty with policy is that it has become confused and crowded with a whole lot of methodologies and checklists, while the aims of the policies in the planning policy statements and planning policy guidance notes became clouded.

It is true that during the evidence sessions a number of commentators suggested that the presumption should be in the Bill. In practice, that would mean defining “sustainable development” in legislation, and I will come on to the attempt in new clause 4 to do that. However, given that many of the same commentators also stressed the need for flexibility, it is difficult to see how the two are reconcilable or why it is a good thing to lock in a definition of “sustainability” in legislation, where it is more difficult to change. That is even more true when sustainability remains a concept that is subject to continuous development and changes.

We had an attempt—a pale reflection of what was intended—at a presumption in favour of sustainability in PPS1, but I do not recall any attempt by Labour Members at giving a legislative basis to PPS1. In fact, I believe that most of the PPSs were, at most, scrutinised by Parliament by being laid as drafts before the departmental Select Committee; if I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected. It was not regarded as necessary to legislate to ensure that sustainability had some force under the previous planning system, which also had an emphasis on sustainable development. All of us think that sustainable development should be at the heart of the planning system, but the way that we have chosen to ensure that is through policy, and through making it the golden thread that runs through the planning system, particularly the national planning policy framework, which I will touch on.

What is wrong with trying to put the concept into legislation may be seen by the tightness of the words, which do no justice to the description that is required of the way in which we plan for prosperity, place and people, and the way in which each of those three could be looked at separately to ensure that they are treated in a way that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, and will provide a balance that the local community—in this case, the local planning authority—sees as appropriate for its area. Yes, sustainability is at the heart of the planning system, but I prefer to see it in policy, because I believe that that gives communities flexibility to shape it in the way that is best for them.

I should like to speak about the national planning policy framework because I have some responsibility for co-ordinating some of its aspects. At the moment, we have a series of policies delivered through PPSs and PPGs, of which very few, if any, remain. They are incredibly contradictory, long and bureaucratic. They need to be shortened and aligned to achieve Government objectives. That is what the NPPF is—the alignment of planning policy so that we can achieve the Government’s objectives. Measures such as new clause 5 on climate change are not required, because dealing with climate change is part of Government policy.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Has the hon. Gentleman had the benefit of seeing the current draft national planning policy framework? Judging from his comments, he clearly appears to have had that benefit. Will he agree, therefore, that it would have been appropriate for the rest of the Committee to have had access to that draft document, so that we could assess whether we were wasting our time by tabling new clauses?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I must have done something awfully wrong in a previous life, because in the two years that I was here in the last Parliament, I sat on nine Public Bill Committees. I bear the scars. This is my 10th Public Bill Committee, and it is by far the best. However, I have to say that the only one of those nine that I can recall having produced draft regulations was the Finance Bill Committee. I cannot recall any of the others ever producing draft regulations.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

I would not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that when we were in government we introduced Bills before we had the proper draft regulations relating to them. I also sat through a number of Bills that had them. The hon. Gentleman’s Government set great store by local involvement and the involvement of people. To come forward with a Bill on this subject without ensuring that we have access to all the material is unforgivable.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

We cannot win on this. As the hon. Lady must know, there is a consultation going on, and there is a call for evidence for the NPPF, which gives us an opportunity to ensure that it is right. It would be wrong to have produced a document that was, in the phrase of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, “half-baked” when there is still a consultation and a request for evidence.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

The arguments that the hon. Gentleman is adducing inevitably lead us to think that the process would have benefited from effective pre-legislative scrutiny, so that the issues could have been teased out in the public arena with the citizens’ organisations that are able to comment on them.

I want to press the hon. Gentleman on a point that he raised. I note with interest that he was the author of a very interesting tome that I have read in some detail. I do not know if there are any other offences that he wishes to be taken into consideration. Does he, or do Ministers, have a draft of the NPPF? If so, will he or they share it with this Committee and Parliament while this process is going on? Or are we being asked to take it on trust when the Government say, “Yes, we agree about sustainable development and climate change; in due course, we’ll get round to it”?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I would always urge the Committee to trust me—I am a politician, after all. There is no draft at the moment. It is a work in progress. That is why there is a consultation and a call for evidence.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Is the hon. Gentleman saying, hand on heart, that there is no draft and that no outside body has seen any part of this framework in draft form because, anecdotally, that is not what we have been picking up?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

There is no draft. Of course there are people outside whom we are consulting and who have volunteered to help us with this process, but there is no draft. Those people have seen no more than the members of the Committee have.

The draft will be produced. I sincerely hope that the drafting process will run parallel to the Bill, because I do not want a sequential activity whereby we have a Bill and then we have to wait another 18 months for the NPPF to come out. It is in my interests and it is my desire as much as that of Opposition Members to get the NPPF out as quickly as possible for consultation with the largest possible number of organisations. To stress the legitimacy of this process, we have said that we will publish and present to Parliament the NPPF and that Parliament will have a vote on it.

I turn to sub-regional co-operation. I was confused during the speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington as to whether he was talking about regional or sub-regional co-operation. The terms seemed to flow in and out of each other without any real definition of what they were. One of the groups he mentioned was the Royal Town Planning Institute, which commented on the issue. His comments were at variance with my experience of the RTPI and my discussions with its representatives on this subject. There seems to be close agreement on this.

There are strong natural economic areas that will, through the local economic partnerships, be able to channel investment across the partnership area if that is what the partnerships want to do. Each local planning authority will no doubt want to give expression in its local plans to what has been agreed with others in the partnership.

The hon. Gentleman will have read in my thin tome “Open Source Planning”—it is only 30 pages—that I am a great fan of the old county structure plans. They were a very good way of providing an overview, and in “Open Source Planning” I encouraged upper-tier authorities and unitary authorities to look at such plans. I suspect that that has not fallen on deaf ears and that counties, unitary authorities or local economic partnerships will want to take up that role. I see no reason why that role needs to be statutory for different authorities to come together and co-operate.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

If the planning role of local economic partnerships, or any other body, is not on a statutory basis and is an entirely voluntary structure, how is it to be resourced?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I am confident that the local economic partnership in my area is already thinking about such matters. The LEP has a data observatory, from which it can acquire the necessary evidence base and background information. I suspect that that is not unique. A head start can be made on this.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

There are problems with the hon. Gentleman’s argument. First, not every part of the country is covered by an LEP. LEPs are a work in progress, and it has been calculated that they will be for some time yet.

Secondly, LEPs are built entirely on a voluntary approach. We will come to that again in discussing the next clause, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman could comment on it in the context of this clause. We may be critical of the abolition of the regional development agencies, but we are determined to make the LEPs work. Given that they are based on a voluntary approach, how can he be so confident that things will work in the way that he has described?

Thirdly, I want to press the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South about resources. The Government have made it clear that no resources will be available to the LEPs at a time when local authority budgets are being cut by 27%. How will that work?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

It is a shame. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever served as a councillor, but if he had, he would have seen that such organisations coming together in often fluctuating and informal voluntary partnerships have a big impact. They are the lifeblood of how a lot of sub-regional things work.

Nobody has asked what the test of soundness will be for the new local plans. I do not know what the new LEP tests of soundness will be, but I suspect one may be conformity with the national planning policy framework. I would be very surprised if being closely related to the neighbouring plan was not a test of soundness. In other words, it would be continuing the test of cross-border spatial planning and the spatial integrity of the current planning system. Nobody wants to see, for want of a better example, a road stop at a district or county barrier because the people on the other side do not want it to continue.

LEPs can be built into how the plans are put together. The hon. Gentleman spent a lot of time talking about the duty to co-operate; he laboured that point. Going to the wall for any further detail does not move me one way or the other. The proposals do the job perfectly as they are.

The last point was about how all the environmental constraints and enhancements will be recognised. They will be recognised, of course, by being included as part of the national planning framework, and as part of the policy to which local plans will have to have regard, but there is absolutely no reason why there should not be flexibility.

A good example is local transport. I have in the village in which I live a bus stop and a bus. People may catch the bus at 10 o’clock on Friday, provided they come back on the same bus at 2 o’clock on Friday. It is nonsense to compare the sustainability of public transport in a rural area such as mine with that of Kensington and Chelsea. There has to be some flexibility in how services are delivered, and how the balance is reached on important cross-cutting themes such as environmental constraints and reducing CO2 emissions.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. May I press him on this issue? On the one hand, all those who gave evidence to us criticised the proposed duty to co-operate, to a greater or lesser extent. Were they all wrong? On the other hand, if what he is saying is that no change is necessary, which I think is what he just proposed, on whose evidence is he relying, other than the Government’s?

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I do not think that that is actually what I said. My belief is that the proposal will work well, and my evidence for that is that it already works well. The town of Didcot just outside my constituency has a district boundary running through the middle of it. It would be impossible to plan for that town without the two authorities co-operating. There is no statutory basis for them to co-operate—no statutory enforcement—but they do so extremely well, and the town is a great success.

Were those who gave evidence wrong? There are examples that show misjudgment of the extent to which councils are mistrusted to get on with the job, but we have heard a great deal from Opposition Members throughout Second Reading and this Committee about mistrusting councils and individuals to take responsibility for their own area.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

This chapter in this part of the Bill proposes to do fundamental damage to a planning system which has, for better or for worse—there have been ups and downs—served this country well since 1947. The hon. Member for Henley began his speech with a reference to the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, and then made a brief reference to the development levy. It was a pejorative and partisan reference which did not take account of the serious debate that politicians of all colours have engaged in about how it is possible for a community to capture a proportion of the development gain that is derived from changed use of land to fund necessary social or environmental infrastructure. His party engaged in that debate and introduced section 106 as a mechanism for capturing a proportion of development gain for that purpose. It now proposes to extend the community infrastructure levy, which was introduced by the previous Government.

There is a serious debate about how, in the public interest, we should seek to capture an element of the gain from development for public and community benefit. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would have given serious and thoughtful consideration to the matter rather than making a brief partisan reference.

The hon. Gentleman’s only other reference to 1947 was that rather overused anecdote about Silkin’s visit to Stevenage. If we think back to that time, Britain was just recovering from the devastations of war. It was seeking a new house building programme to ensure there were homes for people who were either without a home at all or living in grossly overcrowded conditions, particularly in cities such as London, which had suffered huge bomb damage and had had no development at all during the war years.

Most sensible people recognised that there was a need to plan for new housing, and that that planning should not simply be based in the existing cities, and that using the example of eminent planners, such as Ebenezer Howard, who devised the concept of new towns and garden cities, we should look at ways to create better quality environments and better homes. But, no––the hon. Member for Henley focuses on the self-interested and affluent of Stevenage, who did not want any more homes built in their area. There could not be a better illustration of the thinking of the hon. Gentleman and his party—hostile to housing if it happens to come to an area where they or their supporters live. I am afraid that that is one of the fatal flaws at the heart of the policy.

The policy is based on a seriously flawed analysis, which I shall expose, and on the substitution of rhetoric and blind faith for empirical evidence. When the hon. Gentleman offered to give us proof that his system would deliver more homes, I think that most of us hoped for some hard evidence, rather than the wishy-washy reference to acting as an adviser for developers to persuade communities that a development would be in their interest.

John Howell (Conservative, Henley)

I was not acting for developers; I was acting for the communities.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I immediately withdraw the comment and apologise, but we require rather more sound empirical evidence than the assertion of his belief that his solution will somehow generate more homes. All the evidence points in the opposite direction. The hon. Gentleman’s ill-judged reference to Stevenage and Lewis Silkin’s visit was the giveaway.

Henry Smith (Conservative, Crawley)

As someone who proudly represents a post-war new town, I have to say that over the past 13 years virtually no social housing was built until a couple of months ago. That was as a direct result of the resistance to the top-down approach. Surely incentivising local communities with greater community benefits is how to get round the nimby attitude that has been referred to this afternoon.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I will happily take up the wider issue of what factors led to resistance to new housing, but after the early stages of the new towns, when it was overwhelmingly social housing that was being provided in them, there was, rightly and properly, a reappraisal in the 1960s. There was an understanding that we needed to create mixed communities with a mixed tenure pattern, which very much underpinned some of the second generation new towns. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South represents an area that was part of that next generation. We learnt from experience, and in some of those areas there was resistance to the consequences of some mistakes made in the early planning days. Places such as Milton Keynes, or my home town of Northampton, saw continued development with a generally high level of support.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

The right hon. Gentleman seems to be missing the point of the complaints of some of the communities. It is not about whether there was a desire for development, but about how it was done and the central control theory. I could only agree with the hon. Member for North Durham when he said last summer that he had referred

“in the previous Parliament to the system being akin to Soviet-style planning, and it…put constraints on the development of housing in my North Durham constituency.”—[Official Report, 10 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 448.]

I also agreed with the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, when she said:

“Meeting some putative targets for housing is not the way we should be going, we should be thinking about sustainability”.

That is the whole point. This is about central control versus what the Government are trying to achieve—giving local communities flexibility and freedom, and the responsibility to decide what they want their communities to be, to look like and to feel like.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Of course one wants to encourage the involvement of local communities. However, there is inevitably tension between the concerns of some communities that believe they have taken as much development as they can accommodate, do not want to see any more and are resistant to it, and the needs of society, which, inevitably, are the responsibility of Ministers in the Department responsible for planning and of other bodies looking at the needs of the country as a whole rather than the needs of individual communities. Those are the tensions. I remember listening to Conservative Secretaries of State instructing councils to accept development. The hon. Gentleman’s party was just the same. He may denounce his noble Friends who are now in another place—Lord Heseltine and Lord Gummer—but they were just as firm in saying that housing was necessary.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

My right hon. Friend touched on the need for housing. We understand how people in a given area may feel that they do not necessarily want to expand, and their views certainly should be heard. However, who hears the voices of those people who were cleared from the slums of London and moved to the new town of Peterborough, where my father was a Member of Parliament, who were overwhelmed by the fact that they had a wonderful new house in a new place that met their and their family’s future needs?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is the real tension. We as serious politicians—not as simply peddlers of slogans and rhetoric—have to recognise that there are national, regional and local needs, all of which must be taken into account. The planning system as it has evolved has been a serious attempt to try to grapple with those issues and tensions, and define mechanisms for dealing with them.

Several hon. Members rose—

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I have obviously set people off, so I will give way to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for putting me at the head of an illustrious queue of interventions. Surely the point he has just made is actually the strength of the Bill in general and particularly on this point? The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington made the point in the evidence session about how planning has evolved and needs to evolve. That is the strength of the Bill––the flexibility and ability to evolve. What may have been right for those who are now noble Friends in the other place is one matter but this Bill is about looking at what is right for our country now and in the future. It is about trusting local communities, rather than having central control and believing that because we sit in a building in Westminster, we must know best. We simply cannot say that that is true.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman might wish to make a speech himself on the subject in due course, but he is fundamentally wrong. It is absolutely the case that his predecessors from his party recognised the need for evolution, and the need for handling the planning system with care. The planning system does not deliver quickly. Changes to the planning system have an impact over several years. It is probably a period of five to 10 years before their full impact is felt. If one fiddles with that system without thinking about what one is doing and introduces changes that are ill thought-out, they can be hugely disruptive.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

No. I have given way to the hon. Gentleman and told him he can deliver his own speech later. I will give way to one of his hon. Friends in a moment. He should listen now—he might learn something. The system has been painstakingly evolved over a period of 60 years, from its beginnings in 1947, through changes that both major political parties have introduced and together have worked to make successful. That has been put at risk by a view of planning based on a year zero approach: everything that went before is wrong; everything that is to come from now on is right. That year zero approach to planning is precisely the kind of thinking that will damage it—not irretrievably because planning will recover eventually—cause serious upheaval and damage in the short term, and result in this Administration being known as the one that will have delivered the lowest level of housing of any five-year period since the end of the war. That I say with careful regard. I shall come back to the figures and remind hon. Members who have been flippant in their use of figures until now, exactly what the position is, where we have come from and where we are going. Coalition Members do not realise that what they are doing is seriously damaging and destabilising. The system requires change to be handled in an extremely thoughtful, careful and sensitive way. The damage that they can do will have untold consequences for hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, and I warn them that they will pay a heavy price when the consequences are seen.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back a couple of minutes. He made a point that I hope all members of the Committee recognise as important, about the tension between need and local wishes that the planning system has to manage. Studies on human behaviour show that if we want to convince people to do something, trying to compel them is not the most effective way to do it. Does he recognise that? Incentivising people is much more effective in getting people to move in the required direction. Does he not see that there is a fundamental flaw in our planning system, in that it tends to work through compulsion rather than incentives?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I obviously agree that it is ideal to encourage and incentivise people, but as a realist I also recognise that an element of compulsion is sometimes needed. As a London Member, the hon. Gentleman will know that the planning system in its old form will continue in London, with the Mayor acting as the regional planning body and having the power to instruct individual boroughs. Those powers will remain.

The hon. Gentleman’s argument was not about election but about whether people should be persuaded or ultimately, in certain cases, told. In London, the Mayor will be able to tell boroughs what is required, and the hon. Gentleman’s Government accept that. If they believed that the old planning system was that bad, they would dismantle it in London as well. I accept entirely that the Mayor has additional authority because he is elected, but there will nevertheless remain a regional tier of government, and if the Conservative party really believed that that was the problem and that people would not respond if they were told what to do by a regional authority, they would change the powers in London.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman accepts that direct election by millions of people gives the Mayor legitimacy, and I imagine that Members across the Committee recognise that London has an identity that some of the country’s other so-called regions may or may not have. Does he also accept that many of the Bill’s provisions will still apply to London, for example the neighbourhood plans and the new homes bonus? Although there will still be a regional spatial plan, many of the incentives will still be there in London.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman reinforces my case. I believe that London will survive the proposals reasonably well because there is continuity here, but in many areas outside London we will see considerable problems because of the absence of a wider perspective from either regional spatial strategies or Government guidance, which would help to ensure that need was met in those areas. The danger is that in many areas we will see unpopular needs ignored or overridden simply in the interests of the short-term priorities of resident populations that do not want new housing. That will be a breach of the balance that we have to achieve in our planning policy, and I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has accepted that that is necessary.

Iain Stewart (Conservative, Milton Keynes South)

The right hon. Gentleman kindly mentioned Milton Keynes, and I want to use my area as an example of why the system under the previous Government was wrong. Milton Keynes has pretty much attained the size that was planned for it when it was designed as a new town the late 1960s, reaching both its population and geographical limits. The previous Government wanted to add about 70,000 houses––to just dump them there because it was an easy part of the south-east in which to build new homes. Milton Keynes is not against growing; we want to grow and build new houses, but we want to do it on our terms, with the planning decided locally. New settlements should be complementary to what we have, not just new housing estates bolted on around the periphery, which is what was going to happen under the previous Government.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I strongly disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s pejorative view about bolting on additional housing, because there was always an understanding that the housing would be properly developed. Milton Keynes has been an exemplar in many ways. It was the first town to take the whole climate change and environmental agenda really seriously when considering new housing, and it adjoins the east midlands region where there is further scope for growth. Northampton and Milton Keynes clearly have a common interest in ensuring well-planned development. There could not be a better example of the need for co-ordination across traditional boundaries so that one gets the best development and not isolated developments in individual areas.

Iain Stewart (Conservative, Milton Keynes South)

The point is this: why will locally elected representatives on Milton Keynes council and its neighbouring authorities not be able to get together to plan sensibly? That is exactly what will happen.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

That is precisely because the present Government propose dismantling the framework that allows councils to work together.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

The right hon. Gentleman relies too much on the linkage between Northampton and Milton Keynes. He might like to reflect on the fact that they are in different regions and that they are encompassed by two regional strategies. In fact, we are making things easier by removing that unnatural obstacle between linked areas.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

If the Under-Secretary thinks back, he will remember that the previous Government put arrangements in place to ensure growth corridors, including the Northampton-Milton Keynes area, the corridor from London to Cambridge and the area around Ashford in Kent. Those were seen as natural growth centres, because existing transport linkages made it possible to achieve a sustainable level of development of the form that should be promoted. I am sorry to say that he is undermining the Government’s case by emphasising that one needs to plan on a wider level than the individual atomic local authority, which is the basis for the Government’s proposals—except, of course, in London, as he knows.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the local enterprise partnership that encompasses Milton Keynes, Northampton and Bedford is, as he recognises, a sensible economic unit. It comprises towns in three regions, and was set out by the previous Government. Does that not thoroughly show that the sub-regional approach that we are taking to enterprise partnerships is the right way to go?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I entirely agree about the importance of appropriate sub-regional or other cross-regional organisational structures in those parts of the country where natural economic linkages cross regional boundaries. That was very much the case for all the development area proposals of the previous Government, and it is not incompatible with having regional spatial strategies.

I hope that this will be familiar to the Under-Secretary, even though he represents a different part of the country, but the Thames Gateway embraces three regions. Nevertheless, a sensible planning framework was put in place to ensure that the common interests of authorities within the area were recognised. All Members who are interested in ensuring effective economic development will be troubled at the lack of progress in the Thames Gateway and in many other development areas.

I spoke about the false premises on which the Government’s policies are based. One is that the planning system is bust, but it is not. It needs reform and change, but that should be handled in an incremental way, as has been done in the past, to avoid disruption. Unfortunately, the Government have not learned that lesson. The second of their flawed analyses is the assumption that the old system was not delivering the necessary housing, and that it was incapable of doing so.

The Minister of State will recall that during the Committee’s evidence-taking sittings, I reminded him and his colleagues of the net additions to the housing stock, which is the Department’s favoured measure of housing output. I remind the Committee that, from 2001-02 until 2007-08, every year saw between 10,000 and 15,000 net additions to the housing stock per annum. From 130,500 net additions in 2001-02, we saw the figures increase to 143,680 in 2002-03, 154,770 in 2003-04, 169,450 in 2004-05, 186,380 in 2005-06, 198,770 in 2006-07 and 207,370 in 2007-08—six years of continuous growth, taking us closer to the target of 240,000 homes a year set by Kate Barker in her review. The idea that the system was not delivering is nonsense. The argument is completely false, and I am surprised that Government Members have continued to peddle something that is simply untrue.

The truth is that there was delivery of housing, the numbers were going up and we were approaching the level at which we would have satisfied the level of need, all of which was halted, of course, by the recession. The recession had a catastrophic impact on the housing market, not only in this country but in Ireland, much of the rest of Europe and certainly north America. That is why we are now back in a position of housing numbers being drastically down. In 2009-10, we saw only 128,000 net additions to the housing stock. However, that was a consequence not of the planning system but of the recession. We now need the correct approach to bring us out of the slump that we have got into, to build confidence, to build new homes and to ensure that we get back on track to increase housing.

Henry Smith (Conservative, Crawley)

In a minute, I am expecting the right hon. Gentleman to claim that the US sub-prime mortgage market has held down house building in this country. Is it not the case that his party was elected in 1997 and the economic downturn hit in 2007? Why was house building in that decade not as high as the top-down method would suggest it should have been?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

This is not the right occasion to answer that. We will have an opportunity later in our proceedings to debate housing policy, when I will tell the hon. Gentleman about the inheritance of the Labour Government in 1997. As all fair-minded people would say, the overwhelming priority in the first three to four years of that Government was to tackle the backlog of disrepair, in particular in the social housing stock. The decent homes programme was, therefore, the overriding priority for the early years of the previous Government and, because it took a large proportion of the resources, not enough money was spent on developing new social housing. As time wore on, we saw the change and the trend I described from 2001 onwards—a rising trend in new housing output, both housing for sale and social housing. There is a rational explanation, but now is not the right time to expand it.

The point that I want to make is that, above all, the right polices are required to ensure that we come out of recession, achieve recovery and rebuild the housing programme as quickly as possible, because the current level of output is massively below what is required. Increasing numbers of our fellow citizens are denied a decent home or a home without gross overcrowding because of a shortage of new homes being built. It is in everyone’s interest to get the right policies in place to achieve that increased output.

What have we seen since the general election? We have seen the present Government introduce a series of measures which, far from building confidence and recovery, has damaged the market. I remind hon. Members what the figures show. From the end of 2009 until the second quarter of 2010, we saw recovery in the housing market—numbers of site visits and starts were increasing, with a modest rise in house prices and growing confidence. All the agencies, whether house builders or estate agents, were reporting that.

Since the summer, however, that recovery has stalled. We have seen a halt to the rising trend not only of site visit numbers but of house prices, which have begun to fall. We have seen worrying evidence that the number of visits to house builders is falling. Everyone confirms that there is a problem of confidence. Why is that? One element straddles both the previous and current Governments, which is the mortgage-lending situation, where, because of the consequences of the recession, mortgage lenders have been much more cautious, and their terms are not helpful to first-time buyers, who play an important part in the market.

On another occasion, I will go into the rather mixed messages that the Government have sent to both mortgage lenders and the Financial Services Authority, which are probably not helping, but I will not blame them for the mortgage famine. I will, however, blame them for two things.

First, I blame them for the intemperate action taken in the summer of 2010 to supposedly revoke regional spatial strategies, which, as everyone knows, caused considerable alarm and concern in the house building industry and which turned out to be unlawful and was struck down by the High Court. That was a serious error of judgment. It undermined confidence in the market, and it did not help the recovery.

Secondly, they drastically cut social housing investment. That meant not only the building of new social housing, but support for schemes such as Kickstart and HomeBuy Direct, which were incredibly useful for house builders to get through the difficult times. Those two programmes had made an enormous contribution in helping house builders through the worst period of the recession. Cancelling them in the summer of last year and cutting back on the national affordable housing programme were serious errors of judgment, and they have had damaging consequences on the housing market.

We have a situation where a new Government have come in, pledging to build more homes, but actually acting in a way that has damaged confidence in the market. They are now driving through a series of ill-thought-out proposals to change the way in which the planning system operates without any testing. Is that not extraordinary? For people who believe that their view is right and that others are wrong, one would think that they might have tried to test, in one area or another, whether it works. We might then have heard the hon. Member for Henley saying that he has proof, rather than belief. There is no proof; there has been no testing; and there is no empirical evidence behind it. It is based on heroic, and in my view misguided, assumptions. It is a huge gamble at the expense of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, whose homes depend on a decent planning system. I fear that the consequence will be a long period of time in which we do not produce the homes that the country needs. The Government parties will be responsible for that, and it will be our job to ensure that the public understand their culpability.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

I hate planning, I really do. In 26 years, it was the one committee that I refused to be on. Although I attended it many times, I managed to avoid it as best I could.

As a coalition and a Government, we are in danger of making the same mistake several times. We are doing that, because we are doing it in different areas. I have heard the expression of throwing the baby out with the bathwater many times. Whether it is the regional development agencies, the primary care trusts or the regional spatial strategies, we are trying to get rid of things about which there is a great deal of concern and complaint without putting their successors in place. Earlier, someone mentioned that the systems were broken, but if we are into sustainable policy development, we should be trying to mend things, rather than replacing them.

In many ways, we are trying to centralise our decentralisation. I am reminded of a story about a couple of people in an art gallery looking at a portrait from opposite ends of the room. Both swore blind that the portrait was looking directly at them. Of course, they were both right, and they were both wrong. What governed their view was their standpoint—where they came from and what their view was on it. That is evident in what is taking place in so many elements of the discussion of this. We know that there is a common picture, but we are looking at it from different standpoints. We are all fashioned on the anvil of experience, and we have different experiences that govern our view on the Bill.

A couple of illustrations came from the hon. Member for Croydon Central, who raised the issue of housing in Birmingham. The people of Birmingham would love to be able to say what their housing should be, and would not want anyone outside Birmingham to decide what housing should be and where it should be. If I can yet again be parochial, and reference my experience as a ward councillor, my ward grew by 30% in the 26 years I was a councillor. Year after year, I fought a succession of planning applications for sizeable developments—more than 2,500 in those 20-odd years. I never won one, but I got a lot of thanks for trying. What happened was that as soon as a new development was built, those residents then formed the next action group to stop the next development. That is the way it goes. Nimbyism exists—it is not a bad thing but a natural thing—in a village towards the town, in the town towards the county or district, in the county or district towards the region and in the region towards the country. As a nation, we tend to be that way inclined as well. Something needs to be in place to counter that, and it is question of what form it should take.

Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that his story about his experiences as a councillor illustrates the point that, under our current system, residents’ interaction with the planning system tends to come only when there is an application for something they do not want? We need to turn that around and engage them in developing the plans for their area.

David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East)

That is spot on, although to me, that is mending the system, rather than replacing it, which is where the focus should be. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington made a solid case on the need for a strategic view on the big issues that we face. Of course, we all share that mood, do we not? The duty to co-operate is in the Bill, and it is in there for a reason, because it recognises that something is needed. It is wrong to include the duty to co-operate, however, without making it meaningful other than as a tokenism towards some sort of understanding of the need for a strategic view. It needs to be meaningful and beyond half measures. We seem to be replacing something that is unpopular for some with something that is uncertain for everybody. That is wrong.

Because of the comprehensive nature of the contribution from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, mine can be somewhat shorter than it otherwise would have been. I will confine myself to the amendments that are in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay. We have tabled a batch of amendments that seek to strengthen the duty to co-operate, while also extending the duty to marine planning authorities. I will return to that later. We are trying to expand the scope of the planning documents that authorities can jointly draw on. The degree to which the duty to co-operate is effective at achieving strategic planning will depend on the nature of the joint planning effort that it brings about. It is by no means clear that the duty will be meaningful in its current form. The language is, to say the least, at times vague and lacks force. Where two authorities prepare separate development plan documents, the duty may simply be about providing delivery and exchange of information. The heart of the duty is a passive requirement to respond if consulted and provide information to assist a planning process. That is hardly a rigorous or robust part of the Bill.

I touched on some amendments about co-operating in relation to the marine plan authority. That seems to be an omission from the Bill. The marine plan authority is a burning issue in Bradford. We have the River Aire, which flows into the sea and is thereby a connection, although it is 70 miles away. Of course, many people go to Blackpool and Scarborough for their holidays. I shall now be inundated by people from Filey, Whitby, Scarborough and Southport who will also point out that people from Bradford go to the seaside sometimes. The new marine planning regime comes into force this year, with the Marine Management Organisation drawing up spatial plans for the use and protection of marine resources. There is a clear need for the newly created authority to co-operate with terrestrial authorities on cross-cutting issues, some of which have been mentioned: climate change, flood defences, conservation and renewable energy.

Our amendment 197 would establish sustainable development as the ultimate objective of the duty to co-operate and puts that in place. There is a concern that where planning authorities do not set up a joint planning board and they are not under an obligation to do so, we need to reinforce sustainability where they prepare separate development plans. Amendment 199 would remove subsection (4), which is wishy-washy and passive. In our view, the measure requires more teeth.

Amendment 200 would give greater force to future guidance on how the duty to co-operate should operate, so that it can be strengthened or, indeed, refined if it proves inadequate. Amendment 201 provides that people may enter into an agreement on how the duty is to be exercised and how disputes may be resolved. Where the electorate is expected to increasingly hold the planning authorities to account, it seems to be essential that the information available enables them to do so effectively. Information should therefore be available on a local authority’s performance in working to develop joint solutions to cross-boundary issues.

Amendment 202 would put in place stronger reporting obligations and refers to how local authorities carry out the duty to co-operate. Although there are existing provisions for local authorities to draw up local development documents, they are limited to core strategies. New clause 9 would amend section 28 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to extend the scope of the plans, renaming them strategic development plans. It sets out some of the cross-border planning issues to which those should apply, such as housing and climate change. Amendments 203 to 205 would require local planning authorities to take strategic development plans into account in place of the regional spatial strategy. What we tried to do, from what we considered to be a weak position, with the duty to co-operate, is to reinforce that. It is not where we would have started, but to enable us to get to a position which can be accommodated on both sides, it requires strengthening, reinforcement and far more clarity, in our view.

Heidi Alexander (Labour, Lewisham East)

I apologise for not being here for the duration of this debate; I had to attend an important constituency meeting. Unlike the hon. Member for Bradford East, I genuinely like planning and I think that it has a huge amount to offer the development of the country. Unlike the hon. Member for Croydon Central, who says that the only time people are genuinely involved in the planning system is when they are agitated or against a development, I accept that it can be at its most acute at that point, but also think that good local authorities across the country—I seem to be making a habit of saying this—that have conducted the process of putting local plans together properly will have been out there consulting and talking to their residents on their planning policies.

I accept that it is hard for people to get their heads around some of these things. It is much easier to get your head around a particular planning application, when the drawings are on the table in front of you, rather than the idea that, at some point, perhaps over the next five to ten years, there may be these sorts of developments, x number of homes. It is very difficult for people to engage at that stage. Understandably, people will have a number of other things going on in their lives and the interest in engaging with the planning system comes when there is a particular application on the table. It is harder to get that engagement around planning policy.

I accept that it is very difficult to get my constituents in Lewisham East excited about regional spatial strategies, the London Plan or the local development framework, but with a lot of effort, we did that. I recognise that when members of the Government say that there was perhaps, a lack of democratic accountability in the RSSs, they are making something of a valid point. RSSs were not perfect, but they enabled us to look at some big issues that we have to address as a country. I will not repeat our debate on housing and the need for many more homes and, indeed, many more affordable homes, but I associate myself with the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich in this respect.

What we need to achieve in the planning system is a balance between the carrot and the stick. I am not sure that the incentives that the Government propose will result in the number of homes that we need, or—let me develop this example—the type of energy that we need to be generating. I want to focus now on new clause 3 and our proposals to put sustainable development in the Bill and to speak more specifically about renewable energy generation.

Sustainable development as a concept means many things. Some people think that it means putting solar panels on the top of buildings, but it is not that. That might contribute to it, but it is actually about where development happens in this country. How are people going to get to work? Are they going to use public transport or their cars? What about the scale of development in locations across the country? An argument could be made that larger-scale developments can be more environmentally friendly. If we think about the way in which decentralised energy may be provided, a large development, perhaps on the outskirts of a town, may enable something like an energy services company to be introduced—a great example of localism. We need to get that presumption in favour of sustainable development in the Bill, which is why I welcome the proposed new clause and the amendments put forward by our Front-Bench team.

I said that I would talk about renewable energy generation. With the abolition of the regional spatial strategies, we lose not only housing targets but the targets for renewable energy generation. I ask Ministers to consider their claim of being the greenest Government ever when I put to them the following scenario. In 2009, the previous Government published their renewable energy strategy and, by and large, the targets that were set out in that were accepted by this Government when they published their renewable energy action plan last year. The lead scenario in that strategy suggested that by 2020, 14 GW of onshore wind energy would be needed across the UK. At the moment, we have 3.8 GW of capacity. Knowing how controversial wind farms are, my concern is exactly where such developments will go. Is it not the case that the Government should show some leadership over this? I fear that if we leave the matter to every community—I know these things are not easy to deal with—we will not get the sum total of what is needed. That point has been made about the Bill by the Town and Country Planning Association. I am concerned that we will see a protracted period of passing the buck and leaving someone else to do it. We cannot take that risk when it comes to meeting our carbon reduction targets, tackling climate change and delivering new homes.

Let me beg the Committee’s indulgence for a couple of minutes. Members may think that my example would be better discussed under the neighbourhood planning section of the Bill, but I want to exemplify a wider point. I was a candidate in a council by-election and so had not even been elected when I was involved in my first campaign. There was a controversial housing development for about 35 flats of affordable housing. It was on a piece of parkland, although the definition of the land was complicated. The community—the people living in immediate proximity to that park—said, “We don’t want it. We want that piece of concrete to stay as it is.” It was a bomb site from the second world war.

I said, “Hang on a minute, there are 35 families who could be housed in this new development. There are additional benefits that could be provided in this area.” The issue was not black and white and there were no rights and wrongs. It was about the planning system and how we balanced the competing objectives of retaining open space and providing new housing. I took a stand. I was worried about it and feared that I would not get elected. This was a massive issue. There were banners saying, “Save Deptford park” over the road. None the less, I decided to say that, on balance, the development was appropriate. I thought that I was demonstrating leadership. I had seen thousands upon thousands of people who said, “I need to live in a bigger property and I need to live in a decent property.” There is a big question for this Government about leadership around housing and the provision of affordable housing. I will say no more at this stage. Suffice it to say that when we come to the neighbourhood planning section of the Bill, I will have a lot more to say.

Fiona Bruce (Conservative, Congleton)

May I speak briefly against the fixed definition of sustainable development as proposed by Opposition Members? I will give one example of the dangers of such a fixed definition with its inevitable omissions. To some, such omissions are considered vital for the development of strong, healthy local communities. I speak of the needs of faith groups, and their immensely valuable contribution to local community life. In so doing, I also seek reassurance from the Minister on the issue.

I understand that faith communities have faced difficulties in the planning process in recent years because the importance of considering and making provision for places of worship and associated activities is now omitted from many local plans and core strategies. That has caused faith communities repeated failed applications, costly appeals and a great deal of concern. I would therefore appreciate an acknowledgement from the Minister that it is right to recognise the needs of faith communities and their important contribution to community life—they often care for the most vulnerable in our communities on a long-term and committed basis—when considering what sustainable development means within our local communities.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

We have had a wide-ranging, interesting and sometimes passionate debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East says that he hates planning, and I thought that members of the public shared that sentiment when the gallery emptied as we came on to the subject. We have attracted some people back in the meantime. Perhaps it was the prospect of a history lesson from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington that had that effect.

I feel that I owe an apology to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, whom I encouraged to serve on the Committee. I thought that we would benefit from his scrutiny and debate, but I fear that I have done a disservice to his blood pressure. I am not sure whether these proceedings will be good for his health. He talked about seriousness. I do not think that anyone in the Committee, or the House, is under any illusions about the seriousness with which he takes himself. I realise that it was perhaps a little cruel; he is a veteran of such proceedings, and I think that he as a Minister introduced some of the measures that we are repealing today. That is an unusual position. We can understand the passion that he brings to measures that he introduced. If that means that he gets a little batey from time to time, we understand the context.

Heidi Alexander (Labour, Lewisham East)

Will the Minister join me in thanking the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington for bringing a bit of life to this debate and waking up Government Members from a permanent reverie over the past couple of days?

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

The hon. Lady does herself a disservice. Her contributions provide life, as do those of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. He has been invited to be a tricoteur at the guillotining of his own measures, and we can understand how that might induce a sudden dyspepsia from time to time. However, we have had life, and I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s presence and his characteristic robustness.

We have managed, despite surface appearances, to reach a degree of mutual understanding about the clauses and amendments before us. Everyone, with the possible exception of the right hon. Gentleman, agrees that regional spatial strategies have had their time. Whether or not they were the wrong approach to begin with, as we think, I do not believe that Front-Bench Members on either side of the Committee think that they should be kept. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington and his hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South signalled that clearly. That view is confirmed by the evidence that we have heard.

We have heard a lot of evidence. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington is right that people had things to say about issues of transition and detail. Adrian Penfold from British Land said:

“There has been a sense that development has been imposed on local people…In many cases…it causes a feeling of imposition on local communities…regional government is often seen as an arm of central Government. So the situation is seen as central Government imposing on local people…The best situations are where we work with local authorities and communities to get around the feelings of imposition, and developments happen.”––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011; c. 106, Q179.]

That is the view that we have heard. I cannot recall a single piece of evidence that argued for the retention of regional spatial strategies. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central pointed out that some of the foremost opponents of regional spatial strategies are Labour Members. I think the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) described them as Stalinist in their practice, if not their intent.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Moor View)

Just to ensure that the record is entirely straight and one of our witnesses is not taken out of context, the gentleman from the Home Builders Federation was clear about his support for regional spatial strategies.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

Well, I will correct my understanding if I am wrong. I did not think that he was in favour of continuing them.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I cannot resist teasing the Minister; as he knows, regional spatial strategies will survive in London.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

With an elected representative who can set them and be endorsed or removed as necessary.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central pointed out quite correctly that London is a city and a proud one at that. It would rail at the use of the word region, just as much as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington did. He always, I noticed, referred to sub-regions. He did not dare use the “R” word on its own—I think, for good reason. It is a good constructive thing that we recognise that there should be no re-imposition of that. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South knows that I am a great student of her website, where she is critical of meeting housing targets imposed from above and argues that we should think about sustainability locally.

The hon. Member for Lewisham East referred to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington in her entertaining contributions earlier. There was more consensus there than he found it convenient to acknowledge at the time. We are agreed that the regional strategies as the basis for our planning system have had their day. The perfectly reasonable question is what should replace them. That is the question before the Committee and the question that the Bill needs to address.

I have been clear, and I was clear when I gave evidence to the Committee, that this approach of requiring co-operation between authorities is important. It replaces an administrative way of reconciling larger than local interests with a more natural, more democratic and more organic means whereby people can recognise their common interests across borders. We have had some examples of how the previous administrative arrangements put barriers in the way of that, whether that is dividing Kent, Essex and London into three separate regions that then required further arrangements to overcome that or the same in Milton Keynes.

The approach that we are taking to allow and to expect some greater bottom-up co-operation is a very important principle. It is consistent with the approach that we have taken to local enterprise partnerships and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s recognition that that has produced in many cases some striking examples of a natural economic geography that was submerged by the previous arrangements. Whether it is in great cities like Manchester or Birmingham, which is another example of a promising partnership, or in areas such as Kent, Essex and East Sussex that recognise that they have some common features, enabling people to recognise their issues of common concern and come together to address them is the right approach.

The question is whether the duty to co-operate as expressed in the Bill is the best expression of that very important measure that we are introducing. As I said to the Committee when I gave evidence, I am willing to take representations and to reflect on them. I have said that to Members. I have also been in discussion with many of the trade bodies and interested parties. From the time of the Bill’s publication, I have been clear in saying to them, “This is the approach that we are minded to take. We very much welcome your expert advice on how this can be tweaked and strengthened and how it can be made to work optimally.”

I am grateful to some of the bodies that have promoted the amendments that we are discussing today. Perfectly reasonably, the Opposition’s amendments are closely modelled, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington mentioned, on some suggestions that the Town and Country Planning Association has made. As it happens, the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East and for St Austell and Newquay are also promoted by the TCPA, and I think it recognises that there are different approaches.

Jack Dromey (Labour, Birmingham, Erdington)

Just for the record, there are 20 organisations in that coalition on the one hand, and what they are proposing accords with all the evidence given to the Committee on the other.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

As I say, I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on those. I hope that members of the Committee have seen the late set of amendments suggested by the Royal Town Planning Institute, of which I think the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich is a vice-president. It reflected seriously on these matters and shared with us a set of amendments.

I will give some commentary on the range of amendments tabled by the hon. Members for Birmingham, Erdington and for Worsley and Eccles South, and my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East and for St Austell and Newquay, and also the RTPI’s suggested amendments. As on the abolition of regional strategies, there are grounds to divine a consensus as to how the matters should be approached. We have had a wide-ranging group of amendments, so let me refer to them in groups according to their theme and reflect on that.

The first theme is the question of whom or which bodies should be covered by the duty to co-operate. That is reflected in the Opposition’s amendments 153 and 154 and amendments 195, 196 and 198 tabled by my hon. Friends. The Opposition suggest that integrated transport bodies ought to be subject to the duty to co-operate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East mentioned the idea that marine planning authorities should be subject to the duty. All those are perfectly sensible. It always was our intention that those bodies should be subject to the duty to co-operate. We had it in mind to prescribe those bodies in regulations. They will include, for example, the Environment Agency, and bodies that could also be on the list if we were taking a more comprehensive set of amendments, but are not. It is our intention to capture those bodies and more besides. This should be a very general duty to co-operate, not confined to local authorities but extending to all the relevant public bodies that have a contribution to make on spatial planning.

I suggest to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington and my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East and for St Austell and Newquay that we will consider the list. If we can, we will publish in draft form before we get to Report a list of the bodies that we have in mind for the requirement. I am sure that we can come to a common view as to which bodies should be there.

Let me turn to the next theme—the next set of amendments—which are the activities covered by the duty to co-operate. Amendments 155 to 157 were tabled by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, while new clause 9, amendments 203 to 205 and amendments 199 to 202 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East. The provisions represent different approaches, and it is interesting that the TCPA considers that there are two possible approaches, presumably both of which it considers to be valid. One approach is to prescribe in great detail the activities and types of plans and documents that should be promoted, while the other set of TCPA and other bodies’ amendments suggest a lighter touch approach, but with a requirement for a proper degree of co-operation to be reflected if the plan is to be adopted. That is also the essence of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s suggested approach. The RTPI’s suggestion reflects some of our discussions on earlier clauses. Giving an example in the Bill of one particular means of discharging the duty to co-operate—in other words, responding to the request for information—is dangerously narrow. It is meant to be helpful, but it might be interpreted as the only thing that is necessary to discharge that duty to co-operate. The RTPI feels that it is unhelpful to have that duty to exchange information.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

I want to ask the Minister straightforwardly if all members of the Committee have seen the RTPI amendment to which he refers. If that is not clear, people should have a copy.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

I received it as a member of the Committee as well as a Minister. It was published yesterday, so I assumed that it had been e-mailed around. Members might have received it—I think some have. Since it is not a Government amendment, I do not know whether it is proper for it to be supplied.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

I just make the point that the Minister is referring to it.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

I am referring to it because it was sent—I think to all members of the Committee.

Brandon Lewis (Conservative, Great Yarmouth)

Just to confirm, the document was sent to all members of the Committee on 14 February. It came to my office as part of a pack.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley and Eccles South)

I just make the point that it should be supplied.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. There cannot be an intervention on an intervention.

Greg Clark (Conservative, Tunbridge Wells)

Well, I think the amendment is widely available, but it should not be necessary for Members to have it in front of them because I will refer to some of its features, given that they are worth mentioning.

The amendment suggests that we should insert into clause 90(2) that the duty to co-operate should apply

“where issues or impacts cross administrative boundaries”.

On the face of it, that seems to be a sensible approach that is quite wide in scope. The amendment suggests: there should be

“a duty to consider the preparation of joint development documents”;

a duty to consider the preparation of joint local infrastructure plans; and

“a duty to consider consulting on and publishing such agreements or other documents prepared jointly”;

and the fulfilment of these duties should

“be regarded as a consideration by an independent examiner in carrying out functions under section 20”.

The essence of the RTPI’s approach is very similar in its effect to that of the set of amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East, which were suggested by the TCPA.

Rather than detain the Committee too long about detail, I acknowledge the opportunity that we have to strengthen that duty to co-operate, to make it bite and to make it more encompassing that it is. From the amendments that have been tabled to the amendments that have been shared, there is the opportunity to establish a set of changes to this duty that will provide a good basis on which to replace the regional strategies with something that reflects that approach.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.