My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Marshalled List, and I will just interpose a word about the speech that we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—which was made, of course, by the former director of the Institute for Government. I understand what he said, because there is a great deal of dissatisfaction about the way that we make laws in this country, and there needs to be a very thorough examination of it. However, that is not what I am on about here.
I am grateful to my noble friend’s department, which suggested that I group these two amendments together, which I was very glad to do. Their common thread is of course that they have both been suggested to me by the City of London. The first, Amendment 48ZE, revisits a matter which I raised in Committee in relation to development in Greater London and concerns the relationship of the thresholds as to what would be regarded as nationally significant and what, for the purposes of Greater London, are to be regarded as regionally significant. It really is quite absurd that those two numbers should, in a sense, be almost the wrong way round, with a higher figure for London and a lower figure for the national significance. This applies in relation to the whole of Greater London but is of considerable practical significance to the City of London, because the higher threshold, which is provided by the Town And Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008, for the mayor to intervene in the City is much higher than is required for the rest of London—40,000 square feet of floor space for London generally, but 100,000 square feet in the case of the City. I think that everybody can understand why that should be different and why the City should have a much higher figure, as it is an almost exclusively commercial area with a very small residential development. I went into some detail on that in Committee. I think it will be fairly evident to everyone that the sheer volume of the commercial development in London is quite exceptional and will continue to be so in coming years.
The amendment that I am putting forward reflects the idea that, whereas in Greater London as a whole thresholds are already laid down to identify those cases where commercial development might require a wider look than is taken by the local authority alone, these thresholds should not be undermined by the new procedure for nationally significant development. I suggest that it would make little sense—this is the point I made in Committee—to treat a development as nationally significant when it is too small to be treated as strategically important at the regional level.
When my noble friend answered the debate in Committee he made the point that the threshold is only intended as a minimum. I understand that: not every development above the threshold would necessarily be accepted as being nationally significant. The same of course is also true of the threshold laid down for the Mayor of London’s power of intervention—it is only a minimum level, above which the mayor may or may not decide that the application has potentially significant importance. In both cases, the purpose of
setting a threshold appears to be the same: to make clear to the developers and local planning authorities alike that applications for planning permission will be dealt with in the ordinary way by the local planning authority in all but a few exceptional cases. To invoke parallel procedures in respect of tasks that are within the local planning authority’s normal sphere of experience and expertise would risk introducing unhelpful uncertainty into the system. That is the basis on which this amendment is being moved.
It seems difficult to justify a significant discrepancy between the two thresholds as is set to occur in the City of London. When my noble friend answered the debate, he agreed that it was hard to envisage. He said—I quote from Hansard—that,
“it is hard to envisage a type of nationally significant scheme that the mayor did not have the ability to consider as being of strategic importance”.—[Official Report, 4/2/13; col. 97.]
That really makes the case. That is exactly the principle that my amendment would seek to establish. I therefore suggest that it would be a simple and convenient way of ensuring consistency between the two regimes. Of course, I am quite ready to listen to what my noble friend on the Front Bench has to say. However, the important point is that it should be quite clear that the new regime should not interfere with the ordinary routine activities of local planning authorities, even in unusual areas such as the City. I hope that my noble friend will be able to see the sense of this, and if he cannot accept this amendment, perhaps he could bring back his own amendment at a later stage.
The other amendment is on quite a different subject that was also raised with me by the City. This is amendment 50A. It is intended to remove what is undoubtedly an uncertainty within the City of London about the setting up of business improvement districts. This depends upon the regulations, and the regulations need some clarification. Business improvement districts are usually described by the acronym BIDs and would normally be set up by companies, industrial companies, or the Government introduced a provision whereby they could be set up by local authorities. The detailed procedures for setting them up are contained in regulations made under the Local Government Act 2003.
Some noble Lords may recollect that I introduced an earlier Bill for the setting up of BIDs and took it all the way through this House, but it never made any progress at the other end of the corridor. However, I have a sort of paternal interest in BIDs. It is where bodies come together with a view to supplementing local services by having a ballot. If the ballot has a majority on getting business rate payers to pay a supplement on top, it serves to be able to finance those extra services. They have proved popular and they are widely used now all over the country. There has to be a majority of at least half of the total rateable value of the premises within the area. If that is met, then a BID can come into being and all businesses are obliged to make a contribution to the cost of the additional facilities.
The BIDs model is now an established mechanism for business engagement. However, the company is not the only way; as I said earlier, they can be introduced by a local authority. This is where the difficulty arises
in relation to the City of London. It is maybe a more convenient model. The obvious case where a BID might be operated is in the City because the City of London Corporation already operates under a largely business franchise. The great problem arises over whether its regulations actually recognise this. One could have a sort of philosophical discussion as to whether an authority could give a direction to itself, which would be implied by the regulation if it is not amended in the way that I am suggesting. If there is a company set up for the purpose then it can ask the local authority to do certain things. However, if the local authority itself is going to do it, then the regulations ought to provide that that is possible, in a sense by giving directions to itself.
Given that the bid involves a payment of a levy by businesses as a result of a majority vote, and there will always be some businesses that may have voted against it, it is important to see that the procedure cannot be challenged in the courts. I understand that the City of London Corporation has already brought this difficulty to the attention of the department, and that the department acknowledged the difficulty. However, the Bill seems to provide an opportunity for clarification, which perhaps the Minister will be able to offer in his reply. Perhaps he could also indicate if there could be an amendment of the regulations fairly soon.
The City is anxious to get ahead with this and the regulations need to make it possible and ensure that it would be beyond challenge. I hope that my noble friend will be able to reply accordingly.