My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this amendment, particularly my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, who is rightly acknowledged to have worked with great skill, diligence and good humour on this subject. It has been a pleasure to engage with her in this area and to make some progress on the issues we have been looking at.
It may be helpful if I say a little bit to put the Bill in context before I turn to the amendment. It is almost five years to the day since the people of Upper Eden in Cumbria went to the polls to vote on the first neighbourhood plan. Since then, we have witnessed what some have called a quiet revolution around England with more than 2,000 communities taking the initiative to shape the future of their area through neighbourhood planning. During the passage of the Bill, we have listened to some passionate arguments seeking a stronger voice for communities in local planning decisions. Communities are at the heart of this Bill, and I have been keen to respond to that.
Last year, the Government committed to this legislation to give additional strength to neighbourhood planning because neighbourhood plans are a powerful tool that bring with them responsibilities, and it takes significant commitment and determination to produce a plan. I am very keen on this issue, hence my earlier comments about ensuring that there is proper preparation and help in putting together a neighbourhood plan, which I think is where some of the problems arise. I cannot say anything specifically about the situation of my noble friend because it is sub judice, but in general, I think having that assistance at a very early stage will help communities. We will do our level best to ensure that all communities going through this process are aware of the help that is available. As I have indicated, I am happy to continue to engage with my noble
friend on this subject, and I will keep noble Lords informed of the progress of those discussions, which have been ongoing and fruitful in many respects. Much of what we are doing here we are able to do without legislative intervention.
There is no doubt about the importance of the issues raised by the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and supported by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Kennedy. However, it would fundamentally change our planning system by removing the ability of those taking decisions to exercise their judgment when considering the planning merits of the case and the evidence for and against a specific development proposal, and the Government could not support that. We need to remember that the essence of planning decisions, particularly those on individual proposals for development, requires choices to be made. There must be freedom for decision-makers to make such choices according to the circumstances of the individual case. I certainly support the ambition behind the amendment to reinforce the primacy of the development plan, which incorporates the neighbourhood plan but is not limited to it. However, this amendment would elevate the policies in a neighbourhood plan above any other policies in the development plan, regardless of the relative weight the decision-maker considers should be afforded to individual policies in the development plan. Furthermore, the amendment makes no allowance for whether the policies in a neighbourhood plan have been kept up to date to ensure that they remain relevant.
To reiterate the point I made in Committee, the law is already clear that decisions on planning applications must be made in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
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Subsections (1) and (2) of the proposed new clause address decisions on planning applications taken by the Secretary of State and planning inspectors acting on his behalf. In Grand Committee, I committed to sharing details of the planning appeals recovered by the Secretary of State in the year ending March 2016—sometimes, as I listened to the debate, it seemed that the Secretary of State was being characterised as somebody throwing thunderbolts all around the planning system in England. I confirm that a dozen appeals were recovered under the neighbourhood planning recovery criteria in that year, and have been decided. In all those cases, the Secretary of State’s decision was in agreement with the planning inspector’s recommendations, and in nine of them, the decisions were decided in line with the relevant neighbourhood plan.
On proposed new subsection (3), we wish to ensure that plans start from an honest assessment of the need for new homes. We recognise that neighbourhood planning groups need clarity about what their share of local housing need is, and that this should be agreed locally. The housing White Paper sets out our proposals, on which we are consulting until 2 May, to change the National Planning Policy Framework to indicate that local planning authorities should provide neighbourhood planning groups with a housing requirement figure where this is needed to facilitate
progress of neighbourhood planning. To be effective, plans need to be kept up to date. As plans age, the policies they contain may become out of touch with changes both in the local area and to national policy. Where neighbourhood planning groups have chosen to allocate sites for housing, one way they may wish to provide flexibility to respond to changing circumstance is to allocate reserve sites which could come forward at a later date, for example in response to changing housing needs or because other preferred sites are no longer deliverable. It is for local planning authorities and their communities to work collaboratively to produce updated plans that are complementary. Measures in the Bill will support this process and ensure that local planning authorities keep their plans up to date, offer a more proportionate procedure for updating neighbourhood plans and pave the way for more informed and equitable discussions between local planning authorities and their local communities.
The current legislative and policy package, together with the action we have taken through the recent Written Ministerial Statement and the measures proposed in the recent housing White Paper, put beyond any doubt this Government’s commitment to a plan-led system with communities at its heart. As I have indicated, I am very happy—as are the department and the Government—to continue talking to see if there are ways we can improve on this, although we have gone a long way in the discussions, as I think will be reflected in subsequent groups of amendments when we come to them. With this clarification, I ask my redoubtable noble friend Lady Cumberlege to withdraw her amendment.