My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 312A in this group, which would insert a new clause with the heading:
“Duty to optimise the use of public land”.
As this implies, the amendment attempts to ensure that the precious asset of land owned by public bodies is put to “optimal use”. The amendment tries to do two things. First, it would place a duty on local authorities to have a land use management plan for sites in their ownership to ensure that developments are brought forward for the public good. Secondly, since the duty to optimise the use of public land would very often be exercised by disposal of the land to others, the amendment also seeks to define the meaning of the phrase “best consideration reasonably obtainable”, which governs sale of publicly owned land at present.
Earlier amendments in this group would extend the current disposal regime to cover police and crime commissioners, the NHS, importantly, and all other public bodies. This amendment seeks to resolve long-standing complexities and arguments over the treatment of landholdings by public bodies. I pay tribute to the land economist Stephen Hill, who has studied this question for many years, for his preparation of the amendment. He has been aided by Keith Jenkins, the property lawyer, alongside distinguished real estate experts, academics and leading practitioners who all have my thanks for their work on this subject.
An essential feature of the levelling-up agenda is the need to improve the built environment to create better places to live and work. Securing the land for improved conditions—for affordable homes, green spaces, local amenities, et cetera—is the key to this. The amendment’s first objective, therefore, is simply to bring more public land into play. It would do so by requiring local authorities to prepare a land use management plan, demonstrating how use of their land will be optimised.
This approach was advocated by your Lordships’ Land Use in England Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington. Several
local authorities are showing the way with land use plans. For example, the West Midlands Combined Authority has set out what is expected of public landowners; its public land charter requires those landowners to
“apply a consistent, joined-up approach to best consideration”
that aims to achieve “sustainable long-term” value for their land. Amendment 312A would spread this good practice everywhere.
However, securing the best economic, social and environmental uses when public land is sold has been constantly thwarted by public bodies’ acceptance of a higher price offered for the land by other bidders for what is often a less than optimal use. We all have stories of hard-pressed providers of public services understandably wanting to secure as much hard cash as they can from disposing of their land assets, even though doing so conflicts with efforts to improve the quality of life for local citizens.
I will use NHS land to illustrate this point. I have been involved in negotiations to acquire a redundant hospital building for an extra care housing development for older people. This use of the old building and surrounding land would lead to substantial annual savings for the NHS and care services, keeping people out of hospital and residential care as well as reducing loneliness and care needs. But the NHS trust was adamant that the sale must be to the highest bidder— in this case, a developer of luxury flats for overseas buyers—irrespective of the benefits to the NHS and care services that our extra care housing project would achieve. Very often, the reason cited by the public body for taking this line is that there is an obligation on it to secure the highest price, which gets equated with the “best consideration reasonably obtainable”. This is likely to mean the land is valued so highly that it prohibits a development that would achieve important social objectives.
Amendment 312A addresses this issue by creating the duty to go for the optimal use of the land, not the highest price offered, defining “optimal use” and interpreting “best consideration” by reference to constraints on the use of the land from predetermined local and national requirements. It spells out that this means fulfilling four imperatives: first, the requirements of the local development plan and the neighbourhood plan, if there is one; secondly, any national development management policies that will follow from the Bill; thirdly, the environmental principles in the Environment Act 2021; and fourthly, any other objectives or requirements determined by the Secretary of State.
In other words, securing the optimal use of publicly owned land must simply but definitively accord with national and local government requirements. The value of the land is thereby constrained and moderated by the need to comply with these legislative and administrative requirements. In this way, the value of the land is captured by the planning system for economic, social and environmental uses.
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I believe this redefinition would help colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities who have been trying to clarify the best
consideration requirement since their 2018 planning reform consultation. When the Secretary of State appeared before the DLUHC Select Committee to discuss the Bill last June, he said that this was still an outstanding issue. This amendment unlocks that position. I realise that this approach is dependent on the existence of a valid and up-to-date local plan, which we may in future call a local development plan. The amendment’s outcome obviously needs all councils to finalise their plans before it can be made a condition in any sale of publicly owned land for the development to meet local requirements set out in that plan and, where relevant, in a neighbourhood plan. I sincerely hope that other measures in the Bill and in related guidance will ensure that local plans materialise for every council. A plan-led system without a plan goes nowhere.
I will return to the issue of capturing land value with later amendments covering privately owned land. However, this amendment—requiring public bodies to look at their landholdings, determine their optimal use and dispose of their sites on terms that make these optimal uses viable—stands in its own right. It would bring thousands of sites, large and small, into play on terms that make possible all the good things that local communities need. I commend the amendment.