My Lords, we have a number of amendments in this group, and there are a number of issues that I want to visit in this group, so I apologise if this takes a few minutes.
Looking first of all at my Amendment 225 to Schedule 7, this amendment would mean that local planning authorities must have regard to the content of any relevant neighbourhood priorities statement in the exercise of their planning functions. If we turn to the Bill, we see that Section 15K introduces a new neighbourhood planning tool, the neighbourhood priorities statement. According to the Bill’s Explanatory Notes, these statements will
“allow communities to identify their key priorities for their local area, including their development preferences”,
with the intention of providing
“a simpler and more accessible way”
for communities to participate in neighbourhood planning.
The provision is clearly a response to the fact that the vast majority of the 1,061 neighbourhood plans that have been made to date have emanated from the more affluent parts of the country, where people have the time and the resources to prepare and implement them, rather than from less affluent areas and more complex urban environments. But we welcome the fact that the Government are engaging with what is a real problem.
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Although we certainly welcome the intent behind this, providing community groups with the power to make these neighbourhood priorities statements does raise a number of questions. First, how much flexibility will community groups have in formulating these neighbourhood priorities statements, given that proposed new Section 15LE makes a particular statement about this? Subsection (3) states:
“Regulations under subsection (2)(1) may provide for the form or content of a neighbourhood priorities statement to be determined by the Secretary of State”.
Are they then a replacement for neighbourhood plans where those are unlikely to be created, or are they a precursor to the development of full neighbourhood plans? Perhaps in different areas, they could be both. It would be good to have some clarification of what is meant by that.
We need to understand the status of the neighbourhood priorities statements in order to understand their purpose and what the Government intend by them. Will they be documents that community groups can put together, but that local planning authorities can ignore entirely if that is what they decide they want to do—or do local planning authorities have to treat them seriously? The policy paper that sits alongside the Bill says that local authorities will be obliged to take them into account when preparing local plans. That sounds great, but, again, can the Minister define what is meant by this, and what exactly the impact is of any neighbourhood priorities statement in an area that already has a local plan?
I turn now to a number of amendments we have tabled to the clauses on neighbourhood plans. Statutory neighbourhood plans became part of the system in 2011, as noble Lords will appreciate, when they were introduced under the Localism Act as a formal part of the development framework. To the extent that they enable communities better to shape development in any given area, we know that neighbourhood planning can increase public engagement, reduce the number of objections to planning applications and boost housing supply over and above local authority targets. Other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, have referred to this in previous debates. We welcome neighbourhood plans—it is just a question of how we then move forward with them.
The clauses on neighbourhood planning are pretty straightforward, but we do have a few amendments that we feel could improve them. My Amendment 229 probes whether neighbourhood development plans could include housebuilding targets. We have of course discussed housebuilding targets already today and in previous debates, and we know that the Conservative manifesto pledged to continue to increase the number of homes being built. It referred to the need to
“rebalance the housing market towards more home ownership”.
Much of that is included in the missions for this Bill and in the metrics.
The manifesto also said that the progress towards the target of 300,000 homes per year would continue. As noble Lords are aware, concerns about meeting those targets have been raised time and again in this House. The Public Accounts Committee and the then Housing,
Communities and Local Government Committee also expressed concern and asked for greater clarity on how these targets would be met. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who is not in his place at the moment, has a particular interest in this matter.
Looking at the metrics to the housing mission, we see that this refers to how, in the section:
“Is this mission ambitious, specific and achievable?”,
it says that, to achieve the desired outcomes:
“This mission is also underpinned by a commitment … to ramp up housebuilding to address the underlying affordability issues that first-time buyers face”.
Yet, as we have heard, the Government have abandoned their national housebuilding targets because certain members of the Conservative Party down the other end did not like them very much.
I have referred to metrics in previous debates: if the metric is dependent on something that has been promised, and that promise is no longer existent, how is that metric then properly relevant to delivering that levelling-up mission? How is abandoning that target going to help deliver the ambition of this mission? Would the Minister therefore agree that my Amendment 229, which would allow neighbourhood development plans to include housebuilding targets, would be a positive way to move things forward in this area?
My Amendment 230 would enable neighbourhood plans to require that development in areas of historical, cultural or environmental sensitivity is in keeping with the surrounding environment. I suggest that this amendment is pretty self-explanatory. We believe it is important that planning and development respects the historical, cultural and environmental sensitivities of an area. I am sure the Minister would agree with that. We are not attempting to stop anything new, vibrant or exciting being developed in a community; it just means that any local sensitivities are properly taken into account when development takes place.
My Amendment 231 is to probe the impact of neighbourhood development plans on national parks and AONBs. Over 320,000 people live in our national parks, and they are also home to 22,500 businesses. We know that many more people live and work in AONBs. A former chair of National Parks England, Carl Lis, warned in an interview in 2020 that
“young people and national parks staff are being forced out of some of the most scenic parts of the country by high prices, driven in part by exclusive holiday homes”.
He said that more affordable housing should be built in England’s national parks to help communities that have been excluded by spiralling prices, driven mainly by second homes.
He also said that the Government should take action on land banking by developers in protected areas, such as near where I live, the Lake District, and in also places like the South Downs and the Peak District. It is called this because property speculators hoard plots with planning permission for years and years to maximise their profits. I would be very interested to hear the thoughts of the noble Baroness on this, particularly in light of the Secretary of State’s recent announcement about Airbnbs and holiday lets.
I have an article here that says:
“Gove confirms measures in levelling up bill to tackle Airbnb conversions”.
Clearly, this has a greater impact on our national parks and AONBs and the properties that will be available for local people—particularly affordable properties. Could the Minister provide some information about the promise to the other place that the Secretary of State made? He said that the Government would be
“bringing forward some planning changes to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which are intended to ensure that we have restrictions on the way in which dwelling homes can be turned into Airbnbs”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/3/23; col. 192.]
As we are discussing this now, within the Bill being referred to, we would be very interested to know at what stage those amendments are likely to appear and how that is going to tie in with the fact that it was published as a consultation paper on 13 April. That consultation paper sets out proposals to create a new class of C5 short-term lets. Is this what the amendments will be addressing? It is vital that we understand properly, while we are debating these issues in Committee, what the Secretary of State is actually proposing here.
I will reference an article by Simon Ricketts from Town Legal. He has looked into the details of the consultation, and he draws attention to one of the things in the proposal—I will quote this, because it is important that, if the Secretary of State makes announcements about new amendments while we are in Committee, we look at what was said. The announcement says:
“The government has listened to calls from local people in tourist hotspots that they are priced out of homes to rent or to buy and need housing that is more affordable so they can continue to work and live in the place they call home”.
I absolutely agree with that. It continues:
“The proposed planning changes would support sustainable communities, supporting local people and businesses and local services. The proposed planning changes would see a planning use class created for short term lets not used as a sole or main home, alongside new permitted development rights, which will mean planning permission is not needed in areas where local authorities choose not to use these planning controls”.
It is really important to be clear about what the Government mean by a “short-term let” within this consultation and any proposed amendments to the Bill.
One thing that the consultation paper says on this is:
“The term ‘short term let’ can encompass a range of activity associated with a dwelling. Some short term lets may be let out for a limited period while the owners themselves go on holiday. Others may be properties that provide for a series of lets for holidays … or very short term overnight sleeping accommodation including renting an individual bedroom while the owners are in situ”.
So this new amendment could cover a situation where a property is let for a limited period when the owner is away, where the owner remains in situ and rents out a bedroom, or where a property provides for a series of lets to holidaymakers. However, the proposed wording for the new short-term let C5 is:
“Use of a dwellinghouse that is not a sole or main residence for temporary sleeping accommodation for the purpose of holiday, leisure, recreation, business or other travel”.
I have to say that I find all of this quite confusing, and it is important that we properly understand it, so I will put the Minister on the spot and ask whether she
can help unpick some of this so that we understand exactly what these amendments, which we will presumably see fairly soon, actually aim to achieve and what they will mean. If she does not have the detail in front of her, I would be happy to have not a letter but perhaps a follow-up meeting to discuss this, because we need to understand what the Secretary of State is referring to. I apologise for taking some time on this, but it is important that we understand what is happening here.
The final amendment I will speak to in this group, Amendment 233, would mean:
“The Secretary of State must prepare and publish an annual report on the uptake of neighbourhood development plans”.
We have said in previous debates that we have concerns about the uptake of neighbourhood plans. As I mentioned when I introduced my amendment on the new neighbourhood priorities statements, all the evidence suggests that the vast majority of neighbourhood plans made to date have emanated from the most affluent parts of the country, which have the time and the resources for plans to be prepared and implemented.
I understand that the Government accept that this is a problem and that not enough are coming through from the less affluent and more complex urban environments, and I assume that the idea behind the neighbourhood priorities statements is that they are a means of addressing this—we welcome that the Government are looking to do this. But, in our view, those statements cannot be the only means of doing so. We believe that more could and should be done outside the legislative process to expand and support community involvement in planning decisions. One example could be that the Government could perhaps strengthen and expand the neighbourhood planning support programme.
We also believe that the objective of boosting the take-up of neighbourhood plans in deprived and urban areas should be included in the Bill, because it is so important. Amendment 233 would achieve this by inserting into the Bill a requirement that there is an annual report on uptake, and it would include what steps the Government are taking to increase this. I hope the Minister agrees that this amendment is a practical way forward to focus attention on this issue, as well as to provide evidence that can then be used constructively to increase uptake in the areas that most need to benefit from it.
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I am aware that there are other amendments in this group. However, as I have been speaking for some time now, instead of commenting on them—which we are broadly supportive of, on the face of them—I will listen with interest to the rest of the debate. I beg to move.