My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 198 in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London.
The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, very much regrets that she is unable to be present, for unavoidable reasons, and has therefore asked me to speak to her amendment. In essence, it would ensure that the planning system is contributing to the levelling-up agenda by designing the places people need to thrive and contributing to a general health and well-being objective. Let me say here that I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, with his great experience, said. This amendment is entirely consistent with and complementary to his, and I am glad that he will press his to a Division.
I should say that my interest in this came from the particular issue of health inequality, but it is active travel on which I will focus. Subsection (4) of Amendment 198, to which local planning authorities or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State would have to have regard, emphasises some of the points the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is making:
“ensuring that key destinations such as essential shops, schools, parks and open spaces, health facilities and public transport services are in safe and convenient proximity on foot to homes … facilitating access to these key destinations and creating opportunities for everyone to be physically active by improving existing, and creating new, walking and cycling routes and networks … increasing access to high-quality green infrastructure … ensuring a supply of housing which is affordable … and meets”
health, accessibility and well-being needs. That is entirely consistent with what both the Government and the Opposition would think of when they talk of health and well-being.
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The scale of health inequalities in this country is striking. I have looked at recent research from the Health Foundation showing that people living in the
most deprived parts of this country are diagnosed with serious illness earlier than their peers and die sooner than their peers in more affluent areas. A 60 year-old woman in the poorest areas of England has a level of diagnosed illness equivalent to that of a 76 year-old woman in the wealthiest areas, while a 60 year-old man in the poorest areas of England will, on average, have a level of diagnosed illness equivalent to that of a 70 year-old man in the wealthiest areas. As the Health Foundation has commented:
“The NHS wasn’t set up to carry the burden of policy failings in other parts of society. A healthy … society must have all the right building blocks in place, including good quality jobs, housing and education. Without these, people face shorter lives, in poorer health”.
The evidence now is clear. We can see the impact on the economy. We are all concerned about the rise in the number of older workers who, because of issues due to ill health, are not in the labour market when they should be.
I said earlier that my particular interest in this amendment relates to encouraging active travel. I was pleased to see published this morning a government strategy, Get Active: A Strategy for the Future of Sport and Physical Activity, which is designed to encourage more activity. Having read the outline of it very quickly, however, I can say that the problem is that it does not really link to this legislation and the planning system. This is the general issue that many of us feel concerned about when it comes to trying to improve health and well-being. In Committee, the Minister’s response on this issue focused on Gear Change, which set out investment in active travel back in 2020. He argued that
“the National Planning Policy Framework already contains very clear policy on sustainable development. It includes good design; how to plan for sustainable modes of transport, including walking and cycling; an integrated approach to the location of housing; economic uses; and the requirement for community services and facilities”.—[Official Report, 27/3/23; col. 77.]
Who could argue with that? It is very difficult to argue with that at all.
As I see it—predecessor documents have often contained some of the same wording—the problem is that the framework has no beef. It has had little impact on the planning system and, therefore, on the local environment. Research that I have seen suggested that only 16% of local planning authorities have ever reported having rejected a site largely due to a car-dependent location and that less than half have discounted any site where this was a contributing factor.
The charity Sustrans, to which I pay great tribute, has surveyed local authority planners on why this is. It is clear that it is largely due to the lack of robust wording in guidance and the lack of support of a framework, such as a statutory duty to provide support in the case of planning appeals. Some 64% of local authorities surveyed found that the lack of this support was a barrier to giving weight to walkable proximity in their site allocation process, with many also saying that they considered that planning inspectors would not support walkability being used in this process.
This has led to a situation where, according to the RTPI, the average major new development is more than half an hour’s walk from basics such as primary schools and GPs, despite the national design guidance
on walkability suggesting that facilities should be within 800 metres. Some noble Lords may have seen the recent BBC report on Northstowe, the biggest development since Milton Keynes in the 1960s. Six years after the first people moved in, it does not have a single shop, café or GP surgery. Surely we must beef up the planning system to ensure that people can, under their own steam, get to facilities that are absolutely essential as part of, more generally, a healthy environment and well-being.
The advantage of the amendment drafted by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, to whom I pay great tribute, is that it would bring together many of these desirable aims and give local planning authorities the licensing tools that they need to create healthier places. It would certainly fill a gap in this Bill where we see that the Government have set out lofty ambitions on health inequalities without any concrete measures. I hope that, when we come to make a decision on this amendment, I can call on the House to support it.