My Lords, Amendment 220 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering tackles the important agent of change principle in planning and licensing. There was substantial discussion around this topic during Committee, a lot of it setting out the important conclusions of the House of Lords Liaison Committee follow-up report from July 2022. This built on the
post-legislative scrutiny by the House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003. I thank the committee for its work and will briefly summarise how the Government are meeting the aspirations of that committee.
First, the committee’s report called for licensing regime guidance to be updated to reflect the agent of change policy in the National Planning Policy Framework. This is why, in December 2022, the Home Office published a revised version of its guidance made under Section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003, cross-referencing relevant sections of the National Planning Policy Framework for the first time. The Government have therefore delivered on this recommendation.
Secondly, the committee set out that it believes that guidance does not go far enough and that the Government should
“review the ‘Agent of Change’ principle, strengthen it”.
Recommendations such as this are one of the many reasons why we are introducing national development management policies. In future, and subject to further appropriate consultation, NDMPs will allow us to give important national planning policy protections statutory status in planning decisions for the first time. This could allow the agent of change principle to have a direct statutory role in local planning decisions, if brought into the first suite of NDMPs when they are made.
Finally, the committee called for greater co-ordination between the planning and licensing regimes to deliver better outcomes. We agree that such co-ordination is crucial to protect affected businesses in practice and it is why the updated Section 182 guidance, published by the Home Office in December 2022, is a significant step forward. The Government are committed to ensuring that their policies which embed the agent of change principle are effective, but we do not think that additional legislative backing is needed at this time. As such, I hope that the noble Baroness will understand why, although we entirely support its intention, we will not support the amendment. With that, I hope that she will be willing to withdraw it.