Planning Bill

This has been another excellent debate about, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, things that we all appreciate. I am grateful for the kind words of my noble friend Lord Judd. We spent a very interesting but rather long evening in a church hall listening to a lecture on the history of water power in the Lake District, accompanied by many different slides, as I remember. The argument was that many communities had been built around the industrial heritage. That is now of course the rural heritage, but it was kind of him to say what he did. I hope that it is true because I do not need to be persuaded again of the value of what we are discussing in these amendments. The absolute test of our planning system is its ability to reconcile the need to protect heritage, however we describe it, as well as the need to provide the things that we need to thrive as a community. In this context, we are talking about infrastructure. The point about our planning system is that it provides that robust protection. This is about what shapes, frames and nurtures community, which is why it is important. This Government have a fine record of promoting heritage as the source of regeneration as well as an asset of conservation. We have strengthened the protections for world heritage sites, and we are about to strengthen our planning statements on planning the historic environment and archaeology by bringing together PPSs 15 and 16. We are proud of what we have been able to achieve because we take it extremely seriously. I will respond to noble Lords’ amendments in turn and with sympathy, but first I should say that the test is whether the amendments would improve the system, which does work, in the context of what the Bill is about. Amendment No. 37 would require the Secretary of State to carry out a specific appraisal of the impact of the relevant policy on the built heritage, scheduled ancient monuments and important landscapes in addition to the existing appraisal of sustainability. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, on the points that she made, because she did not table a formal amendment and I do not have a formal response. I have talked about how our new protections of heritage, such as bringing together PPSs 15 and 16, will strengthen what we already do. They will in turn critically feed into the national policy statements and will be taken account of in IPC decisions, so we already have the foundation for the sort of protections which my noble friend Lord Howarth seeks. It would not, however, be productive to require a separate appraisal of heritage. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, made an important point about the sheer difficulty of doing this, given the nature of the NPSs. It could also be counterproductive, because heritage and sustainability are interdependent but are not always seen to be so. When we link the two, we create a platform to advocate that what we build must be both. As I said in our debate on design, it would lead to competing demands for a separate appraisal and for the disaggregation of the very thing that we are trying to make the great strength of these national policy statements—their ability to carry and integrate polices and apply them so that we are all certain of what will be achieved and of what is predictable for those who want to invest in our infrastructure and those who will have to live with the consequences. I cannot accept Amendment No. 37 on those grounds. I assure my noble friend Lord Howarth that the process of appraising sustainability will have to take account of heritage matters. There is no way in which it cannot. It will cover the effects on the natural and built environment and the landscape and the cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological heritage. All this will be fully and properly assessed as part of the appraisal of sustainability, which I hope reassures my noble friend Lord Judd, too. These will be considered at a strategic level and, where they are identified as key sustainability issues, they will form a focus point in the process. That is the purposes of integration. Both the appraisal of sustainability and the NPS will be subject to public consultation and to scrutiny in Parliament. Amendments Nos. 175 and 187, which would amend Part 5, aim to add specific provision for heritage to the pre-application process. Clause 36(3) makes it clear that certain details and documents must be included in an application for an order granting development consent. Amendment No. 175 seeks to add a requirement that applications must also demonstrate full regard for the conservation of the built heritage. Amendment No. 187 would specify English Heritage and Cadw as statutory consultees for applications in their relevant areas. Here I must reiterate familiar arguments. The decisions of the IPC will depend on the national policy statements, and it is essential that they set out policy as clearly as possible on the type of infrastructure in question. When taking decisions, therefore, the IPC will take into account the NPS, prescribed matters and the local impact report. This is where local significance and local heritage come into play. As my noble friend Lord Howarth said, local heritage is of deep concern to local communities. Under Clause 58, local authorities will be invited to submit a local impact report, once an application has been accepted, which will give details of the likely impact of the proposed development on the authorities’ area. They will be bound to assess the impact on the local environment and to have an environmental impact statement. Where applications are accompanied by an environmental impact assessment—we expect that most will be—the EIA will look at the likely significant impacts of the proposals, many of which will include effects on landscapes of historical, cultural or archaeological significance, which all fall under the heritage umbrella. Amendment No. 214 is also part of this concern, and would require developers to consult English Heritage and Cadw. The pre-application procedure requires consultation with local authorities, affected people and parties, and statutory consultees. It has yet to be determined which bodies should be statutory consultees for this purpose, and it would not be right—it would be too constraining and too rigid—to set out a list in the Bill. We do, however, expect English Heritage and Cadw to be specified for applications in their relevant areas. I hope that my noble friend is reassured by that. Amendments Nos. 377 and 399, which would amend Part 7, aim to place additional protections on listed buildings. Acceptance of Amendment No. 377 would mean that development consent orders, which affect listed buildings, could proceed only if subjected to special parliamentary procedure. I was grateful for the explanation given by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, of how those procedures have attached to the National Trust property. Members of the Committee are no doubt aware that special parliamentary procedures are complex and extremely time-consuming for everyone involved. Frankly, they are usually avoided if at all possible. I think the idea would strike fear into the heart of those who look after our heritage if they felt that they had to go through these processes. Some special parliamentary procedures appear in the Bill because these provisions are based on existing legislation, in particular on equivalent provisions in the Acquisition of Land Act 1981, to which the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, referred. In short, we are replicating existing legal provisions only in so far as they are already established features of the protection of special types of land against compulsory purchase. In all sincerity, we do not believe that it is sensible or necessary to extend the scope of special parliamentary procedures to new areas, given the complexity and extra time that this would involve. In the context of the Bill, it would run counter to the need for a faster, less complex single consent regime, which is one of the great prizes that the Bill has to offer. Again, let me reassure the noble Lord that the fact that we are moving towards a single consent regime absolutely does not imply any reduction in the protection granted to heritage assets. We do not intend promoters of major infrastructure projects to have to seek a separate listed building consent or conservation area consent. There will be no need for a separate bit of paper. However, heritage will be looked at specifically under the single consent regime. I stress, because this has inspired much of the debate this evening, that there will be no reduction in the justified protections which our listed buildings and heritage assets currently enjoy. We intend the IPC to consider specifically the justification for works that would affect a listed building or a heritage asset by using the same considerations that Ministers and local planning authorities presently apply under the existing heritage consent regimes. We intend that in considering whether to grant development consent that would affect a listed building, the IPC shall have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest which it possesses, and likewise for cases of major projects which affect scheduled monuments and conservation areas. To make that clear, we intend to prescribe these matters in the decision test under the powers already in Clause 101(2)(c). Where the IPC considers that works to listed buildings and so on are not justified, it should not grant consent for such works. It may be that the IPC will approve other parts of the application which would not affect the heritage asset, but decisions on whether to authorise works that would affect heritage assets would be taken specifically in terms of heritage value and not merely as one factor among many. As I said, and the noble Lord might appreciate my reiterating it, we intend that the IPC will contain sufficient heritage expertise in order for it to reach those decisions. I hope it is clear that we are determined to maintain the protections that these buildings enjoy. Amendment No. 399 would place an additional duty beyond those already found in Sections 66 and 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 for planning authorities to have regard to the purpose of conserving the historic environment. It is important to say that because this is where the protections lie. As my noble friend Lord Howarth knows, those duties are: to have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architecture or historic interest which it possesses, and to have special regard to the desirability of preserving and enhancing the character and appearance of conservation areas. Those are extremely strong and explicit protections. We already have them and we observe them. In Amendment No. 399 my noble friend wants to add a new general duty on every public authority to have regard to the preservation of the historic environment, in the context of a Bill which is very different from the 2006 Bill from which he quoted. Although it is an admirable intent, we already require public authorities to do that through existing planning legislation and the consents regime. I have heard no calls for additional duties of this nature on an already complex and overloaded system. One problem is that the language of the amendment is not consistent with what is already in law, and the location of this duty is not clear in relation to other duties. It would serve only to duplicate existing law at a time when the whole thrust of what we are trying to do in planning is to simplify it; that is, to make it easier for the public guardians to do what is right by local and national heritage, and to ensure that we have the right skills in the right places. That is what this debate has been about, with a passion across the Chamber. Amendment No. 377 adds more layers of requirements to a strong and tested system. I would be afraid that rather than add to this system, it could make it more dysfunctional. But in the context of a Bill that is aiming to provide the certainty that, as we heard yesterday, is sought by so many promoters and businessmen, the danger is that adding a general duty could act as another deterrent to those investors whom we want to come to this country to provide the infrastructure that we need. I turn now to the proposed amendments to the CIL in Part 11. Amendment No. 439B would define ““infrastructure”” for the purposes of Clause 202 so that it included buildings, monuments and sites that have been designated as significant heritage assets. In effect, that would allow for CIL revenues to be spent on such items. I have made the same case on the design amendments. The Government have been very clear about the purpose of the CIL. It is a new mechanism to allow local planning authorities to raise additional revenue to help to fund the delivery of the infrastructure that we need to support the development of an area. The CIL is focused on infrastructure provision. We want it to be spent on ensuring that, when development comes forward, it is sustainable by helping to fund new facilities, such as schools, health centres, parks and play areas. Because of that focus on infrastructure, I am not sure that the amendment makes sense if it is intended to allow for the CIL to be spent on any building, monument or site that has been designated as ““a significant cultural asset””, as the amendment proposes. Clause 198(2) contains the obligation on the Secretary of State to ensure through the CIL that it is spent on funding the costs incurred in development. But that is not to say that it would not be of benefit to our heritage assets in other ways. If it were decided that new development gave rise to the need for a new community centre and an underused listed building could be converted for that purpose, the CIL could be spent to restore the building because the need for the community centre was prompted by new development. That is a very important facility. My noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport tabled a second amendment, Amendment No. 442, to provide that the CIL regulations may specify criteria for allocating CIL revenue to heritage conservation where heritage is impaired by development. Again, CIL revenue could be used to support the improvement of heritage in some circumstances, but we could not agree to the CIL being used to fund conservation where the development has some negative impact on the heritage in question. But that is not to say that mitigating the impact of development on heritage should not be addressed. It should. Our concern with the amendment is that the Government believe that the CIL is not the right mechanism. We should perhaps look at Section 106 agreements for greater flexibility. In response to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, we will have an overarching national policy statement that will bring together all the forms of the energy we need and discuss the balance between the various sources of energy, and from that will flow the suite of separate energy policies. The noble Lord will have his overarching energy policy statement which will address the sorts of issues that he raised. I am sorry to have gone on at such length, and I am conscious that others are waiting to take the Floor. I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.