Planning Bill

I declare the interests that are recorded in the House of Lords Register of Interests. I give tempered support to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I echo what he said about our gratitude to the noble Baroness for her tireless, accommodating manner and that of her officials in trying to work through tricky, sensitive issues. I am sure that the Government do not wish to impose additional burdens on charities, especially at a time in our nation’s and world’s history when there are likely to be increased demands placed on their services. Therefore, I am grateful for the concessions in government Amendment No. 437C. I do not want to duplicate what has been said, but rather to underline it and give it a little added emphasis. What still worries us is not the Government’s intention but its possible execution, particularly given the fact that the wording of Amendment No. 437C is largely permissive. We are worried about the power to specify a description of a charity in the regulations, which might mean that some charities will qualify for an exemption while others will not. That would be invidious for the charitable sector. Equally, permitting, "““charging authorities to make arrangements for exemptions””" rather than requiring them to do so opens up the possibility of some charging authorities being generous to charities while others might make no concession at all. Again, that would be very invidious. I believe that point was made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. We certainly do not want a situation in which individual charities have to negotiate with individual charging authorities. There is also the danger that adjacent charging authorities might adopt different policies or exemptions or reductions. Charities might vote with their feet and decide not to develop the areas they were going to because of a bad deal on CIL, yet those might be precisely the areas that the voluntary sector ought to develop for the good of the community. It ought to be remembered that many charitable developments constitute infrastructure. The most obvious example that comes to mind is that of voluntary aided schools. Indeed, earlier the Minister referred to schools as part of the infrastructure. Communities need decent schools if they are to function properly, and it makes no sense to operate a planning system in a way that discourages new school building and school refurbishment. To cut to the quick, we hope very much that the Government intend that charities should be given a general exemption, but we would prefer to see that in the Bill.