Localism Bill

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, president of a local wildlife trust and president of the British Trust for Ornithology. I want to talk, in common with others today, about the planning system. I believe that the planning system is a jewel in the crown of our democratic processes. It has been honed over the past 60 years to form a level playing field arena, in which rational decisions can be made between competing needs, demands and interests. It has sustainable development at its heart, is local enough but not too local, and is pretty accessible to all. This Bill, which sets out to revolutionise the planning system, must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are three elements of the current planning system that I stress need to be preserved and safeguarded. First, there is the whole concept of what the planning system is there for, bringing in sustainable development to the heart of the system and making it the prime purpose. During the period of reform that we are going through, it is important to remember that the purpose of the planning system is not just about economic development. It is also about a whole variety of sometimes conflicting challenges, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, the pressures of increased land take and urbanisation, and the need for greater social equity. The spatial planning system really is fundamental in providing that arena in which rational decisions can be made in a very transparent way to tackle these issues by trying to deliver and integrate economic, environmental and social issues at the same time—not by enabling choices to be made between them but by delivering all of them. The Bill needs to reaffirm what the whole purpose of planning is: to achieve sustainable development. We should build into the Bill one of the many definitions of sustainable development that are current and indeed occur in other Bills and Acts—that sustainable development meets the social, environmental and economic needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations. The second element we ought not to lose sight of is almost at odds with the current title of the Bill, because it reminds me of the prayer that says, ““Lord, make me good, but not yet””. The prayer for the planning system is ““Lord, make it local, but not too local””. I sometimes think that there are areas of planning decision-making that are not best made at local level. Under this Bill, we are seeing the demise of regional planning and spatial strategies—but there needs to be an ability to plan at a scale above local. That is important for two reasons. There are some activities subject to the planning system where the decisions can only be made at the scale above the local scale, like waste management, flood risk management, the management of river basins and some of the biodiversity issues that are about international considerations. Many of these cannot simply be resolved on the spatial scale that is often offered at a local level. For example, if you make flood risk management decisions on too fine a scale—as I know to my cost as the former chief executive of the Environment Agency—you run the risk of simply flooding the folk downstream. However, there are also some decisions that are simply too difficult to make at a local level. Waste management is a prime example. Our waste management infrastructure was stultified until we started to look at making decisions about the location of waste management facilities on a level higher than the local level. Decisions had to be made about these very important facilities, but no local community was going to accept them voluntarily. The same applies to difficult decisions between important wildlife sites and economic regeneration that will create jobs. For local people, it is very difficult to take wise decisions about longer-term interests and intangible values that increase our sustainability and quality of life, like biodiversity, when it may mean that you are actually voting against a job for local people. We need to make sure that we do not see localism as the sine qua non of the whole planning system and recognise that some issues are best not dealt with on a local basis. The duty to collaborate between planning authorities and other bodies that is in the Bill is a bit woolly—it is only about strategic priorities and they have not yet been defined. We have to question whether that will deliver the clear strategic framework, on a scale greater than local, that businesses, developers and investors are crying out for. There are no sanctions if local authorities fail to collaborate and there needs to be a reserve power of intervention by the Secretary of State where they are, quite frankly, not getting on with the job. The third issue I want to make a plea for is not in the Bill, but is integral to all the provisions that are—the whole question of planning guidance. I very much support the words of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in this. We are waiting for the emerging national planning policy framework and I hope a draft will be available for us to look at soon. It will replace a wealth of wisdom and expertise that currently resides within the planning policy statements. If it removes that wealth of wisdom and expertise, which has been honed to be fit for purpose and useful over the past 20 years, and replaces it with something rather less adequate, that will be a backward step. I am conscious of time, but there are two other issues that I will want to comment on during the Bill’s proceedings. I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, regarding limited community rights of appeal; and we must do something about this weasel clause on local financial considerations that came in late and I hope will leave early. I am deeply suspicious of something that needs to be spelt out as a prior consideration. Let us not forget what we have learnt over the past 60 years of the planning system—it is a jewel in the UK’s crown and is much admired in other countries. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should keep the best.