Localism Bill

My Lords, we should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for giving us an early opportunity, during the course of the Bill, to debate this very important issue. We agree that it is important to enshrine, at an appropriate point in the Bill, a definition of sustainable development and the principles that he has outlined in the amendment. We agree with the definition and with the principles that he has set out. I anticipated that we would have this debate a little later when we got to Part 5 of the Bill, but important points have been made about this not being just about narrow planning; there is a broader dimension to it. I agree with what the noble Lord said in moving the amendment. There are concerns about sustainable development being sidelined by the Government. He referenced the Budget pronouncements. Clause 124 could be a change in the balance of the assessment of sustainable development, and we have a lack of clarity over the NPPF; indeed, the advisory group’s draft has moved us some way away from what the previous Government had accepted and which I thought was generally accepted as sustainable development. With some hesitation, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, that sustainable development is a meaningless concept. The fact that we may have had 1,000 years of growth generally in the economy and growing prosperity is fine, but are there not judgments to be made along the way about what that has done to the environment? Certainly in latter years, has not that growth often been achieved by recognising that you have to balance the impact, for example on the environment? I do not believe that it is a meaningless concept. I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord True, about the framing of the amendment, and I shall come on to that in a moment. There is a real risk that you create a lawyers' paradise. One of the assessments of well-being powers, and why they were not better used, was that lawyers, who were very cautious, got involved and that that precluded the use of the power more extensively than was anticipated at the time. I therefore very much agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter in his approach to sustainable development, and with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. When thinking about the Opposition’s response to this amendment, I considered how it sits with the local authority’s duty to prepare community strategies. That is set down in the Local Government Act 2000. There has hitherto been a requirement to prepare community strategies for improving economic, social and environmental well-being and contributing to the achievement of sustainable development in the UK. I asked the DCLG whether that obligation still exists. It does, but perhaps the Minister will confirm the Government’s intention to repeal the duty to prepare a sustainable community strategy. Instead, the Government have set down light-touch, best-value statutory guidance, on which they are consulting. The consultation document is extremely interesting, and shows about four pages of rubric on one page of a draft definition of ““best value statutory guidance””. Only one sentence potentially touches on sustainability. It states: "““Under the duty of best value, therefore, authorities should consider overall value, including environmental and social value, when reviewing service provision””—" in place of the existing obligation to have sustainable community strategies. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said that he wanted something that ran throughout the Bill, but I do not believe his drafting achieves that. Specifically, it states: "““A local authority shall exercise the power conferred by section 1””," which is the general power. Again, analysis of the well-being power showed that it was not used in preference to statutory powers that local authorities may have. If we saw that replicated with the general power, in a sense what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve here would not capture that. I understand that this is a probing amendment, and we support its thrust. We certainly want to see those definitions in the Bill and are happy to work with the noble Lord to achieve some refinement to the approach set down in his amendment.