Localism Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for raising this issue because it is important that the Government have an opportunity to explain their position on it. I am also grateful that noble Lords have not sought to revisit the fundamental decision. We know that the difficulty with regional strategies is that they imposed policies and targets on local councils and communities. As my noble friend Lord Greaves said, this has created a certain antagonism and set people against development. As a result, the regional strategy process has been controversial and protracted, creating uncertainty for communities and investors. In reality, the process has not been effective. Regional strategies did not deliver the housing that the country needs, and housebuilding fell to the lowest peacetime level since 1923-24. In proposing Amendment 147FG, the noble Lord, Lord Best, seeks to allow councils to retain regional strategy policies for a three-year transitional period, but the Government do not agree that there is a need for this sort of transitional arrangement. The coalition agreement clearly set out the Government’s intention to abolish regional strategies and to return democratic decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils. The Government’s intention to abolish regional strategies has therefore been public knowledge for some time, so we do not consider a further period for transition to be necessary.