My Lords, I, too, have an amendment in this group, which I suggested should be moved up in the interests of making progress, because it touches on similar territory to the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, in his very interesting remarks. Of course land is a huge conundrum. Heaven knows, as leader of an authority with some of the highest embedded land values in the country, one knows that that is an immensely complicating factor. But, again, a bit like the challenge laid down by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about rights of appeal across the planning system, it is perhaps a little big for this Committee at this stage and at this time—although it would certainly merit a debate in your Lordships’ House.
On the question of co-ops: 148709 was my old mum’s co-op number. She was also a member of the party—I found her card after she died. She hid it very well in her later years as a Conservative voter but she always loved the idea of the co-op. Housing co-operatives are very welcome. I was brought up to believe to some degree in the co-operative principle.
I want to go back to the origin of where I am coming from, and the other amendment is coming from, which is the poor old local authority. We take so much incoming fire—I hear it time and again, and I have sat through and followed a bit of the Bill. We see these other people, these public undertakings, sitting on land and—I will not use the demotic but noble Lords know what I am thinking. Yet the local authorities get the blame for not developing it. Time and again I hear it: they are the cause and the obstacle and they are the people who do not do it. Some of us are getting beyond the extremes of tolerance for this strand of argument.
I put down an amendment to Clause 137, which is this longfalutin thing about local authorities having to compile registers of land, which would take a few
officers a lot of time to do. If that is what the Government want us to do, I suppose that we will have to do it and I suppose we probably will not get any money for it—but can we not do something with these registers? So I suggested that maybe if local authorities have these registers, we could use them and start to challenge some of the registered people in our area who are not doing anything to do something about the land.
Frustrated local authorities in my borough are watching Network Rail, which has a planning application granted in 2011 that is still not fully executed and in fact scarcely begun. It is a disgrace. Well over 100 houses there should be developed. Meanwhile, the private sector is getting on with it across the road. I could name many others.
I do not want to anticipate remarks on what will come up later in the Bill. I see that in Clause 183 there is all this worthy stuff about how public authorities are going to be encouraged to engage with local authorities on proposals to dispose of land. That would be a nice thing, would it not? Why do they not just do it now? They do not need an Act of Parliament to get on with it.
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What are they actually going to do when they do engage? We might get something better—better engagement than learning of a Ministry of Defence proposal in my borough from a press release run up by the local newspaper. Perhaps they can engage a little bit better than that. Why do they not do it? It is a disgrace.
Do I think that these public authorities are going to carry the public interest when they develop in the same way as local authorities will with their responsibilities to provide schools and infrastructure and all the things that are needed in local communities? No, I do not. We as local authorities will obviously try to hold them to their responsibilities but our powers are being eroded.
I am a slightly provocative character sometimes and I have a couple of provocative amendments to this Bill, of which this is one. I have a couple of serious ones, too. I warn noble Lords that I certainly intend to press those. This one is provocative—maybe this system would not work. But if we have got these registers, why can we not say to these wretched, lazy, poorly run public undertakings, “Get on with it. Produce a plan. Let us have one in a set time—and if you do not have it, show me good reason why this land should not be developed, and why here should not be a primary school or housing”. Let us see the reason. Let us hear it—and if the local authority does not think that that public authority has got a reason not to develop the land, give us the power to get on with it and do it.
I say “compulsory purchase”. I know of course how difficult that is. I know that that is not practical. There will be 100 arguments from the Box about how compulsory purchase is not the way to go about it. But surely if the public authority will not act, someone should be given that authority—and, frankly, I do not think that it will be a Minister sitting in the Cabinet Office who will do all these things.
So I believe that at some point in some way—it may not be what is down on this amendment—the local planning authority should be given the authority set
out in Amendment 98C. Where there is an unwilling public authority, the local authority should be given the opportunity to get on with it. Then we can have a system to divvy up a little bit of the profit with the public and with the owner afterwards. Perhaps we shall be a bit chary with the amount of profit that we give to people who have not done anything for a long time. Let us retain that profit for the community, for the schools, for the roads and so on.
There is a lot of talk about getting brownfield building done. I support what my Government are saying about that. Full power to all that they are saying about that. But why, why, why leave out the local authorities who know who they are and who know where the land is? They are going to have to compile these registers and then they do not seem able to do anything about it. Give us the tools and we shall do the job.