My Lords, this has been an interesting debate on a number of important amendments. It is, of course, essential that these new combined county authorities and constituent local authorities should be able to use land in their ownership and negotiate with partners to use land resources to create facilities, regenerate their areas, and make best use of the scarce land resources we have. The other reason this is so important is that making best use of these brownfield and previously developed sites affords the ability to make environmental protections to those parts of the country where we do not wish to see development. That is another reason for doing this. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, also takes into consideration the fact that there may be attempts to frustrate development. That certainly struck a chord with me, as the saga of the development of my town to the west of the A1(M) has dragged on for over 27 years without resolution—but that is enough about my personal pain.
I welcome the Government’s amendment on the issue of there being no specific provision relating to disposal below value. This is a big issue for local authorities whenever we are looking at these things. I think there is a degree of misunderstanding about it in local authorities, where a lot of arguments go on between the legal side and the policy side about how the power of environmental, social and economic improvement works, in conjunction with the audit side of having to achieve best consideration. I hope that these amendments will help to resolve some of these issues. The ability to empower PCCs to include considerations other than monetary value alongside local authorities is welcome, although I will come on to some of the issues around that in a moment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, rightly pointed to the very steep price rises and the 160% inflation that is currently linked to valuations. The words of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, channelled through the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised the issue of the assets available to more deprived communities and what we do about making sure that we do not exacerbate that rather than using the powers of the Bill to level up. Using the power of land to provide preventive facilities—as in the example the noble Lord, Lord Best, used—which will do long-term good for the community and potentially save long-term revenue funding for the public bodies concerned is a really important way forward for determining how the value of land is determined in the first place. If it is going to provide facilities for that community and save revenue for the public body in the long term, surely that ought to be one of the considerations we can take into account.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester highlighted the outdated nature of the figures currently used. This has been one of the common themes of the data used that we have highlighted throughout the consideration of the Bill. We must get up-to-date data here, otherwise we will end up giving ourselves problems that we should not need to have.
Turning to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, he made a very clear exposition of why the need to be able to make best use of public land—and therefore improve the built environment—is crucial to levelling up, and how the use of public land charters could help. It was interesting to hear that the work of the Select Committee had looked at that closely and determined it.
We cannot blame hard-pressed public bodies, which are so desperate for cash, for sometimes having to go for the option that will give them the most funding when looking at valuations on their land. Of course, the long-term solution to that is to fund public bodies properly in the first place—they would then not have to make those tough decisions—but we are where we are with that.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to the high level of public land that has already been lost. We are where we are with it. The amendments in this group seem to me to be a good way of giving some options around how we can take other issues into consideration.
I was grateful for the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, about the involvement of community and local community land trusts. In our debate on this group, we have already spoken about the link between local development plans and, for example, the public land charters proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Best, including how they might work sitting together, incorporating both national and local principles. However, we also have the neighbourhood plans, which are being promoted as part of the levelling-up procedure. Those plans being developed at the local level will also be dependent on the use of public land in some cases to deliver the wishes of that neighbourhood. All that needs to be taken into account.
There is one other item that has not been mentioned in our debate on this group of amendments but is really key: a huge amount of land that belonged to utility companies that were privatised many years ago is also sitting there underused and unable to be used for public use. Perhaps some consideration could be given to that in due course. The land belonging to public bodies other than the council, including police and crime commissioners and the NHS, should be available to deliver the aims of combined county authorities; that certainly seems reasonable, especially where those authorities are members of the CCA and will take part in the discussions around the strategic planning for their area.
Local authorities have such strong requirements on them to achieve best consideration for land sold. I am afraid that case law has shown that, where local authorities seeking the advice of professionally qualified valuers have taken other issues, such as job creation, into account, there is not always a guarantee that that decision will be held in law. So I hope that that sensitive matter can be resolved in the interests of all CCAs and local authorities.
However, generally speaking, the ability to use public land for the benefit of our communities should be right at the heart of levelling up, so I am keen to support the amendments in this group.