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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for that. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is not in his place, because he might have confirmed that the ODA’s holding the ring has facilitated quick and sensible decisions around the Olympic park. However, those of us who are interested in the regeneration legacy of the Olympics are in despair at the way in which no one holding the ring for regeneration around the Olympic park seems to have held up progress and caused huge confusion. A statutory entity working closely with local authorities makes an enormous difference. If the ODA had not had that ability in legislation, it would not have been able to do that. Only once in the past six years has English Partnerships used or relied on its own designation powers. That was in partnership with the excellent Liberal council in Milton Keynes—I am not making a cheap point; that council has shown fabulous leadership on very difficult issues. For the area designated for new growth—certainly not for the whole of Milton Keynes—the powers were transferred from Milton Keynes council, with its full support, to a sub-committee of English Partnerships comprising three members of our board, one of whom was the accounting officer, three members from the local authority, four members from the local business community and one independent chair. It now sits as the planning authority for that growth area in Milton Keynes. We would not have been able to achieve the high-quality progress that has been made there, particularly in bringing in investment and putting in place the infrastructure that allows growth in Milton Keynes to be properly planned and of high quality, with all the facilities and services that characterise high growth, had we not been able to rely on those new-town planning powers for that area of designation. It was never the intention of any Minister or Secretary of State with whom I was involved to rely on those powers, although siren voices would sometimes encourage them to do so. No Secretary of State with whom I was involved would countenance using planning powers in any other circumstance. The former Deputy Prime Minister was clear that only in Milton Keynes would that be done with the explicit consent and encouragement of the local authority. To have this provision in the Bill creates the conditions where, in a benign way, the agency can engage and create a different kind of planning capacity where it is needed for the reasons that I have suggested. On the narrower but important point of the local development framework, the noble Baroness asked an important question about what happens when there are competing regimes. From my own experience, I anticipate the local development framework always taking precedence. Within that designated area, individual projects would have to be developed in absolute conformity with the local development framework, as is right and proper. I rather suspect that I have not convinced the noble Baroness, but I wanted to give a few examples of where, in a benign way, the power has worked extremely well.