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Planning Bill

My Lords, for the reasons I have said, and I am in danger of repeating myself, I do not believe that the best way to do this is through a statutory duty imposed through this Bill without any consultation with local authorities. Of course local authorities can take the opportunity of their LDFs to do just what we want them to do. I hope they are listening to this debate and that they will do that. I am not offering these reasons by way of excuses. We genuinely believe that the way to deliver good design is not to add to the legislation but to ensure that existing policy works better and is applied consistently by regional and local planning bodies. We are investing in that. Our aim is genuinely to support local authorities in providing clear design strategies and policies and to advise not just local authorities but also developers. The pre-application process is as critical as anything in getting a higher standard of quality among applications. I would like to see that rather than more applications turned down on the basis of poor design. The noble Lord and I agree that we need to build the ambition, the capacity and the leadership skills so that local authorities can make it absolutely clear that they will not settle for second rate but will demand better of other people, including developers, when they are putting forward the planning applications. The most effective way of doing this is in partnership with key organisations in the public and the private sector. Given our debate, I am going to take the time to say what we are doing. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has alluded to some of that. We have had debates in this House about design that are focused on the need for greater skills and capacity, particularly of local planning authorities to deliver improvements. We are putting more money into training planners and making sure that design is an integral part of their training. We are also funding the Academy for Sustainable Communities and CABE to build the skills and knowledge needed to make better places. CABE is providing an increasing range of services to help local authorities with their master plans through specific scheme proposals with local design strategies. The housing and planning delivery grant helps local authorities to earn additional funding to help to finance the development of their own skills and capacities and to bring in additional skills, such as urban design expertise. The ASC has developed a leaders’ network, a national membership for chief executives and senior managers who lead organisations through significant change so that they are fully apprised of the importance of design in creating high-quality communities. The CABE urban design summer school develops urban design skills for those involved in planning and regeneration in the public and private sectors, supplemented by urban design guidance. We have designer champions, encouraged by CABE, in place in over two-thirds of our local authorities at the strategic level. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has already addressed the issue of the CABE training programme that is seeking to develop a nationwide network of accredited assessors within local authorities to develop the expertise that will enable new housing schemes to be evaluated against the Building for Life criteria. We also want to promote and embed good practice and innovation through design coding. The Building for Life benchmark has already been mentioned, which provides sources of external advice on design, especially at the pre-application stage. That is very important. I should mention the recent review by RIBA on the valuable resource to be found in design panels and which highlights its positive and helpful work. We are now looking urgently at how more use can be made of these panels. We support CABE’s work on the national design review. We want to see that go further, as well as the work done by regional and local panels. We are exploring with CABE and other agencies how far existing review panels are meeting the need for external advice and what more we can do to help to maximise their potential. We will look at the opportunities that the creation of the new Homes and Communities Agency will bring and we are following up the sub-national review to strengthen design review panels and other support. The HCA is now working closely with CABE to extend the resources available. I believe that the partnership is beginning to produce results, although I agree that we have a long way to go. We have to continue to signal that achieving good design is a key Government objective by supporting the organisations that are keen to deliver it. Above all, we must support our local authorities. Our new chief planner, who has just taken up his post, will take that forward as one of his first priorities. I understand that noble Lords are disappointed that it is not possible for me to accept an amendment that looks so appealing and has been explained so well by my noble friends. However, I hope that they will understand that it is not as simple as that, and that the way to achieve results is not by imposing a duty without consultation, but by working in partnership to support ambitions and recognising the challenges of building capacity. My noble friend Lord Howarth concluded his eloquent speech by referring to the debates of the Victorians on the options they faced in terms of architectural style, which of course has become a sort of architectural theology. I believe that the debates we have had on design have been extremely important in that they signal to everyone in the community that it is something we in this House and the Government as a whole take very seriously.