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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 131: 131: Clause 199, leave out Clause 199 The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment and speaking to the other amendments in this group, I should make it clear that these Benches are not opposed to the community infrastructure levy. It is more a case of: ““What do we want? CIL. When do we want it? Not until we are completely satisfied that it will work””. That is perhaps not the greatest of catchphrases, but it is a serious point. I congratulate the Minister on her persistence and my noble friend Lord Goodhart and the rest of the Delegated Powers Committee. The Minister has done a sterling job, and has achieved a sterling outcome in—we have used various anatomical phrases—putting more flesh on the skeleton. It is certainly less emaciated. However, the fact that there were so many amendments at the previous stage and there are so many at this stage, and the amendments are not straight forward, proves my point. The Minister kindly arranged for me to meet officials so that they could explain the error of my ways in opposing the inclusion of this part in the Bill. I thank her and I thank them for their time. They confirmed that, as the document that the Government published in August stated, it is expected that the regulations will come into force not before spring 2009. Given how much store the Government rightly set by consultation, even if the regulations were ready now for consultation, it would be pushing it to have them in force next spring. I know that the Government have been working with stakeholders. I inquired whether it was intended that CIL would be piloted or trialled. I gather that is not the case, but that there will be so-called early adopters. I do not know whether early adoption is likely to relate to where the local authority is with its local development framework and local development documents, but how that part of the process will work and whether it will work exercises us as much as any other. The charging schedule will go through the examination process. Who will participate? That was an issue for me as long ago as the mid-1980s when I was chairing a local planning committee and we were going through our local plan. The people who participated were the large landowners. My note reads ““Thames Water””. That is to remind me that in my borough it owned a lot of land and had a major interest in taking part in the process. The large supermarket chains always keep a weather eye for opportunities. Will developers who have not yet put sites together, for whom a development may hardly be a twinkle in the eye in the local process, take part? That is unlikely. Perhaps consultants will, hoping then to pick up some fees from those for whom they may keep a watching brief across the country or to whom they may be able to sell the benefit of their services. I worry whether the examination process will be the effective and inclusive process that I know that the Government want it to be. How long will the process take? I attribute the next piece of analysis to my noble friend Lord Greaves, who has obviously been detained over supper. As he says, the council does research, understands government guidance, holds informal consultations with appropriate developers, regional officers, and so on, prepares reports, revises them and finally gets draft proposals before the council in, say, six months. Council approval of draft consultation takes one month. Publication and the period for consultation take two months. Work on consideration of representation, informal discussions with objectors, and so on, further discussions within the authority, and preparation for revised proposals take four months. Informal discussion with the regional office takes two months. Sometimes, of course, there is a holiday period somewhere in that and further delays such as staff sicknesses and resignations; the regional office personnel may change; informal guidance may change, and all the rest of it. So add on a couple of months for all that. Then the revised proposal is prepared and put through the council system, which takes a month. Then there is a further period for legal objections, which may take six weeks. Then we get to the examination by the inspector. That takes—what?—six months or so. I have not checked my noble friend’s arithmetic, but I think that he is right in saying that it is about 18 months minimum and probably more than two years. Revisions could be done faster, perhaps within a year. Another anxiety is whether local authorities will be able to cope. We all know—we have discussed this many times—that there is a shortage of planners and of skills in the financing arrangements that CIL will require. It is not so easy to find people to undertake that sort of work within the public sector. I believe that the Government will allow prudential borrowing for local authorities to resource themselves. Of course, borrowing is not grant, it will have to be paid for. The people will have to be found; where will they be? If they are anywhere, they will be in consultancies. A further area of concern is the boundary between Section 106 and, in the case of highways, Section 278, and CIL. I am told that 50 to 60 authorities, with the benefit of Section 106, are using a tariff scheme. All my instincts say: stick with that and build on it until the detail of CIL is absolutely pinned down and we can be confident in it. That is not least because, outside the big conurbations, it must be likely that local authorities will set the level at nil. Of course, it is their right to do so. The August document states that stakeholders have expressed concern that CIL could affect the level of developer contributions through planning obligations if it is not set at a sensible level—a sensible level may be nil. Paragraph 5.23 of the document states: "““The Government would be interested to receive evidence which shows that CIL and planning obligations will interact in this way””." At this point, saying that they would like to receive evidence increases my belief that we are not yet ready for the provision. Paragraph 5.24 states: "““The Government have put in place safeguards which aim to ensure that the introduction of CIL will not result in a reduction in the overall level of contributions secured for affordable housing””," but it does not follow that that will work. The answer on the nil level is, in one sense, that that is a matter for them, but there is more to it. If the local authority sets a nil charge or a very low charge, or takes a long time to set the charge, how will that affect central Government’s investment decisions? We know that CIL will by no means cover all infrastructure. Will investment be skewed by the attitude that the Government have to how individual local authorities are co-operating? With the best will in the world, people, by definition, are human. It is unlikely that the Government's decisions will be unaffected by that. I understand that the Government anticipate zoning within local authority areas. Outside a big conurbation, I find it difficult to understand how that could operate. The charge will be set at X in that part of a district and at Y in this part of the district. I do not know how realistic that is, but I know very different attitudes will be taken in different parts of a district. A development that a local community might want could well be affected by that and driven away. There will be indexation if the development is not commenced immediately or, to put it more precisely, if the levy does not become payable quickly. Again, I do not know whether in the real world developers will attempt to revisit the matter if there is a delay in commencing work. In London, there is the unfinished business of the mayor and the boroughs. Earlier today, the Minister said that the boroughs would collect—that does not surprise me particularly; they may have more mechanisms—but that the Government are still looking at this and discussing it. When I mentioned the matter to my noble friend Lady Maddock, who, with me and other noble Lords, lived through the introduction of home information packs, she said what a sorry example they were of the Government introducing primary legislation but still working on developing the project. I cannot remember who it was, but someone on the government side recently told me that CIL should not push at the boundaries of viability. Too right! I end by reiterating that we on these Benches would like an effective arrangement to be in place to assist the achievement of infrastructure. We seriously do not believe that the Government have got there yet, so it is not appropriate to go ahead with the legislation at this stage. Given the way in which these things come out, my amendments are shown as a whole string of amendments to take out all the separate clauses, but the first two are the most important. This is not a frivolous amendment, and again I should say that I appreciate how much work has gone into presenting us with something much fuller. However, the sheer effort that has had to go into getting us to this stage makes me feel that my argument is the right one. I beg to move.