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Planning Bill

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Baroness has had to say in support of this group of rejecting amendments. I call them that because they would reject the community infrastructure levy. I may say, just to encourage her, that I am less optimistic about the introduction of CIL than she is, because, if I understand matters correctly, it is supposed to become part of normal planning documentation. Most of the authorities of which I am aware are working on a local development plan that is already a planning document. Therefore, CIL must be part of a new local planning document if it is to be introduced. If it is, these documents are reviewed more or less quinquennially, so we are looking at CIL being introduced in the next quinquennial document. We are therefore some years down the road before CIL can be introduced as a matter of practice. If the Minister tells us that this is merely an add-on to the existing system, we are dealing with something rather different. This is a very real problem. There is yet another problem. Under our existing practices in this House, about which I have no complaint, we must consider these amendments before we can consider how CIL might and should properly work. The Government have tabled a whole lot of amendments that might well be helpful and may even improve on what is on the Marshalled List. However, we do not really know whether we want to reject what is before us, because we do not know what is before us, because technically speaking we have not dealt with it yet. There is a real difficulty here, so I have the greatest sympathy for the noble Baroness. This indicates the difficulty of the way in which the Government have chosen to introduce these proposals. My own feeling is that, for anyone to get a viable CIL proposal working in much less than five years—the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned two years, or whatever it was—would be remarkable. A related problem is that no one has worked out what the relationship is to be between CIL and the planning obligations under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act. It is very difficult. Perhaps it would be easier if the Government would accept that CIL would be applicable where Section 106 would not be applicable. Everyone would then know where they stand. Historically, Section 106 is applied to large planning applications which particularly involve—the noble Lord, Lord Best, will have an interest, although not a financial one—social housing. You can have large sections of social housing in large planning developments, but not in small ones. The noble Baroness may reply by saying that Section 106 will be applied to applications where it is appropriate, but where Section 106 is inappropriate CIL will be applied. That might be a solution to this dilemma, but we do not have that or any suggestion that that might be a possibility. We have heard that planning obligations will still apply and that it is still expected that social housing will be largely funded by Section 106 agreements and that CIL will be over and above this obligation. CIL, because it has to be part of the planning documentation system, will take real time to introduce. For a start, all local planning authorities will have to think much more clearly, and in much greater detail than they have previously been accustomed to doing, about what the possible local infrastructure obligations might be as a result of the development for which their local development plan provides. This has to be a total approach—about that there is no question. I see that the Minister is nodding in agreement. That is why the system will be very complicated. If there is any suggestion that there should be haste or pressure on local planning authorities and local authorities to introduce this in anything other than a wholly considered and thoroughly developed way, I would be bound to say that such pressure would be completely disgraceful. It cannot be done like that. I have no responsibility for introducing these proposals, but the Government have. It is an obligation for the Minister to explain exactly how she sees these proposals being developed. It would be nothing short of disgraceful if there should be the slightest hint that, because a local authority has not considered the matter thoroughly, there might be pressure on other aspects of its revenue as a consequence. I do not believe for a minute that that is what the Government intend, but we do not know and that is part of the difficulty. We have very real problems. I would prefer, if it were technically possible, to settle the details of how the CIL might work. Although the Government have moved a long way on many of the aspects of which we have been critical, we still have not arrived at a conclusion. We still have the fundamental difficulty that the easy answer—perhaps I may put it this way in support of the noble Baroness—is that it might be wiser to reject the whole idea rather than to try to settle the details first so that we know how it might work and then consider whether one could accept or reject it. I am sorry, but this is an instance where parliamentary procedures are not helping us to move forward. They are complicating our lives. I have made that point because I have a lot of sympathy with the noble Baroness’s proposal in the present circumstances.