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Planning Bill

My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, began her speech she said that it was not a frivolous amendment. I accept that. I have listened closely, as I always do, to the tone as well as to the content of what noble Lords have said about the difficulties that they feel the inevitable absence of detail at different stages of our discussion has caused. This House is always concerned about workability, and rightly so. We are in the business of improving legislation and I am grateful to all noble Lords who, at each stage, have taken this part of the Bill in all seriousness and attempted to improve it. We have seen a number of improvements and a lot more detail. The problem with where we are, in relation both to CIL and to the way we are discussing the Bill, is that this occurs at a difficult and rather curious stage of the debate. I take the point that the noble Baroness made earlier, but these amendments strike at the heart of the viability of CIL. I know that, across the House, nobody is in any doubt that we need additional funding for infrastructure because we need additional houses. We need additional homes for millions of people in this country. This Bill will make a significant difference to that. While I listen and take the criticisms in good part, I do have to ask noble Lords opposite what their alternative solution would be. We never said this would be easy but we do say it is necessary. We think it is fair and we know it is an improvement on what has gone before. I was grateful as always for the contribution from my noble friend Lady Ford who addressed many of the issues which I want to address briefly now. She pointed out that there is a legacy of work already in place and that local authorities are knowledgeable and many of them are leading some of this work rather than trailing behind it. The noble Baroness has been concerned about process and it is worth putting on the record some of that process so that I can address some of the criticisms from other parts of the House. The record shows and chapter 1 of our August document describes in detail how the CIL proposals were generated by careful analysis and diagnosis over several years. There was extremely wide discussion with stakeholders and public consultation on the best way to fund the infrastructure. We published six consultation documents to explore different proposals and in August we put out our more detailed analytical document. We have had numerous briefing events, conferences, seminars and web chats. I will not read the list I have here as it would take too long. There is widespread agreement and support for both the need for CIL and the broad approach we have taken to implementing it. The noble Baroness said in the previous debate that she agrees that this is looking less emaciated because we have been able to meet the majority of the major concerns of the DPRRC with the right level of delegation and the Committee itself says the Bill is no longer skeleton. I would like to address the two particular points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Dixon-Smith and Lord Tyler. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that regarding the timetable and capacity, CIL is a voluntary charge. No local authority will be required or forced to do this. There is no timetable. We fully respect the changes that are going on, especially in the unitary communities. With regard to the local development plan, CIL will be driven by the vision the local authority has for its community. That vision is set out in its local development framework. CIL is a brand new document. It will accompany—it does not have to be incorporated. These concerns about timetables and capacities, therefore, can be tempered a little by that reality. Many noble Lords believe that, as the detail of how CIL will be delivered is sufficiently complex, regulations will be appropriate and sensible. We have to continue the serious discussions we began a long time ago with the many stakeholders in this field. It is not only our view; it was certainly the view of the British Property Federation and the Home Builders Federation, to name but two. The noble Baroness raised serious issues about timing and capacity and I hope she will be comforted by what I am about to say. It is a good opportunity to turn to the matter of timing. We announced that CIL regulations would not be in place before the spring of 2009. These are challenging economic times but, as we begin to see a return to growth, as we surely will, it will be important for communities to have the right tools to hand to provide the infrastructure that their plans have identified as necessary to guide development. CIL will have an important part to play at that time and authorities that choose to use it will want to prepare their charging schedules so that developers can plan ahead with CIL in mind. I am persuaded, however, that we do need to allow time for confidence to return before this work by local authorities can properly begin and be taken forward to best effect. With that in mind, I can now say that the Government will not seek to make the regulations to implement CIL before October 2009, although we may prepare earlier regulations to facilitate preparatory work by local authorities as we are allowed by Amendment No. 136C, which my noble friend Lord Patel has already explained. We will use the time productively, to allow us extra space to work with stakeholders to develop the regulations, ensuring that we have the best, most substantial and most thoughtful possible basis to enable local authorities to implement CIL. The draft implementing regulations will be prepared for public consultation in the spring. I shall be happy to place copies in the Library for noble Lords to see. I take issue with some of the things that have been said. It is not right to say that these clauses are undercooked or that the policy is not thought through. The noble Baroness was gracious enough to pay tribute to the hard work that has been done over the summer, not least by many officials in partnership with the DPRRC. We have tried hard to work as comprehensively as possible so that this House can at least be secure about the basic architecture of how things will work. I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, spoke as he did. I was grateful to the noble Baroness for saying that she was not against CIL in principle, and I understand why she has raised the issues as she has. However, if she divides the House, she must also think about her colleague in the other place, Mr Dan Rogerson, who said that the Liberal Democrats support anything that hands more powers to the local community, enabling their local authorities to achieve their vision for their areas. This gives local authorities greater power and scope, and I do not know how she would square her decision with the fact that Liberal Democrat councils, and all other councils that are desperate to build more housing, would look to CIL to raise essential additional funding for the schools, hospitals, roads and power stations that the communities want. The party of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, recognises that. Jacqui Lait, the Member for Beckenham in the other place, said that they were prepared to see this levy introduced, and I have listened to what noble Lords on those Benches have said. I therefore hope that, even if the noble Lord is remotely tempted by the siren on the Liberal Democrat Benches, he will not walk away from that commitment. I say to the noble Baroness, who I consider a friend, to think seriously about the prospect of putting the hard work that has been done in peril. That would ignore real national and local need. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said that we have come too far, but we have come too far in the right direction. There have been many failed attempts to raise funding for infrastructure. We have got further, because this is a sounder, fairer and more efficient proposition. I really hope that noble Lords can be persuaded of that this evening.