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Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 132A: 132A: After Clause 200, insert the following new Clause— ““Duty to co-operate with charging authority Partner authorities within the meaning of Part 5 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (c. 28) must co-operate with charging authorities in the application of CIL.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, regarding Amendments Nos. 132A, 141A and 142A and 142BA, I declare my interest as president of the London Government Association, which has helped with these amendments. The LGA is troubled, as it often is, to ensure that local authorities are not given new tasks without the tools to do them or that they suffer from unnecessary constraints and bureaucracy imposed upon them, which diminish their autonomy and fail to shift power from central to local government—something we agree we should be aiming towards. These two amendments relate to the local authority’s role first in raising the community infrastructure levy and, secondly, in spending the community infrastructure levy funds. Amendment No. 132A would impose a duty to co-operate with the charging authority upon the partner authorities with which local authorities work. This is about requiring those partner authorities to be helpful to the local authorities, in their role as charging CIL to others. The local authority needs to work out what infrastructure will be needed, calculate what it will cost and then determine the levels of community infrastructure levy that it must charge. In doing that, it needs to know about all the development that is going on, not just that in the public domain. For example, it needs to know from health trusts what plans they have to produce new medical facilities. If a new medical facility of any sort is built, there are issues around roads and transport, not just moving the patients or service users, but the staff as well. Therefore, Amendment No. 132A puts a duty upon the partner authorities to co-operate—that is already defined in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007—with local authorities and help them in their task of calculating and levying CIL. The latter two amendments relate to the local authority’s role in spending CIL funds. This is about the definition of infrastructure on which CIL funds can be spent. It is a plea for more flexibility and less central government rigidity in how CIL funds should be spent. Ministers have already said that the list of items for which CIL could be used is illustrative only. However, this list can be changed only by regulations in Parliament. That sounds like a slow and cumbersome process. It might well mean that some piece of infrastructure was delayed, awaiting those regulations in Parliament. The list in the Bill is relatively comprehensive, covering transport, flood defences, education, medical, sporting and recreational facilities and affordable housing. However, it cannot be completely comprehensive because each local authority has its own issues and local circumstances differ from place to place. The LGA has identified another list of items on which it might be entirely sensible to spend community infrastructure levy funds. For example, if you build a lot of houses, sooner or later you may need crematoria and burial grounds. Cultural and religious facilities are excluded from the list we are discussing, as are the provision of, and connections to, utilities and telecommunications. The emergency services, which are the subject of a separate amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, are excluded. Those could include coastguards in relevant areas, although I do not think that the noble Lord thought of including that. The list in the Bill can never cover all eventualities. Therefore, the two amendments I am discussing seek to loosen up the process. My Amendment No. 141A seeks to insert in the Bill the phrase, "““but is not restricted to””," after the word ““includes”” in regard to the items included in the list. I beg to move.