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Localism Bill

I have the other amendment in this group, Amendment 204F, which has a very similar purpose. I very much support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and what he said in his speech. In our view this is one of the important remaining issues in the planning parts of the Bill. The two amendments are about the pragmatic position of the local planning authorities. Some are faced with old plans under the pre-2004 legislation; some with emerging new plans—local development frameworks—under the 2004 Act; and some with adopted core strategies—new plans—under that Act. All of those are now up in the air as a result of the Government’s wish to do away with a great deal of the previous planning guidance and instructions which local authorities had in regional strategies and in the planning policy statements. Instead those will be replaced by a much shorter document, the national planning policy framework, but that is going to take some time to approve. The Government originally said that local authorities would have six months in which to adapt their local plans, whatever state they were in, to the new guidance. Frankly, they have not thought through the practical problems that this would have caused. They are now doing so, and that is extremely welcome. I am taking a lot of advice from planning authorities, from the planning world and, indeed, from Members of this House. We understand that it is now their intention to include clear guidance on how to adapt their local plans, and pursue their new local plans, in line with the NPPF. My first question is to ask the Minister if she will confirm that that is the route they are taking. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best, would put a great deal of the detail of how this is to happen on the face of the Bill, and this would be our first choice. Transitional provisions have appeared in quite some detail in previous planning legislation. In our view this would be the best place for it, but for various practical and other reasons, the Government do not want to do that. My amendment would put a duty on the Secretary of State to issue regulations which would set out the transitional arrangements. It states: "““The Secretary of State may by regulations specify transitional arrangements concerning the timetable and procedures involved in the introduction of changes to local development schemes and the preparation and adoption of local development documents””." Regulations are stronger than guidance so we would prefer to have it in regulations rather than simply in guidance. Wherever it is, it needs to be clear and well understood. It needs to give local planning authorities the necessary flexibility and time to get it right. There have been fears that local planning authorities will be left with no defences against any kind of inappropriate development as a result of some of the wording in the draft national planning policy framework, particularly the suggestion that in the absence of a plan the default position on planning applications would be to approve. The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that that might be opportunistic and unplanned development. My description of it might be a bit cruder than that but I am happy to align myself with his more elegant wording there. The timetable from transition is crucial. Six months is clearly ludicrous. We have heard rumours of 18 months but in practice it needs to be a lot more than that. The noble Lord suggested three years. We would perhaps go along with that. We clearly do not want it to be seven years or more, which is the position now following the 2004 Act, where half or more of the authorities have still not got their new local plans in place. My second question is about the timescale. Thirdly, do the Government believe that the inspectorate will be able to deal in a practical way with the huge congestion that there will be in all this work of getting the local plans in line with the new planning guidance? How much work will be needed locally and at the inspectorate simply to get a certificate of conformity for approved core strategies? In determining planning applications during the transitional period, what reliance will local planning authorities be able to put in the mean time on approved core strategies under the 2004 Act which have not yet been certificated as compliant with the new NPPF? What reliance can they put on old, pre-2004 local plans which are still being used by many authorities as the basis for planning? As material considerations in planning application decisions, what reliance can be put on emerging core strategies which are perhaps near inspection but not there yet? What will be the relationship between these existing local plans and the emerging NPPF? Finally, what will be the relationship between the adopted NPPF and all these various kinds of uncertificated local plans? This is absolutely crucial if there is not to be a free-for-all but a smooth transition from the existing, old system to the new one. This is not in any way trying to undermine the new system but rather to make sense of converting from one system to another, which will take a number of years.