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Localism Bill

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 208 to 210. These amendments are about the referenda for approving and adopting the neighbourhood plans. One of the major changes to the Localism Bill has been the extensive change to the requirements for referenda with the removal of Chapter 1 from Part 4, but neighbourhood plans are still subject to referenda. I understand that if local people are at loggerheads with their local authority but feel very strongly that their particular neighbourhood plans should proceed, it is no doubt necessary before imposing the plan on everybody else to find out what the whole community thinks of it. However, if the local authority accepts the neighbourhood plan, and it is acceptable to the parish council or the town council, there is no real democratic deficit. A number of elected politicians are involved, and where everyone at the local level, the local authority level and the parish level thinks it is a good idea, it does not seem very wise to proceed with a referendum that brings in people who have had very little to do with working through the neighbourhood plan. The Government are setting up 126 front runners, as they call them, with some funding to see how things work. I have seen one of these and talked to the group that is bringing forward its neighbourhood plan. The group is in the parish of the Cerne valley, north of Dorchester in Dorset, and it is doing great things. I strongly approve of the idea of people in the neighbourhood working out a plan for their area. This is all about a culture change. Instead of everybody being against development, people are thinking through the fact that there has to be some development and deciding where it is best sited. People reject some of the sites the house builders might have liked but bring on stream others and bring together their plan. There are lots of difficulties, hassle and arguments at the local level, but I say good for them. Finally, at the end of a long and tortuous business, I am sure they will have a neighbourhood plan and it will be agreed with the parish council. If the local authority, the district council in this case, says that that is fine, for goodness sake let us not put this out to a referendum that brings in all kinds of people who have had absolutely nothing to do with the process and have not come to any of the meetings. It is always so much easier for people to say no to something than to say yes. If you want to keep your head below the parapet you do not say you are in favour, you stay at home. The people who get up the petition and want to say no are very glad to put their heads above the parapet and will bring out some votes. I fear that an awful lot of hard work in the Cerne valley, or wherever it may, can be lost when, as I said, all kinds of people who have had little to do with the process turn out for a referendum. My amendment contains a couple of safeguards. I have to admit that I am having second thoughts about my own safeguards. I am just about to talk against my own amendment at this point. However, fearing that it might be unacceptable not to keep the referendum ingredient in the Bill, I have included two ways in which a referendum would legally be required. One would be a petition is signed by 5 per cent of villagers who say that they want to have a proper referendum in which more than 50 per cent would have to vote in favour of the proposed measure. The amendment suggests that if 5 per cent did that, a referendum would go ahead. The other safeguard is that if one of the ward councillors—there might be three ward councillors for the parish—was opposed to the idea of the plan being taken forward, a referendum would have to be held. I have talked to people at the local level—I met a number of people in Dorset last Friday—who thought that my amendment was great up to the point where it referred to the 5 per cent petition. I was told that that could comprise 125 people in one of the parishes concerned, who all go to the local shop and sign any petition that is put under their noses. Local people were also not in favour of one recalcitrant councillor who wishes to curry favour—perhaps he is in a different party from the majority in that particular patch—saying that a referendum must be held. They did not think that it was a bright idea for my amendment to include those safeguards. I should have been emboldened by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord True, who is, indeed, a true believer in localism but who does not see the need for a referendum in circumstances such as I have described. He favours a much more permissive regime involving consultation with local people. I had a very good meeting with Greg Clark during the summer. His view at that point was that if the neighbourhood plan is acceptable to the council and the council agrees to prepare a local development order that embraces the plan—I think the noble Baroness reiterated this today—that can go ahead without the need to go through the rigmarole of a referendum. That is a significant point. In these circumstances it would be enormously helpful if that could be clarified. The noble Baroness said that she would look again at the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True. I wonder whether the proposals in my amendment might be wrapped up in his to determine whether there is a way in which we can make it clear to people that once a neighbourhood plan is devised and agreement is reached with a district council, parish council or town council, and everyone is okay with this, a referendum will not be needed. At the moment people’s understanding, fear and anxiety is that a referendum will have to be held in all cases. I am preparing myself for reassurance. I beg to move.