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Draft National Planning Policy Framework

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. It is the second time that we have had this debate in a week; it is remarkable how much the contributions have differed from the last time. A great deal has been added by what people have said and new areas have been opened up. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, I am treating this as part of the consultation process. I will not be able to comment on everything that people have said, but I shall try to cover some of the general headlines. I appreciate the various interests and expertise around the table today. The consultation has been pretty widespread. We have had 14,000 replies, which will have to be scrutinised, and two debates in the House of Lords. I have promised that everything that has been said will be taken into account. There has been one debate in the House of Commons and the Localism Bill has been discussed in both Houses, so I think we have given these areas pretty detailed scrutiny. The NPPF is launched. The final version will not be available until early next year. It might be later or earlier than that; it depends how quickly we can get on with it, but it will then be the final guiding document for all planning thereafter. Whether it will grease the sides for noble Lords, I do not know, but it has already contracted down. There is a divergence of view on whether or not the contraction has lost something of the flavour of what planning processes should be about. We think that it falls somewhere in the middle, but we will need to talk that through and see whether more provisions need to be added. I do not know what size it will end up being. We hope that a whole batch of following guidance will not be needed. After all, the whole rationale of the NPPF is to try to get rid of thousands of pages of guidance and policies that have had to be taken into account and to make the process easier. If we are to ask local people to develop neighbourhood plans which will support this planning process, they have to be able to understand what they are trying to achieve. If they do not, that process will be a waste of time and will require far too much support from the ground to ensure that it is carried out properly. We are beginning to structure a new system of planning not only with the NPPF but with the Localism Bill. That system will rightly take account of the growth that we need but that will not be the be all and end all. We badly need housing in this country, as has been said by a number of noble Lords. However, we also need to make room for business. The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, drew attention to the fact that business cannot be excluded. If we want jobs, we need to support growth and business to help us move ourselves out of the rather difficult economic situation we are in. Business is vital. A very high percentage of young people aged between 16 and 24 are out of work and have never had a job. They need training and apprenticeships and all that business can offer. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, drew attention to the value of providing workspace in the countryside. I support that. I do not think the NPPF moves away from that in any way. We are very conscious that our beautiful countryside provides relaxation for people but it is also a working area. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said one had to remember that the countryside is where we grow our food, raise cattle and engage in rural activities and businesses. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, drew attention to the number of businesses that start up in the countryside, so it is all-encompassing. We very much want to ensure that by the time this planning process is put in place it will have a long lifespan and will not need to be changed again. An enormous number of questions has been raised and I will try to answer some of the more general points. If I feel afterwards that somebody has raised a specific question that cannot be answered at this stage, I will make sure that it is answered. I say at the outset that that will be the situation with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who has asked a number of very detailed questions about the Gypsy and Traveller policies. I will be able to answer or give a flavour of some of that but I will not be able to go into all of the detail. However, I will see that we send a letter to the noble Lord that takes detailed account of what he has said. After all, we have just completed a consultation on Gypsies and Travellers. We have not yet finally viewed everything that is in it, but it is going to play a part in how arrangements are made and sites are allocated in the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, also took up those points. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked a number of questions. I will start with what the transitional arrangements will be between the regional spatial strategies and the National Planning Policy Framework. We have not decided yet what, if any, transitional arrangements there should be, but we see that you cannot get rid of the regional spatial strategies and not have something else. There is also, of course, the point—and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made it very clearly—that one of the problems about this process is that very many councils have not yet completed their local development framework, which I think was part of the Planning and Compensation Act 2004, which the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and I laboured with to some extent. That is probably one of the best reasons why one should be cautious about transitional arrangements, because the arrangements from that Act were transitional—people were going to be able to produce their new policies, and somewhere along the line an awful lot of councils have just sat down and not done enough about it. However, those plans are important and they are going to have to be put together. There will be a speeded-up process. The planning inspectorate and the Minister, Greg Clark, are already in discussions as to what is needed to streamline and quickly get the policy through. They form the background and the base for future strategies. We will come back to transitional arrangements in due course, but I understand what the noble Lord is saying. With regard to further consultation as planning policy is developed, we have undertaken the most enormous amount of consultation over the past three months—there have been 11 regional workshops and Ministers and officials have all met many partner organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has brought people to see me and we have talked to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. The House and external organisations have all had an opportunity to put their views. That, of course, also goes for the National Trust, which has put its views firmly but is now a bit calmer over some of the issues. I think that we probably need now to get this pulled together, assembled and turned into a final document which is put out, so that there is no more gap between the policy and its use. We need to get on with that. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also raised the question of the strategic environmental assessment. I confirm that, as the National Planning Policy Framework is guidance rather than a legislative statutory document, it is not a plan or programme that requires a strategic environmental assessment under the strategic environmental assessment directive or the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004. I thought noble Lords would want to know that so that they can look it up. We have undertaken an impact assessment of the NPPF, which has been published and has been quoted several times this afternoon. It addresses the environmental, social and economic impact of our draft policy. Those words lead me to sustainable development. There have been many questions raised about sustainable development, and a demand for an explanation. I am not too close to Monday to say that we have thought very carefully about putting this in the Bill. I said at our last sitting that that would be something that we would be looking at. We now believe that the proper place for this is in the framework. There is still an enormous number of questions about how much sustainable development is included, and how it is best included in planning. There are the five pillars of which we are all very well aware. There are people who would like to put in at least another two or three. We have to ensure that this is relevant to planning and we will want to develop that further. The five pillars are still in the NPPF but we may want to look at that again. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, raised the question of the timing of the regional strategy revocations. I do not think that I have covered that yet. They will be revoked by order. A consultation is taking place on that at the moment. It is a voluntary consultation carried out by the Government to ensure that the environmental assessment of regional strategies is understood and people have commented on it before they are abolished. Once that has been taken care of, the regional strategies will be revoked and the local plans and the NPPF will be the guiding spirit. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, mentioned design. I absolutely agree with her: design is one of the elements of planning that we really need to take into account. It is well supported within the NPPF, where it is made clear that planning permission can be refused for a development which is of particularly poor quality. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in his wide-ranging speech, gave us many good reasons why, in the past, some developments should have been refused. The benefit—or not—of those developments remains with us. Such developments can now be refused and planning authorities are required to give weight to good and outstanding design. Sometimes it may be that the design is unusual within the area, but we know that there are many very good buildings that have been built in different parts of the country. Design is something which people disagree about, but it is in the planning framework that we can take account of it in planning approval. I have touched on Gypsy sites and the voluntary consultation on this matter. We will be looking at that consultation document soon. I hope that I have covered the question of the countryside. We are fully committed to protection of the countryside, and understand and value all that it provides for us. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, carefully supports heritage. We truly support maintaining protection for our heritage. When we get to neighbourhood policies, heritage will be almost more protected because local people tend to be strongly in favour of something around them that has heritage attached to it. I suspect that there will be great enthusiasm to ensure that that is maintained in the way the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, would want us to do. With regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, said about world sites, I think that I am right in saying that those would be covered as well. The document does not call brownfield land ““brownfield””, it calls it ““land of lesser value””, but the implication, if nothing else, is that it is land which has been previously developed and is capable of being redeveloped. As I said in my opening speech, 60 per cent of building has already taken place on brownfield land and we expect that that will always be the first point of call—unless, as I said, it has already been adopted or adapted for some other use which local people wanted. There is no disagreement about the fact that such land should be developed first and foremost and that the green belt should be protected, as it is under the document. There should be limited development on greenfield sites only under special circumstances. Those special circumstances might fit neatly into what we were talking about in providing small developments in the countryside. There will be areas where it is appropriate to have a small number of affordable houses for workers and other people who live in the countryside. The right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord Reay asked about the status of our plan. I have probably covered that. I hope that I have gone through both the policy and the practices.