Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Lords, Lord Fuller, Lord Thurlow, Lord Moynihan and Lord Lansley, for their amendments, and all noble Lords who have spoken in this very important debate around training. I agree with what noble Lords have said generally about the importance of training in this area. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Shipley, Lord Best, Lord Carrington and Lord Banner, as well as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Sater, for their contributions, which are much appreciated. Before I started working on the Bill, I did not realise that it was not compulsory for members to have training in planning. It has always been compulsory on my local authority, both at county level and Stevenage level, and I was quite shocked to find out that it was not compulsory. Before I refer to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, I did not really recognise his description of rows of box-type construction. Since I became a Minister, I have visited literally dozens of construction sites across the country, from Durham to the Isles of Scilly, and from Greenwich to Northern Ireland. What I have seen is that they do not have this issue. There is certainly not a lack of regard for design, biodiversity or zero carbon. We have a dynamic building industry, overseen in planning terms by local councillors and officers who genuinely want the best for their communities. I have seen some excellent examples. I am sure there are some that are not as excellent as some of the ones I have seen, but this is a very dynamic industry, and it is doing its best to provide homes and communities for people across our country. I turn to Amendments 99A, 99AA and 100, which seek to ensure that the training of committee members includes climate change, biodiversity, ecological surveying, design and healthy placemaking. I assure noble Lords that the Government believe that all these matters are crucial to good planning, and all feature strongly in the national planning policy framework. To respond briefly to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on her point about design, the Government are absolutely committed not just to good design in the properties themselves but in placemaking as well. That is set out in the NPPF and in design guides, and we will be publishing our future homes and building standard later this year, which will go further in setting out what we expect. I always had a rule when I was a council leader that I would not build any homes that I would not want to live in myself. I hope to apply the same guidelines as a Minister. I would expect these matters to feature in any training for planning committee members. For instance, it would be unthinkable for the training not to mention that there are special statutory requirements for biodiversity net gain. The Government believe, however, that it is unnecessary to stipulate all that in the Bill. It is customary to use regulations or guidance to set out details with regard to the implementation of planning law, and the training of planning committee members should not be an exception. The details for the training are currently under development. We will continue to engage with local government and industry to ensure that the training covers all the basic principles of planning. It would be impractical in primary legislation to provide a complete list of matters that must form part of the training content. This is an area that develops all the time, and we want to make sure we have a mechanism for changing it as things change. There will be an element of local consideration in this. For example, I think chalk streams were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I have chalk streams in my area; they are not right across the country. Everyone should know about them, in my view, and I always talk about them. If you lived in an area where they were present, you might want more training on that aspect. Furthermore, such a list would have to be kept up to date. That process would take up valuable time in Parliament to amend the Bill.  Amendment 101 seeks to include National Highways, local highway authorities and integrated transport authorities as local planning authorities to which mandatory training will apply. Although National Highways, local highway authorities and integrated transport authorities are intricately involved with spatial development, they are not local planning authorities and do not have a decision-making role in planning committees, which is the focus of this Government’s training reforms. We therefore do not believe that it would be appropriate to extend the provisions to them.  Amendment 102 raises important questions about who the training should apply to. The Government introduced mandatory training for members of local planning authorities to improve the decision-making process for the many planning applications that are considered by local planning authorities every year through the planning committees and delegated authority. Many councillors sitting on planning committees are proficient in planning matters, but that is not necessarily the case, nor is it expected to be. Councillors are lay people with busy lives, juggling their councillor duties with other responsibilities. It is important that we get the balance right between training that is necessary for them to be able to take their decision-making properly but also to enable them to make the kind of decisions that make sense to local people. The training is therefore aimed at them so that they better understand the key principles of planning. In doing so, we want to ensure there is a higher level of debate and consistency in decision-making across the country. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, rightly raised the issues of standards. I pay tribute to our planning officers. They face unacceptable behaviour from the public but also, occasionally, regrettably, from councillors. I can reassure the noble Baroness that I am about to embark on a significant piece of work with the code of conduct task force. We will be talking about that more in the early part of next year. The training is not intended for officers of local planning authorities with responsibility for making or advising on planning decisions, nor any other person to whom decision-making functions are delegated. That is because it can reasonably be expected that all officers who have a formal responsibility for advising on or determining planning decisions are recruited with an emphasis on professional planning qualifications or have extensive planning experience. As we know, they are also able to call in support from experts on key issues where it would not be proportionate for a local authority to have that expertise in house. On Amendment 103, for similar reasons, the training is not intended for civil servants who make decisions on behalf of Ministers. As noble Lords will be aware, if an applicant appeals or applies directly to the Secretary of State, a planning inspector considers the case. They are planning professionals recruited for their expertise and the Planning Inspectorate provides them with considerable ongoing training. On the training of Ministers, it is important to highlight that Ministers need, and get, bespoke training and support to fulfil their decisions. They also operate within the Ministerial Code and planning propriety guidance. It is probably a good soundbite to say that Ministers should also be subject to the same training requirements as a councillor. From a personal point of view, I welcome training. I have had some training, and I am happy to take it on. But I understand that in practice the role is different. We therefore do not intend to extend these mandatory training requirements to Ministers who make planning decisions—for instance, when they call in applications. Lastly, Amendment 162, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, ably assisted by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Best, seeks to make it a statutory requirement for local planning authorities either separately or jointly. The noble Lord is quite right to point to the practical approach of local government in some areas in developing joint planning functions to improve their capacity and resilience, and the scope of their work, which can often help with recruitment and retention as well—and the noble Lord also spoke about appointing a suitably qualified chief planning officer. I share the noble Lord’s ambition of ensuring that all planning decisions are made with professional leadership. I am not convinced that we need to put the chief planning officer role on a statutory footing. We need to consider what a very clear rationale for such a step might be, and I am very cautious about overlegislating as the Government believe that local authorities are best placed to determine the structure of their planning departments. In practice, local planning authorities already have a senior officer who performs a function similar to that of a chief planning officer, but I will continue to reflect on that because as we go through the process of the further changes we are anticipating to the planning system, I think we need to consider it further. I hope to carry on discussions with the noble Lord and others on that. For now, for these reasons, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.