§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
10.26 pm§ Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East)This is the second time that I have been called for an Adjournment debate, and on both occasions I have been doubly fortunate. The first occasion was the day after the House had been suspended and the previous day's Adjournment debate had been lost. On this occasion, I nearly lost the notes for my speech on a District line train at six o'clock on Friday morning. The quick wits of Mr. Kingham, the station foreman at South Kensington station, together with the alertness of Mr. McConnachie of Baron's Court station saved the papers that I had inadvertently mislaid. When I read the Government's report "Burdens on Business", I thought that many of our obsolete planning restrictions should be lost.
It is estimated by Barclays bank that unnecessary planning delays and restrictions cost £1,000 million per annum. The Financial Times estimated that perhaps 1 million jobs have been lost in the past five years through restrictions on business. I have received complaints in my constituency about delays to business through planning restrictions, and that is why I have chosen the subject of simplyfying the planning system for my debate tonight.
Furthermore, from my experience in building up a business employing over 500 people, I know the extreme frustration caused by unnecessary legislative restrictions, delays and uncertainties. I shall be pleased to hear what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment has to say about the Government's intentions to act, as I hope that they will, on their "Burdens on Business" report. I am happy to put forward a 10-point action plan to improve employment prospects both in my constituency and elsewhere in the country.
First, I feel that Parliament should remove the beam from its eye. We should rid ourselves of all surplus planning and other legislation. I support the proposals put forward last Wednesday by my noble Friends in the other place to set up a Joint Standing Committee of both Houses to prepare a miscellaneous provisions Bill as an annual springclean of Government legislation to clear away all redundant legislation that causes unemployment. For example, we should not have a law that forces the tiniest limited liability companies to go to the expense of preparing and filing annual statutory audited accounts. We should not put the same expenses on the smallest and on the largest companies.
Secondly, new legislation to streamline existing procedures is needed. For instance, fire regulations should be covered by a general statutory duty enforced with as much freedom of choice and by the same authority as will enforce the new building regulations. The fire insurance companies could act in the same way as garages which issue MOT certificates for vehicles.
Thirdly, we should enact the legislation for simplified planning zones so that councils can use this option to take the initiative in granting planning permission in advance of an application. Governments should be empowered to declare compulsory SPZs in areas where planning authorities are clearly inefficient. I am glad to say that the London boroughs are at the bottom of the efficient list, while northern authorities are the more efficient. The long 717 delays over the London STOLport are an example of how Governments should streamline the appeal process. Mowlem did all its preliminary work and put in its planning application in no more than 12 months, but it has been kept waiting for more than two and a half years for planning permission. Not only Londoners but northerners and other provincial travellers look forward to using this airport sooner rather than later. Mowlem deserves better treatment for its initiative, which is now waiting for the Government's decision.
Fourthly, we should amend the 1971 Act to make it easier for small businesses to make small extensions of up to, say, 15 per cent. and for local authorities to grant changes-of-use planning permission, especially for mixed use and from warehouse to general industrial use as well as from general industrial to warehouse use. From my experience, I know the difficulty of finding premises that are 50 per cent. office and 50 per cent warehouse. Yet these are the sort of premises that are most needed by many of the new technologies.
Fifthly, we should remove the powers of local authorities to prevent council house tenants from starting businesses in their own homes, as long as it does not in any way offend our common laws of nuisance, noise and so on. Millions of tenants are denied the chance to start a business in their spare time or to employ themselves usefully at home if they become unemployed. No wonder there is so much vandalism and hooliganism if people are not allowed to occupy themselves usefully. In my constituency, many empty council houses are boarded up because no wants to live in them. Why not allow these buildings to be usefully occupied by small businesses, instead of being used as targets for vandals with nothing else to do? Council house tenants should not have to worry if some one is using a typewriter or computer next door, so long as there is no noise or nuisance.
Sixthly, we should put more teeth into the planning circulars issued to local authorities. For instance, circular No. 22/80 says that councillors should not make the mistake of
enforcing the rigid separation of employment and services—especially small scale — from the residential communities which they support".In practice, the opposite happens. A playgroup run by Mr. and Mrs. Whenlock from their home in Egerton was opposed by Socialists on the council on the grounds that that it was a business in a residential area. Where should a playgroup be but in the community that it serves? It is all very well for councillors to attempt to protect local interests and for officials to protect their structure plans, but it is central Government who have to pick up the bills for the unemployment that results. If unemployment benefit had to be paid out of the local rates, local planners would have a real incentive to encourage small businesses instead of standing in their way.Seventhly, I should like my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to introduce a timetable for district authorities to produce individual unitary plans to replace the metropolitan structure plans. Bolton council has an opportunity in 1986 to rid itself of the straitjacket of the Greater Manchester council structure plan and provide development opportunities, free of constraints from imagined fears about the effect on other districts.
718 Eighthly, we should empower the officers of local authorities to issue immediate planning permission, only refusals and appeals going to committee. Eight weeks is too long to delay for most small businesses, which want immediate decisions. Councillors should appoint officers of the right calibre to make quick decisions themselves, and only refer to the committee the refusals and appeals. There is no need for every single application to be delayed for a committee decision. Councillors should be content to see the list of decisions, and bring to committee only those that they oppose.
Ninthly, we should ensure that when decisions go to appeal, the councils bear the costs when the decisions go against them. That would discourage councils from being so restrictive and from forcing small businesses to incur costs which they cannot afford.
Tenthly, councils should not be tempted to act as large-scale developers. They should be compelled to dispose of surplus land holdings and discouraged from acting so as to lay themselves open to allegations of misuse of their powers as planning authorities by attempting to dictate the development of their own sites. A tendency to draw magic lines on the map means that in a town such as Bolton perfectly sensible schemes to redevelop eye-sores such as Prospect Mill are opposed because they do not fit in with the council's preconceived ideas. Tens of millions of pounds of development could get under way immediately in Bolton, with jobs for many hundreds of people, if the council was not so blinded by its excitement over the Bark street project, worthy as that may be.
I shall give some examples of the problems and delays caused by planners. For 10 years the retailer MFI was prevented from coming to Bolton. Recently, the proprietor of another firm, a frozen food business, has been told that he must wait three years before he can have a suitable site in Bolton. An exciting new development such as Dave's Aquarium, the largest retail aquarium in Europe, was held up because the GMC structure plan made no provision for novel opportunities made possible by cheap air freight from the far east. An entrepreneur, Mr. Fred Bridge, is wondering whether it is worth all the hassle to go ahead with his next new project, which would employ 100 people.
I believe that Bolton council is probably better than most councils in wishing to encourage employment, but its answer to these questions is:
It is important to have a consistent policy framework to ensure that incompatible uses are avoided.But what is consistent or compatible about Bolton's 17,000 unemployed people? Where is the plan that encourages the initiative to provide employment? Where is the plan for 17,000 jobs?In conclusion, we were once thought of as having the finest planning system in the world, but it did not plan for 3 million unemployed. The recent publication, "The Cambridge Phenomenon," helps to explain why. In the 1950s and 1960s Cambridge council had a policy of restricting any individual business in Cambridge from taking on more than five extra employees. Indeed, IBM, the world's leading computer manufacturer, was refused planning permission to establish its European research headquarters in Cambridge. The whole country is now paying the price for such attitudes. But I wonder whether we are any better at planning today. Do we still have two worlds: the world of the planners and the real world?
719 Next month we have Enterprise Week, and 1986 is designated as Industry Year. I hope that both occasions will see a bonfire made of restrictions. If not, both taxpayers and the unemployed should rise up and demand to be freed from the bonds that tie us all down.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Macfarlane)I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) for the way in which he introduced this important subject, and I congratulate him on his shopping list and on the 10 points that he raised. I shall certainly take note of them.
This subject is very important and highly topical. Simplifying the planning system is a subject of national and local interest. Whether one is a developer, employer, householder or someone who enjoys good countryside and good architecture, it is vital that the development control system is easy to use, effective and efficient.
My hon. Friend mentioned a number of cases in which he suggests local planning authorities have been less than helpful to businesses seeking to expand. I am sure he will understand that it is difficult for me to comment on particular cases, although many of those that he quoted tonight are familiar to me, because he has, as a diligent Member of Parliament, approached me about the background. Obviously many of the details are important, and I shall be glad to look into them separately and write to him about them at a later stage. I should also be glad to write to him more fully about many of the points that he has raised tonight. It might be helpful, in that context, if I emphasised just how much we have already achieved in this field.
The Government have done much to make the planning system more efficient. About 90 per cent. of all applications are now granted and 70 per cent. of decisions are issued within eight weeks. The appeal system, administered by my Department, exists to ensure that over-zealous refusals of permission are promptly remedied. The whole country is now covered by up-to-date development plans which set a coherent context for decisions on individual applications.
The system and its operation can, and will, be further improved. There have, however, already been impressive achievements, and I shall set the background to the situation. Local planning authorities continue to deal with over 400,000 applications every year, and since 1979 the proportion decided within eight weeks has risen by 17 per cent. The number of appeals received by my Department was 25 per cent. higher last year than in 1979, and the number of full-time planning inspectors employed to deal with them was 10 per cent. lower, yet the great majority of appeals were still decided more speedily. These figures represent the cumulative effect of many small decisions and improvements in efficiency, each one in itself perhaps unspectacular, but the whole now reaping sound rewards in terms of speedier decisions and an earlier response to the developer.
Improvements in management have played their part. They have done this within the context of a more flexible framework. In 1979 we introduced the Local Government Planning and Land Bill, which concentrated development control functions at district council level and simplified procedures for the adoption of local plans. In 1980 we issued a new circular revising the basic ground rules for 720 development control and giving special emphasis to the need for a positive approach, for efficient decision-making and for the application of sensible yardsticks in dealing with the sometimes difficult issues of small firms, housing land and the enforcement of control.
Also in 1980, we issued a consultation paper on streamlined appeal procedures, a paper which we foLowed up with a management consultants' study, with many detailed changes of practice and with the issue of a circular stressing the value of early appeal decisions.
In 1981, we revised the Town and Country Planning General Development Order, increasing the range of home and industrial extensions which can be built without the need to make a planning application, and creating new rights to use small warehouses as industrial buildings and vice versa, a point raised by my hon. Friend, and I shall be happy to develop it in correspondence with him in due course.
Also in 1981 were the new regulations transferring all classes of planning appeal to planning inspectors for decision. Since then only 5 per cent. of cases have had to be recovered for detailed consideration in my Department, which has meant substantially quicker decisions on many appeals.
Within the last couple of years we have put out a new code of practice on the determination of planning applications, which has made a contribution to the progress which planning authorities have made in this area. We have issued a new booklet of guidance for industrial developers, coupled with a hard-hitting circular on industrial development. We have puplished a new memorandum giving detailed guidance on the content and procedures of structure and local plans.
Early this year we gave comprehensive new advice, for the first time in 17 years, on the use of planning conditions, emphasising their crucial role in allowing development to proceed and the importance of ensuring that the restrictions they impose on development are confined to what is strictly necessary.
These measures have been effective and successful, but there can be no complacency in trying to improve the planning system. That system has a complex task. It must preserve our heritage in the towns and in the countryside, it must maintain and improve the amenity of the public, and it must be quickly responsive to the changing needs of society for new developments and new land uses which will contribute to economic growth and the provision of jobs. These objectives are not always easy to reconcile, but we must be alert to every opportunity which will allow us to streamline the system. We have not been backward in trying new approaches.
In the Local Government Planning and Land Act, for example, we took powers to create new enterprise zones, where a scheme could grant a general and broadly-based planning permission so that developers could go straight ahead with their projects without awaiting the determination of an application. The enterprise zone idea has been a great success. An independent report commissioned by my Department and published last year shows that, even then, 10,000 new jobs in just over 1,000 firms had been attracted in the first 11 zones. The house will appreciate that not everywhere can be an Enterprise Zone.
We have now suggested building on the success of the enterprise zones by creating a new type of zone, a simplified planning zone, with a planning scheme which, once adopted by the local authority, will act to grant a 721 similar broadly-based permission tailored to the area involved and in many cases eliminating the need to seek specific permission.
Last year, when we consulted on simplified planning zones, we also sought comments on another idea to reduce the scope of control in line with local circumstances. This proposal would involve, where planning permission could be granted for a number of alternative uses on the same site, an ability to change freely between those uses once the original permission was granted, with no need to go back to the planning authority for a fresh permission on each occasion. A provision of this kind would be particularly useful for some new technology firms, a point mentioned by my hon. Friend as one of his 10 conditions for improvement.
Both of these proposals would enable us to make important advances in reducing unnecessary regulatory controls. Both my hon. Friend and I want this. It can be done in a way which can be carefully tailored to the circumstances of each case and each area. We are still considering responses to consultation on simplified planning zones, and I am certain that my hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot comment further at this stage on his remarks about them. If, having considered the results of consultation, we proceed with our SPZ proposals, I hope that we shall find an early opportunity in the next Session to translate both of these new ideas into legislation.
I do not intend, however, that we should await that opportunity before taking further steps to reduce unnecessary burdens in the planning field, for although much has already been achieved it is clear that further opportunities for streamlining are now before us.
My hon. Friend laid stress in his remarks on the need for planning control to be particularly responsive to the needs of small businesses. I echo his sentiments 100 per cent. Our principal circular on development control policy, circular 22/80, places great emphasis on small firms and their problems, and I am glad to reaffirm its message this evening. Small businesses are important in themselves, in their economic contribution and in creating jobs. If allowed to grow they can multiply the benefits they provide. Planning control must not stand needlessly in their way. Old-fashioned prejudices against commerce in residential areas or the countryside, or against people working from home, must not be allowed to stand in the way of enterprises. Many small firms are perfectly acceptable in such circumstances, although there will obviously be cases where the impact of a business on amenity is unacceptable. We have made our policy clear on these matters and we will impose it through the appeal system. But there is more that we can and will do.
Let me take the example of telecommunications, a new and burgeoning industry with which I know my hon. Friend is familiar and one which involves many small firms in many different roles.
The liberalisation of telecommunications and the promotion of growth and competition in this field inevitably raise planning issues. It is an area of rapid technological change and we have to respond to innovations such as cellular radio, broadband cable TV and microwave systems. Planning policies must ensure that no unnecessary impediments and obstacles lie in the way of such developments, since development, very 722 prominently in this field, represents economic growth, new jobs and greater prosperity. In 1982 a special development order was made which granted planning permission for the carrying out of development for the Mercury system on British Rail land. This was a most important step within deregulation.
A number of broader charges are currently in hand to ensure that the planning system reflects the needs of today and does not subject minor telecommunications development to otiose procedures and regulatory impediment. Our proposals will mean that all telecommunications operators with a public service obligation under the terms of their telecommunications licence will enjoy freedom from planning control when installing apparatus such as wires, poles, ducts, and smaller masts and antennae, subject to reasonable size and other limits.
This will be achieved by amendments to the Town and Country Planning General Development Order to be introduced in the next few months. The order will also be amended to permit other users of telecommunications, again without the need for a planning application, to install microwave and satellite dish antennae on larger buildings. We intend to take a very close look at any further procedures which may be necessary, because we recognise fully their effects on small firms.
My hon. Friend will be familiar with the report, published last month, of the Government's scrutiny of legislative and administrative burdens on business—he touched upon this in his remarks—and in particular their impact upon small firms. He will know the welcome which that report gave to our proposals to introduce simplified planning zones and greater freedom to change the use of buildings. We will be examining the other proposals in that report very carefully over the coming months and seeing how much we can add to them to create a package which has a real impact on the problems of small firms. But I would like to announce today two specific initiatives which I intend to take to ease the impact of the planning system on small firms.
First, I intend to issue a new circular to local planning authorities giving further guidance on the treatment of small firms. In part this will be a statement of good practice, drawing firmly to the attention of authorities the problems that businesses have in finding out what is expected of them, and by whom. But in part it will be a statement of policy which authorities will be obliged under the planning Acts to take into account in their decisions. It will reaffirm and elaborate on existing advice and make it clear that the planning approach to business development must be positive, not protectionist.
Secondly, I propose to publish a new handbook which will tell small business men, in a clear and down-to-earth way, what to expect of the planning system, when they need permission, and how to go about getting it when they do.
We have already achieved a great deal in making the planning system more prompt, more efficient and more responsive to enterprise. It is becoming clear that one of the major remaining problems is the difficulty which planners have in understanding what it is like to run a small business and that which entrepreneurs have in finding their way around the planning system. This is a real problem. It can lead to firms buying premises which are quite unsuitable in planning terms, failing to present a proper case for permission, believing permission is needed when it is not and suffering enforcement action unnecessarily.
723 It can lead to firms failing and to jobs being lost. I fully accept the figure given by my hon. Friend in his opening remarks. The Government are making a real effort to improve understanding, and our new circular and handbook will make a real contribution to that effort.
My hon. Friend has often expressed his concern in the past about building regulations both formally and informally. The Government are already engaged on a fundamental review of the building regulations. The object of the review is the simplication of building control procedures and their requirements. The first stage of the review will be completed later this year when new building regulations will be made. The new regulations will be much simpler in form than the current ones. They will give complete exemption to many more kinds of work. They will introduce quicker, less detailed procedures and they will also provide for private certification of building work by approved inspectors as an alternative to local authority control.
The new regulations will be supported by documents giving clear, practical guidance on how to comply with the requirements. All those improvements, making the regulations simpler to understand and quicker to use and exempting some work altogether, will, I hope, be of help to small businesses.
In the first stage of the review we have recast the existing requirements in the way that I have described. The 724 next stage, which is about to start, will be to review the scope and content of the regulations to see that they are the minimum required to ensure reasonable standards of health and safety for people in and around buildings. That part of the review will cover all the requirements in the regulations, including those on fire safety.
There is obviously no intention here of abanconing basic safety standards, but there is scope for making the regulations simpler and less onerous. The scrutiny of administrative burdens on small businesses has pointed the way and highlighted in particular the problems of the conversion of existing buildings for commercial use. That scrutiny recommended that the Department's review should proceed with all speed, and that is the Government's intention.
The simplification of the planning system is the subject of the debate and that is the Government's strategy. I shall develop many of the points that my hon. Friend has raised tonight in correspondence with him, but I am grateful to him for giving the House the opportunity of discussing this important subject. It is our intention to make all haste. Simplifying the planning system is one of the most integral and important means that we have to regenerate the economy at all levels.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Eleven o' clock.