HL Deb 05 March 1990 vol 516 cc1008-13

5.25 p.m.

The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House February be approved [10th Report from the Joint Committee].

The noble Earl said: My Lords, your Lordships may wish to note that these regulations supersede the draft laid on 14th February and take into account two minor technical changes which in no way affect the substance of the draft regulations.

The regulations are made under the provisions of Section 87 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. They amend and consolidate the existing scheme of fees for planning applications introduced in April 1981.

Before I describe the changes to the fees scheme to be made by the regulations which we have under consideration today, your Lordships may find it helpful to be given a brief outline of the purpose of the scheme and the way in which it works. Under the scheme, any applicant who seeks planning permission must pay a fee to the planning authority, usually the district council. That reflects our policy that local authority expenditure should, in appropriate cases, be offset by reasonable fees for the services provided. The fee must be determined in accordance with the provisions of the regulations and it cannot be waived, although the regulations make provision for circumstances in which no fee or a reduced fee is payable. Otherwise, applications attract a fee determined in accordance with the type of development proposed and its size, where that is relevant.

The scheme is designed to ensure that there is a broadly uniform scale of fees throughout Scotland, England and Wales; that there is a fair balance between the categories of development; that fees do not discourage serious planning applications; that the scheme is easily understood and that its operation does not impose any excessive administrative burden on developers or on planning authorities.

The Government's policy is that fees should be set at a level which enables planning authorities to recover half the costs of operating the development control system. The intention behind this is that the cost of operating the development control system should be shared in broadly equal proportions between developers and the community at large. At present fees recover only around 40 per cent. of authorities' costs. If we were to proceed to 50 per cent. recovery in one step, a very substantial increase in the level of fees would be required. We have concluded that a staged approach should be adopted, the proposed increase now put forward being restricted to the increase required to cover the effects of inflation since the current scales were introduced on 22nd August 1985.

The new regulations therefore provide for an increase of approximately 20 per cent. in the level of fees across the board. That will result in the two basic fee units rising from £53 to £64, and from £27 to £32. Thus, an application for planning permission for the erection of houses will, for example, be charged at £64 per house in the case of a full application, and £64 per 0.1 hectare of site area in the case of an outline application.

Apart from the increase in the level of fees, the new consolidated regulations provide for a number of other changes which generally mirror those made in the Department of the Environment regulations since the last Scottish regulations in 1985. There are two main changes. First, we have made provision for a special category of fee for oil and gas exploration applications. At present these applications are charged at the rate of £27 for each 0.1 hectgare of site area, subject to a maximum charge of £270. The new charge will be £64 for each 0.1 hectare of the site area, subject to a maximum fee of £4,800. A similar change has been made in England and Wales.

Secondly, we intend to make provision for an exemption from a fee for applications to consolidate existing minerals working permissions. Again, that was introduced in England and Wales as a result of representations from English local authority associations. The remaining proposals in the new regulations make provision for changes of a minor and technical nature. Overall, the changes proposed in the new regulations bring a uniformity of approach to the question of development control cost recovery on both sides of the Border. I commend the consolidated regulations to your Lordships.

Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 20th February be approved [10th Report from the Joint Committee].—(The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.)

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, the House is grateful for the clarity with which the Minister outlined the purpose of this instrument. The Minister stressed more than once that we are bringing Scotland into line with England and Wales. One of his last remarks was that it ensures uniformity of approach. If they are all of a piece, can the Minister tell the House why there needs to be two separate sets of regulations—one set for England and Wales and another for Scotland? We are not arguing on the principle of charges but on the means of giving effect to the principle. Perhaps the Minister can give a reason for having two sets of regulations.

I was involved in another place when the principle was established. It was a matter of some heat. The Minister will acknowledge that it was simply one way of reducing the costs of local authorities and thereby reducing the need for rate support grant from the centre. Can the Minister tell the House how much is raised at present by the current level of charges, and how much is expected to be raised by the increase?

I take the point fairly made by the Minister that it is almost five years since the last review. I believe the Minister said that this means an increase of 20 per cent., or thereabouts, across the board to bring the position up to date. Can the Minister say how much, globally, this will mean? For example, he referred to a figure of £52 increasing to £64, and I know that that is an increase of £9. However, there must be some evidence in the department to show the likely yield to local authorities of such an increase.

Similarly, in the other categories there is an increase of £27 to £32—an uplift of £5. Again, can the Minister tell the House what that means globally? It is the global impact on, not the rate support grant but the subvention, which will assist the community charge payer that is of concern to us.

The Minister said that the Government believed that the charges should be set at a level which broadly reflects 50 per cent. of the administrative cost to local authorities. The Minister should know that planning departments in local authorities are likely to be under the most pressure these days—not least because there is a shortage of qualified planners and because there seems to be a plethora of applications which call for development control officers to consider them. Can the Minister say what is the nature of the consultations that have taken place with the local authority associations to ascertain whether they agree with the Minister that these increases are required? I know that the Minister and his colleagues will have access to the relevant intelligence. They may of course have arrived at precisely the right level. However, can the Minister tell the House whether there has been any pressure one way or the other from the local authority associations that they wanted a higher or lower uplift than the increase from £57 to £64?

It is all very well the Government saying to the House and to local authorities, "We believe that it is in your interests to have the increase" but do the local authorities feel that this is right and proper? Has any consultation taken place with officers of the local authorities who are affected in this matter? Democratically-elected lay members are represented by COSLA, in this instance, but the AMA, the ADC, the ACC and the ALA in the rest of Britain are also interested.

The Minister has decided to make the changes in Scotland, leaving England and Wales separate. He also states that the Government are seeking uniformity of approach. However, is there a common consensus among local authority associations for Scotland as well as in England and Wales? I make no comment whatever on the desirability of the charges. It is a device dreamt up by the Government some years ago to reduce the need for rate support grant, and in effect they are making sure yet again that the consumer pays. I would be interested to hear of any statistics relating to individual developers. I am not referring to individuals but developers of a major kind where an increase from £53 to £64 for a new house is acceptable.

Does the Minister understand that there is grave concern about refusal of appeal and costs of appeal? There is a growing awareness that the whole nexus of the cost of the development control system needs to be examined. I can give the Minister illustrations from my own borough of Enfield. Residents who strongly object to a development are prevailed upon to reconsider by councillors in control of the authority. Although the councillors agree that planning permission should not be given, the protestors are told to bear in mind that if the planning application is refused and an appeal is successful there could well be costs visited upon the authority which, in effect, would not be in the interests of the local residents.

I hope the Minister can be of assistance. I have no objection to the order, but we have too few opportunities to discuss the nitty-gritty of planning matters. In my view, the matters that I have raised are entitled to have some observations made on them at this time.

The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne

My Lords, we have had a useful short debate on the relatively minor changes to the fees scheme made by these regulations. I am glad to note that the principle of sharing the cost of the development control system between developers and the community at large has become more widely accepted since the fees scheme was introduced in 1981. The arrangements for charging fees have been shown to be working well and it is clear that the scheme has not caused the damage to the relationship between developers and planning authorities which its opponents anticipated when it was introduced. Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that the fees scheme has acted as a deterrent to development proposals.

The noble Lord, Lord Graham, raised a number of points. I shall endeavour to answer two of them but I will write to the noble Lord in regard to his questions on statistics. The noble Lord first asked about the differences between Scottish and English regulations. There is only one substantive difference between the two sets of regulations. The regulations for England and Wales provide that where a fee for a deemed application is to be paid to the Secretary of State, that fee shall be paid when the applicant or appellant concerned is asked to do so by the Secretary of State instead of at the time the relevant appeal is made or the relevant application is referred to the Secretary of State. This provision is required principally as a matter of administrative convenience. The arrangements in Scotland for the payment of fees for deemed applications to the Secretary of State are different and no comparable provision is required in the Scottish regulations.

The noble Lord, Lord Graham, also asked about the 50 per cent. recovery target. The operation of the planning system represents a substantial cost to the taxpayer and the Government's belief remains that it is a sound principle that those who use and potentially benefit from specific administrative processes should meet the cost of providing that service. Last year we issued a consultation document to some 300 bodies and organisations with an interest in the development control system which asked for their views on, among other things, a proposal to increase planning fees so that 100 per cent. of the planning authorities' costs in the processing of applications could be recovered. There was a range of responses to the consultation and these are still under consideration.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, the noble Lord touched very fairly on the raison d'être for the charges and says that the costs should be borne by those who benefit from them. Does not the Minister understand that the greatest beneficiary from a i properly controlled development control system is the community itself? The reason for planning legislation is not to give the individual a benefit but for the avoidance of detriment to the community by careless, haphazard development. Our case has always been, though it may have been superseded by time, that the reason that the community should bear the cost of applying a proper development control system is that it is the community itself which is the greatest beneficiary from the system.

The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne

My Lords, given that the income from fees has proved to be considerably less relative to overall development control cost than was originally anticipated, as I have explained, we believe that an increase of this order is necessary. Our current aim of a 50 per cent. recovery of development control costs is fair in our view and is unlikely to impose any hardship. To put the matter in perspective, your Lordships might consider the case of a person who wishes to build himself a new house and who requires first to obtain outline planning permission and subsequently is required to make a separate application for the approval of the details. The total which he will pay in fees for the two applications will be £128. Such a charge can hardly be regarded as being excessive when compared to the eventual value of the asset in question which will certainly run into tens of thousands of pounds.

I hope I have covered most of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and I shall write to him on the ones that I have not dealt with.

On Question, Motion agreed to.