Earl Howe: My Lords, Amendment 478 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, would require new homes and buildings in England to have solar panels as of April 2025. I acknowledge straight away that the spirit of this amendment is unimpeachable. Renewable energy, such as that generated from solar panels, is a key part of our strategy to get to net zero. We should be aiming to see new homes and...
Earl Howe: My Lords, I would be very happy to arrange a meeting with the noble Baroness and appropriate officials to discuss the point that she has just made.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan would require the Secretary of State to consult on the proposal in the levelling up White Paper “to explore transferring control of taxi and private hire vehicle licensing to both combined authorities and upper-tier authorities”. I reassure my noble friend that the Department for Transport plans to engage stakeholders on...
Earl Howe: As I mentioned, the way the clause is phrased should give reassurance to those who feel that there might be a danger of the Government interfering with the operation of RICS. The clause does not permit that.
Earl Howe: I believe I have done so. The clause is justified for all the reasons I have mentioned.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I would simply encourage my noble friend to read my remarks in Hansard. There is no promise in this clause to the effect that the current or a future Secretary of State will initiate a review, but that there should be a power for them to do so. I would encourage my noble friend to reflect on the justification I gave in the terms that I gave it, which is that we are clear that the...
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am grateful for the discussions my noble friend Lady Scott and I have had with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, prior to this debate. I appreciate that they and others have hesitations and reservations around this clause; however, I hope I can persuade the Committee that those reservations should not be given weight. The Government consider that...
Earl Howe: My Lords, this has been a full debate on the numerous issues bearing on pavement licences. I shall begin by addressing Amendments 449 and 450 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, to whom I listened with great care and respect. These two amendments relate to the definition of “relevant highway”. The Government support making it as easy as possible for businesses and...
Earl Howe: My Lords, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill creates the powers for the Government to amend retained EU law and will remove the special status of retained EU law in the UK. On 17 May, the House agreed a government amendment to replace the previously proposed sunset of retained EU law in the Bill with a list of retained EU law for revocation at the end of 2023. This provides...
Earl Howe: My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has explained, this group of amendments concerns development corporations. I am grateful for the broadly supportive comments from noble Lords for these provisions. Amendment 403 probes the issue of local accountability, which was a theme picked up strongly by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, whose amendment I will come to in a moment. One of the...
Earl Howe: My Lords, the process will not be as my noble friend has described. The simplest way I can describe this is that community land auctions will be a process of price discovery. In the current system, local planning authorities have to make assumptions about the premium required by a reasonable landowner to release their land for development. For Section 106 agreements, this manifests itself...
Earl Howe: The extent to which those financial benefits can be taken into account will be set out, as I mentioned, in regulations. My noble friend makes a fair point, but parameters will be set around this. On the issue of prior consultation, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, also raised, one can take two views: one is to go through the process that my noble friend advocated, and the other is to...
Earl Howe: My Lords, in addition to the levy we have been debating, the Government are interested in testing other mechanisms that could improve land value capture. Community land auctions are an innovative process of identifying land for allocation for development in a local planning authority’s area in a way that seeks to optimise land value capture. Their aim is to introduce transparency and...
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their questions and comments, which I shall do my best to respond to. I begin with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who made, if I may say so, a very gracious speech—I know that he has severe doubts about the Bill. I fully subscribe to his remarks about the need to preserve diversity of opinion in universities and about universities being national...
Earl Howe: My Lords, we return to consider the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill for what I hope will be the final time. I thank noble Lords once again for the insightful debates that we have had on this important Bill, which is designed to ensure that the higher education sector in England is protected from the chilling effects of cancel culture which have been taking hold on campuses and in...
Earl Howe: My Lords, this group of amendments concerns chief planning officers, local authority resources and capacity, and risk and resilience. I welcome the discussion that has taken place on these important issues. Amendment 312B, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance for local...
Earl Howe: My Lords, Amendment 300 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, would require within three months of the Bill achieving Royal assent the implementation of the Government’s commitment to amend the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021 so that local planning authorities must consult the Secretary of State if they want to grant planning...
Earl Howe: My Lords, nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to be able to tell the noble Baroness but, having asked this question myself, I fear I cannot give a definite timescale at the moment. I am sorry for that.
Earl Howe: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. It might be helpful if I write her a letter to follow up this debate, picking up some of her points, now and in her opening speech, that I may not have picked up in my response.
Earl Howe: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for proposing this group of amendments, all of which are related to the protection of trees. I should start by saying that as a member of the Woodland Trust, and as an owner of woodlands myself, which are interests I should declare, I have sympathy with the spirit of these amendments. I shall, however, attempt to persuade the...
