Earl Howe: My Lords, Amendments 32 and 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seek to increase the transparency of CCAs. Greater functions and funding must come with strong accountability, but that must go hand in hand with decisions being made at the most local level possible. I can deal with this quite briefly and, I hope, to the noble Lord’s satisfaction. As the Bill is drafted, a CCA’s...
Earl Howe: I simply remind the noble Lord, in answer to his first point, that there has to be a public consultation. That is when the views of all interested parties can be taken into account. Retaining the present arrangements, which I guess the noble Lord would like to do, could mean that the expansion of a combined authority—where the evidence shows that would be likely to improve outcomes across...
Earl Howe: My Lords, Amendment 26, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would prevent the executive of a combined county authority being able to represent the political make-up of its members. As I made clear in Committee, that is not something that the Government can agree to. A CCA will be made up of members from each constituent council on a basis agreed by those councils through their...
Earl Howe: My Lords, Amendment 24, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, asks the Government to define levelling up. I can simply say that it is already very clearly defined. When launching the levelling up White Paper, the Government clearly defined levelling up as “a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government” to “spread opportunity more equally...
Earl Howe: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd and Lord Hope of Craighead, as well as to my noble friends the Duke of Montrose and Lady O’Neill, in addition to noble Lords opposite. The levelling-up missions have been set by the UK Government but outcomes are a shared interest for the whole of the UK. We fully recognise that some of the missions...
Earl Howe: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will speak also to Amendments 13, 15, 16, 21 and 23. The Government are committed to respecting the devolution settlements. The UK Government and the devolved Administrations share a common ambition to deliver the best possible outcomes for people and to make sure that opportunity is spread more evenly across the whole of the country, even if the way we...
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...
