My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Howe, I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
It is a great privilege to open Second Reading on the Bill in your Lordships’ House. This is my first Second Reading speech since I took my seat in this House in April, and I am honoured to speak on this Bill, which is so critical for our economic recovery.
Noble Lords may have seen the Prime Minister’s speech of 30 June, when the Government announced that we would launch a planning policy paper this month setting out our plan for comprehensive reform of the planning system. I make clear that the Bill is not part of those ambitions for planning reform and should not be taken as a signal for what that will entail. This Bill is about implementing urgent and mostly temporary measures to provide much-needed support to businesses across our economy. We have within this House some of the country’s finest experts on planning and local government, so I look forward to constructive and positive discussions on planning reform once the paper has been launched.
For now, I beg noble Lords to focus on the merits of this urgent Bill, which will provide a much-needed boost to key sectors of our economy at this extraordinary time. The measures in the Bill have been developed in collaboration with industry and key stakeholders. The Bill directly responds to asks from businesses to help them to overcome the challenges that they face. It is right and important that we now support businesses in overcoming the disruption that has resulted from the pandemic and to implement new, safer ways of working. The Bill will support businesses in four key areas of the economy: hospitality, SMEs, transport, and construction. I will take each in turn.
First, the Bill will provide critical support for the hospitality sector. Food and beverage service activity has fallen by nearly 90% in the last quarter. From last Saturday, pubs, restaurants and cafes were able to reopen while following Covid-secure guidelines. The Government want to support those businesses to make the most of summer trade and to operate in a safe way. The Bill will therefore make it easier for businesses that sell or serve food or drink to obtain a licence on a temporary basis to set up outdoor seating and stalls. It will do this by introducing a temporary fast-track process for obtaining a licence from the local council to place tables and chairs on the pavement outside their premises. This new process will cut the time to receive approval for a licence and will cap the application fee at £100.
We recognise that public safety and access for disabled people using pavements is of unquestionably great importance. That is why the Government have published a national condition. When that condition applies, licence holders will be required to take into account recommended minimum requirements for footway widths and distances required for access by disabled people. In addition, local authorities will be able to refuse or revoke licences where they assess that it is necessary.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction to the Bill. A large number of Members of your Lordships’ House wish to speak in this debate, and we look forward to their contributions.
When a crisis hits, effective Governments do two things: first, they deal with the immediate challenge and, secondly, they anticipate the fallout and begin working out how to tackle the consequences in the months and years ahead. It is anticipated that the UK has spent over £200 billion on a first-stage economic rescue operation but there is, as yet, no plan for economic recovery. Millions of jobs are now at risk and even a VAT cut, which is widely anticipated and would be welcome, will not of itself return our economy to pre-crisis levels of activity. The reannouncement of major infrastructure projects remains just that; most are nowhere near shovel-ready and will take many years to come on stream.
The £29 billion in Covid-19 loans to 640,000 businesses has been a significant boost to liquidity but, as loans, these are not earned income. They will leave even fundamentally sound companies with huge debts, which will restrict their ability to reinvest for the future while opening them up to predatory takeovers. The current trickle of bankruptcies may turn into a flood.
I say all this because I want to make the point that while the Government have acted to protect us from the supply shock caused by the pandemic, the resolve that delivered the furlough schemes, which currently maintain 9 million people who might otherwise be out of work, needs to be shown again as we start the recovery to stimulate demand and save jobs. It will be a long haul. The Government urgently need to come forward with a comprehensive, flexible and imaginative plan for the support and recapitalisation of viable British businesses, and the prevention of mass unemployment. But this Bill, welcome though it is, is not that plan.
My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I welcome the aims of the Bill, because it can help reduce lasting damage to the economy. The Bill is said by the Local Government Association to be a
“positive step in the journey towards economic recovery”
and I concur with its view. The broad aims of the Bill secured all-party support in the House of Commons, although it has been sent to us to examine in detail, which we must now do.
The pandemic has been unequal in its financial impact on households. Some households are in serious financial difficulty; other households with more secure incomes may have been spending less than normal. We need those with cash to spend more of it now to help generate jobs for others. This Bill is one way of encouraging that higher spending, with the obvious further benefit of generating extra tax income for local and national government.
In terms of licensing, no two places are quite the same, so a flexible approach—place by place—will be essential. For that reason, I hope the opportunity will be taken to review very soon the powers of local authorities in licensing and the powers held in Whitehall. This was needed anyway, but the pandemic has revealed anomalies. For example, decisions on the level of fees charged to licensed premises through the late-night levy were made in Whitehall. Pubs were closed for many weeks, but they still had to pay the levy because councils could not change the law. Surely councils should have the power to reduce or waive the levy fees without asking central government.
I said earlier that the Bill commands broad all-party support, and it contains many sensible proposals. That does not mean, however, that we should not scrutinise the detailed provisions of the Bill, and I hope the Minister will accept the need to look for improvements in Committee and later stages. There are a number of issues that I would wish to see probed in Committee next week and no doubt colleagues on our Benches will have others. I think we need to assess whether the costs borne by local authorities are at least neutral. There are issues around the hours of work permitted on construction sites. There are questions around the sale of alcohol in open containers to be consumed on the pavement. There are concerns about the right of pedestrians to walk safely on the pavement, which is a particular concern for those who are visually impaired. There is a need for quarterly reviews of the practical operation of this legislation, with scope for amendment. Perhaps we should consider whether enough will be done to ensure that necessary pre-consultation can take place before a 14-day period is triggered.
My Lords, my comments relate to planning. I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and of the Local Government Association. I fully support the planning elements in the Bill, which are sensible and should minimise potential delays in the planning process caused by the pandemic.
However, as the Minister mentioned, the Prime Minister has spoken of more radical changes to planning to speed up the drive to “build, build, build”. I commend the PM’s emphasis on building back better, with more beautiful, greener homes, but there has also been talk of extending the controversial permitted development rights of housebuilders and developers so that they can bypass planning requirements and, indeed, avoid providing any affordable housing in their developments.
It is true that underresourced planning departments are sometimes slow, outwitted by well-resourced developers or overwhelmed by public hostility to a development. However, the answer is not to diminish the powers of the elected local planning authorities in the hope that the developers and housebuilders who have let us down in the past will do better if left to do as they please. Effective local planning requires adequate funding, which can be properly paid for by the developers which stand to gain so much from planning decisions.
Specifically on increasing the speed of development, we fortunately have some clear insights from the review that the Government commissioned from Sir Oliver Letwin. This explains why it takes so long for developers to actually build their developments: they only build more when they have sold what they have already built. Sir Oliver spells out that if we want much faster progress on big sites, we need to organise simultaneous development of a variety of types and tenures on these sites: homes that are affordable and for market renting, homes for older people and students, as well as plots for custom building by small builders.
My Lords, we should all welcome the general thrust of the Bill, especially the declared purpose of assisting businesses, especially the small and medium-sized ones, in the current crisis. For the most part, concerns from individuals and organisations about inconvenience caused by changes near to them or affecting their interests—for instance, open-air activities or the extension of hours on building sites—can be assuaged to some extent by the temporary nature of the relevant provisions and the accepted obligation already given by the Government to come back to Parliament if any extensions or retentions of these provisions are contemplated or, in their view, necessary.
However, my remarks today, like those of the previous speaker, will concentrate on the parts of the Bill that deal with planning issues. I do this in the full knowledge that the Government are currently undertaking a comprehensive review of planning law and regulations—as predicated in remarks made earlier this year by the Housing Secretary, my right honourable friend in the other place, Robert Jenrick, and my noble friend earlier—which is to be set out in due course.
As a lowly PPS in the Department of the Environment, I worked on the delivery of development corporations with my boss at the time, Sir David Trippier, to areas or zones of economic deprivation in the 1980s, and I regarded the special planning powers vested in their boards as key to revival. Such targeted zones, especially in inner cities, will in my view be necessary again in a post-Covid world. I hope my noble friend the Minister will look sympathetically with his colleagues at this possibility.
However, the reference to changing the planning appeals system in this Bill, which seems to emanate from some of the proposals for a White Paper, should be examined closely. I believe these ideas were contributed by the independent review panel, to which my noble friend referred earlier. These changes, unlike most of the Bill’s contents, are to be permanent, ahead of other more comprehensive changes, so we need to be most careful in examining these things as the Bill proceeds. I assume these changes will remain as part of the fuller proposals.
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Stevenson said, many aspects of this Bill are simple and straightforward and are to be welcomed. However, others are precursors to the wider planning Bill which was referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Best.
Given that I have only four minutes, I will concentrate on those aspects which concern me and which we should be clear should not be carried forward as a long-term proposition, because one person’s regulation is another person’s protection. The idea that, if we just sweep away many of the blockages in regulation, the enterprise and creativity of local businesses will somehow flourish without damaging the interests of the wider community, is simply untrue. It is untrue because those regulations and requirements have been brought in over many years for a purpose: to retain the balance between economic activity and enterprise, on the one hand, and the safe- guarding of people’s interests on the other. We should bear that in mind.
Other aspects of this Bill slightly bemuse me. While I am totally in favour of kick-starting elements of the economy that have been so badly damaged by the lock- down, I cannot see for the life of me that licensed premises selling alcohol off-premises—as though they will all now be off-licences—will actually do very much, other than fuel the already worrying concerns about activity late at night, particularly in the major cities, which has already been referred to but which I want to reinforce. Eating and drinking outside in an orderly fashion—linked, I stress, to the premises and not detached from them—is very sensible and, in the remaining summer months and next year, could contribute to not only economic activity but a different atmosphere in cities, towns and villages.
However, it must be done in a way that does not, as has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, damage the interests of those who will be vulnerable to unplanned and unrestricted obstacles on pavements. I have been asked, quite understandably, by the Royal National Institute of Blind People and others to draw attention to this and to say that there must be sensible safeguards if we are not to have almost Kafkaesque episodes like something out of “Monty Python”. I have a dog; other people do not. My current dog would not take a tender morsel off the table as it passes; one of my previous dogs undoubtedly would have done. I am just trying to lighten the load a bit this afternoon.
My Lords, I will focus on those aspects of the Bill relating to tourism. Tourism generates revenues of £155 billion per annum for the UK economy, including £28 billion in export earnings. The industry employs 3 million people, making it the UK’s third-largest employer. Every region has at least 100,000 tourism-related jobs. The sector has been disproportionately affected by the Covid pandemic; inbound tourist numbers are forecast to decline by 59% and expenditure by 63% this year, resulting in a loss to the UK economy of nearly £20 billion and a loss to the domestic tourism industry of a further £25 billion.
Councils have been working hard on measures to help hospitality businesses reopen, for example using town centres differently so that businesses can operate outside. However, a lot more can be done. While the Bill contains welcome new flexibility for businesses to put tables and chairs on pavements, there are at least three further measures we could take to help firms which have lost months of trading income.
First, the package travel regulations should be amended to make transport a mandatory component of package travel, thus allowing small businesses to make a combined offer of, say, accommodation in a guest house and a meal at a local pub without incurring all the responsibilities of a package holiday operator. Research suggests that this could boost domestic tourism by £2.2 billion with no loss in consumer protection.
Secondly, we should remove restrictions preventing caravan parks operating during winter. These parks have already lost between 35% and 50% of their income, and two-fifths of sites presently operate less than eight months of the year. There is an opportunity here to boost domestic tourism with year-round openings for all.
Thirdly, we should remove planning restrictions that prevent self-catering cottages being rented out as long-term lets during winter. These restrictions have a perverse impact, leaving holiday accommodation empty for many months of the year, with a knock-on effect for local pubs and restaurants, which see decreased trade. Over 80% of tourism businesses either were closed temporarily or have ceased trading altogether as a result of coronavirus. Some 92% say that their revenue has at least halved; 75% of their employees were furloughed, compared to just 24% in the jobs market as a whole. This is little short of a catastrophe for the industry.
My Lords, although this Bill has the grand title of Business and Planning Bill, it is something of a pot-pourri and the emphasis seems to be on consumer spending in the high street in bars and restaurants and the urgent encouragement of a single industry—construction—rather than on an industrial strategy in the round, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, pointed out. However, much current thinking has it that those towns which were the worst hit by austerity are also going to be the worst hit economically by Covid, so the encouragement of new industries, such as green industries, particularly in the worst affected regions, is urgently required.
Thinking locally, what discussions are the Government having with the Local Government Association about taking these measures forward and how will councils be supported financially to do so?
Of the measures to help the hospitality industry, I particularly approve of bringing cafes more on to the street, continental style, and I hope this will be a more permanent fixture across the country. It is one of those seemingly small but significant measures that can help knit communities together, although it has been prompted, of course, by the requirement for social distancing.
I support the LGA’s call for a range of different and alternative spaces, including roads and parking spaces, to be licensed when it is safe to do so.
We have heard a great deal about the need to get the hospitality sector back on its feet both in the media and in Parliament, including through this Bill, but not a great deal about the arts, which has similar problems with social distancing measures, at least not until today. The rescue package has been welcomed by arts leaders, but there must be a concern about how far £880 million in grant money will go and what will be lost in the arts, particularly as this money has come so late. I wish the Chancellor did not use the term “world beating”. However, much the arts are grateful for it, this Covid emergency package for the arts is not world beating unless your world is confined to the shores of this country.
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The Bill also makes it easier for licensed premises to sell alcohol to customers for consumption off the premises. It temporarily and automatically extends the terms of on-sales alcohol licences to allow the sale of alcohol for consumption off the premises as well. It also suspends any relevant conditions on existing off-sales licences, including conditions that require off-sales of alcohol in sealed containers and restrictions on sales for delivery.
We recognise the need to strike a balance between supporting businesses and ensuring safety and amenity for our communities. If in a particular location these alcohol licensing arrangements were to cause problems then any responsible authority, including the police or an environmental health officer, could apply for a new off-sales expedited review. This expedited review process will allow responsible authorities to quickly alter the alcohol licensing conditions, suspend it for up to three months or remove the permission for sales of alcohol for consumption off the premises. On receipt of an application, the licensing authority must consider whether it is necessary to take interim steps to the permission granted by the Bill within 48 hours of receiving that application, and must hold a hearing within 28 days of receipt. These temporary measures to support the hospitality sector will be in force only until the end of September 2021. This will enable businesses to make the most of outdoor seating opportunities in the summer months this year and next.
Secondly, to support small businesses, the Bill introduces measures to enable lenders to continue to issue bounce-back loans quickly and at scale. The Bounce Back Loan Scheme is designed to provide loans at speed to small businesses adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. So far, £29 billion has been lent to small businesses under the scheme, providing a vital lifeline to many.
The effect of the Bill is to retrospectively disapply the “unfair relationships” provisions in the Consumer Credit Act 1974 for lending made under the scheme. This is necessary to remove some of the checks and processes that lenders would otherwise need to run, and which would prevent them from providing loans to small businesses at the scale and speed necessary in this crisis.
Thirdly, to support our transport sector, this Bill makes changes to driver licensing and enables changes to roadworthiness testing for commercial vehicles. It will reduce the backlog of checks and tests that grew over the lockdown. It will help us to get goods, and indeed people, moving across the country.
The Bill introduces a temporary—and, in Great Britain, retrospective—power to issue one-year lorry or bus driving licences, rather than the standard five-year licences. This flexibility will allow a licence to be extended for a year if an applicant is unable to obtain the medical report required for a full five-year licence. This helps to alleviate pressures on doctors and the NHS.
The Bill also reforms the powers to temporarily exempt goods vehicles, buses and coaches from roadworthiness-testing requirements. This will be a permanent change but our intention is to use the reformed power only temporarily in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. This will allow for the high demand for heavy vehicle testing, which was reintroduced after lockdown only on 4 July, to be managed so that the most important vehicles are tested first.
Fourthly, the Bill will support our construction sector to get building again. It will introduce a fast-track route through the planning system to apply for a temporary extension of construction hours so that firms can plan for the safe reopening of sites. Temporarily allowing longer working hours—for example, during the evening and at weekends—will help to facilitate safe working by spreading out the working day. Importantly, local councils will have discretion to refuse requests where they consider that longer hours would have an unacceptable impact. I make it clear that this measure will not apply to construction works to an existing house, which affords a measure of protection to neighbours from disturbance. This measure will expire on 1 April 2021.
In addition, the Bill responds to calls from both the development industry and local authorities to extend planning permissions and listed building consents that lapsed during lockdown or will lapse before the end of this year. As a result of the pandemic, almost 1,200 unimplemented planning permissions for major residential development have lapsed or are at an increased risk of lapsing by the end of this year. These account for 60,000 new homes. The Bill enables the extension of these planning permissions and listed building consents to 1 April 2021, subject to any necessary environmental approvals.
There are two further planning measures included in this Bill. The first supports the Planning Inspectorate to conduct hearings and inquiries while adhering to social distancing. It enables the inspectorate to combine written representation, hearing and inquiry procedures when dealing with town and country planning appeals. This change was recommended by the independent Rosewell review, following which a pilot reduced average decision-making time from 47 weeks to 23 weeks. This measure will apply permanently to support the improved efficiency of the Planning Inspectorate.
The second responds to a request from the Mayor of London. It temporarily removes the requirement for the Mayor’s spatial development strategy to be available for public inspection and for hard copies to be available on request. In a time of social distancing, that is not practical. This requirement is replaced with a duty to make the current version of the strategy available for inspection free of charge by appropriate electronic means. Nevertheless, the Government appreciate that not everybody will have electronic access. As a result, the Bill also requires the Mayor to take into account any guidance the Government publish on appropriate mitigation measures. This measure will expire on 31 December this year. Taken together, all these planning measures will support the recovery of our construction sector and help to get Britain building again.
Finally, the Bill contains a provision to enable the time-limited powers to be extended by secondary legislation, subject to Parliament’s approval. This provides necessary flexibility, given the uncertainties around the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic and the nature of future social distancing requirements.
The package of measures in this Bill has been widely welcomed by businesses and local government at this critical and extraordinary time. The Local Government Association is supportive of the Bill, which it says will help ensure that a consistent approach can be taken so businesses can reopen as soon as possible. The Federation of Small Businesses also welcomes the Bill, which it says will help small businesses in the hospitality sector to resume trading with confidence.
These measures are necessary to alleviate some of the current challenges that businesses face and help the economy bounce back as we emerge from this pandemic. I look forward to our debate today and I commend the Bill to the House.
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the constructive conversations that he and my colleagues have had on the Bill. It is a short Bill and there is a large degree of agreement on it. The headline provisions, as has been said, are to enable the hospitality industry to reopen quickly and serve a greater number of customers in a safe environment. My noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lady Wilcox will be leading for us on these sections.
We welcome the temporary loosening of licensing and planning regulations to enable bars, restaurants and cafés to serve customers outside their premises. Having said that, we will question why the opportunity has not also been taken to include street-food vendors and small breweries in this legislation. In these essentially local issues, it is important that local authorities continue to have discretion in these matters because they are best placed to make the judgments about local impacts. However, we have received requests to amend Clause 11 so as to prevent increases in anti-social behaviour in town centres late at night and in the early mornings. It is also right that we raise the concerns of USDAW about the safety of staff. The government guidance is clear about the mitigation and reduction of risk that is needed if one metre-plus social distancing is in place. It is also very important that the Health and Safety Executive has the resources and powers to enforce the safety of those extended workplaces. Can the Minister confirm that that will be the case?
The introduction of more flexible planning appeals is also welcome in speeding up the processes, but we want reassurances that no legitimate voice will be excluded from being heard. Local government is worried about the cost implications of these new rules, so we urge the Government to publish a report detailing the extra costs that councils will face in processing increased volumes of planning applications at the new, reduced fee levels.
We also welcome the measures in enabling construction sites to get back to work more easily, through extended working hours. It is important, however, that communities do not feel that their interests are being ignored in this. We would like to see councils being given the discretion they need to restrict hours of operation, where there is a compelling and overriding local reason to do so. But as well as discretion, local authorities need certainty about resourcing. As was said in the other place, £10 billion-worth of costs have been loaded on to local authorities during this crisis but only £3.2 billion has so far been provided by the Government. When he comes to respond to this debate, can the noble Earl, Lord Howe, explain how and when the Government are going to honour their commitment to stand behind councils and give them the funding they need, now and in the future? It is important that the Government also offer cast-iron guarantees that none of the measures in the Bill will place additional costs on councils that have to be financed by further cuts in their services elsewhere. I challenge the Minister to put this on the record.
We also welcome the changes to transport and vehicle licensing, an issue which will be handled by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. I will be the lead on the proposal to remove the “unfair relationship” provision from the Consumer Credit Act 1974. There have been many calls over the years for reform of the CCA 1974, as the safeguards are cumbersome and often inconsistent with bona fide attempts to provide flexible solutions to customers who experience temporary financial problems. That pressure has clearly been increased by the pandemic and it is right to take action now on this issue, even though it is to be hoped that the wider issues are also under review.
Bounce-back loans have been very successful in getting money out to small firms which can use them. This compares with the CBILS, where only half of the applications have been approved. We still do not know why, or how many have been rejected and how many are still in the queue. One thing that we will be asking for is that, in the interests of transparency, the Government should publish data on the number of rejections and applications, and list the banks concerned. After all, if moneysavingexpert.com can do it, why cannot the Government?
I press the Government to think again about the way in which they are restarting the economy. In particular, I call for a more nuanced approach to the ending of the current support schemes. Many sections of our economy, employing hundreds of thousands of people, have opened this weekend with important social distancing restrictions in place. The hospitality industry has restarted, which is good, but at much reduced levels of revenue; these are not sustainable and may translate into a risk to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Live performances, including concerts and the theatre sector, are still forbidden and many of our most important arts organisations are on the point of closure. The announcement today of additional funding for our arts and cultural bodies is very welcome, but we urgently need the long-promised road map to the reopening of live music and theatre venues. While the buildings may be saved, what will be performed? Many directors of small limited companies—often freelancers in the creative industries—have been denied support and are really struggling as a result. The Government are taking a one-size-fits-all approach to the furlough, when it is increasingly clear that we need a differential approach. Some sectors, such as tourism and the creative industries, are more affected by the public health measures than others, so surely the economic support measures have to match that.
The Government have been talking up a new deal in recent days, and we will presumably know more after the Budget later this week. From recent debates in this House and from polling data, it is clear that the idea of a green recovery is shared widely across the nation. People want jobs to be secured and new quality jobs to be created, but they do not want the economy to return to where it was. They want tangible action on retrofitting insulation in our housing stock, manufacturing low-carbon engines, adapting our towns and cities to walking and cycling, creating green spaces, and reforesting and rewilding.
To conclude, we welcome the Bill, but its measures are modest. The Government have shown that they are willing to take action to relieve the worst impacts of the pandemic, but we face the deepest and sharpest recession, possibly for hundreds of years, and government power has to continue to be used. The decisions taken by the Government in the coming weeks will determine how many jobs are saved and how many businesses survive. The commitment to do “whatever it takes” cannot be a hollow promise. In short, we need this Bill, but we also need an extension to the furlough scheme for specific sectors, an urgent job-creation programme with a green recovery at its heart, and real action on infrastructure, not just words. I urge the Government not to step back when our economy, businesses and workers desperately need their support.
Finally, I wonder whether the Minister will confirm that the housing delivery test requirements of local authorities should not apply in view of the lock- down. Will the Government temporarily suspend the presumption in favour of the five-year housing land supply and the housing delivery test? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply and to the contributions during this Second Reading.
Sir Oliver explains that councils could achieve this by buying sites through their own development corporations, capturing uplift in land values, and parcelling out the plots within a master plan—stronger, not weaker, planning; taking back control of development from the oligopoly of the volume housebuilders. Does the Minister agree that this positive, proactive approach should represent the direction of travel for our planning system?
The balance between developers and planners and the communities the planners serve is sensitive. Many local planning decisions are already defeated under the current appeals system because of the sheer cost of the process. This is deterring many local authorities, with limited resources and strict rules on public expenditure, from standing up to speculative developers, often in cases where the development sought might be damaging to the local environment and unwanted by local communities. Some developers with large resources are unaccountable in the same way and therefore in a privileged position.
At first sight, any simplification of the appeals process could be thought to address the inability of local authorities to resist unacceptable applications. It is vital that balancing the protection of communities and the environment with the need to build more suitable houses and other buildings is maintained and, where necessary, altered so that the default does not unduly favour the developer.
On that point, I hope my noble friend will appreciate the problems with Section 106 provisions, which sometimes require a developer to offer some community contribution out of his profits. This has often proven a blunt sword. I trust that, in any new proposals to come before us, such provisions will be enhanced and clarified. I know of many cases where developers have avoided their responsibilities under Section 106 and any community infrastructure levy. It is vital that planning proposals, whether in this Bill or later legislation, maintain the important balance between community cohesion and acceptance, and the need to build.
I am most concerned about the extension of hours for construction. It is welcome that the Minister, in introducing this Second Reading, indicated that this would not apply to neighbours. Believe me, the light pollution, noise pollution and damage cannot be justified by prolonged hours, as extension into the night will probably lead to less safety rather than more. Turning day into night is not the way to kick-start our economy. By all means, let us ensure that we have the enterprise we need to get us back on stream again, but let us also take the words of Winston Churchill from 1909: the worst should never undercut the very worst.
The Government have the tools to help these businesses survive against the odds and to save jobs as the furlough scheme ebbs away. There can and should be a renaissance in domestic tourism here in the UK as well as a fresh look at how to offer the best to people visiting from around the world. Let us not shut out trade for the sake of arbitrary planning rules. Instead, we can hand much more power to local councils to make their own decisions over how to help the industry in their parts of the country.
I would welcome an initial response from the Minister to these suggestions since I intend to table amendments in Committee on all three subjects.
“Planning” is a curious word because it can mean different things to different people. Does the Minister agree that the planning in the title of the Bill should be for society, for our communities, above everything else and that there will not be a conflict between this Bill and preserving our community centres and cultural venues—the buildings themselves—that would surely go against the spirit of the arts rescue package? This concern was raised by Greg Clark at Second Reading in the Commons. He warned that
“we should guard against granting planning permissions that take them”—
meaning theatres and concert halls—
“immediately out of those very valued uses.”—[Official Report, Commons, 29/6/2020; col. 53.]
As with the hospitality sector, concomitant measures are not yet being drawn up for the arts. I use the word concomitant because of the close association between the two sectors, particularly with regard to tourism. After hospitality, the Government now need to work on getting our arts venues, theatres, concert halls and clubs open as soon as possible. The longer this is left, the more trouble the arts will be in, even with the rescue package. As with all other sectors, the business aspect is suffering with a loss of revenue from tickets. Also, if the self-employment support scheme and furloughing do not continue while our performing arts venues, in particular, remain shut, then the talents of many freelancers and permanent staff will be lost, the creative economy will collapse and the arts and our culture generally will be considerably poorer as well as our standing internationally. That cannot be emphasised enough.