21: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning application(1) Any applicant must submit a new full planning application to the relevant local authority relating to any Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre planned for Victoria Tower Gardens.(2) In determining the outcome of that application, special attention must be paid to increased security and environmental considerations arising since the first planning application to Westminster City Council in 2019.(3) If the planning permission is to be determined by a Minister there must be a public inquiry.(4) As soon as possible following a planning application the applicant must publicise this and the anticipated timetable by notifying—(a) Members of the House of Commons and members of the House of Lords by depositing a letter in the Libraries of both Houses;(b) the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, the Thomas Fowell Buxton Society and the Thorney Island Society;(c) Holocaust survivors, families of victims and refugees from Nazi Germany and their families;(d) organisations engaged in Holocaust remembrance, education and combating antisemitism;(e) local residents through the press and other media.(5) The applicant must take steps to ensure that the availability of updated information relating to the planning application and submitted by the applicant, including updated information relating to security, (as far as such information can safely be placed in the public domain) is notified to the parties referred to in subsection (4), once it has been published by the Secretary of State as part of any planning process.”
My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and those of several other noble Lords. As noble Lords will see, it calls for a new full planning application to be given to the relevant local authority, in this case Westminster City Council. In the event of the Minister calling in the application, it also calls for a new public inquiry with a different inspector. I am fully aware from the exchanges that have taken place in this Committee that the Minister is very unlikely to welcome the full new planning application and possibly even the more minor arrangement that I have put in as a second best. However, that will not deter me from putting the case as forcefully as I can.
I will deal first with the reasons why a new application is vitally necessary. We all know now about the relevant sections of the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, which specifically set out that the Victoria gardens should be in perpetuity a public garden for the interests of those living there. It seems to me that the inspector at the time gave very little weight to that consideration and assumed that the Victoria gardens were easily there to be taken. I think this was a material consideration, because he felt that other sites might take longer to come to fruition. That was a bad miscalculation, but I will not dwell on it further now.
I also feel that the inspector greatly underestimated the damage to the park that would ensue to both the trees and the interests of the residents who rely on this little park in an area not terribly well served by green spaces. He did not have the benefit, shall we call it, of the later present Government’s consideration that everyone should be able to live within 15 minutes of a green space, as set out fairly recently. I feel, therefore, that the environmental considerations were not taken properly into account, but as I dealt with this in more detail in a previous amendment, I will not dwell on it now.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 34 in my name, which I tabled before your Lordships started to look at the Bill in Committee. Having listened so far, I am more than ever convinced that an impact assessment is needed. It would cover many things we have already debated but, as I suggested previously, with regard to risk, there would be great benefit in pulling together the many points that have been and are still to be discussed. Some suggestions will impact on others, so an overall view of the impact of the proposed memorial and learning centre would be of great benefit, not to say essential.
I find it most peculiar that there should not already have been an impact assessment for this project. I expect that a number of issues are more strictly for planning, whereas this Bill is to overcome the limitations of the 1900 covenant. When considering legislation to dispense with a covenant, there are planning issues that will impact on the decision. For example, if the proposal were for a manufacturing unit of some sort, I imagine that your Lordships might well feel that the covenant should stand. So it is not inappropriate to seek answers that are, strictly speaking, planning matters. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has said, we are entitled to know in detail what is proposed before we are asked to remove the covenant of which we are custodians.
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I would hope that the impact assessment also covered the moral aspect of taking a park such as this and turning it from a tranquil place to be enjoyed by residents and workers in the area to a place most likely to become the centre of controversy and bitterness. I am not in any way against a memorial to that shocking and inhuman tragedy—indeed, I would encourage such a thing—but to place the proposed monstrosity in one of the smallest parks in London, next to the Houses of Parliament, where inevitably it will become the target of demonstrations, is both foolish and reckless. To me, it is beyond imagination that the Government should seek to introduce 1 million visitors a year into a small space in a limited area without carrying out an impact assessment. I comment on the remark by the noble Lord, Lord Austin, at an earlier stage of our debates: the estimate of 1 million is at the lower end of the various estimates.
I have already mentioned the proposed memorial being a target of anti-Jewish demonstrations, but surely the impact from other demonstrations that take place in this area should also be borne in mind. Streets are already closed for larger demonstrations, and residents in the area find it very difficult to get to where they live. If you doubt this, just walk west out of the Palace and see all the steel barriers erected just before you get to Great Peter Street. How are we going to cope with an extra 3,000 to 4,000 visitors a day when this area is closed off? That is something else that needs to have its impact looked at.
How is it proposed to deal with the 11 buses a day forecast to bring visitors to the memorial? You do not need to think for long to realise that 11 buses is a ludicrously small estimate given the projected numbers, but even 11 buses would not find it easy to park or manoeuvre in the area. The streets there are small, and once you leave Millbank they are difficult to turn around in and drive down. Of course the buses will not all arrive at once, but nevertheless the volume—on top of the existing traffic and the Mayor of London’s all too successful attempt to grind London’s traffic to a standstill—will be a problem.
What is going to happen on state occasions? At a bare minimum, there is the State Opening of Parliament approximately once a year, during which, as your Lordships well know, whole areas are closed down. Coming from the west will be less problematic than from the east, but the east is the direction from which those arriving by Underground will come, and that is how the greatest volume of visitors will come. It will not be easy for visitors to get to the proposed centre when swathes of the usual access are either closed off or narrowed down.
The point has been made that the 1 million visitors, although there could be more, will be only a 10% increase, but 10% on most occasions in life is the marginal amount that makes the difference. Has this properly been thought through? Is it wishful thinking to believe there will be no impact? The comments by my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Hodgson, on the impact from the number of visitors, are very relevant.
What about the impact of this conveyor-belt design? We see many things that are not to our taste but are not offensive. This design is both offensive and awful—and, placed where it is, even worse. I have heard it referred to as a toast-rack as well as various other things, but I have never seen a toast-rack quite as hideous as this. I heartily endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. When I heard her repeating the architect’s description of the proposed design, I thought she was reading from Pseuds Corner in Private Eye.
We have already debated risk, but inevitably security should be considered in any impact assessment. There are bound to be security officers, probably armed, patrolling the gardens. What will be the impact on people enjoying or trying to enjoy the gardens as the covenant over this precious piece of land intended? What will be the impact for local residents and businesses? The area immediately surrounding Victoria gardens is full of listed buildings of all grades—indeed, Lord North Street still retains its original gas lamps. What will be the impact on these precious pieces of our inheritance? Has the impact of restoring the Palace of Westminster, as I mentioned earlier, been considered? It is a project that will take years and should be taken into consideration.
From whatever way you look at it, it is in everyone’s interests to have an impact assessment. If there is an impact assessment, some of the issues being raised by this Committee might get highlighted and possibly dealt with.
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 38. I think Members of the Committee can probably all agree about at least one thing: it is not a usual Committee stage. Apart from anything else, the Bill proposes to amend the LCC Act 1900, which confers on Parliament rights as a landowner through a statutory covenant. This, I suggest, imposes legal and fiduciary duties in respect of the adjoining land. The Bill proposes to remove those rights. This in turn, it seems to me, is reflected in the fact of the Bill’s hybridity, which is the rationale for the special provisions that apply where rights of those who are specifically affected are concerned. This includes, inter alia, the other petitioner and Parliament itself.
It is interesting, and I suggest very relevant, that the Select Committee questioned the appropriateness of the current rules as regards the admissibility or otherwise of certain evidence in front of it. There was some debate about this, and I refer to paragraph 74 of the report of the Select Committee. While the committee and clearly Parliament in the current legal context are not an alternative to the planning authority, the Select Committee, in my view entirely properly, considered matters that might be considered planning matters to the extent that they had relevance to the in-scope amendments under consideration, which I have just mentioned. In any event, once the Bill moves into Grand Committee, the scope of what may be properly debated widens.
It is very important to notice and to focus on the fact that the Select Committee sought assurances and undertakings from the promoter—I am now referring to pages 33 to 37 of the committee’s report. The Select Committee concluded that under the rules of procedure it was not in a position to bring forward amendments. However, the recommended assurances and undertakings that it sought, if honoured, would in the real world have had very similar effect to amendments to the Bill. They would also have much the same effect as planning conditions, and might be seen by some as analogous to them. But, as I have already indicated, that does not make them the same; they are different.
My Lords, I start with a reference to Amendment 38, to which my noble friend Lord Inglewood just spoke and which I support. The starting point of this legislation is that Parliament is being used by the Government as a vehicle for development to be permitted on otherwise prohibited land. To allow Parliament to be used as such a vehicle is a very significant responsibility, taken on by the promoters of this legislation. However much enthusiasm is shown by the various bodies—perhaps described in best detail in the Audit Commission’s 2022 report, which revealed many imperfections in the management of this scheme—Parliament should have the final say, as my noble friend Lord Inglewood said.
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I will now look at a major source of concern where issues have changed for the worse: the security of the site in terms of possible acts of terrorism and any other source of grief, worry or danger to the public. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has powerfully set out this case. Coming as they do from a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and a King’s Counsel with many years of experience, his views should be taken far more into consideration. I hope that this afternoon he may wish to elaborate on these matters. I am anxious that he does, because there will be very practical implications if one has to allow for the safety of the public in these circumstances, especially so close to the Palace of Westminster.
Furthermore, we have had powerful speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, setting out the risks of fire hazards. Again, I will not go into all the details, but she made the important point that there was only one escape route from the underground learning centre, which she felt needed to be dealt with. Indeed, since she spoke we have had the ghastly incident in Macedonia, where a number of lives were lost in a nightclub because there was only one exit. These things are to be taken very seriously. That does not mean to say that there will not be some mitigation, but I think it needs a new, thorough look.
Then there is the risk of flood, dealt with most cogently by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. It is in an area that has always been rather prone to flooding, and we have had an example of this at 1 Millbank, where the basement restaurant was flooded and out of action for months. So this is another issue that needs much greater consideration.
Interestingly, the R&R programme now wants experiments to be done on the floor of the River Thames along the east side of the Palace, because it may want to do some works on the Terrace and the neighbouring areas. That may not impinge directly on this, but it is an indication that a great many things will be happening with the restoration programme. The Victoria Tower repair is imminent. Are we to suppose that both of those major impacts will not have a very damaging effect on the park, especially if, at the same time, all the building works for the memorial and the underground learning centre are going on? It seems to me that an impossible practical situation is developing. How can one small park accommodate the overflow from two major restorations and repairs, and cope with the building of the memorial and underground learning centre at the same time?
I now turn to the all-important arrangements for dealing with any planning application once the Bill enters the statute book. Let us look for a moment at the guidance given by the Planning Inspectorate as to the procedure to be followed if an application quashed by a law court is revived or restarted. It says in section 20.8 that written representations will normally not even be considered if there have been material changes since the time the application was first submitted. Let us remember that in this case we are talking about a submission in January 2019, now over six years ago. The Planning Inspectorate guidance adds that a round table or hearing will normally be considered only if
“it can reasonably be expected that the parties will be able to present their own cases (supported by professional witnesses if required) without the need for an advocate to represent them”.
Finally, if the application was previously considered by a public inquiry, there would normally be a fresh inquiry and a new inspector would normally be appointed, because he or she would be reviewing matters previously overturned by a court.
That seems pretty straightforward guidance. I understand that it is guidance and not the application of the law, but it seems to me that the guidance here is akin to that for traffic arrangements, whereby when we have road accidents and so on, we can look to the body of work that guides people on matters of traffic.
I was not aware of yet a further complication: the National Planning Casework Unit, set up by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with a remit that includes managing major planning applications referred to it by the Secretary of State and requests from the Secretary of State to call in planning applications. It has become involved in a pre-consultation process to ensure that there are no undue delays once the Bill is enacted. To my knowledge—and probably that of others—it has consulted the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust and, most importantly, the promoter, which, of course, comes from within that very same department. Through its solicitor, Pinsent Masons, it has set out what it believes to be the issues before it. It has made a written representation, from which I will quote—not the whole lot but the most relevant parts. It wrote:
“The Applicant considers that the Minister should consider representations on any and all matters required for the redetermination of the Application … such that the redetermination can then take place as soon as reasonably possible following any Royal Assent”—
as I have pointed out. It continued:
“Such matters can be fully and appropriately dealt with through written representations. To re-open the public inquiry would clearly be disproportionate to the matters relevant to the redetermination”.
Finally, it added that
“all the principal … and planning matters relevant to the determination of the Application … remain either entirely or largely unchanged from the time they were originally considered”.
As I have said previously, I regard that as totally wrong and not to be considered at all.
We have this curious spectacle, as I see it, of a planning application from an applicant, somebody who has to make the decision, and another organisation, the planning unit, all within the same department of state. Looking at it from the outside, as most people will, I consider that to be an unhealthily close relationship—at best unhealthy, and at worst positively incestuous. I am not at all happy if the way out to be chosen once the Bill becomes law is anything other than a full public inquiry or, at the very least, a new public inquiry. That is the burden of my theme this afternoon. I beg to move.
Let us look at the Government’s responses to the Select Committee’s report. Some assurances appear to have been accepted and a couple not, but it seems to me that, in reality, the promoter’s responses, based on the way that this project has been taken forward both inside and outside the House, are not worth the paper they are written on because of the caveats that the promoter will use his best endeavours. These are unenforceable and entirely nebulous and vague.
As I said, having seen the way in which the promoter’s case was presented, both to the Select Committee and more widely, in a strictly not improper way but vigorously and robustly, it seems completely fanciful from the facts that we know to suppose that the Government’s best endeavours have any realistic prospect of properly dealing with the Select Committee’s real concern, because they are weasel words.
Against that background, bearing in mind the rights conferred on it by the 1900 Act, which mean that Parliament is not acting solely as a legislator in this case, it therefore cannot possibly be right to leave all the detail for later consideration by others. On the contrary, in order to honour the obligations, both legal and moral, imposed on it by the LCC Act, which is still on the statute book, and more generally, it must insist on requiring greater detail on what is actually going to be done. That is not incompatible in any way with Parliament’s legislative role and, in my view, is a necessity prior to relinquishing its responsibilities under the 1900 Act.
It seems that the only way this can properly be done is for Parliament to reserve its position until after planning consent—including listed building consents as required, if any—will have been granted, because there is no certainty about to what Parliament is consenting until that is settled. After all, we know the Government cannot guarantee what the outcome of the planning process might be, because if they could do that, they would be denying their impartiality. We also know—this has been confirmed by the Minister in Committee—that even if consent is granted, conditions can be imposed that fundamentally change the substance of the application. Indeed, I might go even further and say that in any event, at any time after Parliament has passed the legislation, other planning applications can be made. There is no guarantee at all that the one currently held up by the courts will be the one eventually implemented.
I may be accused of being ignoble and doubting the good faith of the Government. All I say is that I am a farmer, and I have a certain perspective on certain undertakings that the Government have given.
It has also been suggested that such a process might rack up huge extra costs, but I do not think that can possibly be correct. As long as Parliament deals with the matter expeditiously at the last point in the process, it will make no material difference because any expenditure before the obtaining of planning permission is always speculative. So if Parliament then responds appropriately at the end of this process, that argument cannot stand up.
Perhaps most tellingly of all—this came to me just recently as I thought about it—let us forget that we are talking about Parliament and imagine ourselves as a householder who has a house subject to various covenants that protect it and the adjoining plot of land. If a developer was to approach that householder and say, “We would like to build on this adjoining plot of land—are you prepared to release the covenant?”, what would the response be? First, it would be, “Well, tell me exactly what you want to do”. It is absolutely basic common sense and a responsible way to deal with that sort of circumstance, and it is exactly the approach that we in this House should take in response to this piece of draft legislation. Quite simply, Parliament must know the full facts of what is going to happen before deciding whether to give it its go-ahead.