Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Committee (6th Day)

Amendment 165

165: After Clause 71, insert the following new Clause— “Disposal of landIn section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 (disposal of land by principal councils), after subsection (2B) insert—“(2C) Police and crime commissioners and the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime are to be treated as principal councils for the purposes of this section.””Member's explanatory statement This amendment amends section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 to confer a power on police and crime commissioners and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to dispose of land held by them in any manner they wish. This power is subject to the requirement of Secretary of State consent if the disposal is made for less than best consideration.

My Lords, government Amendment 165 and the consequential Amendments 508 and 509 seek to give police and crime commissioners, including mayors who exercise these functions, and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime the same powers to dispose of surplus land as local authorities.

The Government’s general principle is that public bodies should dispose of surplus land at the best possible price reasonably obtainable. However, we recognise that selling land at less than best consideration can sometimes deliver wider public benefits, which is why there is a long-standing framework under Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 for enabling local authorities to dispose of their land for less than best consideration. Under this framework, the Secretary of State’s consent is required, but there is a general direction granting consent if the undervalue is below £2 million.

Prior to 2011 and the creation of police and crime commissioners, police authorities were covered by Section 123, but that is no longer the case. While police and crime commissioners now have broad powers to dispose of land as they see fit, there is no specific provision relating to disposal at less than best consideration. This perceived gap in police bodies’ powers was raised in the other place, and I know that this matter concerns the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. Having now explored the issue further with the Home Office, the Government agree that police and crime commissioners should have the same disposal powers as local authorities. Therefore, this amendment extends the scope of Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 to cover these elected police bodies.

These amendments will give police and crime commissioners greater certainty that they can dispose of land at less than best consideration where doing so will deliver wider public benefits. It will further empower police and crime commissioners to act in the interests of their local communities. The associated consent framework—with consent to be given by the Home Secretary in the case of police and crime commissioners —will increase transparency and public accountability.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the government amendment, which concedes a principle of public bodies—the police—being able to use less than best consideration for land no longer needed. I am unashamedly seeking to extend that, as a result of the MP for Twickenham, my honourable friend Munira Wilson, introducing in the other place the idea of enabling public bodies to dispose of land for less than best consideration. That was already available in a limited form but the idea here is that it is out of date because of the change in land valuations—that is what the Minister said.

There are two reasons for changing this. The first is for reasons of inflation in land prices. It is hard to arrive at a conservative estimate—conservative with a small “c”—of inflation in land prices between 2003 and 2023, given that an accurate analysis of the true level of inflation is difficult to ascertain. Secondly, it may be more helpful to refer to increasing or uprating in line with inflation, rather than referring to a concrete figure. For example, according to the UK house price index, average house prices across England have risen by 160% since 2003. Research by Savills suggests that urban land prices in the UK are still below their peak in 2008 and that greenfield land prices have only recently returned to that level. The point is that inflation in land prices is not necessarily the best or most accurate way of making these judgments.

The other way of doing it is by percentage difference in value. The Government’s own land value estimates for 2019 reveal that while the average price of a hectare of land for housing in London was £35.5 million, in the north-east it was just £1.1 million. There is a huge percentage difference and cash difference in land values across the country. What this is attempting to do is to create a fairer way of making these judgments about best consideration, as set out in Amendment 174. That is what we are trying to do.

I accept that the Minister and the Government have agreed that this should be extended to local police and crime commissioners, which is very positive. Our amendment seeks to extend it to all public bodies, for the reasons that I have explained. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is not able to be here today. He is a signatory of Amendment 174 and has asked me to say what he would have liked to say, if the Committee agrees.

The poorest communities generally have the poorest public facilities of all sorts, including access to open spaces. Therefore, it is desirable that public bodies disposing of land do not further impoverish the community or miss opportunities for creating new local facilities because of the rules governing the sale of land. It is also vital that public bodies work in a more joined-up fashion, considering, for example, how the NHS can support education or social housing and vice versa. The NHS is a national body, and many of its facilities serve wide populations that go far beyond local communities, and it needs to take these wider regional and national health considerations into account when disposing of land. However, it could also be enabled and required to take local community needs into consideration. If the Government do not support this amendment, do they have alternative proposals which would ensure that the NHS takes into consideration local community needs, not just those relating to health, when disposing of land?

In conclusion, there has been a great deal of movement on the idea of changing best consideration to enable public land to be sold for community benefit. The Government have conceded that for police land. This amendment would extend it to other public land and has the support of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, who obviously has considerable experience and expertise in the National Health Service. He considers that it would be a very positive change to enable the National Health Service to be able to dispose of land no longer needed for public good. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford has added her name. She regrets that she is unable to be in her place today; I wish to make some points that undoubtedly she would have contributed had she been here.

As already indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the Government’s tabled Amendment 165 is very welcome. The review of Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972, and the correction of the omission of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime—and of police and crime commissioners generally—are necessary and positive steps. However, there remain ways in which the general disposal consent 2003 could be improved to better allow public bodies to dispose of assets for less than market value for social, economic or environmental benefit. We believe that such measures would be very much in line with the Bill’s desired outcome: levelling up communities across the country.

Noble Lords will be well aware of the significant variation in land value across the nation’s regions. The introduction of a percentage value discount would help ensure that local authorities, no matter where they are in the country, could offer the same level of discretion when selling sites for community good. I hope that the Minister will therefore accept the proposal from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for an adjacent percentage value to take into account varying land prices in different regions.

I also echo calls for the Minister to confirm today that the Government commit to launching a consultation on a new directive to update the current consent order on the disposal of public land. I am aware that Munira Wilson MP, who has been active in these matters in the other place, has received a letter from the new Housing and Planning Minister in which Mrs Maclean confirmed that the Government will take forward a consultation on a new direction with higher thresholds after the passage of the Bill. Is the Minister able to reiterate this commitment on the Floor of the House?

I also hope the Minister will accept the call by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for a new disposal consent order increasing the cash value amount in line with inflation in land prices. In her letter to Munira Wilson MP, the Housing and Planning Minister recognised that the current threshold of £2 million was provided in 2003 and that land values have increased over the last two decades. Amendment 174 would increase the cash value amount that public authorities can give a discount on to £3 million. It should be noted that this is in fact a conservative estimate of the inflation in land prices over the past 20 years.

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 312A in this group, which would insert a new clause with the heading:

“Duty to optimise the use of public land”.

As this implies, the amendment attempts to ensure that the precious asset of land owned by public bodies is put to “optimal use”. The amendment tries to do two things. First, it would place a duty on local authorities to have a land use management plan for sites in their ownership to ensure that developments are brought forward for the public good. Secondly, since the duty to optimise the use of public land would very often be exercised by disposal of the land to others, the amendment also seeks to define the meaning of the phrase “best consideration reasonably obtainable”, which governs sale of publicly owned land at present.

Earlier amendments in this group would extend the current disposal regime to cover police and crime commissioners, the NHS, importantly, and all other public bodies. This amendment seeks to resolve long-standing complexities and arguments over the treatment of landholdings by public bodies. I pay tribute to the land economist Stephen Hill, who has studied this question for many years, for his preparation of the amendment. He has been aided by Keith Jenkins, the property lawyer, alongside distinguished real estate experts, academics and leading practitioners who all have my thanks for their work on this subject.

An essential feature of the levelling-up agenda is the need to improve the built environment to create better places to live and work. Securing the land for improved conditions—for affordable homes, green spaces, local amenities, et cetera—is the key to this. The amendment’s first objective, therefore, is simply to bring more public land into play. It would do so by requiring local authorities to prepare a land use management plan, demonstrating how use of their land will be optimised.

This approach was advocated by your Lordships’ Land Use in England Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington. Several local authorities are showing the way with land use plans. For example, the West Midlands Combined Authority has set out what is expected of public landowners; its public land charter requires those landowners to

I believe this redefinition would help colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities who have been trying to clarify the best consideration requirement since their 2018 planning reform consultation. When the Secretary of State appeared before the DLUHC Select Committee to discuss the Bill last June, he said that this was still an outstanding issue. This amendment unlocks that position. I realise that this approach is dependent on the existence of a valid and up-to-date local plan, which we may in future call a local development plan. The amendment’s outcome obviously needs all councils to finalise their plans before it can be made a condition in any sale of publicly owned land for the development to meet local requirements set out in that plan and, where relevant, in a neighbourhood plan. I sincerely hope that other measures in the Bill and in related guidance will ensure that local plans materialise for every council. A plan-led system without a plan goes nowhere.