MPs criticise Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill over lack of clarity and absence of funding commitments

Planning law is already too complex to be easily understood and the Government’s Levelling Up Bill fails to tackle this problem, MPs have said.

In a letter to Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Greg Clark, Labour MP Clive Betts, chair of the Commons committee that monitors the department’s work, said the Bill generally showed a lack of clarity and absence of funding commitments.

Mr Betts said witnesses who had given evidence to his committee about the Bill had said its “failure to consolidate legislation has made it very difficult to understand planning law, as an already legally complicated system has been subject to amendment upon amendment through Acts over a period of 30 years”.

He explained: “In respect of the planning provisions, the main concerns that have been raised are about a lack of detail in the Bill, which has hindered effective scrutiny, and about a perceived movement towards the centralisation of planning decisions due to some of the provisions in the Bill and the tone of some of the language.”

This meant that evidence was presented “with some scepticism and some distrust as to what the Government’s intentions are”.

Mr Betts said that if the Bill in fact did not intend to centralise planning decisions, its provisions could only be described “as loosely connected proposals to tinker with the current system” and witnesses had to “hypothesise what will be enacted rather than respond to a firm proposal”.

The main tool to achieve levelling up would be appropriate funding to the areas that need it most.

But the committee said: “The Bill will do little to ensure improvement in key areas such as transport, skills training or digital connectivity, which would make a significant contribution to improving local communities.

Mr Betts said: “in its current form, the Bill does little to reassure that levelling up will prove to be more than just a slogan and that we will have meaningful change in local communities across the country.”

The letter was sent at Mr Clark’s request following a meeting between him and Mr Betts to discuss the Bill, which he inherited from his predecessor Michael Gove.

Mark Smulian