Peers change housing bill to restrict permission in principle to housing-led schemes and introduce neighbourhood right of appeal

Housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis has said the government will resist many of the changes made to the Bill in the House of Lords when the final form of the legislation is agreed next month.

The Bill provides for 'permission in principle' (PiP) to be granted for land allocated for development in specified documents, with full planning permission then granted by local planning authorities using a 'technical details consent'. The government said in December that PiP was intended to be limited to housing-led development and the House of Lords voted last week to amend the Bill to restrict the use of PiP to this type of development expressly.

Peers also voted in favour of changing the Bill to introduce a new right for parish councils and neighbourhood forums to appeal to the communities secretary against the approval of planning permission where permission has been granted for an application that does not accord with policies in an emerging or made neighbourhood plan.

A new clause enabling the communities secretary to make 'planning freedoms schemes', disapplying or modifying specified planning provisions in specific areas to help boost housing numbers was agreed by peers without a vote. Under the new clause, such schemes would only be made if they were requested by the relevant councils. The communities secretary would have to be satisfied that there was "a need for a significant amount of housing in the planning area concerned", that a scheme would help increase housing numbers and that adequate consultation had been carried out.

Also agreed without a vote was an amendment that would enable the mayor of London or the communities secretary to prepare, and to direct a local planning authority (LPA) to bring about, a local development scheme setting out the planning documents to be produced and a timetable for their production. Under existing laws, an LPA can only be directed to make changes to an existing local development scheme.

The House voted by 269 to 185 in favour of a new clause which would enable LPAs to require small sites and rural sites to make affordable housing contributions. Qualifying sites would include developments of 10 units or less, developments with internal floorspace of 1,000 square metres or less, and developments in rural areas.

Peers also voted in favour of several changes to proposals to make 'high-income' council tenants pay increased rent. The provisions of the Bill were amended to give LPAs discretion about whether to increase rents for higher-income tenants; to introduce minimum thresholds of £50,000 in London and £40,000 outside London for the level of household income above which tenants will be considered to be 'high-income'; and to limit any uplift in rent charged to such tenants to "no more than 10 pence for each pound of a tenant's income above the minimum income threshold".

According to a report in Planning Magazine, Brandon Lewis told delegates at the National Planning Summit last week that the government would be "pushing back very hard" against the changes voted into the Bill by the House of Lords. Lewis specifically mentioned changes made to the starter homes provisions of the Bill at an earlier House of Lords debate, the report said.

Planning expert Ben Mansell of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "The government has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords regarding key provisions in the Housing and Planning Bill. In its current form, the Bill is in a very different shape to the one originally presented. However, as the Bill passes back to the government, it appears that the government will fight hard against many of these defeats. The overall aim of the Housing and Planning Bill is to further the government’s goal of building one million new homes by 2020. The final make-up of the Bill and its future implication on house building numbers are eagerly anticipated by all the planning industry."

The Bill is due to receive its third reading in the House of Lords on 27 April. Its final form will then be agreed through a 'parliamentary ping pong' process scheduled for 3 May.