Antoinette Sandbach
Main Page: Antoinette Sandbach (Liberal Democrat - Eddisbury)
Nick Herbert
Neighbourhood planning has been one of the success stories of this Government and a flagship of the localism policy. I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the work he did in putting that legislation through and in pioneering neighbourhood plans. They put communities in control and create a situation where they ask themselves what they want in their local areas rather than what they do not want. Neighbourhood plans have ended up producing more housing than was originally intended. As the plans are voted on by a local referendum, it is very important that they are respected once they are agreed. We tell local communities that their neighbourhood plan will apply for, say, 15 years, and that certain areas that they decide will be developed and that others—green spaces and so on—will be protected. It is therefore of concern to local communities that are about to produce a neighbourhood plan or have made one, and to other areas in the process of producing such plans or considering them, if developers appear to be allowed to come along, game the system, bang in a speculative planning application in the hope that they will get it through, arguing that there is some reason why it should be allowed despite a neighbourhood plan, perhaps because of the five-year land supply, and their planning permission is then upheld by the local authority or a planning refusal is overturned on appeal.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
That is exactly the position I face in my constituency, where a number of speculative planning applications are being put forward, often involving the argument that there is not a five-year supply. One case is now having to go to the House of Lords in order to uphold neighbourhood plans, which clearly is not what was intended by the Localism Act 2011 and neighbourhood planning.
Nick Herbert
I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. Indeed, a number of hon. Members are concerned about this issue, as the Minister knows. As I explained in my earlier intervention on him, the intention of the original amendment to introduce a neighbourhood right of appeal was not just to redress a perceived inequity that developers have a right of appeal but communities do not; it was to deal with this particular problem, whereby we cannot allow the whole policy of neighbourhood planning, or the democratic decision, to be undermined in the public eye, given that we accept that a local planning authority does reserve the right to make a strategic allocation. That is understood, but that is a rather different position from suddenly deciding that an area should be developed contrary to a neighbourhood plan.
Mr Jackson
I shall refer to most of the amendments. I reiterate my concerns about the amendment relating to neighbourhood planning. It would establish a dangerous precedent that would potentially end the neighbourhood right of appeal against conservatories and small-scale extensions. It would very much reduce the speed at which residential development could progress. There would also be an opportunity for sleight of hand by the more unscrupulous planning authorities that do not want any development in their area: they might move residential development on to a neighbourhood planning regime, in lieu of a local structure plan or district plan. With a third-party appeal, that development would be held up for months and years. People who desperately need homes in high-cost, high-value areas would suffer as a result, so the Government are absolutely right to resist the amendment, although clearly I recognise the sincerity with which my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) represents his constituents’ very legitimate concerns.
Mr Jackson
Not at the moment, if my hon. Friend will allow. I am getting looks of admonition from the Whips, so I had better proceed. The amendment on the carbon compliance standard is precisely the wrong measure at this time. One of the endemic issues resulting from not delivering the appropriate number of homes is the attrition of small and medium-sized builders. Nothing could be designed to knock out even more of them, or to not allow them back into the market alongside very-sizeable-volume builders, than adding extra cost, so the Government are right to resist that amendment.
I now come to starter homes. This is an issue of social equity and fairness as much as anything else. I made the point when we debated this last week that a significant number of people are accessing finance for their new home through the bank of mum and dad—family money. That cannot be right if we want social fairness and equity. We want new owner-occupied properties to be available to young families in particular, and to working people, who do not have recourse to capital that is passed from generation to generation in a way that is inherently very unfair. Through the vehicle of shared equity and Help to Buy in particular, we are achieving that. As the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) will know, the Labour party made the same arguments about the affordable rent tenure in 2010 that it now makes about starter homes.
There is also the issue of constitutional propriety. I am afraid that I was rather rough on the House of Lords, but the fact of the matter is that we have a manifesto commitment to deliver starter homes. The Opposition would have a stronger point were every local planning authority run in an enormously efficient way, delivering residential development in a timely fashion, but they know—it is a cross-party issue—that very many local planning authorities have not even got round to producing structure plans or local district plans. They had the opportunity over many months or years to prepare varied tenure residential developments in their area and they have failed to do so. The Opposition can hardly then complain that the Government, who all of us agree are facing a significant housing crisis, should use primary legislation passed unequivocally by this elected House in order to ameliorate the effects of that housing crisis by saying that we should have a certain amount of starter homes.
Mr Jackson
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point but local planning authorities like his in Sheffield have not been circumscribed by section 106 in the recent past or at all in developing the tenure that they choose. He will know, because the centre of his city has undergone significant regeneration over many years, that the capacity for section 106 payments to go back into social housing has been an issue in his city and others.
Antoinette Sandbach
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. On section 106 agreements, one of the big concerns of my constituents is the impact on health and education infrastructure. That needs to be examined in future, particularly in the light of recent judgments by the planning inspectorate, which are being challenged through the courts.
Mr Jackson
I like to think I am an hon. Friend.
Some of us remember four or five years ago fighting the battles over the national planning policy framework. Some of us put our heads on the block and said that it was probably a good thing, and we were right to do so. I fear that sometimes discussion of infrastructure is a way of saying, “No residential development in our area.”
There is a housing crisis. Those who hold housing and capital have a duty to release some of it to those who do not have that power and influence. That is a difficult balance. We have to think of quality of life, but that is one of the things that the Bill has addressed. That is why I stand four-square behind the starter homes policy, which has an election mandate, and I urge Members to support the Government policy and to remind the House of Lords politely that only one of our Houses is elected by the people, and that the other can oversee, scrutinise and improve, but not veto.