Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Chris Grayling Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

Areas can get consolidation of local transport funding. They can get a role in designing and delivering future employment programmes and access to something called a long-term investment fund, but only if they can clear the bar of the upper tier and only if they accept a governance arrangement that is imposed from Whitehall.

I went back to look at what the Prime Minister promised when he made his levelling-up speech last year:

“Come to us with a plan for strong accountable leadership and we will give you the tools to change your area for the better”.

Will the Secretary of State tell me why a kid in Barnsley should have to turn down an apprenticeship because of the lack of a functioning bus service while a kid in Bolton can take one up just because somebody hundreds of miles away in Whitehall, who has never set foot in either of those communities, decided that they liked the look of the local leaders—the local leaders we chose—in one area more than another? Why is there not a right in the Bill for every area to have democratic control over their bus services, if that is what they choose?

The Secretary of State said that the last Labour Government did not devolve power in England, but let me remind him of what can be done, and what was done, with the right level of commitment and imagination. It was the last Labour Government who set up the regional development agencies. In the north-west of England, which I call home, we had the foresight to bring Media City to Salford. That was not just about the economic regeneration of one of the most disadvantaged areas of the country; it was also a key measure that started to rebalance the national debate that determined who had a voice and who got a place and was reflected in our national story.

Under the last Labour Government, the regional development agency in Yorkshire was among the first to see the potential of wind in Grimsby—the Grimsby docks are the windiest place in Europe—and I have met those young people who, a generation later, are powering the world from the Grimsby docks through clean energy and life-changing apprenticeships. It is not just in Grimsby that the Yorkshire regional development agency saw potential; it looked for potential everywhere. It understood the legacy of skills, because of steel cutting from the steel industry, that made Rotherham an ideal location for one of the most incredible advanced manufacturing centres in the world. That is what real power and devolution looks like.

All that potential in our communities, realised by the last Labour Government, has now been collapsed into the spectacle of two proud cities that were at the forefront of the industrial revolution—Birmingham and Manchester —begging for the right to introduce a tourist levy on hotel bedrooms. When they have come to Whitehall, it is not just Ministers’ doors that have been repeatedly closed to them, but their minds as well.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully to the hon. Lady, who, to be frank, is painting a picture of doom and gloom in the northern part of the country over the past 10 years. Could she explain, then, why unemployment in her constituency is 30% lower than it was when we took office in 2010? Does she not think that that is a good thing?

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[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the change of tone from the Minister and Secretary of State in recent weeks; they have taken a step in the right direction, but I still want the Bill to address a number of points as it progresses.

I represent a constituency that is largely urbanised and the land that is not urbanised is green belt or parkland; it is simply not possible to meet the targets that were set out based on the 2014 census. So my first point to the Minister is that we must move away from that as being the basis for a calculation of housing numbers. We also need to move away from the inspectorate being able to simply impose national targets on a local authority; local authorities must have serious input into what the real housing needs are.

My second point is that in my area the housing needs assessments have been based on the salaries of people who work in the constituency, but in commuting areas such as mine a lot of those people do not live in the constituency; in fact many, many of my constituents work in central London and earn more. That is also a flaw in the methodology that needs to be changed.

I think there is general acceptance across these Benches that we need to set some pretty tight parameters for the inspectorate. There are too many cases of the inspectorate doing its own thing; Ministers have been pretty clear in saying, “This is what our national policy is” on, for instance, the green belt, but all too often the inspectors simply do something different. They are there to implement policy, not to run the policy. I hope the Bill will include clear measures to make sure the inspectorate has strict parameters to work within in the future.

I would also like the Minister to take up two points in terms of the environmental sections of the Bill, one of which he is aware of. I think we have all experienced situations where somebody looking to apply for planning consent just clears a site—they rip the whole thing apart before applying for planning consent, with no thought for the ecology of the site or, frankly, the surrounding area. In doing so, they pay no attention to whether there are any vulnerable species on that site or implications for the local ecology. That must change, and I will be pushing as the Bill progresses for a provision that requires developers to do a holistic survey of the ecology and wildlife of a site and, if they identify vulnerable species, to have a plan to relocate those species. That must be an essential part of the planning application; developers simply must not be able to clear a site before going for planning consent, and they must have duties to look after the wildlife, plants and animals on that site if they are going to develop it. The Minister knows I will be pushing for that, and I hope he and the Government will take it up and introduce such a provision themselves.

We rightly focused a lot last year on better environmental practices generally and requiring each area to have nature recovery networks as we must reverse the decline of so many of our species in this country, but that must not happen in isolation from the local planning process; there must be a link between the two. Local authorities shaping a local plan must also be mindful of their plan for a nature recovery network—what needs to be done to restore the wildlife in that area and reverse the loss of species. I ask the Minister to look carefully as the Bill progresses through Committee and Report at how we can create that link in this legislation so the obligation is clear and it is put in the local plan. Local authorities are planning for housing need and there is indeed a housing need; my constituency and others around the country need more homes and all of us have a duty to work to try to ensure that those homes are delivered in the best way possible, but we must not do that at the expense of the natural world with no reference at all to what we have all been debating over the past couple of years, namely having better conservation in the UK. I ask the Minister to make that a part of the Bill as well.

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[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is challenging me to expose my parliamentary expertise, but this is really in the hands of the Committee, so I would ask him to kindly lobby members of the Committee to help me get the Bill through, and I can help him with his aim.

Let me mention a key element that people have been raising, which is the issue of the five-year land supply. If an area has an up-to-date local plan, it will no longer need to demonstrate such a land supply, and that is so that we can stop speculative development.

[Chris Grayling]

Part of the problem we face—for example, in an area where there are small local district councils in charge of planning—is that, however much Ministers may say that targets are not targets, the local officers see them as such and see their task as being to implement a number that has landed on their desk. It is really important during this process that we break free of that. One of the reasons that councils are taking so long to form their plans is, frankly, that it takes so long for them to work out what on earth to do with the targets. Can my right hon. Friend please bear in mind, as he takes the Bill through, how we send clear messages to councils about what they are and what they are not expected to do?

[Stuart Andrew]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He knows—we have had a number of conversations on this very issue—that these are the things we are looking at. I look forward to bringing them forward as part of the Bill.

I want to touch on the issue of build out. I have heard loud and clear from colleagues, and so has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, about the issue of developers seeming to take a long time from approval to build houses. These commencement orders and an agreed rate of delivery will, we hope, help us to get such permissions built out much more quickly.

A number of Members—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) and others—have raised their concerns about the national development management policies. One of the key aims of the Bill is to reduce the administrative burden on local councils so that they can concentrate on delivering high-quality, locally-led plans. That is why, through this Bill, we hope to shift the onus of delivering on national priorities to central Government through introducing a set of national development management policies. These policies will cover the most important national planning issues facing the sector, including net zero, tackling climate change and making sure that we are also dealing with heritage issues and protections of green belt.

To those who are concerned that these provisions will somehow override local plans, I would say that that is not the intention. The intention is to produce swifter, slimmer plans to remove the need for generic issues that apply universally, which will help us to reduce time-consuming duplication, and to ensure that local plans are more locally focused and relevant to the local communities. I hope that, during the passage of this Bill, we will be able to give more assurance on that.