Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Greg Smith and David Simmonds

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). I served on the Bill Committee too. While many Members will think of politics in 2022 for other reasons, for me it will forever be the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill year. Given the size of the amendment paper in front of us, and the scale of issues that Members have, it is vital to get this Bill right to shape all our communities. Fundamentally, the Bill—or certainly its planning clauses—is about competing demands on land use. Until yesterday, I had my own amendment on the amendment paper on food security, but when I look through some of the amendments —new clause 73, new clause 101, new clause 123—many still speak to the importance of ensuring that we get the balance right when it comes to the competing demands for land.

I represent a rural and farming community of 335 square miles of rural north Buckinghamshire, where 90% of the landmass of the constituency is agricultural land. We are seeing solar farm applications coming about time and again and massive growth in house building and commercial property, but we have to think about food security, because if all this land is taken away for energy, housing and industrial units, there will not be any land left on which to grow food.

I am grateful to the Minister and all her predecessors over the past six months for engaging on this matter and for coming up with a proposal. It is why I was happy to withdraw my own amendments to ensure that the new NPPF for the first time ever explicitly referenced food security as a material concern within the planning process. I fear that is where the new clauses I mentioned a moment ago do not go far enough, because they just talk about the green belt, as opposed to open countryside and land used for food production.

For the last few moments of my speech, I will speak to amendment 2 and urge the Minister, when she replies to the debate, to perhaps clear up some of the earlier confusion, because I see no reason whatever why the infrastructure levy cannot be used to fund childcare and childcare facilities. If we are building housing estates and family homes—two, three, four, five-bed properties—funnily enough, not every child from the families who occupy those homes will be of school age. There will be a crying need for childcare and early years provision. Clearly the buildings that are not attached to schools will be an important part of that. I am not saying that the state should take over all childcare, but some ability—

[David Simmonds]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Greg Smith]

I would be delighted to.

[David Simmonds]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we reference the 2019 Department for Education guidance that covers his point, it is completely explicit that early years is within the remit of section 106? Perhaps it would helpful if the Minister could be clear, as he asked, that the legislation owned by other Departments remains in place under this Bill.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and agree entirely that those regulations make it clear. It is a shame that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), is not in her place, because she was a councillor with me in 2006 in Hammersmith and Fulham, where I, then charged with the community safety brief, used section 106 money in part to fund additional police officers in the town centres of that borough. There is precedent out there that we can use funds such as the predecessor to the infrastructure levy, to fund some level of revenue services. That is why I urge the Minister, when she sums up, to acknowledge that we can do that and be true localists, so that communities that determine that childcare provision is important are enabled to make those deals as part of their infrastructure levies.