Revised National Planning Framework

Debate between John Spellar and Maria Miller

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman’s point has been heard loud and clear by the Minister. He is right that those are essential services on which all our residents now rely.

The updated NPPF deliberately does not provide an exhaustive list of the applicable exceptional circumstances. The NPPF now shows that exceptional circumstances are not to be drawn narrowly, which was too often asserted in the past by local authorities who readily chose to interpret them from case law alone. It is now clear that local authorities, including mine in Basingstoke, are able to set out their case for exceptional circumstances for a large number of reasons.

In Basingstoke, that could be the age demographics of our town. We are the most rapidly ageing population in Hampshire, with the number of over-65s growing by 77% in the last decade. The primary and most compelling factor that makes Basingstoke and Deane an outlier is our extraordinary levels of historic house building. At the start of the second world war, our population was just 13,000. By 1961, it had grown to 25,000. Today, our population is 186,000, so we have grown from 13,000 to 186,000 in less than a lifetime. Put another way, our population is now almost 1,500 times greater than it was in the second world war. Those are exceptional circumstances that have a clear bearing on the capacity of my community to absorb future high levels of house building.

Not only is such accelerated house building affecting our natural environment, especially our unique and irreplaceable north-flowing salmonoid chalk stream; it is also putting an unsustainable strain on public services, particularly our local roads and the NHS. The Government have invested record sums in my community, but we are fast feeling maxed out. There is to be a brand-new hospital, but not until 2032, and £60 million is expected on road improvements, but there is now no additional capacity technically possible.

Residents are clear about this. Thousands want to cut house building levels. They are living in a constant building site with more than 1,000 new homes being built every year, green space disappearing every day, and road works trying to squeeze the last ounce of capacity out of every road and junction. Enough is enough. Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council published its local plan, which clings to the now outdated policy of standard method as its end point, as if it continued to be set in stone. As a result, the draft plan fails to slow down house building, ratchets up building rates over time to dizzying levels and completely fails to reflect our exceptional circumstances, which I have just outlined.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. People also have to live in those communities and be entertained. Does she agree that music venues are enormously important for the cultural talent pipeline? The agent of change principle sought to protect those venues from neighbouring development. That is why it was incorporated into the planning policy guidance. Does she therefore agree that this now needs to be enshrined in law to strengthen the protection for music venues and for our musicians of the future?

[Dame Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman may not know this, but I am the mother of two musicians and I would have to agree with him—for fear of the consequences if I did not. I hope that the Minister has listened to him as well, as he makes a valid point.

I know from conversations that I have had on the doorsteps in Basingstoke for many years that excessive house building is the No. 1 issue for many residents. It is so disappointing that the borough council has not yet exercised its new powers, especially given all the hard work that the Minister has put into changing the NPPF to better accommodate places with exceptional circumstances, such as Basingstoke.

Some of my councillors have supported a short-term approach, bagging the reduction in the five-year land supply to four years, but surely they should also share my concern that they could easily see further manipulation of developments being carried forward to make that apparent gain evaporate quite quickly. What we need is the long-term solution, not a quick fix.

None the less, I am an optimist. Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council started its public consultation on 22 January and it will run until 4 March, so that residents who are interested in the local plan and in house building levels can take part, and also perhaps support my petition at the same time, calling on the council to use its new powers to make the case for cutting house building levels to the planning inspector. Nothing is guaranteed; that is obvious. Evidence must be presented, and the case—the case that is right for the community—also has to be made. And what is right for the community is certainly not continuing house building at the current level.

I hope to embolden Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to make changes. I hope the Minister can answer a couple of questions to help them on their way. First, will the planning inspector be expecting new interpretations of “exceptional circumstance” following the recent changes to the NPPF? Too often in the past I have been told that it applies only to the greenbelt. My reading is that that is no longer the case. Does he expect every local authority to at least acknowledge the new NPPF policies in their local plan? And would he share the surprise of local residents if any local authority were to completely ignore the new NPPF policies and act as if no changes had been made at all?

Nothing is more important to me than ensuring that everyone in my constituency has a place to live in—an affordable home. It is the Conservatives who have made sure that, in my constituency, affordable homes make up 40% of all new homes. However, Basingstoke has for decades being making up for the lack of house building elsewhere—in London, throughout the south-east and beyond. The Government changes to the NPPF mean that now our local planning authority, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, can take responsibility for ensuring that its house building plans reflect the exceptional circumstances that I have outlined in Basingstoke, and indeed in neighbouring Oakley and other surrounding villages, where the vast majority of house building has taken place. The council must look again at its plans, which were drawn up before these important new Government policies were launched, and do what is right. I believe what is right is to cut house building to a level that is appropriate for our community, taking into account the sort of nuanced circumstances that the Secretary of State talked about when he launched those new policies.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between John Spellar and Maria Miller

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me not to give way, this is not a debate between the two of us. The Leader of the House has set out important responses to these amendments which deserve a great deal of consideration. He has given a comprehensive analysis of these Lords amendments. Taking into account the fact that the Government have accepted amendments 3, 4 and 5 already, I would like to confine my comments to amendment 7 but also join him in agreeing that all the other amendments are manifestly unnecessary. Indeed, the Committee considered those issues in detail and found that the Bill should remain as it is.

Amendment 7 would undermine the essence of the Bill because it increases, not reduces, the opportunity for differences between constituencies. I referred to Basingstoke during my intervention on the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. Currently we have almost 83,000 voters in Basingstoke, whereas a constituency such as Rhondda has just over 50,000. That shows starkly the necessity for change and for us to take this opportunity to make that change work as well as it can. It is as much to do with the way the current system works, in terms of Parliament being able to intervene in these measures. The difference between those constituencies is stark. But it is incumbent on us to ensure that any changes we put in place do not build another raft of problems for the future.

[John Spellar]

The right hon. Lady’s example of the Rhondda does not hold, I am afraid, because the allocation of seats to Wales will be based on the number of registered electors. Therefore, there may be some variations within Wales, but her seat in Basingstoke and constituencies in Wales are covered by another part of the Bill. Yet again, why have this dislocation when it does not actually impact in the way that she is describing?

[Mrs Miller]

I think my voters, and I am sure others, would want to be aware of the difference between constituencies, and whether they are in Wales or Hampshire, each voter should have the same ability to be represented in this place. That is manifestly not the case at the moment.

We had no end of evidence from experts on that point, and I think we should all thank those who took the time, not only to give written evidence to the Committee, but to appear before the Committee in person too. It was clear from that evidence to the Committee that there was no compelling reason to deviate from the Government’s proposals; it is important to put that on the record today.

Dr Alan Renwick from University College London said in oral evidence that no academic expert would be able to decide that what was on the face of the Bill should be changed. It is clear also from the evidence that there is room for accommodating those rules that we discussed at length, that there is sufficient flexibility in practice, and that the Boundary Commission will still be able to adhere to community ties.

I now come to the main point that I want to make to the Leader of the House, because it really perturbed the Committee. I absolutely agree that the amendment should not be made, but I want to be opportunistic and take the opportunity to land this point once more with the Government. We were concerned about the evidence that we saw from the Boundary Commission for England, and its ability to work within the way that the Bill sets out.

The oral evidence from Mr Tony Bellringer from the Boundary Commission for England very much underlined the commission’s current approach of working with wards as “building blocks”, and emphasised that currently that organisation does not hold a system or a dataset that could allow it to work in any other way. Yet, on the other hand, we heard—I think on the same day—that the Boundary Commission for Scotland does just that: it holds datasets that allow it to work at a sub-ward level. It is important that my right hon. Friend addresses that point, so that we may send a very loud message to the Boundary Commission for England that our democracy is important to us, that the Bill is all about equally sized constituencies, and that the commission needs to work with that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) reminded us in Committee that it was the chartists who, in the people’s charter of 1838, called for the principle of electoral equality, and said that that should remain the cornerstone of our democracy now and in future. I hope that the Leader of the House will reassure the House that no historical approach by the Boundary Commission for England will stand in the way of that organisation’s creating equal constituencies following the coming into force of this legislation, so that a vote in whichever part of the United Kingdom we live, from here to Ynys Môn and beyond, can count equally.

[John Spellar]

The right hon. Lady wants equality. Did she not move the amendment that said that Ynys Môn should stand alone, even though it would be much smaller than the quota?

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between John Spellar and Maria Miller

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). I am pleased to hear his support for my old new clause 10, which now makes up clause 7 in the Bill. I think he will find that his amendment was what we call technically defective. However, it is good to hear his support.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this group of amendments on Report, but before I do that, it says it all when Labour characterises boundary changes, as the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) did, as unnecessary nuisances. The Bill is all about the quality of our democracy. Fair and equal-sized constituencies are at the heart of it.

[John Spellar]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman has had quite a lot of giving way. I am not giving way.

[John Spellar]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) attributed a statement to me that is not actually what I said. I therefore seek the opportunity to correct that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I actually wrote it down—perhaps the right hon. Gentleman needs to check Hansard.

[John Spellar]

You got it wrong! I said “a necessary”, not “unnecessary”.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between John Spellar and Maria Miller

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Miller]

These amendments and new clauses would effectively create an additional protected constituency of Ynys Môn comprising the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council. The new clauses seek to amend schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, specifically the rules for the distribution of seats, resulting in Ynys Môn being included as a protected seat in rule 6. Consequential and necessary changes to rule 8 and rule 9 of the same schedule are needed to bring that fully into effect. Amendment 14 is a consequential amendment looking at the total number of constituencies.

There is an acknowledged principle in the 1986 Act that in our great British Isles, a collection of islands under our sovereign, Her Majesty, there are instances where the parliamentary constituency system needs to acknowledge challenges and limitations of building a constituency boundary system that adequately recognises island-based communities. Existing legislation does do that for two seats in England, neighbouring my own county in Hampshire, and for two seats in Scotland, but for none in Wales.

At this point I declare an interest. Although I was born in England and represent an English constituency, I was brought up in Bridgend, Wales. My maiden name is Lewis. My two brothers were born in Bridgend Hospital and my two nieces, Isabella and Olivia, attend a bilingual Church in Wales school in Llangattock. Yes, when England plays Wales in rugby, I support Wales. I am aware of the Welsh identity and the powerful role that communities play in Welsh life. When parliamentary boundaries were last debated, the move to 600 seats made it difficult to secure protection for the constituency of Ynys Môn. Given the return to 650 seats, I will attempt to turn the Minister’s head in the hope that she might be persuaded by arguments of both the head and the heart.

The people of Ynys Môn are rightly proud of their island and its unique history. While the boundaries of most other counties might be considered somewhat arbitrary—although not in Yorkshire and Lancashire, as we have heard—the boundary between Ynys Môn and the mainland is physical, perhaps indivisible and immovable.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

There is something I fail to understand in this argument. Is Ynys Môn not connected by a bridge that was built around 100 years ago and is readily used all the time? How is it different from any other bridge in this country over rivers? The Isle of Wight argument was pretty thin, because the ferry is quite effective. Here you have a well-established bridge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman brings me straight on to my next point. It is as if he was reading my notes in advance—I am sure he was not. The Menai strait may be narrow enough to travel over by bridge, unlike travelling to the Isle of Wight, which he will be well aware is not connected by any bridges. However, the bridges were built very recently, and the people of Ynys Môn continue to have a strong sense of independence—born from many centuries of separation from the mainland—and have not changed. There are countless examples of Ynys Môn’s deeply held identity as an island community both physically and sometimes constitutionally annexed to the mainland. The island is environmentally and economically distinct from the mainland, being flat and fertile, with its rugged coastline and deep harbours standing in stark contrast to the mountains of Snowdonia.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion will, I am sure, tell me that my pronunciation is not good, but the area is known as Môn mam Cymru—Anglesey, mother of Wales. That is rooted in its history. Countless windmills still stand on the island as testament to the fact that it kept north Wales fed during the middle ages.

[John Spellar]

The right hon. Lady’s definition of “recent” must slightly differ from mine. The Menai suspension bridge was built in 1826, at just about the time we were getting any sort of franchise and about 100 years before we had universal franchise. This is a pretty thin argument, is it not?

[Mrs Miller]

I am sure the people of Ynys Môn will listen carefully to interventions made by Labour Members, which I am not sure necessarily reflect the arguments made over many years by others who have looked at this very carefully. The right hon. Member has a point that can be made, but this is not just a river or arbitrary boundary. This is a significantly sized island, which I think is actually almost double the size of the Isle of Wight. It is significantly larger than the Isle of Wight, so I think a bridge, however long it has been there, does not take away from its sense of identity. Indeed, there is clear and direct precedent for Ynys Môn to be treated as an exception. I hope, more generally, that the Labour party will support this proposal. Certainly, the evidence given to the Select Committee suggested that there was cross-party support. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is just making a little bit of mischief along the way.

There is clear precedent. The Isle of Wight’s two seats make an electorate of more than 110,000, Orkney and Shetland has an electorate of 23,000, and the Western Isles has an electorate of 15,000, so this is not about the number of people on an island but about the islands themselves, because they are geographically separate, with fractured populations. They have a tradition and identity that tend to override those numerical imbalances, which has rightly been recognised by this place over many years.

Ynys Môn possesses all the same exceptional qualities geographically, but also in its heritage. With an electorate of more than 50,000 registered voters, it is a sizeable community, as well as geographically sizeable. No other constituency I am aware of, or that Members have brought up so far in our consideration of the Bill, is in a similar situation to Ynys Môn. Its nearest comparators have all been granted protected status. While I know and understand the arguments made by some in Cornwall, I hope the boundary commission heeded the issues raised by Devonwall. That is a very different issue from those faced by island communities, and I do not think that the two arguments should merge.

We heard no dissent in our evidence sessions when the notion of protected status was put forward. As an island nation, UK citizens do not need to be told about the unique identity that results from living on an island. Recognising a plurality of identities is part and parcel of the geography of our British Isles and needs to apply to the Welsh island of Ynys Môn. There is a strong depth of feeling on Ynys Môn that the island should have this recognition. In our evidence session, Dr Larner, who is a research associate at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, was very clear:

“Obviously, Ynys Môn is not as isolated geographically as some of the Scottish constituencies, but, when you consider that the Isle of Wight is involved in these protections, it is reasonable to suggest that Ynys Môn should be too.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 131, Q251.]

I have to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) put it best when she said: “Ynys Môn is unique. It is very special. The people have a strong sense of identity and community, unlike any I have experienced on mainland Britain. The countryside is rich and fertile, the coastline rugged and rural, and there is a very real sense of being an island standing alone from the mainland, despite the connected bridges. There is a commitment to protecting and promoting local business, the Welsh language and the culture and traditions of Ynys Môn. This is an island community that deserves to be recognised and protected.”

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between John Spellar and Maria Miller

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Spellar]

That is a very fair and effective point. There also needs to be a check, therefore—they know that there will be a check further down the line, and that they do not ignore those guidelines or indeed ignore the realities on the ground with complete impunity. In a minute I will come to why we saw that happen, and talk about the history of the last ten years and why boundary commissions failed on two occasions.

I must divert briefly from the matter following the intervention from the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, who had clearly prepared her comments about the OSCE, or maybe she came in after I raised the point of order at the beginning of the sitting. “The Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters” clearly states that the

“maximum admissible departure from the distribution criterion…should seldom exceed 10% and never 15%, except in really exceptional circumstances”.

Therefore, it does not prescribe mathematical equality, nor indeed straining the system in order to achieve that mathematical equality.

[Mrs Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman will, if he looks back at what I said, see that I was talking about the principles set out in that report from that organisation, which explicitly say that deviation away from equality undermines suffrage. It is, of course, an international organisation so it is perhaps having to deal with many sorts of democratic systems, but I was referring to that principle.

[John Spellar]

Actually, if I look back at the earlier clause for which that was a note, it was referring to constituencies that had 10,000 eligible voters and another one with 100,000. The OSCE was not referring to the circumstances described when it said such situations should be avoided. But it laid down clear parameters, recognising that there would be all sorts of reasons in all sorts of countries for having a reasonable range in order to deal with ethnic or religious divisions—as it pointed out—as well as geographical factors in other areas.

I will move onto the issue of what is the mischief that actually the legislation seeks to remedy. That comes down to how we got here. Everyone accepts that population changes. Nobody—except perhaps some Conservative Members on the other side of the Committee—would want to go back to the Old Sarum system in which a dozen voters had a vote while the populations of the great growing urban areas of the 19^th century were unrepresented. Obviously, therefore, we need to recognise population movement that is probably greater now than it was previously. Frankly, we got into this position because of a shallow and superficial gimmicky decision by the previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, for a strapline of saving money by cutting the number of politicians. We have, in fact, been representing far more constituents. In fact, we represent far more constituents now than at any other time in British history. He got a cheap headline, and some people may have bought it, but it was absolutely irrelevant in terms of GDP and Government spend. However, that then imposed huge constraints on the boundary commissions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman is advocating the current situation as if it is some utopia. Can he explain why anybody should be happy that he has a third fewer constituents than I do in my constituency? If he is looking for checks and balances if the boundary commission or its advisers abuse their position, surely they are that the House of Commons can change the legislation in future if the situation is abused. I have to say, there is more evidence that it has been abused under the current situation, and he is advocating to keep it that way.

[John Spellar]

I must repeat what I just said: everybody accepts that population change, growth and reduction, urban clearances and so on have an impact. That has changed somewhat, because the traditional pattern was that slum clearances in the inner cities meant that people moved to the suburbs and, subsequently, to the fringe towns. I expect that is what is happening in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell. Everyone accepts that that takes place.

It was the actions of the former Prime Minister—first, in attempting to reduce the number to 600 and secondly, proposing to change the margin of variation to 5%—that created an unacceptable framework, which then created completely unrecognisable constituencies that completely lacked community. The borough of Sandwell would probably have gone down to three seats.

The other problem is that the rigid mathematical formula, along with no imagination from the boundary commission, creates a huge number of orphan wards. Those are areas that are parts of someone’s constituency but have no connection with the rest of it. Inevitably, the Member then focuses on the bulk of their constituency. That is not good for democracy.