Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

It is normal in these circumstances to invite a Minister to visit a constituency. The Minister is welcome to visit my constituency, The Wrekin in Shropshire, and the Telford and Wrekin borough, but if he visits the Telford and Wrekin borough bit, could he bring a spare tyre? The potholes there are enormous. I thank him for allowing £32 million to be released over the next 11 years to ensure that those potholes are filled. Rather than a pothole tax, may I thank him for the pothole fund? Finally—[Interruption.] I will not give a “finally”, but he is very welcome to visit. Bring a spare tyre!

[Simon Hoare]

As I struggle with my Lenten observations, I need no lessons about spare tyres—it is all about trying to get rid of spare tyres, as far as I am concerned. I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. The Wrekin is a part of Shropshire that I know well. Those sums can and should be used by upper-tier authorities, which are the highways authority, to ensure that their networks are working well, smoothly and safely. That benefits all, and the Government are putting up the money to allow them to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

That is an interesting idea. I am very fond of the Axe valley, so I will look at it.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

1244 was the date of the first market charter awarded to Wellington in Shropshire, in my constituency. In the last three years, £3 million from the towns fund, £10 million from the levelling-up fund and £800,000 from a fund I cannot remember have provided record investment from this Government into the 800-year-old market town of Wellington. The Labour council has just taken over the market, so will the Secretary of State please ensure that the council do not mess it up?

[Michael Gove]

We will do everything we can. Wellington is very lucky to have such a brilliant advocate. I hope my right hon. Friend sits on the green Benches for many years to come, but when he is transferred to another place, he deserves to be the next Duke of Wellington.

Somerset Council: Funding and Governance

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Fysh]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right. We need to work together, including across the aisle. I am very fond of my Liberal Democrat ex-opponents on the council. I know them well, and in many cases they are very good people who want the best for their communities, as we all do. We need to work together, whatever we think about the decisions that should or should not have been made. I am willing to do that, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger). I know that my other colleagues in the parliamentary party and the Ministers are willing to work on that, too.

I want to make it clear that this is not some story of Government underfunding; that is absolutely not the case. My hon. Friend is right to point out that the Government have listened and have given substantial new money, which Somerset Conservative MPs lobbied for. Their voices were heard loud and clear and we were given that money. None the less, we still face challenges and there are things that will be required, but we need to make sure that we keep these essential services that people rely on—the recycling centre in Crewkerne, the libraries and the various services that are not protected within statutory limits, which would be protected should there be a bankruptcy. My constituents rely on their bus services; they cannot see them cut. That would be a fundamentally difficult thing for them to deal with. We cannot allow that to happen. [Interruption.]

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. There are Divisions in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Yes, I know. I do apologise. Minister, we need to sort this now, and that conversation is crucial. We need to keep this going as much as we can. We need to take it forward in the constructive way in which it has been dealt with so far. I am one of the worst offenders in this place for taking it to the lowest common denominator and attacking everybody, but this is a time when we cannot do that. There are too many vulnerable people whose futures and wellbeing are at stake, so I say to the Minister: please, just keep talking to us.

Minister, you have been brilliant. I cannot fault you or the Secretary of State. I cannot fault the way in which you have dealt with Bill and his team, Duncan Sharkey and everybody in Somerset. At every meeting I have had, we have talked about how we have work to do, and we will do it. We have discussed what needs to be done. I am conveying that to Bill, the Minister will convey that tomorrow, and we will work on it. In the next few months we have to come up with a formula that safeguards those vulnerable people. My constituency covers Exmoor. The problems we face with things like social mobility and access in one of the most rural parts of England will be devastating if we cannot come to an agreement.

Minister, we are here to do the best for our constituents; we always have been. That is why you do it, why I do it, why my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil does it, and why everyone else does it. If you can come halfway, we can come the other half. That will be most important. You could use Somerset as a guinea pig in order to come up with a formula that will get this working, so that we can work with you and land what we need to do. I am meeting the Chancellor tomorrow. I am going to put the plea to him and ask him to be generous—

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Forgive me—

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Thank you very much, Mr Pritchard.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

No, I am not curtailing the hon. Gentleman’s speech, if he has anything more to contribute. I just gently remind him that he should address his remarks through the Chair rather than speaking directly to the Minister. I have let it go a bit, but he should speak through the Chair.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am so sorry, Mr Pritchard. After all these years, I should know better. I do apologise.

That partnership will be crucial. It matters more than anything. I look forward to working with the Minister on this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Adult social care is a demand on all upper-tier authorities. I commend BANES Council on the work it is doing; that is precisely the demonstration of flexibility and innovation in local government that we look for to deliver quality services in a cost-efficient way, and it deserves our approbation for that. With the Department of Health and Social Care, we keep under review precisely those policies relating to adult social care, to make sure that those who are most in need receive the services that they need in a timely fashion.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Would the Minister like to put on record that he shares my thanks to Councillor Lezley Picton, the leader of Shropshire Council, who has done a fantastic job despite the challenges in trying to get down the deficit there? The council has found significant efficiency savings, but there is still more to do. Ahead of the local government finance settlement announcement, could the Minister look at the rural services delivery grant and see what more can be done for large rural counties such as Shropshire, which he will know is the largest landlocked county in England?

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and for the work that Councillor Picton does as the leader of his council. He is absolutely right to point to the continued importance of innovation, change and reform to ensure value for money—that is key—and to highlight the importance of the rural services delivery grant. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I remain committed to that and we hope to be able to make that announcement in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We will do everything we can to expedite that funding to Northern Ireland.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Solar is an important part of the UK’s energy mix, and, as the Secretary of State will know, the sun always shines in Shropshire. Does he agree that solar farms, which are often of huge scale, need to be in the right place, not the wrong place? So often, a lot of good agricultural land is lost.

[Michael Gove]

Shropshire, home to the “blue remembered hills” of A. E. Housman, is one of our most beautiful counties. It is vital, even as we pursue renewable energy across the United Kingdom, that we recognise that our environment is just as much about natural beauty as it is about striving towards net zero.

Levelling Up Barry, Vale of Glamorgan

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I will call Alun Cairns to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered levelling up Barry, Vale of Glamorgan.

Thank you, Mr Pritchard, for calling me to propose this debate on levelling up in Barry. It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, and I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight the fantastic opportunities for Barry and the background to why it needs UK Government support.

I recognise that economic development is devolved and that the primary responsibility for supporting investment in Wales falls to the Welsh Government, but the levelling-up agenda is central to the UK Government’s plans. I am delighted that my long-standing calls to change the law to allow the UK Government to invest directly in communities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has now passed. We no longer have to wait for the Welsh Government to act.

Barry has been ignored for far too long by the Welsh Government. This is our chance. Our Barry Making Waves project provides the next step in the development of Wales’s largest town. It is a hugely exciting project, supported far and wide, and meets the aspirations that community groups and I have held for many years. Barry is a fantastic place to live, work and visit. Most recently, it has become best known to many from the BBC comedy “Gavin and Stacey”, but the town has a long, proud history steeped in coal exports, built on the back of the Barry Dock and Railways Act 1884. The Act was passed to develop a railway line from the valleys, to create a coal-exporting facility in town, and to break the monopoly of neighbouring Tiger bay.

The railway line also provided the connection for millions of tourists to visit the fantastic coastline every year, notably Whitmore bay, and, since the post-war period, the Butlin’s holiday camp, which has long since closed. That highlights the economic activity and relative prosperity that existed throughout much of the previous century. However, with the closure of the south Wales coalmines, changes to larger ships and ports, and overseas holidays becoming commonplace, Barry was left looking for a new focus.

I also want to point out that, although coalmining communities have rightly received significant sums of public money over decades to support their transition to new industries, Barry was left without, because it exported rather than mined coal. Furthermore, as west Wales and the valleys received more than £5 billion in new aid since 2000, the quirks of the map and EU regulations meant that Barry, with some of the most deprived communities in Wales, did not qualify as a priority area. As a result, very small sums were available for community programmes, rather than for significant infrastructure development.

The point I am making to the Minister is that other areas in need have been supported in their economic transition, but Barry has missed out. In spite of that, Barry has made huge strides in its regeneration over the past 15 years or so, with Barry Island, supported by the “Gavin and Stacey” phenomenon, which provided confidence and a renewed interest. The waterfront development has modernised the town and brought new housing. Campaigning groups, such as Pride in Barry, notably led by Paul Haley, and FocusBarry, led by Dennis Harkus, galvanised the community’s ambition, and local developers such as Simon Baston, took significant risks with their own investments in developing Goodsheds and former pumping station projects.

It is a town, however, that needs support to move to the next step of development. The data speaks for itself. The Welsh indices of multiple deprivation show that the most deprived communities in Wales over decades have persistently been in Barry. Five areas were among the 10% most deprived wards in Wales in 2011. That is in spite of being just a short distance from the relative affluence of Cardiff and the relative prosperity of the rural Vale. Three areas in Barry remain at the bottom of the league table. Levels of productivity are much lower than the UK average, at £14,706. The town has relatively few employment sites, and most employees commute to Cardiff to work every day.

We need to recognise, however, the positive changes that have taken place. Barry Island has been transformed to a year-round resort enjoyed by locals and visitors alike. The docks area, now referred to as the Waterfront, has been refreshed and regenerated, and a new Cardiff and Vale College campus is to be developed to support new skills.

With the help of the levelling-up bid, the town’s redevelopment will move to the next level. The Barry Making Waves project will put rocket boosters under the regeneration ambitions. It is a bid for £19.9 million of levelling-up funds to release a £32 million project. The central feature of the levelling-up bid is a 400-berth marina, which will make the most of the docks area; attract more visitors and increase spend to the community; create jobs, from engineering to hospitality; transform the image of the town; and complete the western side of the Waterfront development. It will have a new flexible 30,000 square feet hot-desking workspace to enable many of the professionals who have moved into the town to the new housing to work locally, rather than travel to Cardiff.

The proposal builds on a small-scale model elsewhere in the town, where demand is strong and the business and environmental outcomes meet local, Welsh and UK aspirations. The plan includes a 2-acre park with an events space, ensuring it remains an open, public area for everyone to enjoy, from Barry and beyond, rather than just the immediate local residents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman makes a passionate case for this project, which obviously needs to be considered in the round, including by my colleagues in the Department for Transport. We have certainly heard him today. There is no doubt that accelerating infrastructure that unlocks growth is a key priority for this Government.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Although I support the Government’s levelling-up agenda and funding, there is concern in rural parts of Shropshire and the semi-rural borough of Telford and Wrekin that some areas of the west midlands are perhaps being overlooked. Can the Secretary of State reassure my constituents that the bids from Telford and Wrekin Council and Shropshire Council for electric buses and the regeneration of Wellington will not be overlooked in the second round?

[Mr Clarke]

I can certainly give my right hon. Friend that assurance. Not least thanks to his efforts, there will never be any chance of his part of the world being ignored.

Solar Farms and Battery Storage

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, which I will come back to in one second. The NPPF is central to this, and when the Government come out with their update to it, it must include strict rules on solar farms.

We in Wiltshire are being targeted. I have huge sites at Derry Hill and at Leigh Delamere, and many sites have huge battery storage facilities attached to them. Something like 25 battery sites are currently being considered by Wiltshire Council. There is a proposal for a huge battery farm at Lea near Malmesbury. It is perfect, first-class agricultural land. I went to a public meeting in Lea the other day on the subject, and 250 people turned up in that tiny village—that must be more than the entire population of the village. That shows the strength of local feeling, but none the less the battery farm may go ahead—we will have to see.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I testify to my hon. Friend’s environmental credentials. He wrote the excellent book “Poles Apart”, which I have read, about the Arctic circle—in fact, I visited the North Pole with him some years ago. I completely agree that we need solar farms and sustainable energy and that we need to diversify our energy sources, but I also agree that we need to ensure that planning does not override the current use of agricultural land, nature reserves and sites of special scientific interest, which often happens with solar farms. I therefore agree that any review of the planning guidance needs to ensure that those other factors are fully taken into account, rather than being overridden by solar farms on their own.

[James Gray]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am grateful to him for the plug. The book is only £10 and it is available in decent bookshops near you, or I could perhaps arrange for it to be sent directly. He is absolutely right: we must not allow the planning system to override good environmental and nature principles because of some need to have renewables.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns. All I can tell her is that we will be providing further details very shortly.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State and all the Ministers and officials in the Department for moving at pace to tackle the growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. We have heard from the Government that those with family links and those with sponsorship will get support. Many local authorities are under huge financial pressure, so will the Minister say what further help could be given to local authorities that want to house refugees not only from Ukraine but from Afghanistan? Finally, can she give more detail on the announcement, or non-announcement, of a third track for refugees?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I cannot answer all my right hon. Friend’s questions, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is having discussions with councils on this very issue. As soon as we are able to provide further details, we will do so.

Towns Fund

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House, but I do not think he understands what accounting officer’s advice is and how it corresponds with advice from the permanent secretary before the Public Accounts Committee. The permanent secretary is—[Interruption.] Well, I’m afraid that says it all. A member of the Committee himself does not know. The permanent secretary is the accounting officer. The permanent secretary at the time wrote the advice. The permanent secretary gave evidence before the hon. Gentleman’s Committee and shared a summary of the accounting officer’s advice with the Committee that the hon. Gentleman is a member of, so I am rather confused about what his point is.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I welcome the £1 million already given to Telford and Wrekin as part of the accelerated delivery fund—a Labour council, by the way. I just wonder whether the Secretary of State will have time to look at the excellent proposals from Telford’s town board, particularly around maths and digital education and the ambitions for links into local manufacturing. Can I put in a very strong plea that, while we want to level up northern towns, we do not forget the west midlands towns? Can I also put in a very strong bid for the full £25 million, please?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I had the pleasure of visiting Telford recently, and I met the chief executive of Telford and Wrekin Council and members of the town board, who showed me some of their exciting proposals, including the beautiful new bridge linking Telford railway station with the town centre and the science and technology section of the town that they are hoping to build adjacent to the shopping centre. That seemed a very strong proposal to me, but of course I look forward to receiving the proposals in due course.

Housing Need: Shropshire, and Telford and Wrekin

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered housing needs in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

I thank Mr Speaker for allowing me this important debate. I also thank the Minister for attending—the Minister of State, no less, rather than the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, which outlines the importance of this housing issue in Shropshire and the borough of Telford and Wrekin.

For context, the debate highlights the development plans of two local planning authorities: Shropshire Council, and Telford and Wrekin Council. I will start with Telford and Wrekin, a council that states in the foreword to its local plan for 2011 to 2031 that

“it seeks to preserve the borough’s heritage and protect the many green spaces that our residents value”—

fine words, and words that I agree with and that many of the residents and my constituents would agree with. In reality, however, it seems that nothing could be further from the truth, sadly.

That council has proven that it does not regard the borough’s ecological heritage, that it has total disregard for the environment and that it is complicit in what I call environmental vandalism, on a scale unprecedented in the borough’s relatively short history. I am sorry to say that, but it happens to be the case. Let me be clear with the Minister present that my constituents are not saying that they object to all housing—they are not nimbys—which would be an unreasonable position and not one that I would support. They are saying that the number of new homes proposed—indeed, already built, but that is past now—needs to be proportionate and sustainable, and such homes need to be built in the right places and not the wrong ones.

A current example is the area of Shawbirch. It is not appropriate to build a major industrial unit on farmland, and farmland approximate to an ancient iron-age settlement, one of the earliest recorded in the borough. It is not appropriate to put such a facility only metres away from quiet residential homes. There are question marks about the lack of consultation, of which I hope the Minister will take note.

I have been told that only 15 homes were consulted ahead of that major development application. That is fundamentally wrong and not genuine public consultation. In my view, that is trying to pull a fast one on the local residents of Shawbirch. That has been repeated time and again by the borough council. It is completely unacceptable and I hope that the Minister, too, will make that clear.

Such a facility will have a huge and detrimental environmental impact, as well as a cumulative effect on the local road infrastructure, which is already very busy at peak times. Moreover, the timing of the marketing of the proposal was driven by the borough council, which I will touch on later, even though the land belongs to Homes England.

Through this debate, I will call on the Telford and Wrekin Council to support the Conservative group, who are committed to removing that particular piece of land from the development plan altogether, which would be good news for local residents. I pay tribute to Councillor Anthony Lowe, who has worked very hard to ensure that the voice of local residents in Shawbirch is heard. It is good news that we have people such as him and Gemma Everson, a local resident, working hard on behalf of local people.

I hope the Minister agrees that the council needs to bring forward and prioritise brownfield sites for development in the borough. There are many such sites, and so there is no excuse for building on farmland. However, the Shawbirch example is not a one-off; the same applies in Apley and the beautiful market town of Newport in Shropshire. As an aside, that is where the Leader of the Opposition attended school—a fee-paying school, but let us not go there. He is there regularly, and we welcome him.

The green-belt land around Newport, Apley and Shawbirch, and in other wards, has been under huge pressure, but an abundance of brownfield options are available as an alternative. I pay tribute to Councillors Tim Nelson and Eric Carter in Newport, who are also trying to ensure that the voices of local residents are heard.

As I said, housing and affordable housing are needed, but the council must avoid turning a semi-rural borough—a relatively new town, of course, but getting rid of the few open green spaces that remain—into one giant housing estate. We need to protect green spaces and the green belt. Also, fairer distribution of the new homes bonus is needed—something on which the Minister might want to comment. Communities that have to accept new housing should have the material and financial benefit from having that new housing put in but, unfortunately, that is often not the case.

Section 106 agreements, too, need far greater transparency, scrutiny and independent oversight of how funds are spent in local communities. This is one for the Government, a Conservative Government: there is much room for improvement in how such agreements are managed by local authorities and distributed to local communities.

Another ongoing problem is that of land banking. I hope the Government will soon come forward with new initiatives to stop new home builders sitting on the planning consents without developing the sites in a timely manner. The Minister, who has a local government background, will agree that land banking causes uncertainty for local authorities and skews the local development plan process and the overall gross housing figures.

I hope the Minister will tell the Chamber today that Homes England, which owns a significant amount of land in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, will not be dictated to by the borough council and, unlike the council, will ensure, first, the prioritisation of brownfield sites and, secondly, full, orderly and genuine public consultation. There has to be public confidence in the housing system and in the strategy that councils put before their publics, and that is done through genuine consultation, which I fear is not always the case with Telford and Wrekin Council.

It is also not appropriate for Homes England to allow the borough council or other councils—this has to be on a case-by-case basis—to market Homes England sites. It is for Homes England to market those sites, as is the timing of marketing them, rather than particular local planning authorities that may or may not have a conflict of interest. Sometimes tin-eared councils do not listen to the public and are not genuine about feedback from local communities.

The Government’s national planning policy framework of July 2018 prioritised developing brownfield land. I hope the Minister might think about what sanctions there are for those councils that ignore national planning policies. If they are ignoring them, there appears to be very little sanction. I hope that might change. Before I move on, I would like to pay tribute to Shawbirch Action Group for shining a torchlight on Telford and Wrekin Council’s unpreparedness to engage genuinely with communities.

Let me move on to Shropshire Council and the Shropshire local planning authority. The council wants to concrete over huge amounts of green belt in east Shropshire, yet it has the 12th worst housing density rate in the country. We need more densely populated residential development in the right places. It is not good that it is approximately 18 units per hectare—that is very low and it needs to increase.

The Minister may not know that the council wants to build up to 3,000 houses on prime green-belt land near the historic village of Tong, which is one of the most beautiful in the diocese of Lichfield and, I would argue—surely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne)—has the most beautiful church in Shropshire. That is part of its so-called strategic sites initiative, effectively equating to a brand-new settlement. As the Minister will know better than me, strategic sites is a parallel system alongside the local development plan. That speculative, aspirational but nevertheless concerning document is a genuine attempt to bring that amount of housing to an inappropriate location.

It is significant that the plans have no local support at Shifnal Town Council or Tong parish council. The Minister has said in this place that developments of that size, whether they be called garden villages or new settlements, must have public support, meaning through their locally elected representatives and at town and parish council level, whether they are statutory consultees or not.

In addition to the gross imposition on the pristine green belt and farmland, Shropshire Council, adding insult to injury, wants to put 50 hectares of employment land on the green belt and farmland, even though plenty of other brownfield sites are available. Apparently, the housing and employment land allocation in the strategic sites initiative is needed because, unbelievably, the west midlands does not have enough employment land of its own—so much so that it has to come over the border into Shropshire in an attempt to gobble up all our green belt. That is not satisfactory at all—frankly, it is unbelievable and rather fanciful.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. As he has identified, our constituencies are adjacent. On development on the green belt in the Shropshire Council area, there are proposals under the Shropshire Council plan for significant development on green belt immediately to the east of Bridgnorth, which is on the western extremity of the green belt coming out from the Birmingham metropolitan area.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to sanction development on green belt, the local authority needs to be clear about the exceptional circumstances in which, under the planning guidance, green-belt development is allowed? Will he join me in pressing the Minister to provide some clue about how a council can demonstrate exceptional circumstances? What are the criteria by which that is judged? Without that, presumably, any such development would not proceed.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am always grateful to my right hon. Friend for his interventions—he has huge experience, having been a Member of Parliament representing Ludlow and that beautiful other part of Shropshire for 14 years. Bridgnorth, for which he is the Member of Parliament, has taken quite a lot of housing in recent years. Again, I think Bridgnorth residents have been very good: they have not been nimbys; they have just said that the housing needs to be sustainable and proportionate. The exceptional circumstances for the green belt are very narrow—they have to be exceptional. I think that test is right, but whether Shropshire Council has met it is a matter for others, such as my right hon. Friend and the Minister. In my constituency, my view is that the council has not met that test to date. Whether in Bridgnorth, Shifnal, Albrighton, Tong, Shawbirch or Apley, we should avoid at all times building on farmland and greenfield sites.

The Minister of State heard me mention the west midlands and the so-called lack of employment land, which I do not accept—it is inaccurate—but even if that were the case, there are plenty of vacancies for both heavy and light industrial employment uses in Telford itself, on the industrial parks of Stafford Park, Halesfield or even down the road in Wolverhampton. I do not accept that Tong, Shifnal or Albrighton should become the dumping ground for west midlands housing and employment, with employment being the gateway for the housing and the revenue stream.

There are questions to be asked about the relationship between the west midlands combined authority and Shropshire Council. It is in the public interest and my constituents have a right to know the financial and commercial relationship between those two authorities, and the commercial and financial relationship between the borough of Telford and Wrekin and Shropshire Council. I hope it does not take freedom of information requests to elicit that material from those authorities. The public have a right to know why employment land, with residential housing on the back of it, is coming to green belt when it is pretty clear to anybody that there is plenty of employment land in the west midlands. That raises serious issues.

I would like to touch on Shifnal, if I may, which is a beautiful market town. For years, Shropshire Council has agreed to an integrated transport scheme, but it has never come forward. We have to see benefits in local communities. Shifnal has taken a lot of housing in recent years but has seen none of the benefits of the new homes bonus. It has seen no major infrastructure benefits. We still have issues with drainage that have not been dealt with by Shropshire Council, yet it expects the town to take more.

The Minister will know that if the housing is unsustainable, there will be issues with sustainability socially, with physical infrastructure, schools, GP services, roads, drainage as I have touched on, and flooding and displacement of water tables. Shropshire needs to bring forward its plans for the power station in Buildwas and its plans for a major site in the barracks at Tern Hill, and encourage the Ministry of Defence to bring that site forward more quickly than currently planned. We need to ensure that RAF Cosford, outside the wire, develops as much MOD land as possible brownfield land in order to safeguard the green belt.

Finally, I refer to the Government’s national planning policy framework document 2018, on the purpose of the green belt. It serves five purposes:

“to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns and to assist in urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.”

As the proposals currently stand, around 2,500 homes are planned for Shifnal, 3,000 planned for Tong and over 600 planned for Albrighton. If these plans go ahead, the current distance of 3.7 km between Shifnal and Tong will be reduced to about 1.2 km to 1.4 km, which goes against the very spirit and letter of what the green belt is supposed to be about.

In conclusion, my constituents are not saying no to housing. They are saying yes to housing, but to sustainable —not unsustainable—housing. I will allow the Minister to respond.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

It is a great pleasure to appear before you for the first time, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing the debate. Having felt the breeze on my face and heard the skylarks atop the Wrekin, and sung in Ludlow church as a boy chorister, I can appreciate why my hon. Friend and his county colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), are quite so assiduous in seeking to curate that beautiful part of the country as carefully as possible.

As Members will know, the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role in the planning system, so I am sure they understand that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the detail of individual decisions or plans. However, I can talk more broadly about the issues raised by my hon. Friend. Like him, the Government fully recognise the need to plan for and build more homes. We are committed to enabling the housing market to deliver at least 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s. We need to make sure that homes are supplied that meet the diverse needs of our communities, such as homes for first-time buyers, homes suitable and accessible for older people, high-quality rental properties and well-designed social housing.

Each and every part of the country has its role to play in ensuring that these homes are delivered. The vital first step in the process is to bring forward local plans that give communities certainty about where development will take place. The planning system should be genuinely plan-led, with up-to-date plans providing a framework for addressing environmental, social and economic priorities for every area, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Local plans should be prepared in consultation with communities. I hear exactly what my hon. Friend says about consultation and I urge all local authorities to ensure the public are fully involved in the planning process at every level. Local authorities play a key role in delivering the development and infrastructure that is needed in the right places, and community participation is a vital part of that.

The best plans are those that have been developed through effective engagement with communities throughout the process. Having an up-to-date plan in place is essential to planning for housing, providing clarity to communities and developers about where homes and supporting development should be built—and where it should not—so that development is planned for, rather than the result of speculative planning applications. The two local authority areas over which my hon. Friend’s constituency spans should have regard to that. I am aware that Telford and Wrekin Council adopted its local plan last year, for which it should be congratulated. I understand that Shropshire Council is undertaking a partial review of its site allocations and management of development plan at present—I emphasise how important that is for the communities those councils serve.

Through the revised national planning policy framework, we have made significant reforms to make it easier and quicker to get a plan in place. We have introduced flexibility in how plan-making happens, with a new, more flexible plan-making framework and an expectation that plans are kept up to date and reviewed at least once every five years. We have also introduced a standardised approach to assessing housing need locally. When it was published last year, the revised NPPF introduced a standard method for assessing local housing need. After extensive consultation, it was introduced to speed up and reduce the cost of the plan-making process and to make the process more transparent and accessible. It was introduced to help ensure that we meet our commitment to deliver more homes, which have been better designed, faster.

In practice, all councils should make a realistic assessment of the number of homes their communities need, and they should use the standard method as the starting point, not the end point, in the process. The starting point is used to identify the minimum number of homes needed every year. What the standard method does not do, however, is provide a maximum number of homes needed, nor does it provide a target that must be planned for. It would be wrong to think that this is just a numbers game; we need to make sure that communities are fully on board through local plans. We need to make sure that constraints, such as green belt, are considered and that we find the right places for homes, within those constraints. We also need to ensure that the right infrastructure is in place and that we underpin all development with good design principles.

Development should not be progressed at any cost and local circumstances should be taken into account. Local authorities are best placed to do that and should plan how to meet the housing needs of their communities, considering land availability and relevant constraints, including green belt and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and whether need is more appropriately met in neighbouring areas.

[Mark Pritchard]

Does the Minister agree that the relationship first between the West Midlands combined authority and Shropshire Council, and secondly between Shropshire Council and Telford and Wrekin Council, whether it be commercial and/or financial, should be transparent? It is in the public interest that documentation relating to those relationships should be published.

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree with my hon. Friend. As he will know, under the plan-making process, all local authorities have a duty to co-operate with their neighbours in seeking to allocate housing need most appropriately in their region or area. Where those plans are put in place and there is co-operation about the allocation of housing, of course it should be completely transparent for local communities to see how their democratically elected representatives are disposing of the required housing need in their area.

I want to talk about environmental protection. The NPPF carries forward into planning the basic principle of the 25-year environment plan that we must leave our environment in a better condition than when we inherited it, and plan and design developments accordingly. The area which both my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow represent is particularly sensitive in environmental terms, and should be protected as much as possible.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, the green belt is a key feature of our natural heritage and fundamentally aims to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. It is a national policy, but applied locally with green-belt land defined and protected by local planning authorities. By providing strong protection for the openness of green-belt land the NPPF prevents inappropriate development. He is right that local authorities have a duty to look at brownfield land first before they consider green-belt sites.

[Mark Pritchard]

Does the Minister share my surprise that my constituents were informed in the last few weeks by Shropshire Council that the west midlands appears to have run out of employment land?