Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
I will not give way.
Not for us the discredited model of a one-city economy, because much as we value London it is wrong to rely on a single centre of wealth creation. Instead, wealth must be created and retained in communities across our nation —hence our ongoing commitment to HS2, a north-south axis linking London to the midlands engine and to the northern powerhouse. Quite literally, we must go further. We must build the vital east-west links needed to unlock the full potential of our great cities beyond London.
The Pennines might be the backbone of England, but frankly they are not the Himalayas. Some of our nation’s greatest cities stretch like a string of pearls across the north—and they can and should be drawn together. That is why this Budget strikes out in a new direction with the key announcement on HS3.
Greg Clark
I have already given not only the page, but the line number—and the hon. Gentleman too should have done his homework.
I am delighted to say that the remit of the National Infrastructure Commission will be expanded to include large housing developments. It is vital that the big decisions we make on transport and utilities infrastructure are co-ordinated with those we make on housing. As well as building more homes, we need to build better homes. The idea that we can sacrifice quality to achieve quantity is utterly wrong-headed. The only way to build the homes we need over the long term is through forward planning, good design and sound finance.
That is why the Budget lays the groundwork for a new generation of garden villages, towns and cities. We will provide targeted support for local authorities to develop locally led schemes. We will adjust the legislative framework to speed up and simplify the process of delivering new settlements. We will adopt a localised, deal-making approach to planning reform, working with councils to tailor the system to local needs in return for commitments on housing delivery. Instead of trying to force new housing through a fundamentally unreformed system—the approach of the last Government—this Government understand that only a different policy can deliver different results.
Greg Clark
There are time constraints, so I am going to make some progress.
This month marks four years since the introduction of the national planning policy framework. Overnight, 1,300 pages of central Government guidance were replaced with 52 pages of plain English. I see in his place my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), who played such an important role in that. It is a crystal-clear guide to achieving sustainable development. We have seen massive improvements in planning performance and housing delivery in that time. Before, most councils did not even have a local plan; now, most of them do; and before long, all of them will.
This is not just about plans, but about planning permissions—and not just permissions, but new homes actually being built. And not just new homes, but popular support for new homes. We are seeing a rekindling of the faith in development that was destroyed under the tenure of the Labour party. There is a sense that development can make places better, not worse—not least owing to another achievement of our planning reforms, including the NPPF, which was to establish a fully fledged system of neighbourhood planning.
I am proud that the neighbourhood planning process is under way in thousands of communities across the country. Through community consultation and neighbourhood referendums, local people have been given a real say. This is proof that when the planning system is made accessible and accountable, we can deliver both quantity and quality. However, we do not regard the progress of the last four years—important though it is—as mission accomplished. Rather, it is a spur to further action: to implement the new measures set out in the summer Budget, the autumn statement and this Budget, and to continue the work of reform until we have fully achieved our vision of a property-owning democracy.
The NPPF was a new start, not an end point. The same applies to the other great reform agenda that my Department is responsible for: devolution. It was four years ago that I stood before this House to announce the first wave of city deals. The response from the Labour party was mixed: disparaging in this Chamber but welcoming beyond the confines of Westminster. Four years on, the process of decentralisation has gone further and faster than even the enthusiasts thought possible.
Greg Clark
I am going to make some progress, given that about 60 hon. Members want to speak in the debate.
We have seen a second wave of city deals and the launch of growth deals and devolution deals to encompass cities and shires alike. We have even seen something of a change of heart on the Labour Benches. I very much welcome that, if it is a genuine source of support—however qualified—for the principles at stake. If the party of central planning accepts that power must be exercised locally, that is progress indeed.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Greg Clark
The record of the previous Government is very clear: we built more affordable homes, specifically more council houses, than the previous Labour Government did in 13 years, so we will take no lessons from the hon. Lady.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm at the Dispatch Box that, under this Bill, there is no block to foreign buyers purchasing council housing built for British people down the generations? As a result, we will see the sell-off to foreign investors of properties that were built for workers in this country.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman might not be aware that restrictions are in place that prevent, for a considerable period, homeowners who have exercised the right to buy selling on. In fact, foreign ownership of UK property is still at a very low level. I do not recall the previous Labour Government introducing any particular restrictions on that. Let me point to two flagship manifesto commitments that the Bill implements, namely the extension of the right to buy to housing association tenants and the provision of 200,000 starter homes by 2020. The Bill is making good the pledges that were made directly to the British people and that were backed by the British people in the general election.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
First, will the Secretary of State confirm that the National Housing Federation does not support the sale of council housing property to fund this policy? Secondly, will he confirm that the purchase of housing association properties will be available to EU nationals after paying taxes for just three years?
Greg Clark
The previous Government reduced the residence qualification for overseas nationals. We have proposed extending it. The combination of the residence requirement for social housing and the requirement to be a resident for three years before the right to buy comes in means that it will be seven years before there is any entitlement for an overseas national.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
It would give me the greatest pleasure to visit Gloucester, especially in the company of my hon. Friend.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
The reason why Newham council is thinking of sending tenants to my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent is as a result of the massive failure of house building under the Tory Mayor of London. What assurances can the Minister give my constituents that they will not face an unplanned influx of residents because of Tory failings in London?
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
There are a number of causes of the requirement for new housing. Immigration contributes to it, and so does the happy fact that we are living longer than we used to. Of course, Government policy is addressing immigration to get it to manageable levels, but I gently suggest to my hon. Friend that it is beyond the planning system to do much about that.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
To be clear, does the national planning policy framework endorse planning policy statement 4, which recognises the importance of protecting the English countryside for its own sake? To avoid any allegations of impropriety, when will the Department publish details of the property forum? Thanks to the wonderful Peter Cruddas, we now know how policy is made in the Tory party.
Greg Clark
I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman takes that line. The protection for the English countryside is very clear. We have taken the words in the PPS to which he refers and reproduced them in spirit in our document.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark(12 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of the National Planning Policy Framework.
It is a pleasure to be able to discuss our draft national planning policy framework and to hear the contributions of Members from all parties.
I welcome the new shadow Secretary of State to our exchanges for the first time. He is the third shadow Communities Secretary in a year, and we hope he will be around a little longer than his predecessors. He is a regular fixture on Thursdays, and I know he will be much missed in business questions, but we are looking forward to his contributions over the months ahead. May I also recognise the contribution of the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint)? As we all know, she is a doughty political fighter and quite a political pugilist, but she has approached planning issues with a desire to find common ground and a pragmatism appropriate to the issue.
Planning transcends the life of any one Government and builds the foundation on which future generations will live their lives. That is why it is so important, and why we should take the opportunity to put in place a planning system that ensures that the countryside is available in the future for our children and their children as it is for us, that they have decent homes to grow up in and that they live in places that are safe and encouraging rather than threatening and miserable. Those are the purposes of the planning system, and it is important that we have a shared perspective on them.
Today’s debate comes from a commitment that I made to this House and the other place when we published the draft national planning policy framework in July. I think it is right to have Parliament debate the proposals, and we have all afternoon for the debate so that the many Members present can put their views and their constituents’ views on the record. The same debate will be held in the House of Lords in the week ahead, and of course the debates follow a 12-week consultation period that closed this week. There have been vigorous contributions from all sides—never has planning policy been so popular an issue for debate. Despite what people might think, I welcome that, because it is of prime importance and should be discussed in the open rather than the preserve of specialists. The idea that planning policy statements should simply appear having been discussed behind closed doors, rather than engaging people, is the wrong one. Scrutiny of them is a good thing.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
It is absolutely right that we have an open and transparent debate. Will the Minister therefore explain in his speech the funds given to the Conservative party by property developers, and the secret meetings and breakfast meetings with them? What influence did they have on the drafting of the draft framework?
Greg Clark
I am very disappointed that the hon. Gentleman has taken that line. Property developers had no influence whatever on our draft policy framework.
Let me say something about the consultation in which we are engaged. The consultation closed on Monday, as Members will know. It would be neither fair nor legal for me to pre-empt the decisions that we will make in responding to the more than 10,000 responses that we received, as I am sure hon. Members will appreciate. Members might come up with brilliant suggestions and ideas in this afternoon’s debate, either by themselves or on behalf of their constituents, but I will be constrained from saying, “I agree with you; we’ll put it in,” or, “We’re minded to do that,” because that would prejudice our consideration of all the responses. Given that the consultation closed on Monday, Members will not be surprised to hear that I have not yet had time to review all the responses.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman is seeking to draw partisanship into the debate. Has he listened to the words of the former Labour housing Minister, Lord Rooker, in the House of Lords last week when he was introducing a debate? He said clearly:
“I am actually with the Government on this issue…The draft planning policy nowhere near seeks to destroy our countryside, areas of outstanding natural beauty, the green belt or our vast open countryside. Those are the facts”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 October 2011; Vol. 730, c. 1836.]
Why is the hon. Gentleman trying to create contention where there is none?
Tristram Hunt
I believe in contention. I think it is a good thing. Politics results from it. I think that the noble Lord Rooker is not unfamiliar with contention either.
Deregulating planning does not deliver the kind of economic growth that the Government think it does. We have only to look at Spain, Ireland or the American states of Arizona or Nevada to realise that a strategy of ex-urban sprawl does not deliver such growth. As the Minister should know, business park vacancies currently stand at 17% and 1.6 million square feet of commercial space is free for letting. In a recent letter to the Financial Times, the planning adviser Paul Hackett revealed that when he was asked to investigate Treasury claims that the planning system was a barrier to growth, he
“failed to find any convincing evidence, other than planning controls holding back speculative development by developers and out of town supermarkets and hoteliers”,
that the previous system had undermined sustainable economic growth.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) said, both her and I are privileged to represent a city facing challenges of growth, structural economic change and structural unemployment. We do not think that ending the “brownfield first” and the “town centre first” strategies will provide the kind of development, housing and businesses that we want in Stoke-on-Trent, not least because, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) suggested, we have 750,000 homes sitting empty and existing planning permission for 330,000 unbuilt houses. The problem for development in many situations, particularly for housing, is as much about the financial and mortgage systems as it is about the planning system.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North said, we want a proper definition of sustainable development, a return of the “brownfield first” policy—we welcome the Minister’s elongated U-turn on that—the dropping of the default “yes” when a plan is out of date or silent, a recognition of the intrinsic value of the unprotected countryside, not just green belt, that covers so much of England, and a return to the “town centre first” policy and, with it, the sequential policy. All those decisions would benefit our constituents, who want not only urban regeneration in Stoke-on-Trent but the protection of the Staffordshire moorlands and the towns and villages surrounding it.
As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, next year marks the centenary of the death of Octavia Hill, the founder of the National Trust—perhaps she was a left-wing nihilist, although I doubt it. Instead, she believed in good housing, vibrant cities and a natural environment
“for the enjoyment, refreshment, and rest of those who have no country house, but who need, from time to time, this outlook over the fair land which is their inheritance as Englishmen”.
I hope that we now have a Government who believe the same.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
12. What discussions he has had with heritage bodies on his Department’s proposals to reform planning legislation.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I and my officials have met representatives from English Heritage and other heritage bodies several times to improve the neighbourhood planning aspects of the Localism Bill. I am pleased to say that that has resulted in several helpful amendments that have enjoyed cross-party support.
Tristram Hunt
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his reply. Would he now like to take the opportunity to apologise to the 3.6 million members of the National Trust, whose concerns over the Government’s charter for sprawl were dismissed by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), as a left-wing smear campaign? Before the right hon. Gentleman explains whether Sir Simon Jenkins is a Tankie or a Trot, would he not agree that this is just further proof that the Conservatives cannot be trusted with the British countryside?
Greg Clark
I noticed that my hon. Friend described some of the leaders of some of these organisations as “left wing”. If it is untrue, it is a great insult; and if it is true, it is a great shame. The hon. Gentleman is a passionate defender of the historic environment, but so too are we on the Government Benches, and we are determined to preserve the character of middle England—but young England needs a roof over its head too.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Tristram Hunt and Greg Clark
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
The last Labour Government oversaw the greatest renaissance of our cities since the Victorian age. Central to that was the densification of development on brownfield sites. Why have the Government junked that policy for more sprawl, the destruction of the countryside and the gutting of our cities?
Greg Clark
Under the previous Government’s target, gardens in cities, which make a huge contribution to the biodiversity and pleasantness of life in cities, were erased. We have got rid of that, and our cities can breathe easily as a result.