19:29 - The House divided: - Ayes: 231 / Noes: 0 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
I am sure that the entire House enjoyed the performance of the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the shadow Housing Minister, although I have to say that the closest he came to accuracy, Madam Deputy Speaker, was when he addressed you as Madam Deputy Speaker. However, at least he gives me the opportunity to put the case for a transparent, engaging and modern planning system that will help to deliver the homes that we need, to give everyone in our country the chance, if they want to, to get on to the housing ladder.
Our planning reforms are a sensible set of proposals to address the failures of the English planning system, which was conceived almost three quarters of a century ago and which many accept is now too slow, too difficult to navigate and too off-putting for the broad mass of communities. Right now, it can take up to seven years to adopt a local plan. Only 41% of local authorities have an up-to-date plan and some have no plan at all, all of which puts much of their communities at risk of speculative development.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
Talking about councils that have no plan, I refer the House to my Labour-led council in Bury. Does the Minister agree that while we want democratic engagement, the worst thing possible is to have that engagement and not listen to the people, as my council is doing to the over 10,000 people who want protection of the green belt, every single one of whom is being ignored?
Christopher Pincher
I hope that my hon. Friend’s council does listen, and I also hope, for that matter, that the Greater Manchester Mayor listens. We have given them £75 million of public funds to invest in brownfield remediation. Let him use it effectively for his constituents in Greater Manchester.
Individual planning applications can take up to five years to determine, in addition to plans potentially taking up to seven years. The system is not fast enough and it is not consistent, nor is it clear or engaging enough. We are committed to improving the system, because our reforms will protect our valuable and beautiful green spaces, with vital protections for the green belt.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Government’s Environment Bill rightly protects environmental net gain. How can that possibly work within a zonal planning system?
Christopher Pincher
We are determined to bake in biodiversity net gain of 10%. We are determined to look at recovery networks and also to ensure that we introduce a future homes standard. We will make sure that, baked into these plans and beyond, the environment comes first and foremost. I shall say a few more words about that in a moment.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Will the Minister allow me to intervene?
Christopher Pincher
I will allow my hon. Friend very briefly.
Mr Baker
In Wycombe, in the especially treasured area of Gomm Valley, there was public consent for a plan to put in some houses that actually increased environmental amenity. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the public need the opportunity to say no, but the incentives to say yes, because they can see the gains for their community? May I also invite him to look at plans that I put forward in 2014 that would do just that?
Christopher Pincher
We certainly want communities to have much greater involvement in planning, and I will certainly look at the proposals that my hon. Friend put forward.
Our proposals will deliver a simpler, faster, more transparent process, giving communities and builders, especially small builders, certainty over what development is permitted through clear land allocations in local plans. They will ensure that developers contribute a fair share to funding affordable housing and infrastructure through a new, more predictable, more transparent and faster infrastructure levy that will ensure that communities get the affordable homes—and the schools, clinics and roundabouts to support those homes—when they need them. And they will further empower local people to set standards for beauty and design through local design codes, putting beauty at the heart of the planning system for the first time. The proposals will bring a slow and cumbersome paper-based system into the digital age, with interactive maps at our fingertips and involving far more local people than at present.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
One of the concerns in my constituency is flooding, and as the Minister knows, the Flood Re insurance programme is suitable only for homes that were built before 2009. Given that all these new homes are being proposed, what reassurance can he give people that they will still be able to have affordable flood insurance to go with them?
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady is quite right, and we will look at the flooding issue as we further develop our proposals and bring them to Parliament. I recognise that this is a challenge; it is a challenge in my own constituency too.
One poll showed that 69% of people had no knowledge of or connection with local plan making. That is simply not good enough, and we believe that there is an appetite for change. Let me briefly come to some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Croydon North. We all know that he is trying to make a name for himself—quite some name—and we also know that he has one or two little hobby-horses. But like so many hobby-horses, they can turn into an obsession. He started out quite normally with an interest in planning and its rules, but quickly—all too quickly—it went downhill. He conceives himself as some sort of latter-day witchfinder general, a chief of the inquisition constantly in search of some heresy under every stone, and finding plots and conspiracy under every brick. I fear that his latest, albeit short, outpouring shows that the fantasy has gone a little too far. In just a few minutes, he has gone from acting like Tomás de Torquemada to being like David Icke. How long will it be before he runs off and jumps into his turquoise tracksuit and starts telling everybody that the world is run by lizards and that he is the godhead?
In the wording of the Opposition’s proposals, are they now saying that they oppose local development orders, which allow certain types of development to go ahead without a specific planning application, even though they introduced that legislation themselves in 2004? Are they also opposed to neighbourhood development orders, which also allow certain developments without specific planning applications? It sounds as if they are. In fact, it sounds as if they do not really know what they are talking about and that they do not have any firm, sound policies at all, which his predecessor, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), admitted in a private briefing.
I make this offer to the hon. Gentleman: come in to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, talk to our officials and let them explain how the current planning system rules for Ministers work. In that way, he can see for himself how carefully it is controlled. He may not take any notice—in fact, I suspect he probably will not—but at least he will have had the chance to listen, to ask some questions and possibly to learn.
There has been a good deal of discussion, in the House and beyond, about community engagement. I reassure the House that our proposals will not diminish the ability of local communities to take part in the planning process. On the contrary, they are designed to give communities more of a say, not less, with better information, easier means of taking part and, crucially, a clearer voice when it can make a real difference in the planning process.
Under our present planning system, when asked what they think of their local area, there are twice as many people who say that it has got worse as those who say it has got better. Under our present planning system, just 1% of the local population get involved in local plan making, and just 2% or 3% of local people get involved in discussions about local developments. That is very few—too few—yet with so little engagement, and often after months or years of tortuous wrangling, nine in every 10 planning applications end up being approved anyway. I do not think that those facts suggest a system that is really very engaging, still less one that is truly empowering. We can do better, and we will.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister therefore listen to local communities who want local occupancy restrictions so that they can live in local homes, as opposed to those homes becoming holiday lets and Airbnbs?
Christopher Pincher
We are certainly open to the proposition; we are taking it forward anyway with our proposition for first homes. However, I suggest to the hon. Lady that it would be very helpful if, as I know she believes should happen, her own local authority got a plan in place to protect its community—her community—from speculative developments.
Our proposals will increase opportunities for local people to be involved in local plans, using a map-based system that will show clearly what building is proposed and where, what it will be, what it will look like and what kind of infrastructure will support it—real involvement, including in the development of local design codes. Through our new office for place, drawing on Britain’s world-class design expertise, communities and their local councils will be empowered to set local design standards, putting design and beauty at the heart of our planning system.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the consultation people should have a say on the height of buildings in their local community, so that they do not live under the shadow of tall buildings when they do not wish to?
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for his constituents. As he will know, we introduced a tall buildings policy in London in the teeth of opposition from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. We are certainly open to the prospect of such policies more broadly, beyond London; I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend about that policy opportunity.
Our plans will make it easier for local people to really influence the plan in their community and have their say on the future development of their local area, including the standards of design that builders must adhere to.
Christian Wakeford
The Minister is being generous in giving way. We have talked about the huge importance of communities engaging in the planning process and of having a local plan, but does he agree that the most engaging way to get residents involved in the planning process is by rolling out more neighbourhood plans, so that the process can be devolved to the most local areas possible, whether they are areas of towns or villages?
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising neighbourhood plans. We are keen to advance the opportunities that they afford to their communities. We are very conscious that they tend to occur in the south of our country or in the more rural parts; we are determined to roll them out into places further north and places that are much more urban, so that those communities too can benefit from the opportunity.
Our proposals will transform how planning and plan-making is done, taking us from an era of planning notifications on lamp posts to digital, interactive services enabling prop-tech companies to develop more engaging ways to visualise and communicate planning information, in turn improving everyone’s overall understanding of what is happening and where. Plans will be more accessible, presented in new, visual map-based formats based on machine-readable data accompanied by clear site-specific requirements. As I say, communities will be engaged at the earliest stages of the plan-making process to ensure that their views are fully reflected. To make sure that local authorities have the tools that they need, we promise a holistic review of council planning resources, because we want councils and their officers to have the scope and the skills to plan strategically for their communities, involving communities much more closely in their plan-making, the design of their communities, and the infrastructure to support them.
Andrew Griffith
Fundamental to building a consensus around the new planning structure will be making better use of brownfield land and, in particular, investing in brownfield land registers. Land is our most precious commodity. We are all into recycling. Recycling our land must be the way to go. Does the Minister agree?
Christopher Pincher
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That policy point is enshrined in the national planning policy framework and we will take it further in our proposals. The £400 million of brownfield regeneration funding that has been made available by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, added to by a further £100 million, is all designed to add teeth to our determination to develop on brownfield first.
There will be a continuing role for the existing planning application process. As I have said before in this House, that system does not go away. Where applicants wish to vary from the local plan, they will need to make a full planning application in the usual way. Even where the broad principle of development is agreed through the plan, all the details will still need to be consulted on with communities and statutory consultees, and approved by officers or committees where appropriate. We are also looking closely at enforcement rules to ensure that where, such as in growth sites, the local authority has set up clear rules about development—which, by the way, will have had community consultation and agreement in the local plan—the authority has the tools and the ability to monitor and enforce those rules as development is built out.
The hon. Member for Croydon North mentioned build-out. We are very conscious that Oliver Letwin and, before him, Kate Barker produced a series of reports about build-out. We reckon that introducing this new, speedier process, which will aid small and medium-sized enterprises, will make it easier to bring forward plots of land with planning application for development much more quickly, and there will be more competition among developers. If people know that there are some up-front rules that they have to adhere to in order to build, there will be no necessity to land-bank. We are also very conscious of the points that have been made by many Members across the House, and those beyond it, about the importance of getting permissions built out, so we are looking closely at ways in which we can incentivise developers to continue to work closely with local authorities and with landowners to make sure that permissions are built out as rapidly as possible.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend recognises the issue of build-out rate, but he has also referred several times to the risks of speculative development. The risk is that if you do not deliver, you lose control of your plan and are therefore subject to speculative development, which no one wants because such developments are sited in places that have not been supported at all. Does he agree that one of the upsides of the planning system must be to give communities certainty about the number of homes going forward, lessening the risk of losing the five-year land supply by having speculative development?
Christopher Pincher
My hon. Friend, who is an expert in this field, is absolutely right. As I said in my earlier remarks, too few councils have up-to-date local plans. That leaves their communities at risk of speculative development. By implementing our proposals, which will ensure that local authorities must have local plans in place within 30 months, we will help protect communities such as his and such as all of ours against speculative development.
Our reforms will also leave an inheritance of strengthening and enhancing our environment. They will mean that environmental assets are better protected, more green spaces are provided, more sustainable development is supported, and new homes will be, as I said earlier, much more energy-efficient. Our planning reforms will support the implementation of the 10% biodiversity net gain enshrined in the Environment Bill and capitalise on the potential of local nature recovery networks. We will also make the system clearer and more accountable.
Our reforms also include measures to protect and enhance the green belt, taking into account its fundamental importance when considering the constraints that areas face. We have made it clear in the NPPF, through Government investment and through our permitted development rights reforms, and we make it clear once again in our wider planning reforms: brownfield development must come first.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Under the current system, too often local planning officers advise that unless green belt is released, local plans will be subject to challenge and will lose once they are referred to the inspector. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that where local authorities can demonstrate that they have enough brownfield sites available for development for their own assessed housing need, the green belt in areas such as Dudley South will be protected?
Christopher Pincher
My hon. Friend must have seen my speech, because I am about to move on to the matter of the green belt, which we will continue to protect, because our policy has not changed. We made a manifesto commitment to the green belt as a means of protecting against urban sprawl, and we mean to keep it. Local authorities should not develop on the green belt, save in exceptional circumstances, and local plan making should recognise the green belt as a constraint on numbers, as my letter to Members of Parliament in December last year made clear. For the record, we will not be accepting the recommendation in the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s report for a wholesale review of the green belt.
These measures and these commitments are important. They are a very important part of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to create the most ambitious environmental programme of any country in the world. We are clear that to help make home ownership affordable for more people, we need to deliver more homes, because by the age of 30, those born between 1981 and 2000 are half as likely to be homeowners as those born between 1946 and 1965. We need to take bold steps to provide enough homes in the places where people and communities need them.
At the last general election, we made a commitment to deliver the homes that the country needs—better-quality homes, of different designs and different tenures in the right places all around the country where they are needed. We have promised to extend the chance of home ownership to all who want it, and in any poll one cares to conduct, more than 80% of people—young people, less affluent people—will say that they want the opportunity to own their own home. They aspire to a stake in their community and their country, yet for far too many people that aspiration—
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady says it is painful. Yes, it is very painful for those people who cannot get on the property ladder. It seems an impossible dream, because in places around our country, the average price of a home is many multiples of average earnings—in some places, it is 12 times the average wage. In other places there are just not enough appropriate homes for older people who want to step down the property ladder into more suitable individual accommodation.
If we are to keep our promise to those who aspire to own their own home or move into the right home, we must not only provide the right economic framework in which skills and jobs can thrive, and continue to deliver initiatives such as Help to Buy, right to buy and First Homes, which give people a leg up on the ladder, but we must deliver the homes people need. That is what we are doing.
We have delivered 1.8 million new homes since 2010. In 2020 we delivered 244,000 new homes across our country. We have an ambition to build—as do the Liberal Democrats, apparently—300,000 homes each year by the middle of this decade. That is in stark contrast to Labour’s lamentable failure to provide the homes this country needs. Under Labour, housebuilding fell to its lowest rate since the 1920s and the days when Ramsay MacDonald was the party leader—by modern standards he was quite popular. In London, Labour’s Sadiq Khan has built fewer than half the homes he promised, despite having an extra year in which to do it. In Labour-run Wales, so few council homes are being built that they could barely accommodate a Welsh rugby team.
We now have a new shadow Housing Secretary, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who opposes the delivery of almost any building proposed in her constituency—something of a niche approach to home making. In truth—Labour Members do not like this truth; they cannot handle it—Labour does not like people to own their own homes. Labour Members do not want people, especially young people, to get on the property ladder. They do not like aspiration, they do not like capitalism, and they do not want our people to aspire to or to be capitalists. Well, we have something to say to that and it begins with a B. We say “Bolshevism” to that. Indeed, Lord Mandelson, one of Labour’s more successful and less bolshy people, says the same. When he returned from Hartlepool a few weeks ago, he said:
“I can see that people are proud of what they have achieved,”
He said that people are aspirational, and that they are not sure they have achieved that with Labour—a damning indictment of that party.
By contrast, Conservative Members are proud of those people, and we will ensure that people like them across the country achieve their aspirations under this Government. This Government are determined to level up opportunity the length and breadth of this country. From Redruth to Redcar we are determined to ensure that people are not priced out of their local communities. We are determined to get them on the ladder, because that is what they want. Just a week or two ago Sam Legg, just 19 years of age from Asfordby in Leicestershire, became the 300,000th Help to Buyer. He said that he could not have got on the ladder without Help to Buy and the support of this Government. If people like Sam and Megan, and millions like them all around the country, want to get on the property ladder, we must address the housing challenge head-on.
We know that introducing wide-ranging reforms excites real passion. It is right that those reforms are properly scrutinised by the House, and they will be; we are keen to ensure that our proposals are well considered and reflect the interests of every community across the country. We strongly believe that a modernised, transparent, engaging planning system that delivers better outcomes for local democracy, the economy, the environment and housing in a better and faster way is a long overdue reform. As we emerge from the pandemic, now is the time to drive those reforms forward: giving communities a real say in development; creating more beautiful places; making the very best use of brownfield sites to regenerate our cities and town centres; extending opportunity and security for millions; and delivering the homes our country wants and needs.
While the Opposition sink back into their comfort zone, extolling sectional interest and chained to Corbynite dogma, we will build the homes the country needs. We will build them back better and stronger. We will make sure that the banner of aspiration flies here.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg).
The planning system is already well rigged in developers’ favour. We put trust and faith in a democratic process that has been eroded in much of the country. In my constituency, there has been a significant amount of anger, upset and deep concern caused by the planning system, particularly with regard to a site that is being developed for myHermes. Although there were a number of consultations before land allocation, understandably the vast majority of people were not even aware that a potential allocation was taking place.
The Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), said in response to my written question on this issue that
“previous studies suggest that only a small proportion of the public tend to engage in local plan consultations.”
We all know that people tend only to become aware and engage when an application is made and when a site notice appears, but this causes real upset when people do then engage and seek to share their views at the application stage, only to be told that the decision about the site has already been made. At best, it leaves people feeling ignored. At worst, it leads to a feeling of total disenfranchisement from local democracy. This is not the fault of our local councils; it is the process.
Stephanie Peacock
No, I am going to make some progress. However, the councils and the planning committees take the blame. Planning works best when it is a partnership. We need the right types of homes in the right places. Of course we need investment and new jobs, but just leaving delivery to the market will not deliver partnership and will fundamentally fail to meet people’s needs. With the brownfield remediation fund devastated by the Tories and a soft-touch approach to land banking and speculation, the inevitable consequences of this policy will be a further loss of valued green spaces without local voices being heard.
The reality is that the planning process is not a democratic one; it is a legal one. However, this situation is due to become far, far worse. With these changes, the Government will be ripping out the only democratic element of the planning process. The proposals are nothing short of a developers’ charter. As has been stated, since the Prime Minister became leader of the Conservative party, donations to the Tories from developers have increased by 400%. With these proposals, the Prime Minister is paying them back by selling out our communities. Some of those developers have even seen their individual planning applications personally approved by the Secretary of State against his own Department’s advice.
There is a reason why there is so much opposition to the proposals. Their introduction would be the greatest shift in power to big developers in the history of this country. We need a fundamentally new approach, not more market control. We need democratic control. The Government’s proposals will not deliver that. The developers and donors will be delighted, but it is our communities who will pay the price.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)
The Opposition called this debate today to divide us, but I do not think they have succeeded. What we have heard, time and again, across the House is a very high degree of consensus. Member after Member, from either side of the House, queued up to say that this country needs to build more houses. Some said we have a housing crisis. Some said we have a generational duty to help young people and those on low incomes to enjoy the dream of home ownership, which so many of us—the vast majority of people in this House—have already achieved and are enjoying. Member after Member, including almost every contribution from the Labour party, queued up to say that the current planning system does not work. Some made extremely good and important points. The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) said that the single biggest issue she hears from her constituents on is the planning system and how it is failing to address the needs of her constituents. Yet we also heard from the Labour Front-Bench team an argument that we should do absolutely nothing—that we should not take forward any ambitious plans to reform the planning system at all.
The shadow Secretary of State spoke for nine minutes but said absolutely nothing. All he has managed to achieve with this debate has been to shine a light on the Labour party’s own derisory record on housing. Let us not forget that this Government, back in 2010, inherited levels of house building at the lowest they had been since the 1920s. Those of us who are just about old enough to remember that time recall when John Prescott was Secretary of State in my Department and they recall his flagrant disregard for the green belt, the needs of local communities and local democracy, with his failed approach to regional planning, which we scrapped when we came to power.
Those of us who see what Labour is doing today see how damaging and feeble their policies are. If we look at Wales, we see that, despite the rhetoric we heard today, the Labour party is developing 12 council houses—for the whole of Wales. In Croydon, the Labour borough represented by the shadow Housing Secretary and run by his closest friends and cronies, the local council has gone bankrupt and its housing company, Brick by Brick, has taken tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and has failed to deliver a single home. Its social housing stock is so disgracefully Dickensian that the housing regulator has in recent weeks condemned it. What has the hon. Gentleman said? He has said nothing at all. His Twitter account, which he loves to use to criticise the Conservative party, has fallen as silent as that of Donald Trump—he has said absolutely nothing. So we will take no lectures from the Labour party.
We also heard from the Lib Dems, who have mysteriously gone AWOL now, at the end of the debate. Days after winning a by-election, saying that they would campaign to ditch the planning Bill, they could not even be bothered to turn up to the end of the debate. We have heard the appalling, rank hypocrisy of the Liberal Democrats throughout this debate. Their leader went on TV at the weekend to declare himself a “yimby”, but that is very different from what he was saying to people on the doorsteps of Buckinghamshire in recent weeks. It is better to describe him and his party, in the term of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), as a “banana”—build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.
Except in practice that is not what some Liberal Democrat councils do. The two Lib Dem Members who did turn up to speak in this debate, the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), both represent areas with Liberal Democrat councils that are building twice the number of homes that the Government are asking them to build. I do not criticise those Liberal Democrat councils for trying to build homes, but if anyone is objectively concreting over the green belt or greenfield land, it is those councils that are choosing to build twice the number of homes that the Conservative Government are asking them to build.
Of course, it was the Liberal Democrat leader who voted consistently for HS2 and, when we were in coalition, voted for every one of this Conservative Government’s planning Bills from 2010 until he lost his seat in 2015, so the speeches from the Opposition Front Bench and the Liberal Democrats were, I am afraid, just embarrassing. Nothing was more emblematic of that than the graphic put out by the Labour party this afternoon, which showed some properties in the Cotswolds that Labour had taken from an article in a newspaper with the headline “Why £10 million country estates are the new £5 million estates”. How out of touch is that? We on this side of the House do want to build homes. We do want to help young people on to the housing ladder, and we do care about homelessness and rough sleeping, and tackling intergenerational unfairness.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, a great deal united the House in this debate, and six themes emerged, all of which are fortunately the chapters—the pillars—of the planning reform Bill. First is our united desire to see greater environmental protection—our categoric insistence that the green belt must be protected, in a way that the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, who is doing more than any other person in this country to build upon the green belt, does not seem to understand. We will enshrine those principles in the Bill.
Secondly, we will ensure that the Bill means a massive improvement in the quality and design of properties. We will bring forward the ideas of Sir Roger Scruton’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, so that new homes in this country are built to a dramatically higher standard.
Robert Jenrick
I cannot, as I have only a few minutes left, but I appreciate that my right hon. Friend is at the vanguard of this issue.
Thirdly, everyone in this country wants to see more infrastructure built alongside the homes—the GP surgeries, the hospitals, the roads, the parks, the playgrounds. We will bring forward an infrastructure levy that gets more of the land value out of the landowners and the big developers and puts it at the service of local people. That will mean more affordable homes being built in this country than ever before.
We will also ensure that we tip the balance away from the big-volume house builders and towards the small builders, so that local entrepreneurs—the brickies, the plumbers and the builders in our constituencies—get a fair shot at the system.
Robert Jenrick
I will not, because I have only a few moments left.
If the Bill were to fail, it is the big-volume house builders who would be celebrating. They would be opening the champagne bottles, and the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) knows that perfectly well. The current system is stacked in favour of the big boys and we are going to change that.
We also want to see more brownfield land built upon, more regeneration, more levelling up and more support for our high streets, which has never been needed more than it is today, and the Bill will deliver that. It will give local authorities more power for compulsory purchase to assemble land and regenerate those important and much-loved spaces in our communities, and at the heart of it is a brownfield-first policy for the whole country.
Lastly, we are going to ensure that there is more engagement and more local democracy, not less. We are going to ensure that the plan-making process is faster and better. We are going to ensure that plans are produced in 13 months, not seven years, and that millions more of our fellow citizens are involved in the plan-making process than they are today. As we have heard already, only 1% of the public even engage in the current system. We are going to ensure that many, many more people do so. We are going to ensure that neighbourhood plans have more teeth and that more of them happen across the country, not just in the most engaged and well-heeled places. We will ensure that they become ubiquitous and a key part of the planning system. And we are going to end speculative development, which does more than anything to lead to the corrosion of public trust in the planning system.
The benefits of our proposals are clear, and we are going to ensure that people across the House and across the country see and appreciate them in the months to come. Of course we are going to listen, because planning is inherently contentious. It has always been that way, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) said in his important speech, we are not sent here to tackle the easy questions. We are sent here to tackle the hard ones, and some of us—those of us on the Government side of the House, and potentially some in the Labour party—want to work together in the weeks and months to come to ensure that we build the homes this country needs, that we tackle the housing crisis and that we build those homes in a way that we can all be proud of for generations to come.
Question put.