Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I am coming directly to that point, but let me go back to parsing, for the benefit of the House, what the Secretary of State said at the developers’ lunch. First, he said that this was a local decision. It is not a local decision; it is made by Birmingham City Council, which is one of the largest authorities in Europe, and the views of my constituents—100,000 residents of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield—have been completely blocked out. Our 2015 manifesto stated that we would

“ensure local people have more control over planning and protect the Green Belt”.

The action that the Secretary of State has allowed flies absolutely and categorically in the face of that. Entirely ignored are the 100,000 citizens of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, virtually all of whom are totally opposed to the development. They have marched in their hundreds and protested in their thousands, and 11 out of 12 Conservative councillors have opposed the process.

We have the largest town council in the country. It is totally and unanimously opposed to the development, but it has not even been consulted. Will the junior Minister commit to going back to Birmingham City Council and suggesting—I do not think he has the power to force the council to do this—that common decency expects it to go back to the 24 elected members of the largest town council in the country, formally consult them and listen to what they have to say?

Labour has been trying to build around and emasculate the royal town of Sutton Coldfield for 30 years—it refers to us as “North Birmingham”—and, thanks to the Secretary of State, it now might well succeed. My 100,000 constituents have been totally and completely disfranchised. That is the very definition of the tyranny of the majority over the minority, and the Department and the Secretary of State have now made themselves complicit in this.

On the second point that the Secretary of State raised, neither the council nor the Department, and certainly not the inspector, has looked at the patently obvious alternatives. There could be a much more comprehensive regional approach, which the excellent Conservative mayoral candidate for the west midlands, Andy Street, has spoken up for. There are superb plans to build a Wolverhampton garden city, almost all of which would be on brownfield land, to provide 45,000 houses. There are small brownfield sites in Birmingham that have specifically not been included for consideration. We in Sutton Coldfield came up with the very reasonable proposal that there should be an eight-year moratorium on building 6,000 homes on the green belt while the other 45,000-plus were built on brownfield sites. That approach would enable the Government and the council to review the extent to which building on the green belt might be needed or acceptable. However, the proposal was rejected, without even any consideration by the inspector.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England made an excellent submission in February, which I sent to the Minister on 16 August. It made many excellent points that have not been addressed. I point out that when Birmingham was controlled by a coalition of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Tory councillors had plans to build the same number of houses as are now proposed by Labour-controlled Birmingham City Council, but without needing to encroach on the green belt. By definition, there are not even exceptional circumstances for building on the green belt, let alone “very exceptional circumstances”, which were the words used by the Secretary of State.

I accept of course that these are Labour plans, but Sutton Coldfield has been grievously let down. I believe that we were and are entitled to expect the protection of the Government, based on their manifesto commitment, and I am deeply disappointed that we have not been able to rely on that. The transport problems on our side of the Birmingham conurbation that will be caused by the development will be acute and horrific. There is no guarantee that the Labour council will spend the necessary money on infrastructure for these new builds. There was no proper consultation with the relevant health services and authorities, although the council was obliged to carry that out.

The Government have got themselves into a mess on the green belt by trying to face both ways at the same time. With this decision, they have massively shot themselves in the foot. My right hon. and hon. Friends will not trust the Department on issues involving the green belt, about which many of them are extremely sensitive, because of the ludicrous nature of this decision. Building more homes, which we all want, will therefore be much more difficult for the Department.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making a very cogent case. Does he accept that the reason the green belt has a high designation is that such areas are very special—they are green lungs in and around our great cities? Once they are built over, they are very difficult to recreate.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend puts the argument eloquently. That is exactly what my constituents feel. The west midlands has less green-belt land than many parts of the country, which is another reason why there should have been a much more holistic and imaginative approach, rather than this appalling scheme.

Amendments 28 and 29 offer the Government a chance to show good faith with regard to our 2015 election manifesto. I do not propose to trouble the House by pressing them to a Division, but I warn the Government that if they do not accept the principle behind what I am saying, if not the amendments, not only will they have great difficulty on house building, because they will not be trusted on the green belt, but I have no doubt that the other place, which has a strong history of looking at these matters, will oblige this House to think again.