Growth Deals
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I will indeed. There is no stronger advocate for Worcester than my hon. Friend. He will know that the agreement we have with the LEP mentions the importance of improving the capacity of that road, and there is a commitment from the Government to work with local leaders to advance that.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
May we have a reality check? The extra money for the Sheffield city region—£30 million over a number of years—needs to be put in the context of the £60 million of cuts to Sheffield city council in the next year alone. The Minister is recognised as one of the most committed devolutionists in the Government. We can accept and welcome extra money and extra powers going to our city regions and combined authorities—more money where the decision on how it will be spent is made at the local level not the national level. Will he explain, however, why we cannot have a package of devolution measures that transfers responsibility for raising taxation at a local level in England—this is done in Scotland—and therefore give more powers to local councils in that way? He probably believes that that is the right approach, so why can he not convince his Government colleagues of it?
Greg Clark
No, I do not. It is worth pointing out that the total size of the growth deal with Sheffield is £328 million, which is a huge investment; it is a transfer of funds from central Government to the leaders of Sheffield. I do not think that the answer to the problem of creating further opportunities for places outside London is to increase taxes; I think the answer is to take money away from central Government and put it in the hands of people who can make decisions better informed by their local knowledge.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark(11 years ago)
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Greg Clark
All I would say is that my hon. Friend is a personal example of someone who makes politics interesting, and there is a good case for his being included in those debates for that reason.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
11. In a debate on a statutory instrument before Christmas, the Minister indicated that where local authorities needed extra resources to make proper efforts to maximise the number of people on the register, those resources would be available to them. How are they going to go about applying for them—what will the process be?
Greg Clark
The process is already under way. There has been an allocation based on the assessed requirement of the local authority, but it has been made very clear that if it produces evidence of why its need is higher, that need will be met. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, in Sheffield, £240,000 has been allocated on top of what is usually spent on electoral registration for this purpose. If there are any exceptional circumstances, they are being considered by my officials right now.
Infrastructure
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Greg Clark
It is not clear to me whether the hon. Gentleman is criticising PFI. If PFI was initiated by the previous Conservative Government, the champion of it—the party that relied on it and put it off balance sheet, and that misused it and mortgaged the future of our country—was clearly the Labour party.
After 13 years of the Labour Government our roads were more congested, our railways were creaking, house building was at its lowest level since the 1920s and electricity customers were facing black-outs for the first time since before the war. Our great cities were as poorly connected as they had been a century earlier, while across Europe and the world, new roads and railways brought cities together in 21st-century networks of prosperity. As the excellent report published recently by the London School of Economics states,
“infrastructure has been neglected, particularly in the areas of transport and energy. For example, more than a fifth of the UK’s electricity-generating capacity will go out of commission over the next decade and Ofgem…has warned of power shortages by 2015.”
That is the reflection after 13 years of neglect of Britain’s infrastructure.
Greg Clark
Of course I will give way to my friend the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee.
Mr Betts
I hope to find a bit of common ground with the Minister. He knows that local authority borrowing is covered by prudential guidelines, apart from borrowing for house building, which is covered by a separate cap imposed by the Treasury. Given that housing finance accounts are now separate, if a local authority were allowed to borrow up to the prudential limits for house building, it could potentially borrow to build another 60,000 homes without any cost to the Treasury. In other countries, that would not even count as Government borrowing. Is the Minister prepared to look at that as one way of kick-starting house building and creating more jobs in the construction industry?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman knows that it does count as Government borrowing in this country, which constrains this Government as it did the previous Government. Being a fair man he will be the first to acknowledge that the work I have been doing with our eight core cities has found innovative ways through tax increment financing and other schemes to invest in infrastructure in anticipation of some of the revenues associated with that. We are doing everything we can and have had some success in being creative in that regard.
As Europe and the developing world streaked ahead, the gulf in this country between London and the north widened under Labour. Only one of the eight largest cities outside London has an income per head that is above the country’s national average, which is in marked contrast to the norm on the continent of Europe. Seven out of the eight biggest German cities outside Berlin, and six out of the eight biggest cities in Italy, have an income per head that is above the national average. In France, that is true for half the largest cities, and for the others the figure is close to the national average. In other countries around Europe and the world, great cities outside the capital are motors of growth and drive the local economy. In this country, the legacy of 13 years of Labour is that the gulf with the north and in our cities across the country has widened and is a source of shame.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
I do agree. I have the greatest respect for Councillor Janke, but six leaders in 10 years is no way to run a city as great as Bristol. The leaders of Liverpool, Leicester and Birmingham city councils have all said that they could lead their city better as an elected mayor. The mayoral referendum offers an historic choice to the people of Bristol: they have the chance to make it a turning point in the city’s history.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
At the most recent meeting of the Liaison Committee, the Prime Minister, in a response to a question that I asked, said that
“I can absolutely assure you that on the city deals…we can do those deals with individual cities whether or not they are going to have a mayor.”
Yet, in the Yorkshire Evening Post on Saturday, the Minister agreed that there were powers that the Government would be happy to give to an elected mayor, but not to a traditional council. Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister that powers can be devolved to cities irrespective of whether they have an elected mayor or an elected council leader, as long as they have strong governance arrangements?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman and his Select Committee on Communities and Local Government know that I am always and everywhere keen to devolve power to local government, including to cities. What we have said to conclude our city deals is that there has to be stronger governance, and the case of Bristol demonstrates that. When there is a revolving door of leaders, it is impossible to have the necessary accountability, so there needs to be stronger governance, and an elected mayor meets that model.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
Part of the problem with the Planning Inspectorate is that, in the regime to date, it has been required to interpret voluminous national planning regulations—many times in a state of inconsistency—and to apply regional spatial strategies. The conflict between those things, caused by successive Governments and, in particular, by the previous Government’s imposition of regional strategies, often leads in the planning system to a real tension and often antagonism, which is a disaster for the future prosperity of our country.
By putting power into the hands of local people so they see that decisions are going to be taken locally and respected locally, part of the purpose of our reforms is to move away from the situation in which decisions taken locally are overturned by the Planning Inspectorate. I have made that very clear to the inspectorate. I went to speak to the inspectorate the morning after we published the NPPF, and I made it very clear that the framework is a localist document which it is to respect.
Greg Clark
I shall give way to the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee and then make some progress.
Mr Betts
The document that the Government have now produced is clearly an awful lot better than the draft, and the Minister has complimented the Committee on the report that we produced, but in the end the real test is whether the new guidance is better than the old guidance—presumably whether, as a result of the changes, we get more houses built, more green energy projects approved and more development in general. But, if the sum total of all local decisions to which the Minister has referred does not account for the amount of growth that the Government want to see delivered in the economy as a whole, what will be the Government’s answer to that?
Greg Clark
We do expect to see more homes delivered, and one feature of the previous system was that, despite having national and regional targets, it bore no relation to what was being built on the ground. Our contention, which has been established through the consultation, is that if we work with the grain of people, if people have the types of homes that they want to see in their environment, and if we raise design standards so that people feel that they are a positive contribution to the built environment, we are likely to avoid the contention that has thwarted the delivery of homes. Such delivery is crucial to all our constituents: we cannot go on with a situation in which we fail to provide homes and employment spaces for them.
The outcome of the consultation has proved satisfactory to many commentators. Almost everyone who commented did so favourably, and they might give the hon. Gentleman some confidence in the idea that the people who gave evidence to his inquiry feel positive about the results.
It is fair to say that the outcome is going to be good for the economy. The CBI said that it
“gets the balance right between supporting jobs and growth, and serving the interests of the environment and society.”
The Institute of Directors said:
“It is great to see hundreds of…unnecessary rules being cut out of the planning system... Britain needs to get building again and these reforms allow that to happen”.
That addresses the hon. Gentleman’s point directly.
The NPPF is good for anyone who needs a home. The National Housing Federation, which, as Members know, represents social housing providers, said:
“The NPPF will give England the simpler, speedier and more positive planning system it needs.”
The Home Builders Federation said:
“The new system strikes a sensible balance between economic growth, social need and environmental considerations.”
It also stated that it is
“a sound basis for a more pro-growth planning system”.
The NPPF is good for the countryside and rural prosperity. The Country Land and Business Association said:
“The section on supporting a prosperous rural economy is excellent, laying the foundations for the growth of all types of business in rural areas.”
The framework is good for town centres. The British Retail Consortium said:
“The NPPF should do a lot to boost the country’s high streets and encourage vibrant town centres.”
It goes on:
“These practical measures…should help bring a boost to local economies.”
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
We encourage neighbourhood plans to set out, at a more local level than the council’s plan, what should be the look and feel of towns. Bury St Edmunds is a town with a great deal of civic pride and would benefit from that. Neighbourhood plans have to be consistent with the broad approach of the local plan, but it is right that specific local details, which in towns such as my hon. Friend’s may relate to architectural design and historical consistency, should be expressed in a neighbourhood plan. They would then become part of the formal plan and determine planning applications.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister personally for the way in which he has dealt with the Communities and Local Government Committee and for what seems to be a generally favourable response to our report, although we are still to see the detail. I have two specific issues to raise. Will he confirm whether the proposal that the
“default answer to development proposals is ‘yes’”
is in the final document? If the “significantly and demonstrably” test remains in the document and an application for development meets that test but fails the sustainable development test, which test has priority?
Greg Clark
Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for the work of his Select Committee. No development can take place that is unsustainable. That is the commitment that we give on that point. I have forgotten the other question.
Greg Clark
The default answer was a variation of a presumption that everyone agreed was not terribly helpful, and we have deleted it from the document.
Localism Bill
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Betts
We on the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government received much evidence on the important issue of transitional arrangements. Does the Minister accept that the purpose of transitional arrangements is to enable local authorities to adjust to the new planning regime that will eventually be implemented, and to give them time to do so properly? There will be detailed, thorough negotiations with the Local Government Association in trying to reach an agreement about what a proper length of time for that transitional arrangement should be.
Greg Clark
I concur with that.
Overall, the amendments improve the Bill. I am grateful to their lordships for the time they spent scrutinising and approving them, and to all Members of this House and the other place who participated in initiating the amendments we have back with us today.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I want to make some progress, as I want Members to able to contribute to the debate. Let me deal with a couple of important issues that have been raised about the definition of sustainability.
Mr Betts
Let me ask the Minister about the issue of 20%, as it is important to the context of building on land where that building will have the least environmental damage. If there is an extra 20%, will local authorities be able to prioritise which sites should be developed first within the 120% requirement? If not, it will be open to developers to cherry pick which sites they build on and it will be the land associated with the least environmental damage that will be left behind, as they will be the hardest sites to build on, while the greenfield sites will be built on first.
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point; it is exactly the intention that councils should be able to prioritise and to bring forward the lowest environmentally valuable sites first. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. The Localism Bill, through neighbourhood planning, provides precisely such a basis to protect and, indeed, promote the future of district high streets, and we have already funded a number of areas, especially on high streets, in order to demonstrate their ability to capture the importance of regional high streets as well as of city centres.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
One of the most successful policies of the previous Conservative Government was their change to the planning guidance in the mid-’90s to ensure that priority was given to retail development in district or city centres or adjacent to them. Will the Minister now give an assurance that his proposed changes to the planning system will not water that down in any way and lead to an increase in stand-alone retail developments at the expense of our city and town centres?
Localism Bill
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
On the abolition of everything that is regional, which is clearly Government policy and has been for some time, the Minister has just indicated that the duty to co-operate was the central plank that would replace on some sort of strategic basis the regional dimension. With hindsight, does he think the Government gave enough attention and thought to how the duty to co-operate should be formulated and how it should work in practice? There seems to have been an awful lot of criticism from everybody with an interest in these matters about the Government’s position in the Bill.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. I know that as Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee, he has taken a great interest in these matters. I have always been clear that the Bill represents a major change and it behoves any Minister from whatever party to listen to representations and to seek to improve what is a different way of solving a classic problem—planning issues that have a larger than local dimension to them. The previous Government attempted a resolution through regional arrangements. We formed a view, for better or for worse. Some of us on the Government Benches thought that those arrangements should not have been entered into in the first place. Those on the Opposition Benches would reflect, I think, that the arrangements have had their day and should be replaced with a means of addressing larger than local issues that is robust and captures the need for strategic planning. I will go straight to the amendments that relate to that—Government amendments 144 to 158—and say something about the Opposition’s amendments as I do so.
We accepted that there was an opportunity to strengthen the duty to co-operate that was set out in the Bill as originally drafted. Indeed, I perhaps agree that a minimalist view was taken of that duty. We have replaced it with something that enjoys support from a wide range of groups, having reached a form that they endorse as a useful resolution to some of these matters. I pay tribute to the effort and work that many groups outside the House have put into strengthening the duty to co-operate. It would be churlish not to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who approached these matters in a similar vein; the amendments tabled by the Opposition in Committee provided a basis on which to discuss these matters and to make progress.
The duty to co-operate will be significantly strengthened by the amendments that we, as promised, have brought forward. They are modelled closely on what we said was appropriate in Committee and what the Royal Town Planning Institute has proposed. As the professional planning body, it was the organisation that worked most closely on this, but a wide range of other outside bodies were involved, including the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition, which includes the WWF, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Town and Country Planning Association. In particular, we have taken up their suggestions, which were echoed in some of the amendments tabled by the Opposition in Committee, to make clearer the application to cross-boundary issues and to the marine planning system, which needs to be addressed. We have also taken input from the Planning Officers Society, whose members will be charged with meeting the duty to co-operate. As a result of its suggestion, our amendment proposes to put a reference to county councils on to the face of the Bill. That deals with one of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments that he will no doubt talk to shortly.
The combined effect has been to create a much stronger duty to co-operate that covers all authorities and a proposed list of prescribed bodies that themselves would be subject to that duty, because planning matters clearly concern not only local authorities, but other public bodies. I know from speaking with councils up and down the country that one of the frustrations is that they sometimes feel that they have not had the full and enthusiastic co-operation of other public bodies in producing plans that are clearly relevant to them.
I have placed in the Library of the House our draft list of bodies to be included in addition to local authorities. They include the Environment Agency, the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, Natural England, the Mayor of London, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Homes and Communities Agency, primary care trusts, the Marine Management Organisation, the Office of Rail Regulation, the Highways Agency, Transport for London, integrated transport authorities and highways authorities. I think that it is absolutely right that those public bodies should be required to give every co-operation to local authorities in producing strategic plans that are larger than local plans for their area.
We also propose in these amendments an enabling power that will require all bodies that are subject to the duty to co-operate to have regard to the activities of other bodies when preparing plans that may not have a public character. Foremost among these are local enterprise partnerships. We intend to identify local enterprise partnerships as bodies that the prescribed bodies with the duty to co-operate must take into account and with which they will need to co-operate fully.
The duty to co-operate applies to the preparation of all development plan documents and, in particular, it requires engagement to maximise effectiveness. This cannot be a minimal engagement that simply responds to a questionnaire, which it was feared the original formulation might lead to. There must be active engagement to maximise the effectiveness of all relevant development plan documents. It applies to all strategic issues, which will be interpreted as issues that cross at least two local authority planning areas. It refers to sustainable development, because we know that the environment, in particular, does not stop at local authority boundaries and continues way beyond them, so it is absolutely right that there should be a requirement to co-operate on that. Infrastructure requirements typically go beyond local authority boundaries as well. It requires consideration to be given to the preparation of joint plans and development documents. In particular, I hope and expect that local enterprise partnerships will use their planning powers to pool some of their policies relating to the development of the economy so that they will have attractive, appealing and clear pro-growth policies, especially in areas where there is a need to attract new employers.
The crucial test of the duty to co-operate is the soundness of the plan. If the inspector finds that the duty has not been complied with, the plan will be unsound and cannot be adopted. Therefore, there is an absolute safeguard that this is not just a voluntary activity, but that it is absolutely at the heart of plan making, and rightly so, because the strategic level is very important to emphasise.
The amendment, which is the product of extensive consultation with the professional bodies and some of the other representative bodies, anticipates and deals with many of the amendments that Opposition Front Benchers might be minded to move. If I have time at the end of our considerations on this group, I will respond to the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. In particular, amendment 293 deals with the inclusion of county councils, and that is covered by our amendments. He will have heard me mention integrated transport authorities and the marine planning organisations in the list of prescribed organisations that I intend to publish. Sustainable development is very clearly marked there and is explicitly referenced, as are local transport plans and marine plans.
On this new clause, I can do no better than quote the briefing on that which the Royal Town Planning Institute made available to Members:
“The RTPI has worked closely with the Government on strengthening the arrangements for planning at the larger than local level and believes that the amended Clause 90 should be supported.”
It states that the Government are
“to be congratulated for listening on this issue.”
I hope that we have been able to discharge the commitments that I made in Committee to establish a replacement for the regional arrangements that is rather more robust than the original version.
Let me turn to some of the other new clauses and amendments tabled by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, has asked that at this stage we consider the specific question of whether a definition of sustainable development should be included in the Bill. New clause 2 has been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and her colleagues, and those on the Opposition Front Bench have tabled some amendments relating to this matter. I will give an indication of the approach I would like to take on this, because it is an area that, as many Members know, is close to by heart. I completely agree that the purpose of planning is to promote sustainable development and that all plans and decisions should reflect that.
New clause 2 captures where we should be, and I certainly undertake to give my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole most of what she seeks. As was always intended, we will bring out a draft national planning policy framework in July, which will have sustainable development at its heart. It will set out what we mean by sustainable development.
Greg Clark
I have given clear assurances at the Dispatch Box that this is not what the RTPI perhaps suspected or what the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich clearly suspected: that this was some grand plan to—as he put it—buy and sell planning permission. That is not the case. There is no change in the dispensation.
Greg Clark
I give way to the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee.
Mr Betts
I want to get down to practicalities. Given that these matters are now material considerations, is it not the case that when an application comes before a local planning authority, the officer of that authority will have a responsibility to explain in their recommendations precisely what financial considerations there are and how much will be gained by the authority and the community from granting the application? That is completely different from any present requirement on any planning officer to explain any financial matters before the planning committee makes a decision on an application.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Clive Betts and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
I am pleased to confirm to my hon. Friend that we have indeed done that. It is worth pointing out that because of that great panoply of regulation and imposition, only 18% of authorities had actually adopted a regional strategy, years after they were first required.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I do not know whether the Minister is aware of or concerned about the damage that his changes to planning policies are already causing, but has he had the chance to read a well researched article in the Financial Times at the weekend, which showed that 7,500 houses in various schemes have already been cancelled as a result of those changes? Is it not the case that the Government’s policies are already proving damaging to the house building industry and bad for everyone in desperate need of a home?
Greg Clark
I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Communities and Local Government Committee, but I do not know where he has been for the past few years. He should know that the number of house completions has been at an historic low—the lowest since the second world war. Our intention is to increase house building by removing the imposition that sets people against development. It is a disastrous situation when people are against developments. By allowing people to create communities in the way that they want and to share in the economic benefits of that, we can take the poison out of the planning system.