Housing

Debate between Hilary Benn and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the nature of the land market, why reform is required and why that is one thing we have asked Sir Michael Lyons to look at in his work.

The next problem the Government should start looking at is the difficulty faced by local authorities in places such as Stevenage, Oxford, Luton and York, which want to see houses built to meet demand but do not have the land and neighbouring authorities are not co-operating and making that happen. Ministers recognise that there is a problem, because that is why they put the duty to co-operate in the national planning policy framework.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? On Stevenage?

[Hilary Benn]

I will give way.

[Stephen McPartland]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way on the issue of Stevenage, where he went with some of Labour colleagues, without informing me, to launch their housing policy. Is he aware that Labour-controlled Stevenage borough council has still not asked neighbouring North Hertfordshire district council whether it will have any houses required in its local plan, because Stevenage borough council believes it can meet its need within its own administrative boundaries?

[Hilary Benn]

What the hon. Gentleman has just said absolutely does not square with what the leader of Stevenage borough council has said to me—

[Stephen McPartland]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

Excuse me. It also does not square with the figures that I have looked at on the proposals for development to the north of Stevenage, which have been consistently blocked. The truth is that a duty to co-operate is not a duty to help each other out or to reach agreement. So in those circumstances, what is a council supposed to do? That shows why the right to grow would provide a means of overcoming this problem by requiring neighbouring local authorities to work together to ensure that the houses that need to be built are built. It is not a top-down—

[Stephen McPartland]

On a point of order—

[Hilary Benn]

It is no good asking me for a point of order.