Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Hayes and Angela Rayner

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hospice situation in this country has faced significant challenges because of the 14 years of devastation under the Conservatives. The Health Secretary has already raised these issues and knows that this is of importance; I will make sure that my hon. Friend gets to meet him.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister will know that my constituency, and Lincolnshire as a whole, is the breadbasket of Britain, producing 12% of the food consumed across the entire nation, including 30% of the vegetables and 20% of the sugar beet. That is because of the grade 1 and 2 land in Lincolnshire, yet Lincolnshire faces an invasion of giant pylons down the east coast and huge solar developments. Will she meet a delegation of colleagues from Lincolnshire and nearby, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), so that we can establish that energy security must never be a competitor with food security?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question. He knows that we launched a consultation on the national planning policy framework. We will protect agricultural land, we will ensure that we have renewable energy so we have energy security in this country, and we will get Britain building again.

Building Homes

Debate between John Hayes and Angela Rayner

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. It will be a challenge, but we are desperate to try to meet that challenge as quickly as we can. That is why we are moving at pace with the consultation exercise we have put forward today, which we will do as quickly as we can, so that we can have the affordable and social housing, the green spaces and the infrastructure that people desperately need.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. I appreciate that she will not have time today to wax lyrical about her vision of aesthetics or to expand at length on the relationship between truth and beauty. Nevertheless, given the welcome reference in her announcement to proportionality and to the link between the existing built environment and the scale of development, will she also take into account the character and style of development? She may know that I have served on the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission and in the Office for Place. Will she agree to meet the Office for Place to discuss beauty? She will know that the wealthy can always live in beautiful places and in beautiful homes, but people from council houses—from where she and I originate—deserve their chance to know, to sense and to see beauty.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with everything the right hon. Gentleman says. The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), will shortly meet all the stakeholders, and I think he has a meeting in the coming days with those the right hon. Gentleman just mentioned. I would love to work with him to make sure that we build the houses that people deserve. Whether it is social, affordable or any other housing, it should be beautiful and should have character and style, and we are determined to make that happen.