Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Mann and Lord Lilley

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

This Infrastructure Bill is perhaps best described as infrastructure bits and pieces; it contains little on the infrastructure of the country and what we need for the next 50 or 100 years. It contains nothing on broadband and airports—nothing even on gas access, despite the fact that the very villages that do not have access to gas are the ones nearest the potential shale gas sites. The Bill contains nothing on cycleways. I am not a cyclist, but it is palpable that over the next couple of decades we are going to need bespoke cycleways separate from roads such as the A60, which goes through Bassetlaw, to allow people to cycle. The planning process needs to be skewed to incentivise that and make it happen sooner rather than later.

The Bill contains nothing on green energy, for which there are not only environmental arguments but a fundamental economic argument: we will lose a competitive advantage if other countries have large amounts of green energy and we have little, both in terms of our national accounts and our industry.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

rose—

[John Mann]

No, I will not give way just now.

The Bill contains nothing on energy efficiency. Again, the current capital level and its efficiency into the future is fundamental to how we define infrastructure. The Bill does contain things on housing, but not all the right things. The local development frameworks, the localism and the neighbourhood development planning ought to be causing such mutiny on the Government Benches. Middle England is revolting over the issue and Bassetlaw is having an uprising, because 95% of local plans have either been aborted or rejected in the past year.

Virtually no local development frameworks are in place, because the Government changed the guidelines last year so all the housing targets, forced on councils previously, have had to be scrapped, with each council now having to consult its neighbouring authorities. Virtually no council has done that, so every council—having prepared for two or three years, with huge amounts of consultation, including a vast amount in Bassetlaw, to determine where the housing the Government are forcing on us needs to go—has to start the entire process again because it has not consulted the neighbouring authorities. That is the case across almost all the country and it is an absolute farce.

Let me deal with the concept that we all need more housing regardless. The Government inspector has been cited, but the Government inspector is the Secretary of State, instructed on the basis of Government policy. It is this coalition Government who are forcing housing on areas that do not want it. When we have developed our neighbourhood development plans in my area, people say, “Well, we will accept a bit of housing here. This bit of land is wasted and we could do with a bit of housing there.” When local people are in control they will rationally allow their areas to develop in ways that they want and which are popular.

Instead, what we get is, as in Retford recently, everybody, including the council, saying that we do not need housing outside the area of the town, but the Government saying, “You’ve got to have it.” If the council does not vote it through, the developer will win on appeal, citing Government policy, and the council has to pay £300,000 a pop in costs. Councils across the country, particularly Tory ones, are dealing with this problem day in, day out. That is total nonsense. Whether by backing amendments from the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) or by framing better ones myself, I will ensure that there are amendments allowing an approach that gives local people control over the planning system on housing.

The approach should allow us to define the kinds of housing. In my area, we could have 500 or 1,000 bungalows —some for rent, perhaps council bungalows, and some for sale, rather than five-bedroom, six-bedroom or seven-bedroom houses that nobody wants locally. That approach might be popular, but it is not popular with the developers. I hope this coalition understand that it is going to lose a lot of votes if it does not listen to me on this.

The second issue I wish to cover in the short time available is fracking and shale gas. I am not an extremist. I have a simple view, which I have put out there to the public: there should be nothing within 2 km of a settlement. There is enough land; those who are speculating for shale gas are saying that pretty much the whole of England can be covered, so it does not need to happen near any of the villages, hamlets or conurbations in my area, thank you very much. The public agree with that, and it would be a nice little amendment to slip in, although it does not satisfy those who say shale gas is bad.

We have another problem with fracking in my area: our water comes from the aquifer. People think, “This is a problem”—even the industry says it is a problem, pointing to the regulations, safety and its competence in dealing with the problem. We do not want the aquifer damaged in any way. So, again, we must let local people decide. By all means throw bribes at people in my area, because the bribes ought to go to the local community, not to landowners. As I have said, if there is a bribe it should be in the form of the green retrofitting of schools, churches and community buildings. If there is a bribe to be thrown in and the community wants to vote for it, that is fine; I do not have a problem with that. But if my communities say that they do not want any fracking—they do not want any shale gas or coalbed methane to be taken from a certain area and that it should be done somewhere else, we should have the right to make that decision.

The Government said they were in favour of localism, but on housing developments the opposite has been the case, as they have stabbed their own MPs and councillors in the back—all of them know it. It is the same with shale gas. We should allow local people to decide, but ensure that they cannot decide something that is going to damage aquifers or any other part of the infrastructure that affects everything else, which is why amendments relating to water will be important in the Bill.

Let us give local people the say rather than have the man from the Ministry—the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—giving the instruction and saying, “Here’s what will happen.” Then we can deliver infrastructure in a way that is popular. That might save the Government the election, but they will be too stupid to do it. Labour should vote for such a move, because the people would like it.