Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Kit Malthouse

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is quite right that, as I said in my previous answer, small design changes or equipment such as CCTV can have a huge impact on crime. We know, for example, that alley gating can result in a 43% reduction in burglary—I was sorry to read that she was burgled earlier this year. We will encourage applications to the fund from the areas that are most significantly affected, particularly by acquisitive crime, on the basis that the worst affected 5% of areas account for 23% of all offences. I look forward to entertaining a bid from Humberside police.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Ind)]

The Minister will be aware that there is a plethora of evidence that we can design out crime, both in the built environment and through the design of objects. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care recently launched the national academy for social prescribing, to link healthcare with the arts and creative industries. Can the Minister update us on the work that the Home Office is doing with our world-beating creative and arts industries to help to combat crime?

[Kit Malthouse]

In typical fashion, the right hon. Gentleman poses an intriguing challenge, which I shall have to research in the Department to find out whether there has been any impact. However, one area that I know we could do more work with, and that is a significant contributor to the cultural life of the nation, is the architectural profession, which often does not make crime prevention a top requirement when putting in place developments, but very often should.

Beauty and the Built Environment

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Vaizey]

First, I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) said: we have had far too many Housing Ministers, and I call upon the Prime Minister to keep this wonderful man in office until the 2022 election and many years beyond. Secondly, I caution against this debate tipping over into an attack on modern architecture. Robin Hood Gardens may not be lamented, but Park Hill in Sheffield—a similar design—has been restored and is much loved. As the Minister who listed Preston bus station to much anger, I am delighted that it is now treasured by the local community.

[Kit Malthouse]

I acknowledge what my right hon. Friend says, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings said, that is often an accident of ergonomics, form and beauty coming together, just as it did for the roof at the British Museum—an extraordinary structure in which, exactly right, ergonomics and form come together.

Some of the best examples of beautiful buildings are delivered by small and medium-sized enterprises, from self-build to the refurbishment of historic buildings. Sadly, the 2007-08 economic crash killed a number of such growing developers, and we are yet to see a new talent pool emerge. I believe, however, that SMEs are part of the key to the challenge. That is why we are directing our home building fund towards SMEs—to give them the confidence to grow and build, and to raise the bar on design quality. By having more players in the market, we shall get them to compete on innovation and quality.

Ultimately, it comes down to delivering houses that people want to live in, buildings where people want to work and places that people want to call home. More than that, we must build things that elevate and entertain. That is what the Government are hoping to and will deliver in the future. I look forward to working with many hon. Members on that most important of missions. I close by—

[Mr Vaizey]

London views?

[Kit Malthouse]

Sorry, yes. I asked my team to update me on the London views. Apparently, there is a campaign by London First and other developers to relax the protections, but so far they remain in the draft London plan. We shall see where that plan lands.

I shall finish my speech by returning to that Larkin poem. Members may remember—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings does—that the most affecting part of that poem is in the second stanza, when Larkin reveals that the couple he has been looking at are actually holding hands. They have been holding hands for the centuries for which they have been lying there. At the end of the poem he ends with that famous line:

“What will survive of us is love.”

In 200 or 300 years’ time, what will future generations see as a symbol of our love for them, projected forward in time? All that will survive of us is those things that we build today. We are joined in our ambition to ornament their lives and to create the beauty that will enhance their existence for centuries to come, as ours has been enhanced by the generations who came before us.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Kit Malthouse

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I absolutely think that nuclear waste is important, particularly to us in this country. That is why we should have total control of it ourselves and not be reliant on a series of countries that will perhaps not even be willing to put money into researching how to dispose of, or reprocess or otherwise use nuclear waste.

We have been members of the IAEA since 1957. We have the capability to make the change; indeed, there is a strategic argument that the Office for Nuclear Regulation would be much better served if it had responsibility for all three of the civil nuclear strands—safety, security, and regulation and safeguarding. We lead the world in safety regulation; we can lead the world in the other two.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am immensely enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech, not least as I have discovered that the one person in the country who went to the polls on 23 June specifically to get us out of Euratom also happens to be a Member of this House. It is a remarkable coincidence. If I may probe his argument, does it not have a weakness, in that if he is saying that so many members of the EU want to undermine civil nuclear power, is this not precisely the wrong time for the Brits to leave the French to themselves? Does he also agree that, regardless of his attitude to Euratom, we will still have to go through an incredible number of hoops to recreate what we have benefited from?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

No, I completely disagree with my right hon. Friend. This is not the wrong time; it is exactly the right time for us to recognise that there is a world beyond the EU in terms of nuclear research. There has been much angst in the House already about nuclear scientists being able to travel freely, but I would point out that they do actually exist outside the European Union. There are lots of them in Japan, Korea, China and elsewhere. Indeed, the leading edge of nuclear research and the development of civil nuclear power is elsewhere. As I have said, we are dealing with a community of countries that are turning their back on this technology. Even if we get to the holy grail of fission, and we manage to get fusion going from the great reactor in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, the Germans will not use it. They have said already that it is of no use to them. The idea that they will continue to fund it into the future is fallacious.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am always further intrigued by the arguments of people such as my hon. Friend, who imply that we could do nothing outside Europe when we were members of Euratom. However, we got the Chinese to invest in Hinkley while remaining members. How did our membership prevent us from co-operating with other nuclear states?

[Kit Malthouse]

It has not prevented us, but we now have the opportunity to recognise that the nuclear community is global. While Euratom has served its purpose thus far, the point I am trying to make is that the trend of European opinion is very much against nuclear, so those countries are unlikely to continue pumping the money into Euratom that it has hitherto enjoyed. That is why we need to look elsewhere. It is perfectly possible for us to have a bilateral relationship with France. We have one on nuclear defence at the moment, which was signed in 2010; we can do the same on power. There is absolutely no threat to our participation in some of the global research programmes, such as the one at Culham and the ITER in the south of France, which currently includes Korea, China, Japan and Russia. There are lots of ways in which we can be involved.

My message today, I guess, is that people have to learn that Euratom cannot be part of project fear. It must not be part of project fear; it is far too strategically important to us not to reach out to the rest of the world. I am quite happy for us to have an associate membership, if that is what is required, but there is a world beyond the EU, and we have seen that in medical isotopes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) said, no one is pretending that we will not be sent medical isotopes when we come out, but that points to a strategic problem because of our membership of Euratom: we should be manufacturing those isotopes here. Why have we not got a reactor that will create them? We have the largest agglomeration of life sciences research on the planet, yet we do not have this feather in our cap—this piece of the jigsaw. Notwithstanding the SNP’s antipathy to nuclear, perhaps we should build that kind of reactor in Scotland, given that thousands and thousands of Scots benefit from medical isotopes every year.

The argument about Euratom has exposed the strategic nature of nuclear to us, in defence, civil nuclear and medical, and allows us now to think more coherently about which way we go. Civil nuclear is an international effort. Regulation should be at international level, as should partnership, so that we can finally find the holy grail of fusion power, which will solve our power generation problems well into the next century.