Business of the House
Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Nick Boles(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrea Leadsom
I will not take any interventions, because this is a Back-Bench day in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset.
For many years the convention has been that it is for the Government, as elected by the people, and with the confidence of this House, to set out the business. It is for Parliament to scrutinise, to amend, to reject and to approve. What today does is effectively turn that precedent on its head: those who are not in Government are deciding the business, and there are inevitable—
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. My right hon. Friend just claimed that the people elect the Government; is it not the case that the people elect Members of Parliament who, by majority, decide whether they can form, and support and have confidence in a Government?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Nick Boles
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
16. What steps he is taking to promote neighbourhood planning.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
Neighbourhood planning is proving to be one of the Government’s most popular reforms. Nearly 1,000 communities across England are working on neighbourhood plans, and all eight of the plans to go to referendum thus far have commanded popular support.
Nick Boles
I greatly enjoyed visiting Coton Park with my hon. Friend and meeting Jill Simpson-Vince. It is a textbook case of how a community can come together to improve their lives through neighbourhood planning.
Andrea Leadsom
In 2010, Northamptonshire council leaders rightly decided that the best way to get a local plan in place quickly was to stick with Labour’s west Northamptonshire joint planning unit. Can my hon. Friend confirm that if they should wish to get rid of this undemocratic body once the local plan is completed, I hope in March this year, they need only write to his office requesting that it be disbanded?
Nick Boles
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend’s local authorities on making sure that the best is not the enemy of the good. She is absolutely right that the constituent authorities would need only to write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ask for the order to be revoked.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Nick Boles
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
T3. The localism agenda is welcome, but what can my hon. Friend say to communities in my constituency, such as Collingtree, whose preference for the location of 1,000 new homes is being undermined, or Helmdon and Sulgrave, whose recent judicial review overturned a wind farm proposal, yet the developers are straight away having another go?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
On wind farm developments, the Government will be making announcements shortly. On housing developments, the key is for every local community to produce a plan—either a local plan or, even better, a local plan and a neighbourhood plan. That is the way for local communities to get control over the developments that take place in their area.
Food Prices (Planning Policy)
Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Nick Boles(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, in this, my first speech as a Minister—I hope that it is my worst speech as a Minister, in that things can only go up from here.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) on securing a debate on a subject that is very near to his heart and to that of many of his constituents. It is also near to the heart of many of my constituents and, indeed, of my own father, who has a small farm—much smaller than my hon. Friend’s—in the fine county of Devon.
I want to address the original subject, although the debate has been an excellent one, taking in almost every aspect of Government policy, for most of which, fortunately, I have no responsibility. The original subject, however, was the link between the planning system and the recent effects on food prices.
Perhaps the only part of the contribution from the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) with which I could agree was when she doubted the direct impact of land use and the planning system on food prices. This country imports a great deal of food—nearly 50%, but fortunately not more—and most foodstuffs, but not all, operate in a global market. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) pointed out, the reasons for recent rises in food prices are mostly global energy prices, the change in the value of sterling relative to other currencies and the changing nature of the demand for food from the rapidly developing countries of Asia and elsewhere.
I do not believe that the planning system can be held responsible for the pressure on food prices. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), pointed out that even if we cannot do much directly about food prices, we have a great interest in ensuring that we have a basic level of food security. Clearly, that is where the use of our land is important.
I hope that I can reassure hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, about the status of agriculture in the planning system, and particularly in the much slimmed-down planning policy framework introduced last year. Agriculture is the only industry—given how hard farmers work, it deserves to be called an industry—that has specific status in the planning system and explicit consideration in national policy. The policy framework is very clear about the importance of preserving agricultural land. Paragraph 112 states:
“Local planning authorities should take into account the economic and other benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land. Where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, local planning authorities should seek to use areas of poorer quality land in preference to that of a higher quality.”
That is an explicit indication to local authorities to try to preserve high-quality agricultural land where possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood said that much of the green belt is agricultural land, so any incursion into it for other uses is a particular threat to agricultural land. Here, too, I believe I can offer him reassurance that I hope will also reassure people who have other concerns about the green belt and the Government’s intentions. In the national planning policy framework, the Government have put in place very explicit and strong protection for the green belt. Paragraph 79 states:
“The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts. The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open; the essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness and their permanence.”
Agriculture is one of the few productive uses of land that preserves its openness by definition.
Paragraph 83 states:
“Local planning authorities with Green Belts in their area should establish Green Belt boundaries in their Local Plans which set the framework for Green Belt and settlement policy. Once established”
it
“should only be altered in exceptional circumstances, through the preparation or review of the Local Plan.”
My hon. Friend expressed concern that some authorities, including authorities in Nottinghamshire, have not attached sufficient priority to the development of brownfield sites. All I can say is that national policy is very clear about priorities. Paragraph 17 states:
“Planning should…encourage the effective use of land by reusing land that has been previously developed (brownfield land), provided that it is not of high environmental value”.
There are certainly strong indications to planning authorities that green-belt land should be preserved and that brownfield land, when possible and viable, should be developed in preference.
I hope that it will reassure hon. Members to learn that in 2010 only 2% of new dwellings were built on the green belt, and that the quantity of green belt has increased since 1997 because local authorities, which control the designation, have designated new land as green belt. Housing development on greenfield land, which is distinguished from green-belt land, has accounted for only 0.3% of the total land area of England since 1985. House building on green land has been on only 0.3% of the country’s total area. Some of the more apocalyptic visions painted not by hon. Members, but others outside, of Governments of various stripes concreting over the countryside have no basis in fact.
Andrea Leadsom
On a point of clarification, when the Minister says that so little greenfield and green belt land has been developed, does he include planning that has been granted, or just planning that has gone ahead?
Nick Boles
I thank my hon. Friend. I believe that that applies to buildings that have already gone up. Obviously, some permissions have been granted and development has not yet taken place, but I do not believe that would change the picture dramatically, because most permissions apply to land outside the green belt—much of it, although not all, to brownfield land. Our planning policies provide protection for agricultural and green-belt land.
The importance of diversification in the rural economy has been discussed; we heard about it from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood and others. Many of my constituents in Grantham make the journey to my hon. Friend’s farm shop, which is famous in those parts, so I know that that diversification has been successful. The national planning policy framework makes explicit the requirement for policies to
“support economic growth in rural areas in order to create jobs and prosperity…To promote a strong rural economy…neighbourhood plans should…support the sustainable growth and expansion of all types of business and enterprise in rural areas, both through conversion of existing buildings and well designed new buildings”
and
“promote the development and diversification of agricultural and other land-based rural businesses”.
I am happy to say that the Government are looking closely at the matter, and hope to introduce specific proposals to make it easier to convert agricultural buildings into homes and for other uses without having to go through the planning process. I believe that planning policies provide many of the protections that hon. Members seek. However, I am aware that much of the debate has focused on the balance between the demands on agriculture for food production, and other uses of land, whether agricultural or other, for renewable energy.
The national planning policy framework requires local planning authorities to have a positive strategy to promote renewable and low-carbon energy. We must remember the history of the energy situation in this country. We recently received a warning—I think it was from Ofgem—that we face a real risk of the lights going out in relatively few years. The main reason for that is the complete failure of the previous Government to grasp any difficult nettles—