Long-term Plan for Housing

Debate between Andrew Western and Lee Rowley

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am a huge fan of neighbourhood plans, as are many of my colleagues across the House. They give communities the opportunity to get involved in the planning process and to get into the detail. They also often demonstrate that having honest conversations with people about planning can take some of the challenge out of the system. We are updating the NPPF with regard to neighbourhood plans, and we are strengthening them, as my hon. Friend outlined. The NPPF is extant from the moment that it is uploaded. There are some indications at the back of the plan where policies take priority at a later date, but we are committed to putting neighbourhood planning at the centre of our planning policy, because we think that it is very successful and helpful for our communities.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am somewhat perplexed by the renewed focus on strengthening local plans given the abolition of the mandatory housing targets that underpin delivery against them. Indeed, the Minister appears to be outlining a situation in which local authorities can game the system and deliberately plan to under-deliver if they have an up-to-date local plan, but a local authority that is delivering can be stripped of its planning powers because its plan is not up to date. If the Minister is so committed to accelerating housing delivery, why is he creating a situation in which we are both preventing greenfield building and stopping significant increases to urban density?

[Lee Rowley]

We are not preventing increases of urban density. Indeed, we want that to happen. We recognise that there are considerations around things such as second staircases, which we are working at pace to resolve as quickly as possible. We want more homes. We recognise that the infrastructure is often in place in urban areas, and we are keen to take up that infrastructure to be able to unlock those homes for people who need them.

Capital Projects: Spending Decisions

Debate between Andrew Western and Lee Rowley

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The information about the distribution of levelling-up funds has been published. I have seen, across Yorkshire and north Derbyshire in the coalfields that the hon. Gentleman and I both represent, a significant transformative opportunity through the towns fund and the levelling-up fund, which will make a huge difference to those places that traditionally have been left behind and which this Government, and this Government only, have responded to in our policy agenda.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Colleagues will note that the Minister attempts to obfuscate through refusals to address the fundamental question of whether the approval process has changed. What supposedly drew the ire and frustration of the Secretary of State’s colleagues was a speech in Manchester on 25 January suggesting that further funding would be available for some northern councils. What caused more angst in the Treasury: the fact that money was being spent in a rogue manner, or the fact that it went against the Prime Minister’s long-standing ambition to divert money away from deprived areas back towards places such as Royal Tunbridge Wells?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for Stretford and Urmston for his point. He will know, because he has long experience in local government, that that would be a crude and inaccurate misrepresentation of what the Prime Minister said a number of months ago. The hon. Gentleman’s first point was about obfuscation. There was no obfuscation. I was absolutely clear at the beginning of my response about what has changed and why that is the case.