Local Plans (Public Consent)

Anne Marie Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.

When the Government came to power they got rid of the regional spatial strategy system of planning, and that was welcomed. That was a good move. We introduced the Localism Act 2011, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) correctly said, people feel let down. They feel that the 2011 Act and the principle of localism have not delivered and do not look like they will deliver what people want.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend says. One thing that I have lobbied hard for is the introduction of a new community right of appeal, which would give local people a real opportunity to have a say and would rebalance planning and deliver localism in the same way we have delivered an improvement in the planning process. Does he agree that that is a good idea?

[Mr Robertson]

Yes, I certainly would agree. We need to give more power to people, and that was suggested by the title of the debate, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe introduced. Local people feel that they are being ridden over by developers and that there is further confusion in the planning system. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to simplify, to ensure consistency and to clarify, certainly in my area, what the duty to co-operate actually means. More work needs to be done. He rightly referred to the letter from the Minister to Sir Michael Pitt, which said that green-belt land can be removed in the local plan process only in consultation with local people, and I must say that local people do not want that to happen. If it does happen, it is not because local people want it to happen. They believe in localism and welcomed the Localism Act 2011, but they are not convinced that it is delivering for them. It is better not to have a policy than to have one that goes on to disappointment.

My constituents are not opposed to development. I work every day to bring jobs to my constituency, as I am sure that all hon. Members do, and with those jobs must come housing. In 2007, my constituency was under water due to flooding. People lost their water supplies for three weeks and many people had to live in caravans for over a year. We had such devastation, which was threatened again earlier this year—the Prime Minister came to see the situation—and we do not want houses built in the wrong areas. That is what my constituents would want me to say today.

The Members present are almost exclusively Conservative. We have one Labour Front-Bench spokesperson and a couple each from the DUP and the Liberal Democrats. I probably should not say this publicly, but if we do not clarify the policy and sort it out, the Conservative party will lose votes. I want the Minister to take that on board. That is not the reason to sort the policy—there are many others—but it sounds like a pretty good one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

I fully understand the frustrations of the residents of Daws Hill about that decision. It is unfortunately the case that the council is the duly elected planning authority. It is democratically accountable and therefore it is with the council that the ultimate decision lies on which areas are to be designated.

I believe that every single contribution to the debate started with an acknowledgement of the desperate need for housing. The debate was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker)—I congratulate him on doing so—and so perhaps he will forgive me if I point out that in Wycombe, which is certainly not untypical in the south of the country, the affordability ratio stands at 9.6 compared with 6.45 nationally. That means, very simply, what the father of four told him: the average price of a house in the lower quartile—the lower quarter of available houses—is 9.6 times the average income in the lower quartile of earnings, so someone who is not particularly well paid would have to spend nearly 10 times their salary to buy a house.

Now, as we know, the Governor of the Bank of England has, entirely responsibly, clarified that mortgages of more than four times income should be rare. We also know that mortgage lenders require a deposit, and the Government have put in place the Help to Buy scheme to make it possible for people to get mortgages on 5% deposits. However, there is simply no way that that gentleman, or many like him, will ever be able to afford to pull together nine or 10 times the average income without huge support from somewhere else. This Government are not willing to stand by while housing and home ownership become the preserve of the rich and those with wealthy parents, and we have to act.

[Anne Marie Morris]

The Minister is making some good points about the need for housing, but he is making none about the need for local people to have a say about where that housing is. Does he not agree that a community right of appeal, not a third-party right of appeal, might well put the Government on the side of responsible communities?

[Nick Boles]

If my hon. Friend is a little patient, she will allow me to say how the planning system absolutely gives people the ability to decide where developments should go.

I would like to start by explaining where the concept of objectively assessed need comes from. In every constituency, there are people who would like to buy a house or a flat. They might move several times, because they currently rent, and rental leases are often relatively short. They might not even get on the electoral roll or, indeed, be living in the area where they would ultimately like to buy. Who represents them in this democracy? Who represents them in local residents’ meetings deciding how many houses the community is willing to accept? We need to represent them; that is why a national Government are elected. That is why Governments have a responsibility to tell local councils, “Yes, you should decide where you are going to meet your development needs, but, no, you don’t decide whether you meet them.” We do not allow local councils to say, “We do not want to provide enough school places”—we require them to provide enough places. We do not say to the local national health service, “You decide whether you want to provide enough doctors and hospital beds”—we say, “You have to work out how and where you are going to meet your needs.” It is simply the same with housing. We represent those who do not have a vote in these public meetings and have not voted for the local councillors, perhaps because they do not live in the area yet or are not even of voting age. I take that responsibility very seriously, and I make no apology for that.