Planning (Community Right of Appeal)

Debate between Anne Marie Morris and Richard Graham

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris]

That is an interesting point. Clearly, the devil will be in the detail, once this proposal is properly worked up. In a way, however, the hon. Lady leads me on to my next point, which is this: for this appeal system to work, we must define what a community is. For me, a community will be something like a ward, or a neighbourhood as defined under Localism Act 2011, but it also needs to be the people in an area who will be truly impacted by a development. I do not have a precise solution, but that is a way forward.

Clearly, there must be weight, and therefore a percentage of the community that feels strongly about an issue. There cannot just be nimbyism, so there has to be quite a high threshold before a planning appeal can be triggered.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is the champion of communities and we are all grateful to her for securing this debate. On the specific point of a community right of appeal, does she agree that one aspect that councils and therefore the Department for Communities and Local Government should look at is situations in which a council has already listed something as being an asset of community value but then decides to give a developer permission to do something that effectively destroys that asset? Does she agree that that is entirely contradictory, and that we need to include consideration of such situations in a community right of appeal?

[Anne Marie Morris]

I strongly support that suggestion and it would be an excellent addition to the list of things that might be considered.

If the appeal mechanism is to be effective, it must be easy to use, low in bureaucracy and cheap. However, it cannot be beyond the wit of the Government to come up with a set of forms and a formula that will make it accessible to communities. I also believe that there are communities, community groups and charities out there that will be more than happy to put forward proposals for support.

School Funding

Debate between Anne Marie Morris and Richard Graham

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. There is a very strong representation from the south-west here today, including the Chair, and we welcome that.

School funding is an issue that has bedevilled the country, particularly for those of us who represent underfunded areas. In many ways, the problem of school funding reminds me irresistibly of the late 19th-century question of Schleswig-Holstein, about which Lord Palmerston says:

“Only three people…have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.”

Although I would not suggest for a moment that the Minister responsible for schools and the Secretary of State for Education are the only two people who really know about school funding, it is fair to say that I certainly got lost early on in the quagmire of the local authority central spend equivalent grant—or LACSEG, which sounds very similar to some medicine that I once took for Barrett’s oesophagus.

None the less, the issue is clear to us all. There are many schools across the country, including all those in my constituency, whose pupils effectively lose out significantly in terms of the amount of money spent on them per year relative to pupils in the large metropolitan areas. In fact, there are some 2.5 million pupils in the F40 areas, which are the poorest-funded local authorities in England. Therefore, on average, £5,000 less per child is spent on children’s education in my county of Gloucestershire and other counties represented here today.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is exacerbated by the rural nature of constituencies in the south-west? Certainly, in Devon, that makes the problem of underfunding even more acute.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point and speaks powerfully for children in rural areas. Of course, there can also be a problem for those in urban areas within a rural county. In my case, one of the reasons why some of us in Gloucester feel so passionately about the issue is that we are a relatively poor city and a relatively rich county. I am sure that other hon. Members have similar situations, and I am happy to take interventions from them on that point.