Amendment of the Law

Debate between Annette Brooke and Caroline Flint

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, so I am going to make some progress.

I turn to some of the measures announced in the Government’s plan for growth. I think we would all agree that the planning system shapes the places where people live and gives character to our communities. It helps us to protect our natural and historic environment, and it should ensure that everyone has access to green space and unspoiled countryside. It is crucial for growth, because it supports economic development, helps to create jobs and contributes to our prosperity as a nation. I have never shied away from the fact that we as a country need to build more homes, and that our planning system has to support that. When the Government were elected, they promised bold, radical reform of the planning system that would speed it up, reduce bureaucracy and support growth. Let us look at what has happened.

Following the Government’s chaotic and botched reforms to the planning system, there has been a dramatic fall in the number of planning permissions for new homes, which are now at a near-record low. The figure for the third quarter of 2010 was the second lowest seen in the past 19 quarters, and in the last quarter of 2010, new planning permissions were down 22% on the previous year. It is no good the Government blaming the previous one, because things have got worse and not better since they came to power. The biggest drop of all came just after the last general election. In the first quarter of 2010, before the election, more than 40,000 planning permissions were granted to developers for new homes, but by the third quarter, after the election, that had fallen to just 30,000.

The Chancellor sought to address that last week, but I am afraid that in doing so, he sounded the death knell of localism. I offer my condolences to the Communities and Local Government Secretary for the demise of localism, because after months of the Government pledging power to the people—neighbourhood plans, communities in the driving seat and so on—the Chancellor blew localism out of the water in a single sentence. He said that

“from today, we will expect all bodies involved in planning…to prioritise growth and jobs, and we will introduce a new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is yes.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 956.]

I cannot recall cheers from Government Members when that was said. While the Secretary of State trumpets devolving power to local people and promises to give them a real say in the development of their area, the Chancellor wants to make it easier for developers to bypass the planning system altogether. They cannot both be right, which reinforces the confusion that has paralysed the planning system in the past 10 months.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Did the right hon. Lady support regional spatial strategies, which imposed on my constituents a brand-new town on green belt that was not supported by any democratically elected person? Does she prefer that to the Government policy that she describes?

[Caroline Flint]

I am afraid that if the Chancellor gets his way, nobody will be consulted.

No community can thrive if the system is biased against change. Every community must look to create new homes, workplaces and jobs. A planning system that is devoid of obligations to provide for the future and that just protects the present is destined to fail, but a fair and open planning system that involves local people, and that leads to better decision making and greater consensus on development, is important. Although the Government promise to give local people more of a say, their policies do exactly the opposite. Ten months in, their record on planning is one of incompetence and broken promises. Government Members who represent our green and pleasant land must be in mourning, for although existing controls on green belt will be retained, the Chancellor made it very clear that the Government

“will remove the nationally imposed targets on the use of previously developed land.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 956.]

Forgive me for putting that in plain English. More developers will be given a yes, but as there will be no obligation to develop brownfield sites, by definition, more greenfields will be developed. I do not hear any cheers from Government Members for that one.

We can add to the chaos in the planning system the fact that plans for more than 200,000 new homes have been dropped. Under Labour, more than 2 million more homes were built in England, including 500,000 affordable homes; 1.5 million social homes were brought up to a decent standard; 700,000 new kitchens, 525,000 new bathrooms and more than 1 million new central heating systems were installed; 1 million more families were able to buy their own homes; help was provided to more than 130,000 first-time buyers through shared-ownership schemes or equity loans; and even in the teeth of the recession, the previous Government were building 55,000 new affordable homes, which is more than this Government will build in any of the next four years.