Planning (Enforcement) Bill

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Spencer]

My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I recognise that this is a very complicated area. Rogue developers will use any chink in the armour of enforcement and the appeals process to their advantage—I will come to that a bit later—so it is important that there is as much scope as possible for regulations to be adapted, amended and updated to ensure that we get this absolutely right and prevent these rogue developments. That is why the Bill is drafted in the way that it is.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

Sorry, I am not helping my hon. Friend make any progress. He mentioned the impact that this issue has on local authorities, but there is also the impact that it has on our residents and constituents. They spend countless hours on neighbourhood plans and trying to get the best for their communities, only to find that developers ignore them. This is about them; it is about taxpayers’ money, where it goes, and what our local authorities do. I hope he recognises, as is recognised in the Bill, that there is an enormous opportunity to restore faith in process and ensure that greed is not winning the day.

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[Anthony Mangnall]

Before my hon. Friend finishes, let me say that I find it extraordinary that in this House we spend a great deal of time on these Benches being attacked by the Liberal Democrats over planning and the lack of accountability of developers, yet on the day he brings forward a Bill that holds developers to account, the Liberal Democrats are nowhere to be seen.

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for pointing that out. I hope that all our constituents will be watching our debate and reading the Hansard record of our discussion on these important issues. I believe this issue can be solved. It must be solved, for all our communities, and I hope that we will look back on this debate today as the start of the end of rogue development.

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[Mr Mohindra]

As my hon. Friend will know, that decision is well above my pay grade. I suggest that he takes it up with Front Benchers and with his Whip.

I am supporting the Bill so that we can advance the discussion around our responsibility to protect our green-belt land from development.

[Anthony Mangnall]

My hon. Friend refers to the green belt, and although I am not pulling him up on this point, this is about not just the green belt, but green spaces. Those of us outside the green belt would wholeheartedly agree with his speech, but we recognise that we are in a different situation.

[Mr Mohindra]

I thank my hon. Friend for his invaluable contribution, as always. I support the Bill so that we can advance the discussion around our responsibility to protect our green-belt land—and our green spaces; sorry, I should broaden that out—from development, and preserve it for our constituents and for the environment to enjoy for generations to come.

We need to review what we as legislators can do to help to protect the green belt. As well as reviewing the penalties for violating the law, it is vital that we encourage sustainable development and make use of the brownfield sites that we have. I believe that providing incentives to developers who repurpose brownfield land, instead of seeking to build on our green belt, would potentially be beneficial in helping us achieve that.

As many Members will know, I also chair the all-party group on regeneration and development. Having been both a property developer previously and now a politician, I am fully aware of the need for a collaborative approach between developers and politicians to find solutions to this issue. I know that property development is a very emotive issue and that developers are seen as working against those aiming to protect the green belt. That is not always the case, so we should not taint all the developers with the broad brush used for those, unfortunately, who know and play the system.

We know that in this country there is a housing shortage and that we must build new, affordable homes. However, as I and many colleagues have mentioned, that must not come at the cost of our green belt. I have not yet had a chance in the Chamber to welcome the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, or, indeed, the Minister on the Front Bench today, to their roles, but I know that they are already working hard on ways that we can provide the housing we need while protecting our vital green belt.

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

What a pleasure it is to speak in this debate. In the next five minutes, I am going to say why my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer)—or Runnybridge and Weymede, as has been said—is absolutely right in putting forward this legislation. I disagree slightly with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) about the planning Bill, because I have not seen anything in it yet. What I do know is that the strength of feeling on planning in this House means that we need to have new reforms that take into account infrastructure, design, local affordability and jobs. We need to ensure that we can rebuild the faith and trust that has been lost in our planning reform system, which for too many years has let people down, as so many Members have said.

We know that planning does not sit within our remit, but we also know that day after day our inboxes are filled with concerns about planning development, the way in which it goes through local authorities and the way in which developers do what they do. Unfortunately, we have heard far too many stories of that today. We have heard that developers time and time again ride roughshod over local authorities and, perhaps most importantly, over our constituents, who take the time to do neighbourhood plans and to fill in their views about what they want in their area. I can give you countless examples of this in my constituency, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am conscious of the time and so I will not do so. I will just point out the figures for the past three years. In 2019, there were 474 planning breaches in South Hams, and there were 561 in 2020 and a further 560 in 2021. These are not just individual houses; they are development sites. That is a huge amount of housing where developers are doing what they like, without listening to the local authorities, who do have the best interest of their constituents in mind. We need to address this issue because the planning rules are there for a very specific purpose: to try to build the houses for our constituents, so that we can build for the future and allow people to get on to the housing ladder.

On the Bill, it is right that we have to ensure that those who have broken the law elsewhere, or who have breached planning provisions, are held accountable not just in that local authority, but across the whole country. Therefore, a database is the right thing. It is right that we look at where we can put fines on these people. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), who makes the point about developers factoring that into their prices and that getting passed on to the consumer. If we are going to go forward in this way, how do we make sure that we have a fine that is going to hit where it hurts and make sure that developers rethink their proposals?

My second point is about what happens to planning applications until breaches have been addressed. In my constituency in south Devon, in Kingsbridge, at Lock’s Hill, the developers have had a planning breach notice and they are continuing work on the site—that is unacceptable. The residents look on as a greenfield site is turned into a mud pit and development continues while we are putting it right.

The third point I wish to make in the last minute available to me is that we have to find a balance, ensuring that we are still building houses and fulfilling the commitment to provide affordable houses across the country. There are some loopholes and issues that can be tightened up in the Bill, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge knows that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) said, we must find the tightened language so that we can ensure that this provision is not exploited. He and I know that in a host of areas, be it second homes or park homes, housing is being exploited by people who want to get more money out of others, rather than deliver a service, a house and a style of living that should be expected for all people.

I hope that we let this Bill pass its Second Reading today, but that we have a massive opportunity in the planning Bill to ensure that we can deliver something for the whole country that makes a real difference. My constituents in Totnes and south Devon expect that. They expect us to stand up to developers. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) finished his speech by talking about how we are coming for developers. They need to be very careful, because the standard of what they supply for people who spend their hard-earned money is outrageous. The faults and the mistakes that they make, without constituents and communities having the ability to appeal, is shocking. Where there is the opportunity for any one of us in this place, in any part of the country, to stand up to counter the greed and the drive of property developers, I will be four-square behind them, as I am today.