Baroness Morgan of Cotes
Main Page: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Conservative - Life peer)
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
Perhaps the hon. Lady will come on to this, but the planning system is in place not just for planners but for the people and residents. I am sorry that I was late for the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I was trying to read some planning policy guidance and having difficulty with some of the language in it. Having simple language in a 52-page document will allow residents of all our constituencies to understand the planning system in much more detail than under the old, complicated system, so that they can make their case.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
The hon. Lady is right that the guidance must be interpreted by local communities as well as planners. We are saying that brevity should have led to clear language, but it has often led to obscure language, which will make it equally difficult for local communities and planners to argue a clear case.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
I am conscious of time so I will keep my remarks as short as I can. I draw the attention of the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Interests.
Planning policy is an important subject. People care deeply about their local environment, the houses they live in and the houses around them, and the way that their villages and towns are developing. We have heard from Government Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley), that there is a need for more family homes. We need more houses. My constituency inbox and caseload tell me that, but as others have said, we need houses in the right place and houses that deal with people’s lives as they live them, not as Government and local authorities want them to live.
I thank the Minister. He deserves recognition for listening so carefully to all points made to him between the draft NPPF being published and the final version. A number of constituents have thanked me for the way in which the Government have listened on this important subject.
As I speak, the plans committee at Charnwood borough council has been meeting for the past 27 minutes. I was asked to be there but I felt it was more important that I was in the House today to speak in the debate. The council is considering two important planning applications, among a number of others, which will affect the village of Quorn and the town of Shepshed in my constituency.
I say to the planners in Charnwood and elsewhere that this is not business as usual. The NPPF came into force immediately after the Minister’s statement to the House on 27 March. Summarising the NPPF is not enough. We now need to think about the way in which proposed development fits within the definition and achieves sustainable development, taking into account the three dimensions—economic, social and environmental. All three dimensions in that definition go together.
I want to make four points in the time available to me. First, I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify—he may wish to write to me—the status of the regional spatial strategies. I understand that they are due to be abolished. They can be abolished under the Localism Act 2012, which is now law. The reason I raise the subject is that some officers still mention the RSS and in particular the housing targets when they give advice to plans committees. I know that my constituents are keen to know about that.
As I said in my question to the Minister in the House on 27 March, the five-year land supply target is still a worry. I understand from my conversations with the Minister that these targets are now to be set by the local authorities, once they have gone through the housing assessment process. The targets must be deliverable. The new arrangements mean that councils are still vulnerable to having to say yes to developments because developers are saying that they do not have the five-year supply in practice. I am worried that officers are not taking into account recent applications that have already been approved.
The importance of neighbourhood planning should not be underestimated. My parish council and town council are getting on with neighbourhood planning, which I think is fantastic. We have already heard about the over-interpretation of some words. Paragraph 74—I do not have time to read it out—relates to the loss of open space and is particularly relevant to an application in my constituency concerning allotments. The wording is very straightforward; I do not think that we need to over-interpret it. It says what it says, and that is that open spaces are not to be lost.
Thirdly—I will have to write to the Minister on this point—it has been pointed out to me that the NPPF does not say as much about geology as it does about such matters as biodiversity. We have some very interesting rocks near Loughborough, in Charnwood—so interesting that Sir David Attenborough started one of his programmes there recently—so I think that we might want to hear a little more about geology.
Finally, I welcome the fact that the underlying guidance is to be reviewed. I have mentioned before that the highways guidance and the manual for streets is often very important in deciding planning applications.