Planning Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Baroness Thornhill
Main Page: Baroness Thornhill (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Thornhill's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, there is absolutely no intention to divert funding to prosperous areas from more deprived communities. I am meeting with the National Housing Federation later this week and I will take this up and make relevant representations to the department, but that is certainly not the policy intention of the proposed reforms.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest: I too am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Minister referred to building beautiful and quality. The reality is that every single day, planning officers encourage, argue with, and even go to battle with developers to produce high-quality schemes according to their local policies. Will the Minister explain how things will be different with the nationally proposed, one-size-fits-all design codes? Does he not agree that the answer might be not government-devised design codes, but giving local councils more power to enforce their own?