Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman was the architect of many of the policies that led to the lowest level of house building since the 1920s. When we rip up the regional spatial strategies, cancel his top-down targets and put local people in charge, we can see the results, not measured over one little quarter that he plucks out of the air but over the entire first year of this new Government. Those results show that there were just 88,500 house building starts in the last year of his Government, and that the number had risen to 103,500 in the first year of this Government. That is a rise of 17%.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

17. What plans he has to increase the powers of local authorities in dealing with unauthorised development.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

Local authorities already have strong powers to act against unauthorised development which apply to everyone who ignores planning controls. In the Localism Bill, we have taken action to restrict retrospective planning applications, to ensure that people do not get away with flouting the system.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. What assurances can he give me that those rules will apply equally to all residents, and that the Travelling community will not be exempt from rules that apply to the rest of the population?

[Mr Pickles]

It is right and proper that we should respect the lifestyle choices of the Travelling community, but that does not give them particular rights over other citizens, particularly among the settled community. This Government will introduce special rules to ensure that authorities that provide pitches for Travellers receive a top-up against the new homes bonus, but the planning rules must be blind to a person’s ethnic background.