Planning for the Future

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, because it highlights the fact that the more we weaken the planning decisions made by local authorities at local level, the more we risk allowing unsuitable development, including architecturally displeasing development, environmentally damaging development and development that is not primarily designed to meet the needs of the local community. That is why bypassing local authorities is the wrong approach.

The planning White Paper proposes to bypass much local authority planning involvement in the mistaken belief that it is local nimbys who are blocking development. In my constituency, it is local people who have provided many of the ideas for local authority action that have improved our environment and guided planning policies. Local authorities, especially Liberal Democrat-controlled ones, are often willing to go much further than the national Government in reducing carbon and improving our environment. In Richmond and Kingston, for example, the councils have introduced new cycle lanes to encourage people to reduce the number of car journeys they make, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure to encourage the switch to cars with lower emissions. Liberal Democrat councils up and down the country are also planting trees, installing solar panels on the roofs of council buildings, switching council vehicles to electric, and insulating council-owned homes. In each case, they are responding to the needs of their own environment and that of their local population.

When the public inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus is completed, I believe that it will clearly demonstrate that some of the response could have been more effectively delivered by local authorities or neighbourhood groups. We have seen the weaknesses of a centralised test and trace system, for example, and even today the Government are setting central rules for school openings that might be better decided by local education authorities.

The same is true for planning. A group of concerned local residents, whether elected representatives or volunteers, are much better placed to decide how their street should be adapted to keep pace with the challenges of modern life than a few unknown Government workers in Whitehall. If all bodies making decisions about future developments can be tasked with the responsibility of achieving net-zero carbon and protecting our environment, then the ingenuity and enthusiasm of our local authorities, and the residents they serve, can take us a lot further towards the Government’s 2050 goal than any amount of top-down diktat. It is time for the Government to show they are serious about climate change and the environmental emergency, and that starts with some serious revision to this planning White Paper.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We have had a few drop-outs, so I will allow five minutes per speaker.

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[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member raises important points. There is a need for housing of all different types, sizes and tenures, and there are different ways of delivering them. In the time we have available, I am afraid we are not going to get to the bottom of evaluating them in an ordinal way.

The third and important point I want to make is about national parks. I do not know whether there are others here who represent national park areas. There is the particular issue where part of a constituency is in a national park and parts are outside, so there are very different constraints in how land can be used. There is a danger that if a housing target or requirement is set based on the entire area, containing both national park and non-national park, with different constraints on what can be done in each part, the result will be the insufficient creation of new homes inside the national park and potentially too much on the edge.

A piece of work came out from Nationwide a few weeks ago that suggested that house prices in national parks have something like a 20% house price premium compared with those outside. In a constituency such as mine that is a huge amount of money. The Office for National Statistics is doing some further work, so hopefully we will be able to develop those figures. It is also important for the areas just outside the national park. In my constituency, that means areas such as Alton and Four Marks, where there is potentially a disproportionate amount of development in the border zone that can put considerable strain on infrastructure and provision of service. It can then be difficult to ensure adequate provision.

There has been a lot of debate about the proposals. Ministers have been in listening mode and have been very good in listening to colleagues across the House. I hope, as the matter develops further, it will be possible to take these considerations into account.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

You are all being very well behaved on timing, far too well behaved. I might have to lift the time limit.

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[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for bringing forward such an important debate. Others in the Chamber will no doubt make arguments about algorithms and housing numbers, but I want to focus my remarks on the delivery of affordable housing, particularly in our Cornish communities. Obviously, that goes hand in hand with housing targets.

Cornwall has a proud track record of delivering 30% affordable housing over the past 10 years. I would not be in this place if, at 29 years old, as a postman, I could afford an open market house in my home town. That was the driving force for my getting involved in politics; I wanted to give people opportunity. At the time, the Labour Government seemed very interested in providing houses for people who were out of work, but not particularly interested in trying to help people who were. I support the Government’s plans for key worker housing, particularly the 30% key worker discount that the Secretary of State announced recently—I am very keen to support that.

Cornwall has a very low wage base and a very high house price market, and that creates all sorts of intrinsic problems with our housing stock. One of the ways that we saw to that in my time on the district council, before it was abolished, was to implement a community self-build scheme in a community very close to me, so that locals were able to purchase a plot of land and build their own houses. It was an exceptional scheme, and I hope the Government and Ministers will look at it.

We have done a lot of work on sites such as rural exemption sites. They are not completely a panacea, but I would like to see their use increase to allow local people in towns and villages where there is not a development boundary at present to get a house in the town or village in which they grew up.

One issue that I want to cover is public sector land. Cornwall is supposed to be integrating into the One Public Estate programme, but we have had some significant problems, particularly with the NHS property holdings company, which seems to want to keep hold of its land. If the Minister is able to apply some pressure to it, we would be very keen to get hold of some of its land to provide some key worker housing for our community hospitals, particularly in the Bude and Stratton area.

We have had significant challenges in the system with land values. I frequently talk to developers in Cornwall, and they say that they have long discussions with planners about affordable housing criteria, road allocations and access, which take forever. We really need to start delivering houses for people now, so I would ask that we look at speeding that up.

I would also ask that we consider more accurate town and village housing data. Some of our town and parish councils have been exceptionally good in collecting information about the people who are in need of housing in their areas and what the tenure mix needs to be, and I would ask that we look at that. I know that the Government are making progress on the challenges around sizeable deposits, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment on longer term mortgages. I think that is a good step.

I have highlighted some of the problems, and there are also the challenges relating to covid. A lot of people wish to relocate their businesses and move to Cornwall, and that is a great thing. If they are taking second homes and living in them permanently, that is an exceptionally good thing, but it puts more pressure on Cornish housing stock. If the Minister is looking at pilots, we would be very keen to have a community self-build pilot in Cornwall to demonstrate our willingness to support people. I also ask the Minister to apply some pressure to Cornwall Council, which seems very resistant to the idea of Rentplus, which I think is an exceptionally good model for people who do not have a deposit but want to own a house, and want to use the rent that they pay as a deposit for their mortgage.

On NHS property holdings, can we get One Public Estate working so that we can get key worker housing for some of our nurses in Bude and the surrounding areas? Can we simplify the system so that developers do not have to go on a massively long journey to get the planning that they are seeking? Can we have a service plot provision in Cornwall as a pilot, more flexible tenures, and a simpler planning system for schemes that are exemption sites? Can the Minister look at agricultural ties? So many farmers approach me to say their family are looking to build a house on land. Can we look at that as well, please, Minister?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We are going to have a vote soon, so I might have to cut off Harriett Baldwin in full flow, but we will bring her back—all of you back—after 15 minutes.

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[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I stand to carry on the conversation that we have just had with my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann). I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate and the Minister for all he does and for his willingness to engage with all those who are keen to be involved in this area.

As we heard, the White Paper proposes a range of reforms, and I will not go over everything that has been said. In fact, I want to focus on the fact that the gist of the White Paper is to increase access to homes and ownership of a home. To own a home is an amazing thing; it gives a sense of security, builds community and provides opportunity, so we should absolutely continue to do all we can to ensure that people can own a home.

However, here lies the problem in Cornwall, in particular, where, as we have heard, prices are high and wages are low. That is what I want to try to address. The truth is that there are people elsewhere in the country who fancy a bit of Cornwall, particularly at the moment, with it being in tier 1—sorry for rubbing that in, Sir Charles; that was insensitive. We have seen an enormous rush of people buying a home in Cornwall because they have seen it as the place to be not just during the recent restrictions but for the whole year. That is nothing new. We could build all the homes that the country could cope with, but the people who need them would not necessarily get them. That is absolutely the case in Cornwall.

I have three suggestions. First, local authorities should be given power to support local home ownership. St Ives, a key part of my constituency—so key that the constituency is named after it—captured headlines around the world when it introduced a primary residence clause in its neighbourhood plan so that no new home could be built in the St Ives Town Council area unless it was for local ownership as a primary residence. That was not necessarily supported at the time, but it has really helped the community to stake the case that building homes for people who live elsewhere is not at all helpful. I ask the Minister to consider putting something in the White Paper that would enable local authorities, where there is a need, to provide access to homes to local people when they are built, somehow restricting them for other people for a period, even when on the market. I do not know how that can be done—I leave him with the problem, not the solution.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall said, innovative home ownership models should be a must—[Interruption.]

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman can hold his thought there.

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[Andy Carter]

Absolutely. It is about getting the right types of homes in the right places. Land designated for growth will allow new homes, schools, shops and hospitals to be built quickly, and we need that levelling up to happen urgently. Getting the right places is the most important thing.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), and I think also the hon. Member for Richmond Park, talked about how local councils are best placed to try to work these things through. I have to say that is not the case in Warrington. The local Labour council ignored all the Liberal Democrat councillors, who argued that it was building in the wrong places. I am afraid that the very simple system that we have at the moment is broken and needs to be fixed.

I welcome the new planning system. There are a lot of good elements in the proposals, but it will come down to the detail. I look forward to continuing the conversation with the Minister, who has been so good in responding to the issues that have been raised with him.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Last but not least from the Back Benches, Ms Felicity Buchan.