Rural Councils: Funding

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for introducing this important debate and congratulate him on the way he expertly presented his case. I represent three local authorities plus a county council. I will focus mainly on Tewkesbury Borough Council and the county council.

Tewkesbury has been a financially responsible borough over many years and has not borrowed, but because it kept its spending low and under control, and kept its council tax low, it now suffers; a 1% increase to Tewkesbury Borough Council’s income is far less than it would be to an authority that already spends a lot more, so it gets penalised for having been a responsible council for so many years.

I am calling not for greater Government spending—the Government are spending an awful lot of money, and arguably too much—but, along with other right hon. and hon. Members, for a fairer allocation of that money. If any Government say that the allocation given to rural areas is correct, why are other areas getting more? Looking at it the other way, if other areas have much higher levels of spending and the Government say that is correct, how can what rural areas receive also be correct?

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

SEND children in Cornwall receive just over half per child what those in Camden receive. How can that possibly be right?

[Mr Robertson]

It is not right. School funding has been unfair for many years, and that is not just about rural areas. It is down to a complete mismatch in what I think was called the area cost adjustment, which we suffered under for many years, and some areas just do not get the adequate funding or funding comparable with other areas. I am glad to say that my hon. Friend took one of my points, so I will skip on.

In what ways does the underfunding of rural areas manifest itself beyond those we have already discussed? In planning, lower funding means delayed decisions and that some councils and planning authorities are reluctant to turn down inappropriate applications because they simply cannot afford such applications to be taken to appeal. Tewkesbury is the fastest-growing area in the United Kingdom apart from London, so we are not nimbys in any way, but we do need to be able to fund the planning system properly.

Another big problem is coming: I am told that, in Gloucestershire as a whole, up to 200 asylum seekers are to be given a right-to-remain status. At the moment, they are living in hotels, which is of course completely inappropriate for them. They will need to be found housing, but that will cost an awful lot of money. If that is their status, it is correct that they should be found proper accommodation. The decision to grant them that status, which is probably quite right, is for the Government, but money must follow that decision, and we do not see any prospect of that. That is a big worry in our area.

Rural transport has been covered in great detail, so I will not go over all that, but I echo what was said by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) in that the £2 bus fare is absolutely useless if there is no bus. So many areas have seen their bus routes removed. In my village, the bus has been taken away, so if I want to travel to Gloucester or to Cheltenham, as I frequently do, I have to get a car to take me to Tewkesbury town to do so. We are not the only village to have lost our bus; that has happened across the country.

I do not have time to go into the many other details that I was kindly sent by the county council. A real benefit for rural counties would be to put an end to the process of ad hoc competitive bidding for short-term funding and instead to provide longer-term revenue settlements so that they know what they can do and what services they can provide. That is the way forward as they see it. There is no reason why rural areas should be as underfunded as they are. As I said, I am calling not for more Government spending overall but for a fairer allocation.

Housing in Tourist Destinations

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for securing this important debate. It is brilliant to see him back on the Back Benches adding his voice on this important issue, as he always does behind the scenes. I welcome the Housing Minister to his place. I feel sorry for any Housing Minister because when they go into their post, they know that a swarm of Conservative MPs from Devon and Cornwall is about to descend on them to discuss this issue. I thank him for being there and taking this on.

I probably could have given the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay word for word. This issue is not new for us, but it has been growing over the past 20 years, and it became instantly acute after covid, for many reasons. We were in this room in May when my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) had a similar debate on short-term holiday lets and the planning system. I looked back at my speech from that day and I could probably repeat it again.

This issue became most acute to me after covid when I had a village constituency surgery in St Agnes on the north coast of my constituency. Within two hours, I had had 15 constituents and families through the doors, and every single one was either being evicted or their rent was going up so much that they could not stay. Pretty much all those properties were going to be flipped into Airbnbs. Since then, as a cohort of south-west Conservative MPs, we have been lobbying the Government to make changes in this area to ensure that we do not let this continue to happen.

I am so grateful that we have closed the business rates loophole, which has been referred to, and that the Government have consulted on a register for holiday lets and change of use for planning. Incidentally, we talked to the industry about potentially licensing holiday lets. That would not be practical or supported, so the register is absolutely what everybody wants to see happen. That makes it easy for Government to go down that road.

Earlier this year, I was invited to a parish meeting—not a parish council meeting— in Veryan on the south coast of my constituency, where a development had recently been put in place and another was proposed. The area was not particularly ideal for the village, but it was the only one on offer at the time. The room was absolutely packed with residents. They were not nimbys asking for this not to happen, but residents saying, “Will this development really be for local people? Will we really see local families being able to raise their children in this village?” Incidentally, almost 80% of the neighbouring village of Portloe is made up of second homes. There are 90 properties, and only one child lives in the whole village.

If we do not do something about this situation soon, our communities will be stripped back. Thankfully, in Veryan, they are twisting and turning and doing everything they can to ensure that those properties will be for local families, but it should not be that difficult for them. Parishes are having to put in all sorts of covenants and measures in perpetuity to ensure that a few years down the line, the homes will not get picked up and moved on to Airbnb.

We can do something about this. We are talking about bricks and mortar. In Cornwall, we have loads of bricks and mortar. We are building houses for the future. We have loads of empty properties above shops in our town centres. Let us look at all the properties we have; either something is going to be a home or it is not, and we can start to differentiate. We know how many homes we need, and we know what everyone else wants to use for an investment. We do not have to demonise investment, but we need to differentiate between the two, so that we always have enough family homes for the people who live there.

Short-term Holiday Lets: Planning

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for bringing forward this important debate. I do not want to go over old ground when my colleagues have already been so articulate about the issues we have in Cornwall and other parts of the country. However, I want to address a couple of points, particularly on buildings.

I was elected in 2019, and covid hit three months later. I had my first village surgery in August 2020, and 15 families came within two hours. Every single one of them in St Agnes was being evicted because the property was being flipped from a long-term letting to a short-term holiday let. That problem had already been bubbling up, but it was made more acute by covid, people wanting to move to Cornwall, and people wanting to flip their properties to holiday lets. When I came back to this place, there was an accusation that Cornwall was not building enough, but that is not true.

I pay tribute to Councillor Linda Taylor, the leader of our council, and Olly Monk, the housing and planning lead. Cornwall Council, working with partners, is starting to produce more than 1,000 homes a year. More than 700 homes built in the last two years are affordable. That is more than Leeds and Manchester, so Cornwall is definitely doing its bit to build homes. Cornwall has also been in the top two authorities for building affordable homes in the last 10 years, and has been at the forefront of asking the Government to launch consultations on registering second homes and changing the planning rules around short-term holiday lets. That is because we have a Conservative council, six Conservative Cornish MPs, and a Conservative Government, who are all working together behind the scenes to make the changes to achieve the balance that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) mentioned.

Short-term holiday lets also have a knock-on effect on services in Cornwall. We have an influx of people in the summer. I have asked for fairer funding for our NHS and police. With the sharp rise in short-term holiday lets, issues become more acute, because we get more and more people coming in, beyond those who come to our hotels and B&Bs, and that puts extra pressure on our hospitals and police—a point the Minister might want to take back to the Department.

Covid brought out how fantastic our communities are in Cornwall. I often say to our parish councils and community leaders that if I could bottle that and send it to the rest of the country, I would. When covid hit, the vast majority of our communities knew where our elderly and vulnerable people lived and were able to help straight away. We are Conservatives, so we should want to do everything we can to conserve that. One of the villages just down the road from where I live is over 70% second homes already; we have to do what we can to halt that. We live in a pretty place. We want to look after our elderly and vulnerable people and ensure that young families can afford to live there, too.

I will not go on, because colleagues have articulated the point brilliantly, but I have one plea to my constituents and everybody in Cornwall: please feed into the Government’s consultation, which closes on 7 June. I make that plea to everybody: short-term holiday let owners, hoteliers, the police, the hospitals, everybody who is looking for staff in Cornwall, and residents. Only by getting a vast array of opinions and arguments in favour and against can the Government get this right. Working together, we will get this right, and get the finances for our communities.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (in the Chair)]

Thank you, everybody, for keeping so beautifully to time. I will now call the Front-Bench spokespeople, starting with Joanna Cherry.

Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Friday 18th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for bringing the Bill forward and for his long-term commitment in this sector. It has taken a lot of work for him and his team to bring the Bill to this point, and I congratulate them all on the work they have done. I welcome the Minister to her place. I know from the work she has done with her constituents that she is also committed to this sector and will bring some much-needed conscientiousness to the passage of the Bill.

The driver for most of us in this place—in fact, pretty much all of us, on both sides of the House—is that we want to protect the most vulnerable people in our communities. If we do not agree on that, we will not get anywhere fast, but I think we do. What we disagree on, perhaps, is how we get there. If we can keep that at the heart of all our debates, we will not go too far wrong.

Cornwall has long had a shortage of affordable housing, and it will come as no surprise to anyone that I will concentrate my remarks on that. Housing supply for local people continues to be squeezed, with more and more properties being held as holiday accommodation. The growth of the online short-term holiday lettings sector and the prevalence of second home ownership in the area has led to a shift in the rental market, with an acute reduction in the number of tenancies available for local people. This is important, because that sector is being squeezed the most in our towns and villages, and where the local council and providers cannot find suitable accommodation, that is relevant to the context of this discussion.

Cornwall is on a peninsula. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) talked about licensing needing to be consistent in all the local authorities in the surrounding area, but we do not have that luxury in Cornwall. We are a peninsula, and we need to get it right. We have a finite amount of housing in our area, and therefore we need to make sure that all the housing is being used for the right purposes. That is why I always bang on about second home ownership and holiday lets—not because I want to demonise any one community, but so that everybody understands the fight we are fighting in Cornwall.

The Conservatives took control of the council a couple of years ago, and I pay tribute to our new portfolio holder for housing, Olly Monk, who has worked tirelessly on this. We had over 1,000 people in temporary accommodation, and he purchased SoloHaus homes, which provide safe, comfortable and sustainable dwellings for homeless people. There was the Everyone In initiative during the covid pandemic, and we are trying to keep that going in Cornwall. SoloHaus offers safe homes with their own front door for people who are in crisis. Homelessness has been growing in Cornwall for a number of years. That was brought sharply into the spotlight during the covid pandemic, as it was in many areas, and local authorities had to do something quickly.

We have a lot of these types of home in Old County Hall in Truro, and they are working. They give somebody a place to go. They have their own front door, they are welcoming spaces, and they are built to the highest standards of sustainability, safety and durability. They are designed with leading homelessness charities and stakeholder groups. They have a considered layout, an abundance of natural light and good storage. Most of all, they mean that we know people are in a safe space.

Nearly 3,500 households received support from the local authority last year through either homelessness prevention or temporary accommodation. There are over 650 households—approximately 1,200 people—still in temporary accommodation. Some 21,000 households are on Cornwall’s social housing waiting list, which is about 8% of our population. There is precious little data on the number of people who live in precarious housing situations or are sofa surfing, but we know that more than 700 of the people who have received help from the local authority stated that family and friends were no longer willing or able to accommodate them. We believe that that is just the tip of the iceberg and that significantly more people are vulnerably housed in Cornwall.

Many people who find themselves homeless or at risk of homelessness are not entitled to any support from the state, hence where we are today. So I want to pay tribute to a local charity that is beloved by many in Cornwall, St Petrocs, which helps to step in to offer support and advice. St Petrocs currently manages and provides accommodation for about 150 people throughout Cornwall; every one of those properties is very different, with a variety of locations and tenants, but the properties are all a step up from homelessness and help with integration into society. St Petrocs deals with a lot of addiction issues and a lot of vulnerability from other areas of people’s lives. Although the properties are all set up differently, all residents have their own bedroom, with shared communal facilities, and the residents take responsibility for making their own food and maintaining a clean home. The houses are managed by their accommodation officers, who, crucially, provide support and guidance in person, as well as via a 24-hour on-call system. Many residents are given an old brick mobile phone with the phone number of the accommodation officer, which means that if they find themselves in crisis, they have somebody on hand they can call, who understands their case and situation, and knows them. That crisis can come in any way, shape or form, be it because of substandard accommodation or people taking advantage of them.

Together with the accommodation officer, the residents agree a pathway for their time at the house and they prepare themselves for moving on. They learn to cook, gain budgeting skills and prepare themselves for work, by taking part in a vocational development project. They are also encouraged to have hobbies and to engage with the wider community. I am going into such detail on this because I want to share with the House what I believe is best practice and should be the gold standard for people who have been struggling in this way and for those trying to get them back into society. I am sure there are many other providers that right hon. and hon. Members can highlight, but that one is beloved in Cornwall and does a huge amount of good work,

One reason I want to draw attention to the good work is that one other vulnerability we have in Cornwall is that we are at the end of the lines for the county lines scourge on our constituencies. A few years ago, we were finding that our vulnerable residents not being cared for by people such as St Petrocs were being cuckooed in accommodation such as that to which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East has referred. This was a real scourge in our towns and villages. Drugs gangs from cities think that we are an easy target and I suppose that at one point we probably were. Devon and Cornwall police have been brilliant on this in the past five or six years, and have given a lot of good advice to people—to neighbours and communities. What we do well in Cornwall is having great communities, still, so people can look out for unusual activity, which we need to do. Where the Bill will help, particularly though clauses 7 and 8, is on the licensing.

I go back to the parallel that I started with, which is that of a housing crisis in Cornwall. One thing we want to achieve in Cornwall is a similar licensing scheme for the short-term holiday lets. The right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) intervened to say that some of these rogue landlords were registering places as holiday lets, which provided a loophole. That interested me because in Cornwall we want to make sure we know where all of our short-term holiday lets are and exactly where the types of accommodation we are discussing today are too. We need to look to the Minister to combine these licensing schemes, so that local authorities can have a bit more control over what is going on and where. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East in everything he is achieving today. I absolutely support clauses 7 and 8, which deal with planning and draw the same parallels with what we are trying to achieve in Cornwall on change of use. My Cornish colleagues and I are campaigning for the autonomy for Cornwall Council to make these decisions itself. We are looking towards a county deal in Cornwall and I understand that a lot of what we are calling for needs changes to be made in primary legislation, but actually if we incorporate this into a licensing scheme, rather than go through the planning process, perhaps we can start to achieve some of these things more quickly.





I pay tribute to what my hon. Friend is attempting to do through his very well-thought-out Bill. It goes to the heart of what we need to do in our communities, which is to support the most vulnerable people whose voice often goes unheard. We are here today to speak up for them, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

General Practice: Large Housing Developments

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this important debate. The provision for affordable housing and access to good healthcare are among the top issues raised with me by constituents in Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall. Those issues must be tackled in conjunction. I thank all the GPs and primary healthcare professionals in my constituency who have been working so hard over the last few years—as they always do.

I recognise people’s concern about the impact of large-scale developments on local services. That is why we must increase the provision of affordable housing while keeping in mind that for local communities to accept the new housing developments, new developments must be supported by health infrastructure. In the right place, large-scale developments can not only ease the housing crisis but act as a catalyst for reforming and tackling health issues and inequalities. We need to ensure that large developments can provide those opportunities.

Primary care delivery always requires funding, a physical site and willing providers. Those providers are GPs, which are generally private businesses and differ in their capacity. They will also differ in the demographic that they serve. Large-scale developments should be able to assist with that funding, and we must continue to ensure that local planning authorities can enforce that through mechanisms such as section 106 and the community infrastructure levy. I am pleased the Government have committed to further reform in that area, including proposals in the levelling-up White Paper for a new infrastructure levy that will enable local authorities to capture value from development much more efficiently. However, I echo the call of others that co-ordination with the Department of Health and Social Care is an utterly sensible way forward.

Developers can also provide physical sites by reserving land to deliver health services. I am pleased that developers for the controversial Langarth Garden Village in my constituency, which will eventually provide up to 10,000 new homes, are committed to doing the right thing and have secured, through the planning system and with the council’s involvement, permission to develop a new health infrastructure. I would like to thank, since he is in the Chamber, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) for providing a new free school on the north coast of Cornwall that will, in part, deliver school places for that very controversial new estate in my constituency.

The health infrastructure plans include a new health and wellbeing centre embedded in the Langarth community, a state-of-the-art health hub to provide a one-stop shop that includes GPs and primary care treatment as well as other health facilities that have been mentioned today, such as a dentists, a pharmacy and diagnostic services to reduce pressure on existing local services. However, it is important that we remember that GPs are a private business, and as such the Government must create the right conditions to ensure they can supply and maintain that service.

In Cornwall we have a housing crisis and a health and social care crisis. We have mentioned today that solutions to the two crises come together—one absolutely affects the other. GP surgeries in Cornwall frequently report that they are short-staffed; they have offered jobs across the entire health service in Cornwall, but people cannot take the work because they cannot find housing. That applies to any kind of healthcare worker, right up to consultant level, but certainly applies to GPs and dentists. We must ensure that key workers from both the public and private sectors can buy and rent affordably in the area. I would like more key worker housing to be set aside in the Langarth development.

Key workers are vital, but they tend to earn less than the national average, have fewer assets and have more limited choices about where they can work. That means that they find it harder to get on to the property ladder or to rent decent homes close to where they need to work. It is worth mentioning that the Langarth development is very close to our hospital. I would also like to see more one-level, one-front-door properties in the development for our growing elderly population. Let us create communities where they need to be. I am pleased that the Government have already taken several steps to ensure that we meet the needs of key workers in local communities, including the 30% discount under the First Homes scheme or the assistance available under Help to Buy. However, even with those schemes in place, many key workers struggle to get on the housing ladder, and there is a huge shortage in Cornwall.

There are various options available to the Government; I will mention a few. In areas with key worker staff shortages, local authorities and housing associations should consider giving greater priority to local key workers in their respective allocations and lettings policies. In addition, the Government’s future affordable housing funding programmes should prioritise allocating grant funding to affordable housing schemes in which a significant proportion of homes are reserved for key workers. It is especially relevant to places such as Cornwall, where we are on a peninsula and cannot borrow key workers from other local authorities.

It is clear that new housing developments must be supported by the appropriate health infrastructure. Developers can help to provide funding for sites, but GPs and other health providers supply the service and we must do more to ensure that those workers can afford to buy or rent near their place of work.

Planning (Enforcement) Bill

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention—it is exactly that. One challenge is that residents see what is effectively a two-tier system, in that those who do not play by the rules are managing to benefit from that. It is a source of great frustration. For enhancing faith in the law and the faith of local authorities in the Government, the inclusion of measures to stop people getting away with breaking rules is critical.

Why is all this so hard? Let us go through it. Under our current processes, if someone builds a lorry park on a farm without permission, first that needs to get reported. The local planning authority must investigate and, if necessary, issue an enforcement notice. All that time, the lorries are moving and the rogue developer is making money. Section 174(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides a right of appeal, and this is where it really starts to get fun. Written notice of the appeal must be sent to the Secretary of State before the date specified in the enforcement notice as the date on which it is to take effect. If an applicant gives notice of appeal without providing a statement in writing, specifying the grounds on which he or she is appealing, they are granted a further 14 days to provide it. So far, the council has found a breach, and that takes time. It has investigated it, which takes time. If one games the system by submitting an appeal without a statement, one gets even more time. All that time, lorries are moving and the rogue developer is making money.

If an enforcement appeal is delayed because the appellant fails to provide sufficient information and the Department’s request for it is ignored, the Department will involve the Secretary of State’s powers under regulation 5 to require a time limit to be observed. Before we even get to the appeal, not providing information can lead to ongoing delays. That means more lorries, and more money for the rogue developer. Most enforcement appeals are transferred to planning inspectors for determination. Appeals represent the highest volume—but not all—of their work, and the number of open cases is vast. It increased to about 11,000 in August 2020, and although that number began to reduce, in recent months it has been rising again. This summer it reached 10,500. The average time for inquires to be heard is 60 weeks. Think about that—60 weeks! That is 60 weeks of lorries moving, and rogue developers making money.

Once the Secretary of State or planning inspector has determined an appeal, an application for leave to submit a further appeal in the High Court can be made on a point of law, under section 289 of the 1990 Act. That must be submitted within 28 days of the appeal, or in an extended period at the court’s discretion. So long and drawn out is the process that Government guidance even sets out considerations for if it takes longer than four years. That is four years of lorries, and by that time, it is no longer just a lorry park as homes are starting to be built. The next cycle is about to begin, and all that time the rogue developer is making money by changing the goalposts, gaming the system, and destroying our communities.

My constituents say to me, “Ben, look at this. We live in a society where the rule of law is broken.” What can I say to them? We can add to all that the fact that planning enforcement is a discretionary service, at a time when local authority finances have been under significant pressure. I must stress: this is not the fault of our local authorities and their planning enforcement teams. They are fantastic, and they are equally frustrated by the lengthy delays in trying to tackle these issues. They would welcome further powers, so that we can identify and address rogue development more swiftly and effectively.

In a nutshell, tackling that is the aim of the Bill. First, it will create greater transparency, making it easier to identify persistent offenders. Currently, there is no way to identify or track those who persistently flout planning rules. This Bill will therefore create a national database for planning enforcement issues and a duty to declare whether an applicant has been subject to previous enforcement notices. This will be populated by planning enforcement teams and paid for through the existing mechanisms of the planning application fee. To address the most serious planning breaches—those that cause the most significant damage to or impact on our communities and natural environment—the Bill also seeks to strengthen the powers available to local planning authorities. Clause 3 therefore sets out a mechanism for local authorities to apply for a High Court injunction, where the court may apply conditions on the site or developer, including, but not restricted to: restricting the use of a site currently subject to enforcement proceedings; stopping the lorries; requiring remedial action to return the site to its prior condition; putting back the forest; digging up the concrete and asphalt; and preventing further applications being made until the initial enforcement matter is resolved, to break the endless cycle of overlapping applications and appeals.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend have any knowledge—if he does not, perhaps the Minister might say something on this in his wind-up—of what happens when such a situation occurs on a pure greenfield site? If the planning application had gone ahead, the damage would turn that into a brownfield site, which would then become somewhere we could build on afterwards. What happens to the site? If it is put back to normal, does it become a greenfield site again or will it always be seen as a brownfield site because the damage has been done?

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I cannot answer that question, but I hope the Minister can do so in his wind-up. I realise that we have now set him a task to do so. Where this flouting of rules has happened in my constituency and things such as the POCA have been used, the damage has been done. I recognise that the duty to try to put things back to how they were before is a bit of wishful thinking. If we take out the commercial incentive, we can, I hope, stop this behaviour dead in its tracks. That is a better approach, and the measures I have mentioned are fundamental in bringing that about. As everyone has said, all this is complicated, so in addition to bringing forward these measures, we will need to review them to make sure that they work. My Bill therefore also seeks to review their effectiveness to see whether more needs to be done.

I would like to finish up by thanking everyone who has worked with me to get to where we are today—my local authorities, planning officers, the Government and Members from across this House. Rogue development is a nightmare that wreaks havoc on all our communities. I believe it can be solved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the brownfield sites, which we know will help with our housing shortage at the moment, we have a huge amount of buildings in our town centres that could also be repurposed for that end?

[Mr Mohindra]

I do agree. My hon. Friend raises a really important point: planning is an evolutionary process and what might have been right for planning five, 10 or 15 years ago needs to be amended and evolve. The pandemic has raised some interesting questions that need answering: what will our high streets look like; where will people be commuting to work; and what is the distinction between working from home versus returning to offices, factories and the like. Absolutely, this is something that needs to be under constant consideration. I am not necessarily talking about in this place; it might be more appropriate for this to happen at a local council level, but it is definitely something that we will continue to debate.

The collective brownfield registers of local authorities identified an estimated 26,000 hectares of brownfield with potential for around 1 million new homes in 2018. By having a brownfield-first approach and implementing my proposed tax cuts to encourage that, we will incentivise sustainable development and not only ensure that our green belt is better protected, but enable us to meet our housing pressures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury]

I appreciate the pressure that the hon. Member faces in her constituency. My friend the hon. Member for North Devon expressed concerns about seaside resort cities and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) is also experiencing this blight. The Airbnb situation is a further example of weaknesses in the planning system. Perhaps the planning system in a wider sense needs strengthening rather than planning enforcement—that might be the subject for another debate and another Bill—but I understand the pain of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and that of her constituents.

I agree with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge that it is not fair that while everyone else play by the rules, a tiny number are apparently able to cock a snook at the council and their neighbours. His Bill is not aimed at the far more common lower-level breaches such as residential extensions built higher or closer than allowed in planning permission or under permitted development rights, but neighbours say that the system takes far too long to sort out even those cases. People do not appreciate that planning enforcement is not like licensing, where a miscreant’s premises can be closed down immediately.

I turn to the Bill’s clauses. First, it would create a single England-wide database of all major or repeated planning enforcement breaches that would be publicly available. The cost of maintaining the database is to be covered by charging planning fees. Does that mean increasing current fees? Local planning authorities are currently each required to maintain their own register of enforcement and stop notices, which contains details of enforcement notices, stop notices, breach of condition notices and planning enforcement orders. The data is there, but it is not all in one place.

If enacted, the clause would make it really easy for planning enforcement officers to see whether they were dealing with regular offenders who work across a number of council areas. This could certainly be useful. For example, in prosecuting cases for failure to comply with enforcement notices, local planning enforcement officers could join up and bring a bigger case against that particular individual. A database would also provide a source of reference, so that planning officers could look at the types of breaches that have been enforced against and how officers in different boroughs dealt with them, such as the wording used for complex breaches.

Let me return to how the database would be resourced. The Bill refers to making a call on planning fees. However, there are any number of pressures on planning department budgets, thanks to 10 years of Government cuts to local councils, so if there were any opportunity to raise funds from planning fees to support the planning system, I am sure that borough planning officers would have a long list of greater priorities to spend that money on, such as employing more staff. This week, the Royal Town Planning Institute told me that it had a report of one authority that has just five planning officers to deal with everything: planning policy, planning applications and enforcement. Besides, why should well-behaved applicants be subsidising the prosecution of unauthorised activity? Although I appreciate the intent, and the proposal has some merit, I fear that the database could be seen as a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Clause 2 would require all applicants for planning consent to declare if they or their company has ever had any planning enforcement action taken against them. One difficulty is that planning applications and planning permissions run with the land, and not the person who makes the application as such. It would therefore be quite easy for anyone to circumvent the need to declare whether they have had enforcement action taken against them or their company by simply getting someone else to put their name on the application.

Appearing on the list could also be held against someone in determining any application they make subsequently. Each application has to be judged on its merits and not the prior actions of a person making a new application on a different site. The provision could catch many perfectly innocent people who just do not understand the planning system. It ignores the fact that the majority of people subject to enforcement action breach the system unwittingly; in the vast majority of cases the process of being served with an enforcement notice leads them to rectify the mistake and, in the process, learn about the planning system. Why should they be forced to declare and have their past mistake hanging over them?

Clause 3 would enable the local planning authority to seek an injunction in the High Court, with the effect of a stop notice, so that no further planning applications could be considered on that particular site. Now, I am no planning lawyer but my understanding is that provisions for injunctions are already available to local planning authorities under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

I share the frustration of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge with the situation in his constituency, and the cases raised by other Members. I do not know what other remedies were sought by the planning authorities in these egregious cases, nor why they did not work. As he will be aware, there are a number of tools in the enforcement officers’ armour that can be used to tackle ongoing and serious breaches of planning consent, and the ignoring of planning enforcement notices. Those tools include stop notices and temporary stop notices, POCA, planning enforcement orders if there may have been concealment—I remember the case of a farmer who built a house hidden behind walls of hay bales; I think he was prosecuted in the end—and injunctions, as I have already said.

Many of the appalling cases described by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge are subject to other criminal and civil proceedings relating to pollution, noise and smell, housing conditions and tenure, health and safety breaches, modern slavery and more.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

The hon. Lady is demonstrating well the complexity of these cases; our constituents all feel frustrated by how long and complex they are. As my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, our constituents have to put up with it while cases go on for months and often years. Does the hon. Lady welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has brought this issue to the House for us to examine? Hopefully, Ministers can take the matter back to the Department and it will come back later in the planning enforcement paper.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady anticipates the end of my speech.

In the planning system, enforcement action is intended to be remedial rather than punitive. That might be the difficulty. To carry out development without the necessary consent is not in itself a criminal offence, and as I understand it this place has always baulked at the idea of making it one; however, the failure to comply with a planning enforcement notice is a criminal offence and carries the risk of heavy fines and, ultimately, imprisonment.

We have a lot of sympathy for the Bill and, most certainly, for the reasons why the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge has brought it to the House, and we understand why so many Members with green belt and open space in their constituencies are present, but we are not convinced that the specific measures in the Bill will actually address the egregious breaches. Clearly, a failure somewhere in the system has allowed to arise the situation about which Members have spoken so eloquently; it is cumbersome and slow.

In conclusion—

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Marson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is so cynical. Some of these things are accidental—people do not mean to do it—but so often they are intentional and commercial decisions. Whether people make such a commercial decision or abide by the rules so often depends on the penalties available to local authorities and planning enforcers. As I say, the cynical breaking of planning provisions undermines all faith in the system, particularly for the vast majority of people who abide by the rules. They take the rules seriously, and they do not want to push the envelope as some people do. It is a great contrast.

Going back to the Bill, the ability to go to the High Court for an injunction is a pragmatic and realistic way to stop people doing this again or making further applications, as well as to restrict the use of a site or to return a site to its original state, notwithstanding the comment made by one of my hon. Friends about that. Another interesting provision included in the Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is the requirement on the Secretary of State to review the adequacy of its measures. As another of my hon. Friends said, this process is an evolution, and we need to monitor it, determine whether the provisions in the Bill are sufficient, and see whether other criminal offences or increased penalties are needed in the future. That is all part of this, and we should take it very seriously.

As I have said, this issue causes people great anxiety, and what plays into that is the fact that the power is held by large developers in so many cases. There is no one silver bullet for many of these issues. One constituent has been waiting for two and a half years for a developer to resolve issues with the house that they moved into. We should encourage more competition in the market from small and medium-sized enterprise providers to improve the market and ensure fair competition so that those types of practices, which push the envelope, are not allowed to take root.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant point. Does she welcome the help to build scheme that will hopefully come forward next year to encourage families and SME builders to build varied and small housing stock as homes for families to live in?

[Julie Marson]

My hon. Friend makes a typically astute intervention. She is right and I welcome the fact that the Government acknowledge that there are lots of things that we need to do in this area, to which I am sure that the Minister is committed. Planning reform, help to build and Help to Buy are different ways to address the issues, because people just want to have a nice, decent home and to live in peace with their neighbours.

I am conscious that other hon. Members want to speak, but I will mention that my constituency has one of the largest releases of green-belt land for development ever, as far as I can see, in the Harlow and Gilston garden town plan for seven garden villages. I pay tribute to the local Hunsdon, Eastwick and Gilston Neighbourhood Plan Group, which has an award-winning neighbourhood plan. It faces a David and Goliath situation, however, with developers who do not respond to its questions.

They are a group of volunteers who are having to cope with questions about sewage, environmental protection, cycleways and the quality of builds. They are doing a fantastic job, but it is wearing; I am trying to support them in every way I can. Even last week, a planning meeting was supposed to go ahead to look at huge infrastructure issues. They were originally given six minutes to respond, but because another parish wanted to respond as well, that time was brought down to three minutes. The meeting was cancelled, but it is not good enough.

People who are genuinely, actively and positively engaging in the process and who are proactively not nimbys should be given the chance to have their voice heard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge on introducing the Bill and on a worthwhile debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

21. What steps his Department is taking to support regeneration in towns and cities.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

23. What steps his Department is taking to support regeneration in towns and cities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kemi Badenoch]

We are looking to empower local communities such as Kimberley as part of our levelling-up agenda, but I must stress that any project that wishes to gain Government funding must have a fully developed plan before bidding. Places should have confidence in their capacity to deliver to agreed timescales.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Falmouth has huge potential. It is the third-deepest natural harbour in the world and is the gateway to the Atlantic. However, it is crying out for investment, and often gets overlooked because of how well the town does with very little. I stand ready to make the case for Falmouth in the next tranche of the levelling-up fund. Will the Minister confirm that the next tranche will be forthcoming? The Secretary of State said that we would have it in a wee while. Could the Minister perhaps expand on that? Will she, or the Secretary of State, join me for a tour of Falmouth to see how it could unleash its potential?

[Kemi Badenoch]

First of all, I congratulate my hon. Friend on the Truro town deal in her constituency and welcome her continued work as a champion of the area. I encourage her and local partners to continue to work with us on our shared ambition to level up Falmouth and towns throughout Cornwall as future opportunities emerge. She will know that as part of this work, £88.7 million of towns fund investment is driving regeneration and growth in Camborne, Penzance, St Ives and Truro, and there are real economic benefits for Falmouth, too. I am sure she and I can discuss a potential visit in due course.

High Streets

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) on securing this debate. I am fortunate enough to represent a number of thriving towns and high streets across my constituency of Truro and Falmouth. Recently, I was delighted and proud to see Truro jump an incredible 72 places to be named one of the best high streets of 2021, despite the coronavirus pandemic. That means that our little city has had a vitality ranking that beats the likes of Brighton, York, Exeter, Oxford and Taunton—all those having exceptional high streets.

Within my constituency I have two high streets that benefit from business improvement districts: Truro and Falmouth. Both have exceptional teams and are worth their weight in gold. Both of the BIDs do so much for the high street businesses and for the shoppers. High streets have struggled, but the BIDs do everything that they can to keep it lively, thriving and pretty. For example, if there is an empty unit on the high street, they are on the scene to cover it over with bright and helpful graphics. Their branding is second to none, particularly in Falmouth, and they did Cornwall proud during the G7 summit earlier this year when it was showcased by the world’s media. I put on record my thanks to the BIDs of Truro, Falmouth and Newham.

As we emerge from the pandemic and the high streets bounce back, the reopening high streets safely fund and the welcome back fund have proven to be instrumental. In Truro, we are currently going through our towns fund process, where an injection of £23.6 million is set to regenerate and transform the city centre. That will be huge for the high street, and will help to reconnect Truro with its water.

As I mention the towns fund, I would also like to make an appeal to the Department and to the Minister, as I look forward to further details being released about the next tranche of the towns deal so that I can lobby, making a similar case for Falmouth.

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Lady is making a very good speech, but she may not know that in my constituency we declared Huddersfield a sustainable town and a sustainable community under the United Nations sustainable development goals. We are building a network of 500 towns and cities; would the hon. Lady consider taking the message back to her communities that we would love to work in partnership with her?

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I am very happy to take that message back, and hopefully we can connect—I think that is very useful. Falmouth is a town that often gets overlooked because of how well it does with the limited resources it has. A towns fund deal for the port of Falmouth, which is the gateway to the Atlantic, would absolutely unleash this town’s potential. Falmouth’s bid is already leading by example; their proactive engagement tools have supported a brilliantly diverse business events and engagements scene, and have welcomed the regional leads for the south-west in for bids. I would encourage the Department to look closely at the Falmouth bid as a case study for a thriving high street. There needs to be much greater representation on rural and coastal issues pertaining to high streets at the central debating table. On too many occasions, the debate is dominated by the captains of large businesses and of large urban areas, and the points of micro, independent and small businesses in this landscape are largely missed. The high streets taskforce is a good example, as Cornwall has absolutely no representation on it.

During the pandemic the high street had to adapt. In both Truro and Falmouth al fresco dining became the norm, allowing local bars and restaurants to make use of public open spaces to host punters, and continue to deliver a quality service and product. The red tape around the legislation on pavement licences, which has been granted an extension to September 2022, must be cut to allow businesses to extend trading space outside their curtilage. In Cornwall that has opened up opportunities for more imaginative place-shaping, ideas for encouraging visitors and greater collaboration between the small business sector and local councils. Falmouth has been on the front foot with this; by liaising proactively with Cornwall Council, car parks, less used pavement spaces and quiet areas have been transformed into al fresco dining and event options. That has helped to support their summer season as we bounce back from covid.

Lastly, in Cornwall our larger towns, like Truro and Falmouth, are picking up big devolution packages—which is fantastic. However, those packages include public services such as car parks and libraries. The House has made excellent progress by, for example, taking away business rates on public toilets, but we can go further than that; I would love to see business rate relief extended to public services such as car parks, libraries and council offices, encouraging them to relocate to our high streets and giving people more of a reason to visit them. I could go on and say much more, particularly about supporting our high streets to make them low-carbon. We must do more to encourage the green transition: there has to be greater guidance, support and investment for green schemes. As it stands, we rely too much on individual businesses to make such changes, and that puts more pressure on them as they tread water on the back of the pandemic, particularly when we take into account listed buildings and conservation areas, as we have seen in Cornwall.

Although I am a green champion, there is much to consider in this complex area. The future of the high street is exciting and I, for one, will continue to champion high streets in this place.

Towns Fund

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) [V]]

In Truro, we are at an exciting point; just last week, our investment plan was submitted to the Department for consideration. A huge amount of work went into it by everyone involved, but I want to pay particular thanks to the chair of the Truro town fund board, Carole Theobald, and vice-chair Dr Alan Stanhope, as well as Mel Richardson and all board members, who have worked tirelessly to make the Truro plan exciting, thorough and optimistic for the future of Truro and for everyone who lives and works here. It has been a privilege to play just a small part, as part of that board, in the fantastic effort that has gone on.

Granted city status in 1876, Truro is Cornwall’s only city and situated at the head of the Fal estuary. Surrounded by farmland mid-way between Cornwall’s north and south coasts, it has always been a meeting place. Its natural assets—particularly the water—and location have made it a port, a trading and administrative capital, and a centre for skills and education. That continues today. Truro is the civic, retail and health centre for Cornwall, providing employment for 30,000 people, mainly in the public sector, with Cornwall Council’s headquarters on the edge of Truro, as well as Truro cathedral, the Royal Cornwall Hospital, and the Knowledge Spa, where I recently took part in the Novavax covid vaccine trial.

Last summer, when the covid regulations allowed, we welcomed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to Truro to meet the Truro town fund team at the water’s edge to talk about plans we have to reconnect Truro to its three rivers. There used to be as many as 60 cargo ships using Truro and Newham as their home port. However, the silting of the river led to a decline in the sea trade after the second world war. Truro’s commercial centre appeared to fall out with its maritime past, and part of our bid aims to resurrect that relationship. Delivering that means overcoming many challenges that have held us back in the past.

So what do we want to achieve? We want to reinvigorate our neglected waterfront community spaces on Lemon Quay and provide a new community space where all residents are welcome to meet, learn new skills, access support and feel part of our evolving city. We want to create a sustainable transport solution, using new paths and cycle routes, and a bridge to connect the city, and digitally focused, new, innovative learning and living environments that will help to create jobs in high-growth and high-value businesses. We want to repurpose vacant buildings for commercial and residential use, breathing new life into the city centre while enhancing our heritage, and create an active leisure attraction, including an indoor climbing wall, water-based activities and sports facilities, as well as performance areas. This town deal is a chance to future-proof Truro for generations to come. By working with Government, we hope we can be ambitious for the future.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Jane, you are not going to get the full three minutes, and I will have to stop you at 4.38 pm.

Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The hon. Lady will know that part of our follow-on from the Everyone In programme—it is still ongoing and has not stopped—is the Next Steps funding, which delivers exactly what she is asking. It is providing not only funding for local authorities to deliver that next stage, Move On accommodation, but £150 million of investment in permanent accommodation —the largest investment in delivering homes in this area since the ’90s.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

In Cornwall, homelessness and rough sleeping has historically been an issue. In recent years, some excellent work has been done in Cornwall to combat the issue by St Petrocs and by the local authority, particularly with the success of the recent Pydar Pop UP project in Truro. Of course more needs to be done, and I welcome the £5.5 million that the Government have provided to Cornwall Council since September to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. It is a substantial amount of money that creates a real opportunity to end rough sleeping in Cornwall. However, does my hon. Friend agree that that money needs to be spent on long-term solutions to find homes for those who are homeless and rough sleeping, not just on the short term and quick fixes?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The investment we are making as a Government in long-term secure homes is so important. That is what the Secretary of State and I are driving to achieve, within the realms of the funding, and we are seeing delivery across the country. We are committed to working with local authorities, including Cornwall, to understand the specific challenges. As I have said, every area is slightly different and sometimes there is a different solution for every area. We have to understand those things so that we can work effectively with the local authorities so that they can deliver that change and we can achieve our objectives.

Virtual participation in proceedings concluded (Order, 4 June).