Restoration and Renewal

Debate between Clive Betts and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Thursday 7th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Restoration and Renewal Programme in the House of Commons.

Good afternoon, Mr Twigg. I thank you and Mr Speaker, through the Backbench Business Committee, for granting me this opportunity to move the motion. I also thank the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who has stood in at very short notice, because I gather the Leader of the House is required in a Cabinet Committee going on at this very moment. May I thank all my colleagues for attending? The right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) have been with me on the same journey for many years, through the Finance Committee, on this restoration and renewal debate. We have seen all the twists and turns. I also thank the shadow Leader of the House for being here to reply.

To begin, I should draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a chartered surveyor—although I do not expect to profit in any way from this whole venture. The Palace of Westminster has played a 900-year role in our political history. It is no surprise, therefore, that we are under a UNESCO world heritage site obligation to protect this wonderful grade I listed building, which has iconic status throughout the world. We need to maintain high standards so that it is a safe and accessible place for all who work and visit here.

The restoration and renewal programme has been briefly defined as a major refurbishment programme that is needed to protect and preserve the heritage of the Palace of Westminster and ensure that it can continue to serve as the home to the UK Parliament. Both Houses agreed that there was

“a clear and pressing need”

for the repair works to be done. There are a range of essential works that need to be carried out to prevent any further major fire incidents or falling masonry, to remove asbestos and to improve the services, which are cracking at the seams.

That could mean doing the minimum amount of work to ensure that the existing building’s layout remains largely the same, so that we are able to function properly for the next generation of, say, 30 to 50 years. It could involve making sure the building is entirely safe, with every bit of stonework thoroughly inspected, ensuring it is completely watertight, carrying out a proper asbestos removal programme so that everyone, both inside and outside the building, is properly at minimal or no risk from that hazard, and, finally, renewing all the services, as there is currently a significant risk of major failure.

A more ambitious project, which would inevitably add considerably to the costs and timeline, would see other major developments also taking place. The Palace could become increasingly more accessible for people with any kinds of disability, and services could be upgraded to the latest design, with digital future-proofing and improved, redesigned energy systems to provide optimal green standards to meet the aims set out in the public sector decarbonisation scheme.

As the Public Accounts Committee heard this week, the public sector has a target of achieving a 50% reduction in direct emissions by 2032 and a 75% reduction by 2037, compared with 2017 baseline emissions. The R and R delivery authority has set out an ambitious programme to enable the parliamentary estate to achieve net zero. However, it will be difficult to properly assess the details of how the policy will be achieved until a definitive way forward is decided. Even without that information, it is unlikely that the Palace will be able to meet the same decarbonisation standards as many other public buildings due to its historically old nature. The energy system, which has not yet been decided, could be completely redesigned to provide optimal costs and energy efficiency.

The Palace has four main floors and 65 different levels, with just one lift that meets modern disability standards. That means that 12% of the building is accessible to wheelchair users. I have experienced for myself, as I am sure other Members of Parliament will have, the difficulty of getting disabled people into this place. We have, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, to do better, so that is an essential part of the upgrade in renewal and restoration. The programme is committed to improving accessibility, which is outlined in the business case, which has been updated following regular engagement with representatives of staff with disabilities, and with independent accessibility and inclusion technical experts.

However, the size of the project is enormous. It is estimated to cost somewhere between the Olympics, at £8.77 billion, and Crossrail, which cost £18.25 billion. The cost will ultimately be decided by the scenario chosen. In my capacity as deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I have seen time after time large public procurement projects—whether by the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Health or another Department —experience time and cost overruns. Some cost the taxpayer billions of pounds more than the original budget, due to the client—usually the Department—changing its mind on specification as the project progressed, always wanting the latest bells and whistles.

All this work is bound to come at significant cost to the public purse, running into tens of billions of pounds. Although it has been assessed that some essential work, such as the removal of asbestos, can be done in stages and by working around the usual business of the House—meaning at weekends or when the House is not sitting—it would appear that a level of decant for some period will be a serious option to consider, in order to prevent the time for works and the costs becoming completely excessive. As the Clerk of the House said in a recent Public Accounts Committee hearing:

“We have asbestos incidents about once a year…The asbestos is a really extensive challenge. The largest other project that we could find had about 90 people for 18 or 20 months”.

Therefore, it has become quite clear that it will be impossible to complete this project without some decant from both Houses at some stage.

The decant option would minimise costs, even if it is only a partial decant, or if one House at a time is upgraded, which would have the advantage of allowing one House—say, the House of Commons—to remain in Parliament throughout the period, allaying the fear of some, who believe that we will never return once the project is complete. It would also mean that important speeches at both a Government level and at an individual level—for example, a Member’s maiden speech or their retirement speech—can still be made in one Chamber or another.

A partial decant would allow all the necessary works to take place to remove asbestos to whatever is deemed to be an acceptable level and to renew all the services. It is technically possible to carry out the work around the House, but not only would that take considerably longer, it would not account for anything unpredictable found as the works go along. As any chartered surveyor in particular will know, no matter how good the intrusive surveys are, there are a huge number of areas—voids, floorboards, roof voids—where it is impossible to rule out any unacceptable snags being found as the work progresses. Those will of course need to be resolved, which means the project will take considerably longer. Thereafter, it would be possible for both bits of the Palace to be reoccupied—for example, both Chambers—with all the necessary essential services, namely restaurants, Committee rooms, and so on, by siting those services in nearby temporary structures.

In 2018, the House of Commons voted by a majority of 16, or just 4% of the 456 Members voting, for the two Houses to be fully decanted during the works, before returning as soon as possible. After that debate, the House of Lords approved a motion for a full and timely decant. In April 2020, the Sponsor Body said that it expected to start works in 2026, assuming that that was required to develop a business case by 2023. The Sponsor Body now estimates that the main works will start in 2027. However, the cheapest plan involves a full decant of the Palace of Westminster for between 10 and 20 years, with the work costing in the region of £7 billion to £13 billion—these were the figures given to the Commission by the Sponsor Body.

Another suggestion, which would cost the most and take the longest, is for the project to be done with the Houses remaining within the Chambers throughout the entirety of the restoration and renewal programme of works, with no transfer. It is estimated that this option would cost a staggering £11 billion to £22 billion and take in the region of 46 to 76 years.

The Leader of the House has tabled a motion for next week that seeks the House of Commons’ endorsement of the Commission’s latest recommendations. It seeks the approval of the establishment of a new joint department to take over the Sponsor Body’s functions. If the motion is approved, secondary legislation will then be required to abolish the Sponsor Body and transfer its functions to the new joint department, with staff TUPE-ing over.

In hindsight, it is clear that the Sponsor Body did not function as successfully as it could have, or even as it was supposed to under the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019. It was supposed to fully consult Members of Parliament, peers and above all people who work in this place, if for no other reason than to seek their views and see if there was a consensus on the way forward, particularly on the controversial aspects such as decant. More importantly, Parliament should have been consulted, because it was all of us who were going to be inconvenienced by this project over a number of years. I would suggest that this consultation exercise is critical for the new joint body.

Without a clear deadline or line of responsibility, there is a degree of confusion surrounding this project—unlike the Olympics, where the sponsor body was able to deliver because it had clear deadline and remit from the Government Department involved, so it had a much simpler task. It was envisaged that the House itself—the Commissions—would transfer its clients function to the Sponsor Body, which would then get on and do the job. Actually, I think the Commissions, authorised by the House, would inevitably always have a role closely liaising with the Sponsor Body. I think it was a disconnect, partly perhaps because of covid, that that did not happen. Suspicions arose, and the Sponsor Body came up with a huge cost, which the Commissions then said was unacceptable.

It would have been preferable if Parliament had been more closely involved in the decision making on this project. Far too much power has been delegated to the Commissions, instead of them consulting Parliament, as we saw in February when the Sponsor Body was abolished with very little publicity or explanation. Having had a series of hearings since with the Public Accounts Committee and meetings with the Clerks, union representatives and the chief executive, it is clear that the lines of authority need to be much clearer if this project is to succeed in future.

There is a further problem. With general elections taking place every five years or less, new parliamentarians will be elected. That will inevitably change the balance of Parliament, and that will change the parameters of the project. This will add significantly not only to the costs, but to the time it takes to complete the project. We have to find a way to ensure that, once we do have this proper consultation, we somehow enshrine whatever we decide we should do to take this enormous project forward and make sure that we do not continually add to it—to use my phrase, adding bells and whistles—because that will add huge uncertainty.

The misconception about how the 2019 Act set up the delivery authority meant that it was not able to talk properly to the decision makers before February. After the Commission’s had decided that the Sponsor Body should be abolished, the delivery body then started talking directly to the Commissions. This shortened line of communication started to unblock some of the blockages that had crept into the system. There is a misconception about how the Sponsor Body is responsible for restoration and renewable, compared to the sponsor body that ran the Olympics. However, it is now being abolished, and we will now have this new joint department. I urge that new department to improve its communications, not only with the Commission—to which it is directly accountable—but Parliament as a whole, so that it is constantly updated. If Parliament is updated, it can have a view on the whole matter, and hopefully the project will not continually need changing as it goes on. Major buy-in to the project will help with its more controversial aspects, such as the decant debate.

The parliamentary Sponsor Body failed in two important areas. First, it did not engage comprehensively with parliamentarians and staff to ascertain what they wanted from the project. Secondly, off its own bat, it gave unacceptably long decant completion times, which came with momentously large accounts attached. As I have said, the House of Commons and House of Lords Commissions became increasingly alarmed by those figures and decided to abolish the Sponsor Body. However, at a stroke, that baked in certain nugatory and unnecessary costs: £80 million for the replacement of an unwanted Chamber in Richmond House, £20 million for the fire safety system in the cellar—which will now need to be ripped out—and at least £100 million for setting up and abolishing the Sponsor Body. It adds up to well over £300 million completely wasted. We can all imagine what that £300 million would buy in our constituencies, such as upgraded school programmes and so on.

However, I believe we are on a better track, now that we can see exactly what was wrong with the previous line of authority. When the new department is set up, it will be working on a grid of essential works, which will help to ascertain exactly what timeline the new works should take place over. That can then be considered by the Commissions and the House, and based on hard evidence, both Houses will then need to be consulted again to establish the general direction of travel.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am listening with interest to the hon. Member’s comments. As he says, we have been on the Finance Committee together for many years. I have some concerns, which I do not know whether he plans to reflect on. We have had long debates and many reviews, although I have not been involved in all of those. I thought we had got some agreement, although it was controversial, that we were going to have a decant and it was going to be expensive. Maybe there were concerns about how the Sponsor Body operated, but the main thing I am concerned about is that bringing the arrangements for the organisation of this massive project in-house will not necessarily solve those difficulties. We do not have a great track record in this place of managing large capital projects efficiently and well, and those projects were nothing like as large as this one.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend, if I may call him that—I have known him so long in this place—makes a very good point. I will come to that issue towards the end of my speech, which I am working towards, something the Minister will be glad to know.

The Palace needs to be upgraded to the highest possible digital and security standards, and if there are any changes to the working of Parliament, those will need to be accommodated. While I commend the adaptations made during the covid-19 period, especially for online working and digital voting, it should not have taken such an unprecedented crisis to push us to adapt those things for the 21st century. We need to be faster and more accommodating of change to meet the challenges of the modern world.

Finally, the education services in Victoria Gardens were only ever given temporary permission. A permanent solution needs to be found, with modern digital working facilities, so that the aim of giving a parliamentary visit to every schoolchild throughout their school career can be encouraged. If taxpayers’ money were no object—of course, we can never say that—there would be the potential to go much further by providing glass roofs over some of the Palace’s walkways and pathways, in order to provide extra work space. However, with my Public Accounts Committee hat on, we must always consider the taxpayers and the value-for-money aspects.

I have laid out what needs to be done. The much more important question, as the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) mentioned, is how it should be done to provide the most value for money and the optimal outcome for reaching project deadlines. As I have said, the project is likely to cost in excess of tens of billions of pounds. As I know from long experience as deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the scope for mission creep and overruns for large Government projects, such as Thameslink, Crossrail and HS2, is enormous. The only exception was the Olympics and the reason was that there was an absolute deadline for when it had to be delivered. Equally important is that it was set up with a sponsor body that had clear delivery guidelines for completing the work. That is why the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019 tried to mimic that governance structure.

Now we have a proposal to form a joint department in Parliament, there will be a joint client team, which brings me to point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East. That approach is fraught with difficulties. The Clerk of the Parliaments and the Clerk of the House signed off the contracts for the original Elizabeth Tower project, which was originally estimated to cost £29.9 million. That project has not even finished yet, but it is estimated that it will end up costing £86 million, which is nearly three times the original cost projection. It is unfortunate that the Clerks signing off and having legal responsibility for this project will be the same people.

I do not wish to denigrate the Clerks in any way—they are splendid people. They have huge legal and parliamentary knowledge and huge knowledge of parliamentary procedure, but they do not have the knowledge to manage a project of this size. To be fair to them, they were wise enough to create an expert panel of knowledgeable and well-qualified people, but it is unclear whether that panel will be in place throughout the project. In my view, it is imperative that it is and that the Commissions accept its advice. That would mean the decision-making process of the Clerks and the Commissions would get professional advice, in a form that is hopefully digestible and understandable.

What should happen next? The joint department should be set up as soon as possible, with the advisory panel being given statutory status, with an expectation that its advice be followed. Any department must be given the authority of Parliament. It should then widely and rapidly consult parliamentarians and staff on what is expected from the project and, within three months, produce a properly costed business case, which must be approved by Parliament. It must then move as swiftly as possible to putting the project out to tender, with strong expectations on timetables and costings. Any departure must be approved by Parliament. In any case, a quarterly update must be given to Parliament as a matter of course—not six months after the Sponsor Body has been effectively abolished—in line with the procedure Parliament has for HS2.

I am pleased that one of the recommendations in the Public Accounts Committee report issued yesterday is that the Leader of the House and the Treasury will be completely bound into the process of R&R. While of course Parliament funds the process through its debates and votes, the Government have a major input, because however much is spent on the project has to be raised by taxation. They are crucial partners in the whole operation.

I hope I have demonstrated that, not only is this is a huge and complicated project that is going to cost tens of billions of pounds and go on for tens of years, it is also critical to our democracy that we get it right so that future generations can benefit from it. If we—this generation—take the correct decisions and the pain of all the disruption, and do the project all in one go with the necessary, but minimum, decant, future generations will thank us. If we have a building project in this place for the next 30 to 70 years, I do not think they will. I do not think they will thank us if one of the Commissions’ objectives is that the work should be done on a short-term basis—make do and bodge, I call it.

Whatever work we decide to do needs to be done to the highest possible standards, meet the highest environmental standards, and be expected to last for the longest possible time, so that we can leave a legacy, possibly with some improvements—certainly to disability access, hopefully to education facilities and also to our way of working, through work on creating a properly digital Parliament—so that future generations can be proud of what this generation has done to uphold the highest standards of maintenance of our wonderful Palace of Westminster.

HOUSING, COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

Debate between Clive Betts and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

[Mr Betts]

Future of the Planning System in England

Debate between Clive Betts and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution to the report, and she is absolutely right: we made this point in our recommendations. We welcome the Government’s proposals to digitise the system, which could bring in a better system with more community public access to it, but we should not then take steps that would exclude those who are not comfortable in the digital environment. Therefore we want to see the retention of statutory notices in physical form, in newspapers or on lamp posts, alongside digital arrangements.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate the Chairman and his Committee on producing a very comprehensive and constructive report on this all-encompassing subject. In the report, he says:

“We think the Government’s abandonment of its proposed formula for determining housing need is the correct decision.”

For many areas, such as the Cotswolds, the formula would have produced a staggering 144% increase in housing numbers, but it would not have addressed the affordability ratio. Can he suggest what his Committee’s recommendations to the Government would be on a revised approach, and, importantly, whether affordability and housing mix—the need for smaller properties or flats for first-time buyers and elderly people who are downsizing—should be considered?

[Mr Betts]

The housing needs formula is a desperately difficult one. and the Government have a difficult job. It is right that we should try to have a housing needs formula, because it can reduce the amount of time taken up with planning inquiries in the local plan. They nearly always devolve down to long arguments about housing numbers, which is not really helpful. If local areas have particular problems they should highlight them, because a one-size-fits-all needs assessment does not necessarily meet the requirements of every individual authority.

On the particulars on the sort of housing, local councils ought to be given an opportunity to be more granular in their approach. Indeed, we made a specific recommendation in a previous report that every local plan should not just have an assessment of housing numbers but, particularly in relation to elderly people’s housing, how many of those units should be built and where they should be built to ensure provision for elderly people going forward.

communities and local government committee

Debate between Clive Betts and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am delighted to present the Committee’s report and I thank in particular our Committee specialist, Kevin Maddison, and specialist adviser, Kelvin MacDonald, whose hard work and expertise have made a major contribution to the report. As has been customary with reports from the Committee, this report was agreed unanimously.

Three years ago this week we published our report on the draft national planning policy framework which, at the request of the Government, we had closely scrutinised. We were encouraged that the Government paid close attention to our findings at that time and accepted 30 of our 35 recommendations. By listening to and acting upon the concerns that we raised, the Government were able to make big improvements so that when the final version of the NPPF was published in March 2012, it was well received for the simplification that it brought to the planning system. The NPPF, in the words of the then Minister, now the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), reduced

“over a thousand pages of often impenetrable jargon into around 50 pages of clearly written guidance”.

The NPPF was a bold, radical and much needed change. Given that it was such a big change, it was inevitable that there would be unforeseen problems and that a couple of years down the line some changes would be needed to it. No Government could have carried out such a wide-ranging reform and expected it to work perfectly from the off. This was the motivation for our inquiry, which led to our report. Our aim was to take a comprehensive look at the NPPF as it was operating in practice, to identify any sticking points or unintended consequences and to make recommendations on how they should be addressed. Our approach was thorough: 300 submissions were made to the Committee, we called 45 witnesses, we had discussions with 60 representatives from parish and town councils and community groups, and we made visits to the Planning Inspectorate and to councils in Gloucestershire. We based our recommendations on the evidence we found.

We found overall that there is still strong support for the principles of the NPPF and the simplification that it has brought. We do not need to tear it up and start again. There are, however, a number of emerging concerns that people have raised with us about inappropriate development in their communities. Much of this arises as a result of speculative planning applications by developers. Although the NPPF is clear about the importance of sustainable development, for many people, sadly, the absence of a local plan has created an easy route to unsustainable development. In our report, we set out a number of steps that should be taken to address these concerns.

The key to preventing undesirable development is for councils to get their local plans in place. Local plans were first introduced in 2004, but two fifths of authorities have still not adopted one. This is not a problem with the NPPF, but the NPPF envisages and is based on a plan-led system. The NPPF has a presumption in favour of sustainable development, but that golden thread running through the framework is linked to the development of local plans. One cannot have a plan-led system without plans. Councils that fail to adopt a plan surrender their ability to influence the future development of their local area and leave their communities exposed to speculative development. We therefore call for a statutory requirement for every council to put a local plan in place within three years.

Some councils may not have shown the political will or made available the necessary resources to develop local plans, but we received evidence of a number of other issues that have delayed their production. The planning inspector’s approach can be a barrier to councils getting plans in place. The process of producing a plan has been likened to a game of snakes and ladders: councils can spend years drawing up a plan only for the inspector, on examination, to find it unsound and send the council right back to square one. This is frustrating and wasteful, especially if the plan comes unstuck on just one particular issue.

We call for the Government to allow plans to be partially adopted when the bulk of the work has been done. When an inspector is happy with the bulk of a plan, he should consider finding it sound, subject to an early review. Such an approach was taken in Dacorum, to widespread acclaim. We could not understand why the Planning Inspectorate did not see that as a model for others to follow. Inspectors should also give more support to councils throughout the plan production process. The assessment of housing need has emerged as a particular bone of contention. There is a clear need for an agreed methodology against which inspectors can test strategic housing market assessments.

Another sticking point for local plans is a duty to co-operate. The Government should consult on appropriate incentives and penalties to encourage councils to co-operate better. Councils such as Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury, which we visited, should be rewarded for choosing to group together. Where combined authorities exist, a duty should be placed on them to produce a joint core strategy for the area they cover.

Problems identifying a five-year supply of housing land have left many areas without an adopted local plan. Up and down the country, in places as diverse as Leeds and Forest of Dean, problems have been caused by developers claiming that sites are unviable in order to obtain planning permission on more lucrative sites, against the wishes of the council and its communities and also delaying the local plan process. To address this, the NPPF should be amended to make it clear that all sites with planning permission should be counted towards a five-year supply. Moreover, developers are taking a pessimistic view about the future viability of sites. They refuse to accept that brownfield sites that are unviable now may well be viable in five years’ time, and therefore look to add more greenfield sites to the five-year supply. We call for a much more transparent approach to the assessment of viability. Developers should be required to open their books and account must be taken of future projections of viability.

We must make better use of previously used land. The NPPF is clear that brownfield land should be developed first, but a lack of resources means that this often does not happen in practice. The Government have launched some eye-catching initiatives, but they do not address the costs of making the land fit for building. In order to deliver their own policy, we call on the Government to establish a brownfield remediation fund.

Next, we must update the NPPF to ensure that it gives greater protection to town centres. Planning policy must face up to the fact that changing shopping habits, particularly with online shopping, mean that town centre uses are also changing. The Welsh Government are producing a new 21st-century town centre planning policy, and we must do the same in England. Councils must look to reduce the size of their retail areas, which are often too large for modern needs. To do this effectively, we need to manage and plan the change. Our evidence was strongly opposed to the new permitted development rights that allow shops and banks to become homes without the need for planning permission. It is too random, and risks hollowing out the commercial heart of our town centres in an unplanned way. Councils have to be able to plan strategically for the future of their communities through their local plans. These permitted development rights must be revoked.

Finally, the Government must ensure that the NPPF delivers the sustainable development that it promised. Steps must be taken to ensure that equal weight is given to environmental and social factors as well as the economic ones. Development must be accompanied by the infrastructure necessary to support it.

Those are some of the steps that the Government should take. They should also carefully monitor the impact of the NPPF. Regrettably, it stopped collecting important data about what is being built, and so we no longer know how many homes are being built on brownfield land or what percentage of retail development is built on out-of-town sites. Ministers should not be making policy decisions in the dark. The Government need to establish a set of data to monitor the impact of the NPPF against a small number of key aims.

In summary, the NPPF has, overall, been a success. It has consolidated planning policy and made it more accessible to professionals and the public alike. The Government should be proud of their achievement, but they should not be defensive about the changes we say are needed. With a major reform, there will always be issues that have to be addressed. Three years ago, the Government and the then Minister embraced our report on the draft NPPF and acted on our recommendations. I very much hope that the current Minister will be equally positive in his response to this report. We must build on the success of the NPPF to give communities the protections they seek, to deliver development that is truly sustainable, and to ensure that the NPPF becomes a document in which everyone can have confidence.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Committee’s work, not only in this excellent report but previously. The report contains a number of issues that I would like to raise, primarily local plans.

Of course, a plan-led system needs plans. I was disturbed to hear the hon. Gentleman say that only two fifths of local authorities have a plan in place. Two of the local authorities that I represent do not have a plan. That is causing them severe problems with speculative developers. It also means that parish and town councils are reluctant to embark on neighbourhood plans, which are really important. An example of these problems is in a bit of evidence that his Committee was given from Kingswood parish council in my constituency. It had plenty of sites available, but a speculative developer has emerged on the worst possible site, and it looks as though the district council will be unable to resist granting that permission.

The Government should cut the three-year requirement to have a plan in place to a year and a half. They should adopt a carrot-and-stick approach, forcing councils to introduce the plans but also providing resources to help to them to do it. Small local authorities in my constituency are very short of forward planning resources. The Government should also make it easier to adopt plans. A lot of developments cause problems when infrastructure is not in place, as in the case of the 2,500-house development proposed in Chesterton in my constituency.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman is right that local plans are at the heart of this. We set out a number of ways in which the process could be improved and simplified. At the Planning Inspectorate, we were shown boxes of documents just for one local plan in one area. It has all got a bit too complicated. He is right about neighbourhood plans. They are a success where they have been put in place, but there is an issue about the relationship between neighbourhood plans and local plans, particularly when the neighbourhood plan comes first and then has to be related to the local plan. His point about infrastructure is well made, and it is mentioned in our recommendations.