Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Nick Boles

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I would be delighted to do that. I know my hon. Friend has been leading the process of trying to set up a UTC in his constituency. I urge him to make contact with the excellent Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which developed the concept of the UTC and will provide invaluable advice on how to make sure that my hon. Friend submits a successful bid.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

The Minister will know that the largest manufacturing industry in the country is food and drink, and that it has one of the biggest export potentials. Will he recognise that engineering disciplines that are ancillary to that industry also have enormous potential, whether it be agricultural engineering, food processing, food storage requirements or food transport? Will he look at technical education from the point of view of where the export potential is, particularly in the developing world?

Planning Reform

Debate between David Heath and Nick Boles

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

First, I absolutely echo the condolences that the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) has just extended to the family of Paul Goggins. I had not understood that he had died, and it is a very sad day. He was a gentleman who commanded respect and affection across the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) on securing this debate, which has become something of a “Groundhog Day” experience for me. I am absolutely sure that this is not the last time that I will have this experience, although whether I will end up with Andie MacDowell at the end of the movie is open to question.

I welcomed many of the questions that my hon. Friend asked, but I must object very strongly to how he opened his speech. He seemed to imply that I was not a supporter of maintaining agricultural land for farming. I heard some bellows from up above, where my recently departed father, a sheep farmer in Devon, and my rather-longer-ago departed grandfathers, farmers in the Mendips and in Devon respectively, were outraged at the implication that I am anything other than a passionate supporter of farming.

[Mr Heath]

I am very pleased to hear that. I just seem to remember that the hon. Gentleman once called agricultural land “boring”.

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is such an experienced Member that I am surprised he believes what he reads in the newspapers.

In the very short time available to me, I will try to cover some of the main issues raised this morning, chiefly by my hon. Friend but also by other hon. Members. I will not be able to answer every question. In particular, I would like to write to my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) about the questions that she put about the Planning Inspectorate. I will copy in everybody in Westminster Hall today with the answers, because they were very good questions but technical ones, and I would like to come back to her specifically on them.

The first issue is housing projections. What is the role of figures from the Office for National Statistics in supporting housing projections? The fundamental situation is that, just as we expect local authorities to make plans to meet their needs for schools and for social care, we expect in the national planning policy framework that local authorities will make plans to meet their housing needs. Those plans have to be evidence-based. Of course, we cannot entirely reject ONS population projections, because the ONS is our national statistics body and those projections are the best that we have, although I entirely understand why they are often wrong and flawed, as all projections necessarily are.

What I have said, however, does not mean that those ONS projections are the last word. It is absolutely open to any authority—Cornwall council will certainly have this opportunity—to look at the actual figures achieved in the past, relate them back to the projections that were in place then and then say why it thinks that projections are not the last word and that different numbers have an evidence base. It is absolutely open to authorities to do that, but their numbers must be based on evidence; they cannot be based on assertion alone. Authorities must use evidence and that evidence will be challenged in an examination by developers and others, so it needs to be pretty robust.

I will now address the subject of the five-year land supply and particularly the question put by my hon. Friend about this rather vexed question—I cannot believe that we are all getting into this business whereby we are all experts on Sedgefield and Liverpool, not as places, football teams or constituencies, but as methods of calculating land supply.

What “Sedgefield” and “Liverpool” simply refer to is a particular question. If an area has had an under-delivery of housing in the past, how quickly—in the area’s new plan—should it catch up on that under-delivery? Rather than getting into the whole question of, “Is it Liverpool and is it Sedgefield?”, which will mean precisely nothing to our constituents, I will just read out what the draft guidance, which we hope to finalise in a very few weeks, says about this issue:

“Local planning authorities should aim to deal with the under-supply within the first five years of the plan period where possible.”

Now, some things are not possible; some things will conflict with other sustainability policies that are very important in the NPPF. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that, where past performance has undershot need, if it is possible, we should try to catch it up at the beginning of the plan and not during the full 15-year life of the plan.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Nick Boles

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am sorry if I have not made this clear. Since the Localism Act, 35% of all such appeals to the Planning Inspectorate have been allowed, compared with 34% under the Labour Government before the Act, so there has been no substantial change. It is a fact that, under the Act, local opinion is extremely important. There has been almost no change in the percentage of appeals that succeed, and only 1% of all planning applications are allowed on appeal, so there has been no substantial change in the role of local opinion in determining planning applications since the Localism Act.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

24. But does not the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) have a point? I spent Saturday morning with residents of the conservation village of Norton St Philip, who are feeling absolutely besieged by up to seven planning applications for large-scale developments in the village, all because Mendip district council has failed to secure a local plan. If those applications are rejected because Mendip summons the nerve to do so—particularly those on a site that includes the historic site of the battle of Philip’s Norton—will the appeals process back them or attack them?

[Nick Boles]

I shall try again to explain this, because I have clearly failed to do so. I apologise for not being clear. If the hon. Gentleman’s local authority rejects a planning application and the decision is appealed, and if the authority does not have a local plan in place with a robust five-year land supply, the planning inspector will consider whether the application meets the requirements in the national planning policy framework. I reiterate that planning inspectors are backing local authority decisions just as often as they did before the Localism Act was passed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Nick Boles

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

Local authorities have a range of powers under planning rules and licensing to restrict the growth of these various uses. However, the hon. Lady must say why the Government whom she supported did more to relax licensing laws to encourage the growth of gambling, and only now in opposition seem to have changed their mind about this business.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

Local authorities whose local plans have been found wanting find themselves under siege from opportunistic developers. The result is planning applications in places such as Evercreech which are the reverse of what local people want. Can the Minister say that emerging local plans will have a material impact on planning decisions, and can he make sure that local authorities resubmitting plans get to the top of the list to stop this happening further?

[Nick Boles]

The best way to stop this happening is for local authorities to get their plan right the first time, but if revisions have been made, once the plan has been through the public consultation phase, it does not have a huge number of unresolved objections and it has been submitted to an inspector, it certainly can start gathering weight. The precise position is set out in the revised planning guidance that is currently open for consultation.