Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

We certainly want communities to have much greater involvement in planning, and I will certainly look at the proposals that my hon. Friend put forward.

Our proposals will deliver a simpler, faster, more transparent process, giving communities and builders, especially small builders, certainty over what development is permitted through clear land allocations in local plans. They will ensure that developers contribute a fair share to funding affordable housing and infrastructure through a new, more predictable, more transparent and faster infrastructure levy that will ensure that communities get the affordable homes—and the schools, clinics and roundabouts to support those homes—when they need them. And they will further empower local people to set standards for beauty and design through local design codes, putting beauty at the heart of the planning system for the first time. The proposals will bring a slow and cumbersome paper-based system into the digital age, with interactive maps at our fingertips and involving far more local people than at present.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

One of the concerns in my constituency is flooding, and as the Minister knows, the Flood Re insurance programme is suitable only for homes that were built before 2009. Given that all these new homes are being proposed, what reassurance can he give people that they will still be able to have affordable flood insurance to go with them?

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady is quite right, and we will look at the flooding issue as we further develop our proposals and bring them to Parliament. I recognise that this is a challenge; it is a challenge in my own constituency too.

One poll showed that 69% of people had no knowledge of or connection with local plan making. That is simply not good enough, and we believe that there is an appetite for change. Let me briefly come to some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Croydon North. We all know that he is trying to make a name for himself—quite some name—and we also know that he has one or two little hobby-horses. But like so many hobby-horses, they can turn into an obsession. He started out quite normally with an interest in planning and its rules, but quickly—all too quickly—it went downhill. He conceives himself as some sort of latter-day witchfinder general, a chief of the inquisition constantly in search of some heresy under every stone, and finding plots and conspiracy under every brick. I fear that his latest, albeit short, outpouring shows that the fantasy has gone a little too far. In just a few minutes, he has gone from acting like Tomás de Torquemada to being like David Icke. How long will it be before he runs off and jumps into his turquoise tracksuit and starts telling everybody that the world is run by lizards and that he is the godhead?

In the wording of the Opposition’s proposals, are they now saying that they oppose local development orders, which allow certain types of development to go ahead without a specific planning application, even though they introduced that legislation themselves in 2004? Are they also opposed to neighbourhood development orders, which also allow certain developments without specific planning applications? It sounds as if they are. In fact, it sounds as if they do not really know what they are talking about and that they do not have any firm, sound policies at all, which his predecessor, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), admitted in a private briefing.

I make this offer to the hon. Gentleman: come in to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, talk to our officials and let them explain how the current planning system rules for Ministers work. In that way, he can see for himself how carefully it is controlled. He may not take any notice—in fact, I suspect he probably will not—but at least he will have had the chance to listen, to ask some questions and possibly to learn.

There has been a good deal of discussion, in the House and beyond, about community engagement. I reassure the House that our proposals will not diminish the ability of local communities to take part in the planning process. On the contrary, they are designed to give communities more of a say, not less, with better information, easier means of taking part and, crucially, a clearer voice when it can make a real difference in the planning process.

Under our present planning system, when asked what they think of their local area, there are twice as many people who say that it has got worse as those who say it has got better. Under our present planning system, just 1% of the local population get involved in local plan making, and just 2% or 3% of local people get involved in discussions about local developments. That is very few—too few—yet with so little engagement, and often after months or years of tortuous wrangling, nine in every 10 planning applications end up being approved anyway. I do not think that those facts suggest a system that is really very engaging, still less one that is truly empowering. We can do better, and we will.

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[Emma Hardy]

I am sorry to intervene so early and thank my right hon. Friend for taking my intervention. My point was about not just building on floodplains, but the importance of having flood insurance for all the new homes that are not currently eligible for the Flood Re insurance scheme.

[Valerie Vaz]

I absolutely agree.

In our case, it was agreed in the SAD that the transit site would be placed on a site that was environmentally suitable, near to a settled community—everything to integrate that community—but it happened to be in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who used to be a councillor on Walsall Council. The portfolio holder used to work for him, but he now works for the Conservative party, registering his interest only days after the scrutiny committee meeting. Our legal advice said that there was bias, just as there was with the approval of the £1 billion Westferry Printworks in Tower Hamlets. The Secretary of State has already admitted that that was

“unlawful by reason of apparent bias.”

I have asked the Minister to investigate the earlier decision of Walsall Council’s cabinet. I ask him again: could he please do so? If he is serious about making changes, could he also mandate that every planning committee has a compulsory recorded vote for every decision that they make, as that would increase transparency and accountability?

In conclusion, we need more consultation, not less, including with all civic society and historical associations. The Town and Country Planning Association said:

“All of these reforms have a common theme of removing local voices from the process.”

Buildings and places do not exist without the people who breathe life into them, just as we have seen during the pandemic. I urge the Minister to listen to local people, give them back control and end the people’s nightmare.

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[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It has been a pleasure to be part of this lively and informed debate, but I want to take a slightly different tack and focus on something very specific. The motion refers to delivering “necessary new homes”; I want to focus on the word “necessary”.

There is a section of our society who are always forgotten—in education, in adult social services and certainly in planning and home building—but whose numbers are growing: adults with learning disabilities and general disabilities. Where is the thought for them? Where is the thought for the number of homes and the housing needed for supported independent living? There is a huge shortage throughout the country, and people are getting desperate.

I refer particularly to constituents I have spoken to, a couple now in their 60s who have taken early retirement to care for their son, who is in his 30s. Their son has been known to social services and to the local authority since 1994, so it should not have come as a surprise to the local authority that he will need some form of accommodation as he gets older. His parents have done everything possible for him, but they are worried that as they start to age, they can no longer continuously care for him as they have done before. They have been trying since 2016 to find him some form of supported independent living, and none can be found. When I have liaised with the family to try to find them suitable accommodation, the stories they have told me of the difficulties they face are truly shocking. I will read just a little from an email that the mother sent me:

“This in itself is further evidence that housing for people like my son should not be subject to these vagaries and upheavals. I can only reiterate the need for a clear pathway for families so that these situations at the whim of the marketplace are avoided. Appropriate housing stock should be provided for vulnerable adults. For example a plot should be allocated on each of the new housing developments. Not just a care home for the elderly or a couple of flats bought up as social housing by housing associations, but properly designed units. Yes there would be a tiny reduction in the property of the big developers as the footprint of, for example, a 2 storey unit with 4 flats and a staff office would probably take up that of 1 large detached home. But I’m sure the good PR as a result would more than make up for that. Far preferable to being moved to out of county specialist provisions which can cost more than double that of an appropriate and more suitable ISL.”

I hope that as the White Paper goes forward, the needs of that section of society are at the forefront of the minds of the Minister and the Secretary of the State.