National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Gavin Shuker and Martin Horwood

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I represent Luton South and live in south-east England, where there is a great and pressing need for affordable housing. I am sad about the demise of the regional spatial strategies, but I appreciate that other Members do not share my opinion, and I recognise that they will not be reintroduced any time soon. They did, however, put in place a requirement for local authorities to work together to solve their housing needs.

[Martin Horwood]

Regional spatial strategies did not encourage local authorities to work together; they imposed things from on high. The south-west RSS took six years, cost £10 million to develop, was never implemented and attracted 35,000 objections.

[Gavin Shuker]

That highlights the point I have just made: Members have different opinions. I regularly knock on doors in my constituency and find people living in the most terrible circumstances, with private landlords taking advantage of them. I am torn about whether to report that to a housing department, as I know that there is such limited housing stock. It is therefore worth looking at different areas in different ways.

There is a quiet crisis in housing across the south-east in particular, but also in other areas. I am certainly not opposed to simplifying the planning system; one of our jobs as Members of Parliament is to simplify things. However, to slim down a 1,000-page brain surgery manual, as it were, to just 60 pages is not the best way to proceed. The best way to proceed is to say that we want to have more housing and more localism, and that we want people to have choices in decisions affecting their own constituencies and communities. We want to do that sensibly, however, which is why this debate has been very good so far.

Many of today’s speeches have been wish lists of various items about which people are concerned, and mine will be no different. I have specific concerns about a number of areas and I hope that the Minister will respond to them consensually at the end of the debate.

My first concern relates to sustainable development, about which we have heard from Members on both sides of the House. I have counted four or perhaps five possible definitions of “sustainable development” published either by this Government or previous ones. I have shadowed the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team and seen sustainability go from being the sole remit of one Department to being mainstreamed. The Department for Communities and Local Government has been one of the major winners from that. As I have shadowed the DEFRA team, I know that DCLG has probably scored more points against DEFRA than Labour Members have, and that applies on various things, including bin taxes. There is uncertainty about “sustainable development” and its definition, and it is important that the body of this policy framework defines incredibly clearly what that is. Brundtland’s work obviously provides a good starting point, but the tighter the definition the easier it will become for planning applications to go through and for us not to end up with things in court for six or seven years when the definition could be clearly set out from the start. If we want more affordable housing, we need to be clear and exact in our definitions—that is a great place to start.

The Attlee Government enacted sites of special scientific interest in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, and we have been clear about wanting to maintain those protections. The chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Mike Clarke, has stated:

“One thing the final plans must state clearly is protection from development for some of the nation’s finest wildlife sites—those areas designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. We have received legal advice this week which suggests that the proposals as they stand will weaken protection for these areas.”

Rail Investment

Debate between Gavin Shuker and Martin Horwood

Thursday 17th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on her Committee’s report and on securing this important debate.

It is good that there has been a reasonable degree of consensus, perhaps not entirely on high-speed rail but on the need for investment in the railways in general and the importance of that to the economy, the environment and the country. That is just as well because, given the time scales involved, it would be a disaster if those policies were to be chopped and changed between Administrations.

It is right to give due credit to the previous Secretary of State, Lord Adonis, who planned much of the investment that is now going forward. The present Secretary of State had his eye on the post of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and may have been a little disappointed not to have secured that position, but every cloud has a silver lining and the Treasury’s loss was certainly our gain—rather, it was the railway’s gain, because he has secured one of the most outstanding settlements, and that is a credit to him and his ministerial team, and to the Government, whose overall commitment to maintaining capital spending in these difficult times means that we have secured most of the investment originally planned for the railways. That includes core funding for control period 4, for the Thameslink upgrade and Crossrail, and for High Speed 2.

It was a little uncharacteristically partisan of the hon. Lady to suggest that there was a deliberate policy to price people off the railways. That is so obviously nonsense and not part of the Government’s strategy that it should not be repeated.

[Gavin Shuker]

I want to put on record the fact that I was pleased to receive from the Minister of State the information that, as a result of RPI plus 3%, growth in the railways will be diminished by 4%.

[Martin Horwood]

Supply and demand on the railways clearly do not work in favour of the customer. If the Government had not taken a realistic approach to fares, as well as to public support for the railways, some of that critical investment in the railway’s future would have been lost. That, too, would in the end have damaged the interests of customers.

It is obviously regrettable that any fares have to rise at all. We all want to see them fall. Indeed, that Liberal Democrat aspiration was included in our manifesto. However, we must recognise that the Labour party has left us with an annual overspend that would have swallowed the Department for Transport’s budget many times over. We have to be realistic about the need to invest in that kind of environment.

The Select Committee made some important points about the security of that investment programme. Some of those programmes have been maintained. The Minister will know that I am going to mention one project that I think she maintains was not agreed but which I consistently maintain had been agreed, which is the redoubling of the Swindon to Kemble line. It was given enormous support by the Welsh Assembly, local councils, Labour MPs from south Wales and Swindon, Tory MPs from the counties between, and Liberal Democrats from Cheltenham, Bristol and Cardiff—and probably Chippenham.

The redoubling of that short stretch of line would have an enormous impact on the reliability of all the routes that serve those areas and constituencies. It would also be important to the resilience of the network in the west of England, particularly in the event of interruptions to cross-Severn services. Once again, I urge the Minister to look down the departmental sofa to see if any pennies can be found to secure that one project. It is a shame, but it is virtually the only railway project that was agreed under the previous Government that is not going forward.

The Select Committee report rightly talked about the value of rail enhancements, including many local projects, and stressed that they were as important as many of the larger projects. The importance of the right decision-making methodology was also mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) made some excellent points about the need for a long-term strategic view and for joined-up planning in that respect. However, environmental concerns now take an even greater part in that methodology.

Passenger experience, too, is important. When it comes to franchise reform, it is important that we do not use only the basic metrics, such as punctuality; we should also consider the quality of passenger experience on some of our railway services. I would nominate leg room as being one of the most important. Passenger experience should play a much greater part not only in the awarding of franchises but in their maintenance and, if necessary, their recall when services and standards fall. It is also important that regional balance is considered. Many Members have made similar points. Some of the specific medium to long-term priorities identified in the report were equally important, and the points were all well made. I am an unashamed supporter of high-speed rail as is the Liberal Democrat party. The time scales involved are quite mind boggling. We can reassure some hon. Members about the investment involved, because it is spread over a long period of time.