Growth Deals

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Greg Clark

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I warmly welcome the funding that the growth fund will give to the new innovation centre at the Royal Agricultural university in Cirencester. However, the biggest problem in Gloucestershire is the “missing link”: the A419 between the M4 and the M5. It is part of the road scheme but it is going to be very expensive and the budget will need to be supplemented. Could that supplement be obtained from the growth fund?

[Greg Clark]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s remarks. He demonstrates the fact that these growth deals apply not only to our industrial cities but to counties, such as his own, with a substantial rural population. We know that the road schemes and improvements to connections in those counties are particularly important. The devolution of funds, now and in the future, to the Gloucestershire local enterprise partnership will allow it to put forward—as it has done—the schemes that will make the biggest difference in its area, and I encourage my hon. Friend to work with his LEP to achieve precisely that.

National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Greg Clark

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

If there is a plan in place, decisions have to be taken in accordance with it. If no plan is in place, there is a strong reason for adopting one.

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

My right hon. Friend has performed a Herculean task in moving away from the unwanted regional spatial strategy towards a new local plan-led system. However, there is concern in the Cotswolds that 12 months will not be long enough, particularly if there is a judicial review or there has to be a local inquiry. Is he open to representations on the length of the transition period?

[Greg Clark]

The 12 months is for plans that can be adjusted in that time. Even for plans that might take longer to adjust, however, weight is still given to the policies in the emerging plans. We have gone further than has been suggested, and there is adequate protection for policies adopted locally. It is eight years since local authorities were invited to produce a plan, which I think is time enough to give them an extra year to get their plans up to speed.

National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Greg Clark

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right, and that is now a shared view. As I have said, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne has said that. Indeed, in our conversations about the Localism Bill, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), whom I congratulate on his promotion, also recognised that the regional approach would go and not come back. It has not worked for the reasons that I have mentioned: it sets people against the planning system.

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

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

I want to make some progress, because lots of Members want to speak and I do not want to take up too much time. However, I will take some interventions a little later.

The first objective is to make the local plan central to what happens and to transfer power to local communities. That has to be crucial. However, if we are to put local councils and people in neighbourhoods in charge, it is essential that the policy context in which they operate is accessible. They have to be able to understand it. When I first started to review the planning policy statements and planning policy guidance notes over a year ago, I asked for them to be brought into my office. They had to be carried in—in boxes. It is not possible to put local councils and members in charge if they have to wade through more than 1,000 pages of national policy. The policy has accreted over time. It was not the intention of the previous Government or Governments before them to accumulate such a mountain of policy; it has grown up piecemeal over time. That is why—to respond to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, who has now left the Chamber—it was important to take the issue seriously and review the policy from first principles. That is what we have done to make it accessible. The proposals that we have received to boil it down and distil it reflect a consensus in the House and beyond. In the submissions that have come in from the groups outside the House, I have seen many detailed “track changes” comments, and none of the proposals departs significantly from the type and length of document that we are aiming for.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having elevated the debate on planning policy, which is vital for the economic future of the country. May I also tell him, however, that all those who work in the planning system now need certainty? Will he move on as quickly as possible from the consultation to provide a definitive national planning policy framework, to give us that certainty?

[Greg Clark]

I will, and I will have more to say about that shortly.