Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Michael Gove

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I hear the important point about national parks, and the echo from my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) with reference to areas of outstanding natural beauty. The environmental protections in the Bill should meet that need, but I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend in Committee to ensure that the protections are there.

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

My right hon. Friend has referred to the national development management policies. There is great concern that they will override local planning authorities, which spend a great deal of time preparing their local plans that are then approved by Government inspectors. It would be quite wrong if national Government overrode them, and it would destroy the careful balance that has existed since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, in which planning was devolved to local authorities.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to reassert that the NDMPs will not override local plans. Local plans have primacy—that is perfectly clear in this legislation. As a result of strengthening the plan- making system, we will make sure that we deal with the issues and questions that have led particular communities to resist development in the past.

I mentioned the importance of beauty. Specifically, for example, we will strengthen the role of design codes in local plans. Through our new office for place, which is a successor in some respects to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment but even better in its drive, we will be in a position to ensure that beauty is at the heart of all new developments. In particular, I pay tribute to my predecessors in this role, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and the late James Brokenshire, who worked to ensure that beauty, quality and higher aesthetic standards were at the heart of new architectural developments and did so much to reset the debate away from where it has been in the past and towards a brighter future.

Building Safety

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Michael Gove

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I think that the legislation we are bringing forward helps to address some of the regulatory failures to which he alludes. I also think it is important to wait for the conclusions of the Grenfell inquiry before apportioning appropriate weight on the responsibility that rests on central Government, the responsibility that rests on local government, and the responsibility that rests on others. I believe the proposals that we have put forward today are the best and most expeditious way of ensuring that we can provide support to leaseholders, but of course we will keep that under review.

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

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a chartered surveyor.

I warmly welcome today’s announcement. May I ask my right hon. Friend about two aspects that he has mentioned in the statement—namely that the indemnity given to building assessors and the proper auditing assessment should enable lenders and insurers to offer those products at reasonable rates fairly quickly? That, in turn, will get the market moving, so that those leaseholders who desperately need to move should soon find that there will be a market for them to do so.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly our intention, and it is the fruit of the work read by my hon. Friend and others.

EU Exit: End of Transition Period

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Michael Gove

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will outline how the shared prosperity fund will be distributed. She is right: as a result of our departure from the European Union, we will have more money to spend on our priorities, and we will, of course, spend that money on what the Prime Minister has called the levelling-up agenda. There are parts of our country—overlooked communities and undervalued families—that have been neglected by Labour local authorities for far too long and now have Conservative MPs in this place, and it is vital that their advocacy on behalf of their constituents to improve their productivity is supported. That is why everything from new free ports to increased investment will go to those areas that have been neglected by Labour for far too long.

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

The figures that my right hon. Friend has given today on business preparedness for 31 December are concerning. Is not the important advice that he has given that those businesses should either do the paperwork themselves or get an intermediary to do it on their behalf?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right. We want to help and support business. That is why we have provided the funding that we have. One reason for publishing the reasonable worst-case scenario today is to draw attention to the fact that, if we do not all work together, there will be disruption, but if we do work together, there are huge opportunities to be seized.