Oral Answers to Questions

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Despite the announcements referred to earlier, the Building Safety Regulator is now advising applicants to plan for 16 weeks to clear gateway 2. That is holding up a disproportionate number of social homes, including 100 in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), and it is much longer than is required for planning permission. What steps will the Government take to reduce the wait back down to eight weeks, as it was?

[Matthew Pennycook]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale), the hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. The newly established Building Safety Regulator is crucial to upholding building safety standards, but we acknowledge that it is causing delays in handling applications, particularly for high-rise building projects on gateway 2, and there is gateway 3 after that. The funding we have announced will make a difference, but as I have said, we are working with the regulator to support its plan for improved delivery, including increasing caseworker capacity and guidance to the sector. We will continue to keep its performance under close review.

Draft Town and Country Planning (Fees and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2025 Draft Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment etc.) (England) Regulations 2025

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I rise to raise concerns about the new Crown route, and the danger of its being overused by the Government, cutting out opportunities for community involvement. Will people have a right to be heard in the decision-making process for those applications, as they have been when they come to a planning committee or to a public inquiry or other appeal?

If the CIL changes in the draft Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment etc.) (England) Regulations 2025 go ahead, they should attract community infrastructure levy payments. We will welcome that aspect because we need to secure infrastructure, and one of our chief concerns with proposals for development is that funding for infrastructure is frequently not in place—including, for example, the lack of GP surgeries in my constituency. The Liberal Democrats support the CIL aspects of the changes, but I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage will raise some concerns about the Crown route.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

The ability to have a home of their own has crept out of reach of a whole generation, while for others, decent emergency accommodation cannot be found; in the last five years, temporary accommodation was named as a contributing factor in the deaths of 58 children under one year old—babies. We urgently need to provide more homes that are genuinely affordable to local people.

That is why the Lib Dem council in Somerset is building hundreds of new council houses in parts of the county for the first time in a generation: 220 new council houses in north Taunton, in my constituency, and 100 additional council houses elsewhere, including zero-carbon council houses. Lib Dem councils in Kingston, Eastleigh, York, Portsmouth, Vale of White Horse, Westmorland and Furness, and Oadby and Wigston are building thousands more new homes.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

As a fellow Somerset MP, my hon. Friend will be aware that Somerset has had 18,000 homes stuck in a planning moratorium for nearly five years. While some of those have been unlocked, many are still in limbo. The Bill is meant to fix that impasse, but does he share my concern that the measures in the Bill may actually fail to unlock that housing, unless Natural England is given the resources it needs to monitor and enforce the nature restoration fund?

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right, and that is why the Liberal Democrats were the only party to put in our manifesto the funds needed for Natural England and the Environment Agency to address the challenges she rightly sets out.

Lib Dem councils are also granting planning permissions, thousands of them—in my county of Somerset alone, 13,000 homes have permission but remain unbuilt.

[Luke Murphy]

What impact does the hon. Gentleman think the 68% cut to the affordable housing budget under the coalition Government had on the delivery of affordable housing?

[Gideon Amos]

There was a significant increase in empty homes being brought back into use under the coalition policies promoted by the Liberal Democrat Ministers. If we look at the figures for the cuts the Government made between 2010 and 2024, we see that those cuts were far deeper after 2015, according to all Departments—the record will bear that out.

[Luke Murphy]

There was not a greater cut in the affordable homes budget at any point between 2010 and 2024; the largest cut—nearly 70%—was under the coalition Government.

[Gideon Amos]

I was referring to the departmental cuts. If we look at all Departments across Government, including Housing, Health and Education, the cuts were far deeper after 2015.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

I hesitate to try to help the hon. Gentleman with his answer, but might it be that the coalition Government were having difficulty building affordable houses in that period because the former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury had said there was no money left?

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman is right to remind us of the letter left by the outgoing Labour Government for the incoming coalition.

We do need to tackle blockages in the system, and if those 13,000 homes in Somerset that have permission and are not being built were being built, we would already have eliminated the 10,000-plus housing waiting list in the county.

[Luke Taylor]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. He is talking about planning permission being granted, but the homes not being built. In Sutton in 2023, I was a member of the planning committee that gave permission for the Victoria House site, which has lain dormant ever since. Permission was given for 74 homes, but they are not being built. It is a frustration for me every time I cycle past to see that potential not being realised. Does he agree that giving councils the power to take over sites that have permission but are not being built would be a really important part of delivering the homes that we need?

[Gideon Amos]

It is almost as though my hon. Friend had read a further section of my speech. That is exactly what we need to do in this country to unlock some of those sites.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Gideon Amos]

I will make a little progress, but maybe later.

[Paul Holmes]

Oh, come on—I was going to be nice to you!

[Gideon Amos]

We shall put that to the test later.

We welcome the provisions that allow compulsory acquisition—where there is a compelling case in the public interest, such as to build social housing—to go ahead on the basis of existing use value, not what the owner hopes will be the value in the future, to the detriment of the public purse. That could make a big difference. It would allow councils to assemble land more affordably, and to deliver more social homes. However, councils need to be resourced to carry out such projects. To that end, I am delighted that the proposal to abolish the cap on planning application fees that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) brought forward in her Bill in 2023 is included in this Bill.

[Chris Curtis]

Would the hon. Member like to take this moment to congratulate the absolute heroes in his party who forced it to change its policy at conference last year in favour of building homes? Many of those who sit on the Benches alongside him were calling out the members of his party for trying to get it to do so, one of whom, a former leader, called them Thatcherite. Does he agree with me that building new homes is not Thatcherite, but is the pro-development future that this country needs and that this Chamber should be supporting?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gideon Amos]

If the hon. Gentleman is so interested in our debates, he should please come and join our next party conference. We would be delighted to debate whether our targets should be 150,000 social rent homes per year or 300,000 general needs homes per year. Of course, we need both, and that was the conclusion of our very thoughtful and timely conference debate.

I congratulate the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Secretary of State—the Deputy Prime Minister—on lifting that cap, on bringing strategic planning into the Bill and on the changes to national policy statements. I also congratulate them on the new nature restoration fund, where it provides support in relation to issues such as nutrient neutrality. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), that is holding back thousands of homes in Somerset, and we welcome the change.

Friends of the Earth has welcomed the nature restoration fund, but points out that it is very unclear how the nature restoration levy will work alongside other regimes. In that respect and many others, the Bill is short on the key principles. It is big on powers for the Secretary of State, but short on how those powers will be exercised. The Bill does not just lack details; it lacks some really big and important principles, including how that will work with other regimes. The funding of the nature restoration levy needs to be up front, so that nature restoration work begins straightaway.

We ask the Minister and the Government to enshrine in the Bill the principle that, on each site, development should first no do harm. That principle needs to be guaranteed its place at the top of the hierarchy of mitigation when it comes to protecting our environment.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

On the point about not doing any harm to nature, would the hon. Member’s party support the water companies becoming statutory consultees so that we can ensure that, with any new housing, not a litre of extra sewage goes into our rivers?

[Gideon Amos]

We would support that, as we did in a Westminster Hall debate very recently. We should be hearing such voices in the planning system, not shutting them out of the planning system.

On energy infrastructure, we welcome support for battery storage and improving access to the grid. Transmission connections are a huge source of delay—one of the biggest bottlenecks for renewable energy. But if we are to unblock that infrastructure, we need to go much further. All large-scale infrastructure projects, not just electricity transmission, should give people direct community benefit. Whether wind farm, solar farm, battery array or gas-fired power station, those living nearby should benefit through local investment or lower bills.

We also support the ambition to streamline planning for major projects, with exceptions on taking category 3 people out of compulsory purchase consultations. Let us note again who the real blockers were on these really big projects. They were not the people. It was nothing to do with local communities or the planning profession—I declare an interest as a member of the planning profession—and it was not councils. It was Ministers who left decisions lying on their desks, wrecking the timescales scrupulously followed by other parties in the process, so let us not blame people for politicians’ failures.

There are things to welcome in the Bill, but it hits the wrong target in many important areas, and this is where I must raise some more serious concerns. The detail provided in the changes to national infrastructure projects is good, but it is in real contrast to other areas of the Bill. There are many Henry VIII clauses that give sweeping powers to the Secretary of State and a democratic deficit is becoming a serious concern. For all that we welcome the aim to deliver homes, the Bill takes aim at communities, when we should be encouraging and empowering them to deliver and create the homes and places we want to see. I say again that racking up permissions—we already have a staggering 1.5 million homes without permission—will not ensure a single one gets built. We need to tackle the failure to build out of permissions granted by taking back the land or further limiting the lifetime of permissions. “Use it or lose it” needs to be the message.

Unless we deal with the supply chain issues and the lack of skills, we will have even more blockers on development.

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

How does the hon. Gentleman square his support for getting more homes built and helping children who are living in temporary accommodation with his opposition to 250 new homes in his constituency, which he announced online just this month?

[Gideon Amos]

I am absolutely delighted to be supporting thousands of new homes across my constituency. The population of my constituency has gone up almost 10% over the past 10 years and I have supported thousands of those new homes, as have my Liberal Democrat colleagues on the planning committee who voted through all those permissions. If occasionally a smaller development in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is not right, I would expect him to oppose it, just as I would in my constituency. I believe Members across the House have done so.

By giving more powers to communities, a community-led approach could actually increase supply. It is time, for example, to give councils the power to end Right to Buy in their areas. They cannot fill the bath, in terms of providing council houses and social homes, if the plug is taken out and they are forced to sell them off as they have done over the preceding decades. Through proper planning, we also want communities in control of how many holiday lets are allowed in their area, so that homes are not swallowed up that could otherwise increase the supply of affordable housing. That is not in the Bill and should be.

Mandating renewable energy such as solar panels on roofs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) articulately argued for, would put people and local communities in control of the bills coming from their pockets.

Growing our economy, sustaining nature and building new homes are not mutually exclusive. They can work together. There are so many examples of how they can work together. For example, decent gardens have more biodiversity than many rural areas. Community-led decisions very often bring the best results, with residents’ infrastructure needs addressed and development shaped around green spaces and sustainability. To unblock homes, the Government need to do two key things instead of taking aim at ordinary people: first, unlock the infrastructure we need, including GPs, transport, green spaces, green infrastructure and water connections; and, secondly, fund the social homes that have been so sorely lacking. Since social housing disappeared as a meaningful proportion of housing supply and social housing targets fell away, this country has never been able to keep pace with demand. Our target is 150,000 per year. I hope the Government will provide a target of their own for social homes; so far, nothing has been said on that either. Invest in those two things, as history has taught us, and the number of homes we could provide would be almost unlimited.

Meanwhile, in communities like my own—where the 2,000-home Orchard Grove development in the west of Taunton, which I support, is taking shape—the reality is that while many people want to see new GP surgeries, developments are held back by the fact that we often cannot get GPs to staff the surgeries where they are being built.

We want to see a Bill about communities leading in planning and development. Instead, the Bill is part of a growing trend that is taking powers away from local communities. It takes a big step in that direction by allowing the Secretary of State to override planning committees and enabling national schemes of delegation that allow Whitehall to dictate who makes decisions on a local council—another Henry VIII clause, giving Whitehall unlimited power to rewrite the standing orders and constitutions of councils up and down the country. That cannot possibly sit right with anybody who values our proud tradition of local government that is independent of central Government. Consultation is sidelined elsewhere, too. Sport England will no longer have a voice to protect playing fields, and people subject to compulsory purchase orders will no longer have the voice they had before.

If the Government believe that local is the problem and that planning committees are the blocker, let us take a quick look at the actual figures. Councils approve more than 85% of planning applications, with some studies putting that figure even higher—closer to 90%. Councillors of all parties are not blocking development; they are enabling 90% of permissions to go through.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the emphasis in the Bill on removing the powers of planning committees will, by default, lead the public to believe that planning committees throughout the years have actually been the problem? In reality, many planning committees have done their mandatory training and made the right decisions, and those decisions have been upheld by the Planning Inspectorate time and again. It should be put on the record for the public that planning committees, as a whole, are not the problem. There is a huge range of issues that we might need to deal with, but that is not one.

[Gideon Amos]

I come back to what the LGA said: the role councillors play in the planning system is the backbone of that system. That is the way it should remain. Taking decisions out of councillors’ hands is taking decisions out of the hands of local people.

Developing and shaping towns or neighbourhoods without the input of the councillors who have that level of trust and local knowledge will make those neighbourhoods and developments poorer and even more likely to fail. Frankly, removing people and their councillors from the system does not mean faster planning, but less democratic planning. It will mean that people are shut out and make them lose faith in the system even more; it will mean more legal challenges and more people who feel shut out from the system. The Bill risks making development not only slower, but worse.

There is, of course, another way. Instead of a Bill that shuts people out and shuts them up, silencing voices and failing people on the basic services and infrastructure their communities need, we should look to the great community-led developments of the past, and more recently, from Letchworth and Welwyn Garden Cities and Hampstead Garden Suburb, to local authority-led new towns such as Milton Keynes, right up to the award-winning schemes often built in partnership with the public and private sector up and down the country right now—developments where nature, people and the economy grow together, not in opposition to each other, as we see in the best places that we all know and enjoy visiting.

If we build with the economy and with those who want growth, and for nature by developing with nature and for people by developing with people, we will build the homes, jobs and services that our communities want to see, that our country deserves and that our environment and our planet so desperately need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Bill is about speeding up planning processes, judicial reviews and the development of critical infrastructure. Although some elements of the Bill are positive, others risk undermining the long-term success of any development. The Bill gives the Secretary of State power to decide the consenting route for individual projects, bypassing local input and oversight. That is combined with the overall reduction in local democratic control by transferring significant powers from local councillors to planning officers.

Currently, planning committees are the place where elected officials can reflect local concerns and represent their communities in decision making. By shifting more power to unelected officers, we risk alienating the public and further eroding trust in local democracy. That is especially important given the shift towards creating larger unitary authorities. We see that already in Somerset, where my constituents have seen Sedgemoor district council, a small but effective planning authority, replaced by a larger but less effective unitary council. That may be connected with the fact that Somerset is run by the Liberal Democrats. If local decision making becomes more detached, how can we be sure that developments will reflect the needs and desires of the people who will live with them?

[Gideon Amos]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that when the Conservative leaders of the district council endorsed the unitary council, a poll was taken of the people of Somerset and they voted against it, but the Conservatives pushed it through?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but the Liberal Democrats have been responsible since 2022 for the mess that has become Somerset. I am in favour in principle of building more houses, but it must be done in a way that brings local communities with us. We must ensure that new developments are accompanied by the right infrastructure —schools, health centres, roads, and a proper number of green spaces in between. When the Government announced their new housing targets, it became immediately apparent that the bulk of the increase would be in rural areas, so while Somerset as a whole has seen an increase of 41% in its housing target, the City of Bristol has seen its target reduced by 11%. Why is that? If it is related to the high number of Labour councillors in Bristol, and the very small number of Labour councillors in Somerset, we should be told.

The Bill also proposes a new nature restoration fund, which developers can pay into to offset environmental impacts, rather than conduct individual environmental assessments. Although I can see the logic of that move in some cases, I have concerns about the impact in Somerset. Given the network of waterways across the Somerset levels, the environmental impact of any individual site has the potential to spread to a much wider area than in much of the rest of the country. It is for such reasons that local accountability is so important, and by shifting the planning system to make it too top heavy, the Government risk unintended local consequences.

On compulsory purchase powers, the Government argue that streamlining the process will allow housing and infrastructure projects to progress more quickly. I am concerned about the abuse of power, particularly in relation to agricultural land and green spaces. By simplifying land acquisitions and reducing protections for affected landowners, the Bill could pave the way for large-scale developments that displace communities, damage the environment and undermine agricultural interests. The Government have already done great damage to the farming community in Somerset with their family farm tax and the closure, without notice, of the sustainable farming incentive. The proposal seems like another Government scheme to impoverish our farmers.

Although the Government’s aim to address the housing crisis and accelerate infrastructure development is important, the Bill raises significant concerns. It risks undermining local democracy, environmental protections and citizens’ ability to hold developers and the Government to account.

If we are to build a sustainable future that is responsive to the needs of our communities, we must approach this Bill with caution. That is why I shall seek to improve it before we give it a Third Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

It is a real pleasure to close this Second Reading debate for the Government, and I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have participated in it. Not unexpectedly, it has been a debate of contrasts. On the one hand, we have had the privilege of listening to a large number of well-informed and thoughtful contributions from hon. Members who agree with the main principles of the Bill. In a crowded field, I commend in particular the excellent speeches made by my hon. Friends the Members for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), for Northampton South (Mike Reader), for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy), for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin), for Erewash (Adam Thompson), for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) and for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis). Set against those, we were subjected to a series of contributions from hon. and right hon. Members who, while professing support in principle for the intentions of the Bill, nevertheless alighted on a range of flawed and in some cases spurious reasons why they oppose it.

I am saddened to say that among the most glaring examples of that approach was the speech made by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), whose party’s reasoned amendment was not selected. While I appreciate fully his need to manage the discordant voices on his own Benches when it comes to housing and major infrastructure, the arguments he made were both confused and disingenuous. This Government wholly reject his claim that the Bill will not result in the ambitious delivery of the infrastructure and housing the country needs. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that a party that declared in its manifesto only last year that it was committed to

“Increasing building of new homes to 380,000 a year”

should be getting behind this legislation, not seeking to block it. I sincerely hope that, even at this late stage, the Liberal Democrats will reconsider their position.

[Gideon Amos]

Does the Minister accept that it would be easier to support this Bill if it did not include clauses that provide the Secretary of State with the power not just to take some decisions away from planning committees, but to take all decisions away from planning committees, because that provision is completely unlimited in its scope?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

No; the right hon. Lady has misunderstood me. Planning committees will be able to scrutinise and make decisions on a series of applications. On a point raised by the shadow Secretary of State, the House should also be aware that we intend to formally consult on these measures in the coming weeks. Hon. Members will therefore be able to engage with the detail and precisely the type of question that the right hon. Lady raises, rightly, alongside consideration of the Bill.

[Gideon Amos]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am not going to give way; I am going to make some progress.

I will briefly address CPO powers before I conclude, as a number of hon. Members raised concerns about our changes to the process. Let me be clear: these reforms are not about targeting farmers or any specific types of land or landowners. We want to reform the compulsory purchase process and land compensation rules to speed up and lower the costs of the delivery of housing and infrastructure in the public interest.

We have already taken action, fully implementing direction powers that provide for the removal of hope value from the assessment of compensation for certain types of CPOs, such as those facilitating affordable housing —provisions, I might say, introduced by the previous Government in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. We have published updated and more detailed guidance on the process to help local authorities.

This Bill will now go further, ensuring that the process for acquiring land with a direction is more efficient and that administrative costs are reduced, and we are expanding the power to remove hope value by directions to parish and town councils. We want to see these powers used and will work closely with local authorities to ensure that they have the support to take advantage of the reforms.

To conclude, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who contributed to the debate. I look forward to engaging with hon. Members across the House as the Bill progresses. A wide range of views have been expressed over the course of the debate, but there is clearly a broad consensus that when it comes to delivering new homes and critical infrastructure—[Interruption.] The shadow Minister says no, so perhaps he does not agree, but the status quo is failing the country and more importantly those who last year sent us to this place to do better.

The process of securing consent for nationally significant infrastructure projects is demonstrably too slow and uncertain and is constraining economic growth and undermining our energy security. The current approach to development and the environment too often sees both sustainable house building and nature recovery stall. In exercising essential local democratic oversight, planning committees clearly do not operate as effectively as they could, and local planning authorities do not have adequate funding to deliver their services.

The compulsory purchase order process is patently too slow and cumbersome, and development corporations are not equipped to operate in the way we will need them to in the years ahead. It is abundantly clear that the lack of effective mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning mean that we cannot address development and infrastructure needs across sub-regions as well as we otherwise might.

We can and must do things differently. That means being prepared to will the means as well as the ends. Fourteen years of failure have left the country with a belief that nothing works, that nothing gets built, and that Britain can no longer do big things. This Government refuse to accept the stagnation and decline we were bequeathed. We were elected on the promise of change, and we are determined to deliver it. Through the measures introduced by this landmark Bill, we will get Britain building again, unleash economic growth and deliver on the promise of national renewal. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Housing Development Planning: Water Companies

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this debate and on her tireless work in North Shropshire, which I have seen for myself.

This is a particularly timely debate, with the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill having had its First Reading earlier this week. As Liberal Democrats, we want to see more housing built. In particular, we urge the Government to set a target of 150,000 homes for social rent per year. We also need a new generation of rent-to-own housing for a generation for whom the housing ladder has risen out of reach. However, as the Government push for their 1.5 million homes target, the way to get Britain building is to deliver the infrastructure —the GPs, schools, bus routes, water and sustainable drainage—that communities want to see. The best way to do that is to ensure that local people are at the heart of decisions about how their towns, villages and neighbourhoods should take shape and develop.

Water infrastructure is one of the most challenging things to get right, not least because of the dire state of the existing infrastructure after years of under-investment, as private companies siphoned off funds, often to overseas shareholders and in bonuses, under the previous Conservative Government. Those outflows of money are thrown into even sharper relief by the increasingly unpredictable rainfall and weather patterns that are becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change. Fixing this issue is therefore important not just for new homebuyers, but for everyone in communities up and down the country who increasingly face the risk of the disastrous consequences we have heard about.

Many of my Taunton and Wellington constituents know about the risks only too well. In Ruishton, for example, children are frequently unable to reach their local secondary school due to flooding on Lipe Lane, the only road from the village that leads to it. Ruishton is now facing a lot more development that could make things worse. Young people in Creech St Michael face the same problem. Meanwhile, at Hook Bridge in Stoke St Gregory, the River Tone is surging across the floodplain.

[Dan Aldridge]

One of the things that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine share is that we are quite close to floodplains. The rhyne management has been a real problem. That goes back to the austerity cuts of the coalition Government, and we still have not got back from that. That is a real problem for many coastal communities, and it should unite us in getting back to a position where rhyne management allows housing to be delivered sustainably.

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need more investment in this area, which is why the Liberal Democrat manifesto was the only manifesto to identify the additional funding that the Environment Agency needed for flood defence work, and that Natural England needed. He mentioned the floodplain; much like the other villages that I mentioned, a large part of my constituency is in the floodplain. When the river surges across that floodplain, it far too often carries sewage from the sewage works with it, right across a vast area, in ways that are totally unacceptable. Nobody should have to deal with that raw sewage coming into their home and garden.

My hon. Friends the Members for North Shropshire and for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) are absolutely right that schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 needs to be commenced. The schedule would require the approval of drainage and would require sustainable drainage systems—SUDS—to be provided in all but the most exceptional cases. It would also establish a proper authority for the regulations to ensure they are properly designed and maintained. It is not right that the burden of poorly constructed drainage systems should fall on individuals, who have saved for years to get their first home, because of inadequate regulation and safeguards.

Alongside schedule 3, we should have proper planning enforcement—too often the Cinderella service of planning, as my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) mentioned. In fact, planning departments recover nothing like the full costs of planning services from applicants, due to the cap that central Government has placed on them for decades. Council tax payers are therefore subsidising those developers. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, was absolutely right in November 2023 to introduce a Bill to remove that cap on planning fees. We were delighted to see in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill published this week that that campaign for full cost recovery has finally won the day; it looks as though it has, in any event.

Without the proper enforcement of sustainable drainage, there is a real risk that the drive to increase housing numbers will exacerbate this problem. Having worked with Sir Michael Pitt in a past life, I looked up last night his report on the 2007 floods and exactly what happened to his 2008 recommendation that schedule 3 should then be commenced. By 2014, the Government had consulted on the necessary guidance and were on track for completion of commencement before 2015. I am sad to say that, in 2015, the trail goes very cold. We had to wait until 2023, when the Conservative Government said in their document, “The Review for implementation of Schedule 3 to The Flood and Water Management Act 2010” that they had instead decided to rely simply on policy. In fact, the 2023 Government review concluded that their approach was—using technical language—“not working”. It went on, in yet more technical language, to say that,

“non-statutory technical standards for sustainable drainage systems should be made statutory: as the”

current

“ambiguity makes the role of the planning authority very difficult. The review also found that in general there were no specific checking regimes in place to ensure that SuDS had been constructed as agreed, leaving concerns about unsatisfactory standards of design and construction, and…difficulties of ensuring proper maintenance once the developer has left the site.”

If only they had followed the advice of the Pitt review and commenced schedule 3 back in 2015, many of the people we have heard about would not have had the same problems.

In the past, there was a body of law to control drainage into traditional sewers—in the words of the Public Health Act 1936,

“communicating with a public sewer—

but relatively new SUDS do not have the same body of regulation. There is therefore no longer any reason why schedule 3 should not be commenced as soon as possible, if not immediately. It should not take another flood to make that happen. Having water companies as statutory consultees is also an excellent suggestion, as hon. Members from across the country have pointed out, and I am not sure why it cannot be enacted.

In conclusion, it is time to implement the recommendations of the 2008 Pitt review, of the Government’s consultation on the response in 2014, and of the 2023 DEFRA review that I quoted, and time to finally implement schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, before communicating with a public sewer becomes something that our constituents are forced to do in an all too upfront and personal way in their own homes and gardens.

Plan for Neighbourhoods

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome this plan to work with communities to improve local amenities and engagement in the process. We also welcome the move away from local council areas bidding against each other, and towards a more objective approach, based, for example, on indices of multiple deprivation. In our opinion and my opinion, the previous system divisively pitted one area against another in a way that did damage to more areas than it helped.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to allowing communities to take action to improve their area. Given sufficient powers and resources, local authorities can play a major role in responding to climate and nature emergencies, whether through the insulation of homes, enhancing green spaces or improving air quality. However, the Conservative Government forced councils to do more and more with less and less, plunging many into financial crisis. As a result, councils have gone bankrupt around the country, and many are feeling the strain of cuts to public services and a lack of investment in community assets.

No community can flourish without proper powers and resources, so we welcome the plan’s commitment to ensuring that new neighbourhood boards work with local authorities to implement new funding. However, we urge the Government to confirm that local authorities will be funded and resourced substantially to take on this additional workload.

The financial burden on councils has forced many to make impossible choices on funding. In my council of Somerset, for example, nearly 70% of council tax receipts go on care for vulnerable adults and children, which many believe should be a national responsibility. Until we have a national solution to the care crisis, councils will continue to be held back from reaching their full potential. We welcome the Government’s commitment to investing in community-led improvement.

We also welcome the new neighbourhood boards, which should provide community engagement throughout the process. We urge the Government to reconsider their decision to remove district council-level scrutiny from the planning process. Where Whitehall takes power and decisions out of the hands of local councillors, it also takes decisions out of the hands of local people. That is undemocratic and will ultimately slow up the process of getting the homes that we need. We also call on the Government to confirm that nature and climate specialists will be included on the neighbourhood boards. Finally, can I ask the Minister—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I remind the hon. Member that there is a time limit. I will give him one more sentence.

[Gideon Amos]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will the Secretary of State review the list of 75 towns, so that others can be included in future? Finally, will the Government consider rolling the plans into neighbourhood plans, so that they are given more statutory effect when planning decisions are made?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for those questions. On the point about climate and nature, gaining consent from the community often starts with buy-in, and localised climate interventions through these programmes may well be a good way to do that. On the local authorities point, the Budget was the first step in rebuilding local authority finances, which will take time. As the hon. Member says, resolutions on social care will take some of the pressure off, too. On planning, local plans are so important, and not enough of the country is covered by them. Local people rightly want a say, and the best way to ensure that is through the local plan process. On the 75 towns point, the ones that were previously announced are the ones for which we have honoured commitments, but as he says, there may be scope to go further in the future. I cannot run ahead of the spending review, but if we can prove that things have worked in these 75 towns, there will be a strong case to do them elsewhere.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Liberal Democrats stand firmly with the many bereaved family members, as well as the immediate community, friends and neighbours, as they mourn the 72 people, including children, who tragically lost their lives in 2017. Any steps regarding changes to the building will be a deeply personal matter for that community, and I know that the Secretary of State will approach any decisions about the future of the building with due respect for the local community, survivors and victims. We therefore welcome the Government’s decision to work with the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission to design a memorial, and we urge the Government to approach the discussion with respect and sympathy for those who suffered, as I am sure the Secretary of State will do.

As we approach eight years since the Grenfell fire, Liberal Democrats are concerned that there are still thousands of people in the UK living in buildings with dangerous cladding. The Grenfell inquiry provided a detailed look at the facts leading up to the night of 14 June 2017, including looking at the underlying causes of the fire, where mistakes were made, the condition of the tower and the responses of the public and the emergency services. On the recommendations to the architectural profession, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I am a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

There are lessons to be learned by ever authority in the land. We recognise that the previous Government provided funding to start the process of dealing with cladding, which is slowly being allocated, but it is now time to accelerate that vital work to make all buildings safe. We are concerned that too many developers and building owners are passing the cost of remediation work on to tenants and leaseholders, which puts many at serious financial risk.

Liberal Democrats endorse all 57 recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry phase 2 report by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, including the creation of legally enforceable orders to remediate premises so they are safe, on pain of criminal sanction. However, we need to take further steps to guard against commercial interests overriding safety, as they did in both the testing of materials and the enforcement of building regulations. We would like to see more done to ensure that commerciality will not, shockingly and disgracefully, override interests of safety ever again.

It is time to invest in our housing stock so that the cladding is dealt with. It is time for justice for the victims and for all those living in unsafe housing. Lib Dems stand ready to work across parties to do achieve that.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his commitment and support in taking forward the recommendations that came from the inquiry. I thank him for his comments about ensuring that we take decisions about the future of Grenfell in the most sensitive of ways. I absolutely agree with him, and I am committed to taking the next steps respectfully and carefully with the community. I continue to support the independent Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission as the community choose a design team to work with them on designing a memorial.

I agree that it is a priority for us to work at pace because the work is urgent. We are working as quickly as we possibly can. Some of the inquiry recommendations are wide-reaching and some will require further work, including public consultation, before they can be delivered. However, where we can work quickly, such as with the machinery of Government change—moving responsibility for fire to my Department—we are committed to doing that.

I hope the hon. Gentleman heard my words on the acceleration of remediation and our action plan. As I hope was reflected in my response, I agree entirely with his comments about commerciality not taking precedent or having any control over safety. Safety must come first and this Government are committed to that.

High Street Rental Auctions

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) on bringing this key issue for our town centres to Westminster Hall.

I was elected on a platform that focused in part on bringing inward investment to Taunton and Wellington, and that passion is close to my heart. Taunton and Wellington town centres are already attractive and vibrant places to visit, to shop and for leisure. Occupancy rates in Taunton town centre have increased from 85% to 90%; more new businesses are moving in. Somerset County Gazette reports seven new businesses in the town centre in the past 12 months: Cornish Bakery, Koottaan, Desparia, Somerset Bakehouse, Toys “R” Us, Drippy Bear and Islands Caribbean restaurant—not a vape shop among them, which is good to see for our town centre.

In Wellington, street food and food festivals bring people in from far and wide, and a new banking hub has opened. My only objection to the new banking hub, which is great news for Wellington, is that it is run by the Post Office, with a sign above the door saying “Post Office”, but there is no post office inside. Wellington still needs a post office, and we hope that the Government will see the light and decide that buildings with “Post Office” on the outside should contain a post office. We will continue working on that as hard as we can.

On Sundays, Taunton has a fantastic new independent market, which brings people in from far and wide. However, one building is a particular issue for our town centre. It was built as a W & A Chapman department store in 1938, and was substantially remodelled in the ’60s, just after Debenhams took it over in 1959. It is a large, handsome building, and a real landmark in the centre of our town—one of the biggest buildings in the heart of our town centre, if not the largest. However, it has stood empty, sadly, for around four years now.

I welcome the high street auction provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which could be extremely useful. However, the powers to allow councils to carry out high street rental auctions are subject to a number of restrictions. Auctions apply to commercial premises that have been vacant for at least one year out of the past two, which is a reasonable requirement—so far, so good. They must also meet a suitability requirement—this is getting a bit doubtful. Then there are process and landlord obligations: local authorities can issue a final letting notice compelling a landlord to rent the property via auction, which is obviously a good move. The property must also be offered at a fair market rent, which is reasonable. Then there is an appeal mechanism, so there are more catches. One potential challenge is that the auction’s success depends on tenant demand. Who will define tenant demand? If we do not attempt an auction, how will we discover what tenant demand is? The appeal process provides a number of areas for challenge by the landowner.

Whether or not high street rental auctions are suitable for that particular Debenhams building, I am concerned about the number of exceptions from the powers. The guidance says:

“High Street Rental Auctions will not be suitable for all high street premises; for instance, large former department stores may be subject to long-term, complex redevelopment plans which may be negatively impacted by being subject to inclusion.”

Presumably, any owner of a former department store could say, “My department store is subject to complex, long-term redevelopment plans, which could be negatively impacted by a high street auction.” A whole class of town centre buildings—some of the biggest we have—therefore seem to be excluded from high street rental auctions, which is a real drawback and a real shame.

The guidance also says that auctions will not be appropriate

“should the local authority consider that there is not likely to be a sufficient tenant base and demand for the premises”.

As I said, how do we know what the demand for the premises is if we have not attempted to market them through high street auctions? I urge the Government to look at the guidance and the powers, and to see whether they could be applied to some of the biggest, most iconic buildings in our town centres, which are of course empty department stores.

Even in a healthy town centre such as Taunton’s, the presence of one large building that remains empty can be a real problem. Whether or not it is suitable for a high street auction, the building in question in Taunton really needs attention; it needs to be dealt with, because it has been empty since 2021. Planning permission was sought in 2020 to demolish it and build apartments. That application was withdrawn, but it could have been refused. The Twentieth Century Society praised the building’s architecture and made it subject to a listing application, although it did not quite make the grade. It has an important place in the hearts of people in Taunton. It has 7,000 square metres of floor space, so it is a big building. Many believe that it could be saved and reused. It occupies a fantastic location, with the River Tone on one side, one of the key town centre streets on the frontage, and our fantastic Taunton castle on a third side, which has been the historic seat of government in the county of Somerset for hundreds of years.

One reason why the building might be suitable for refurbishment is that demolishing it would bring a requirement to carry out archaeological investigations. During the previous application, Historic England produced one of the lengthiest representations I have ever seen, which suggested that investigations would be required. If the building is not demolished, that work would not be needed, which would potentially be a much cheaper operation for the owners.

We have tried to engage with the owners of the building, but it has been challenging. The town council and groups of architects have brought forward schemes for the building, but they have been unable to get floor plans or really engage with the owners. I reached out and wrote to the owners via recorded delivery, email and all the other methods I could think of, and I was pleased that Ropemaker Properties recently came back to me. I am grateful to the company for offering to meet me and Taunton town council to discuss how this important building can be brought back into use, and for putting that meeting in the diary.

Finally, I urge the Government to think about the extent of these powers and whether big department stores should be completely excluded from them.

Draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats are concerned that without planning officers in place we simply will not deliver the homes that we need. Homes are less likely to be the genuinely affordable, nature-positive and zero carbon ones that we all want to see. As has been referred to, there is a £362 million shortfall for planning authorities after the fee is taken into account. The Royal Town Planning Institute has pointed out that there is a lack of robust data on how many officers there are per region, per local area. That is a concern in itself; without that data we cannot have a realistic picture of how the service can be improved.

The Home Builders Federation, through a freedom of information request, pointed out that 80% of local planning authorities are operating below capacity, which is not where we need to be if we are to address the housing crisis. We want to see authorities given more flexibility to set their own fees, determined locally by those communities. We would like to see minimum ringfenced funding for local planning authorities.

In a previous debate, the Minister referred to guidance on ringfencing. I would be grateful if he could say more about how funding and budgets within hard-pressed local authorities can be ringfenced for a planning service that is important to people and their local economies. We welcome the 300 additional planning officers announced by the Government, but fewer than one graduate per council area will not have a massive impact. We need to see more than that in our planning departments.

Taken together, those measures would help to address the need for better services for our local communities and our councils. Planning officers and councils are not blockers; they are the problem-solvers. If we are to have housing that is genuinely affordable and net zero, delivering biodiversity net gain, we need planning officers in place and councils to be supported. That is especially so at a time when the social care crisis is putting pressure on local councils. Funding is rightly being diverted for frontline care operations.

The previous Government took nearly £1 billion out of funding earmarked to reform social care. Unless local government funding is properly reformed, and social care as a key part of that is delivered, councils will continue to struggle and lean on other departments for cuts and savings. Planning departments will continue to suffer, however many statutory instruments are passed. Until those issues are addressed, we suggest that the proposals do not go far enough. However, they are welcome, and we will support them as a small step in the right direction.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree. That is why we have an inter-ministerial group—we are determined to tackle homelessness. This is not just about children in temporary accommodation; it affects every single aspect of their lives and outcomes. With our opportunities mission, we are determined to give every child the best possible outcome.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

The New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill—the sunshine Bill—received a sunny disposition from all sides of the House among the private Members’ Bills we debated on Friday. In the upcoming uprating of building regulations, will the Housing Minister confirm that solar generation will be part of the requirements for all new houses?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Government’s position was set out in some detail on Friday when I responded to the debate on the private Member’s Bill. As the hon. Gentleman will know, I am in conversation with the promoter of that Bill, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), to shape the design of the future standards that we are bringing forward.

New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Hinchliff]

I wholeheartedly agree.

As I was saying, we could suffer from the potentially profound impacts of competing demands for space for the homes we require, our commitment to protect 30% of our land for nature by 2030, and our fragile food security. Government figures show that with an industry average of 5 acres per megawatt, the proposed ground-mounted solar schemes put forward to date would, if they all went ahead, require a total land area roughly equivalent to Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle and Leeds combined. Yet at the same time, academic analysis indicates that between suitable existing buildings and new construction, there is potential space for 117 GW of rooftop solar in England by 2050.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it was a shocking dereliction of duty when the previous Government cancelled the zero-carbon home programme, which would have allowed for the generation of around 3,000 MW if every house built since 2015 had had solar panels on it? Does he agree with my residents in Taunton and Wellington, who are aghast and want to see solar panels on the new houses being built in Comeytrowe, Staplegrove and Monkton Heathfield?

[Chris Hinchliff]

I find myself, once again, in wholehearted agreement.

Ensuring that solar panels are installed on the rooftops of new buildings specifically could deliver a generating capacity over six times greater than that of Sizewell C. Clearly, if we start applying a strategic approach beginning with the provisions in the Bill, we can host the vast majority of the solar panels we need on our rooftops. Other nations are already proving that this can be done, with similar regulatory measures currently in place in Germany, China and Japan. Better yet, enacting this legislation would not only accelerate our progress toward meeting our climate targets, reducing the industrialisation of our countryside and protecting rural communities; it also offers the most effective way to ensure that the net zero transition lowers electricity bills for consumers.