Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Greg Clark and Graham P Jones(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Greg Clark
No, we want to see more homes of all types. We have committed to build 1 million homes over the next five years, which the previous Labour Government signally failed to do. In fact, when they were in power, the number of homes that were built in a single year fell to 88,000, which was the lowest number since the 1920s.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
At the weekend, the Prime Minister said on the “Andrew Marr Show” that he expected a million properties to move from the social rented sector to private ownership. The Secretary of State is talking about building a million properties. Where are the extra social rentals coming from? It seems that the Prime Minister is saying not only that there will not be any extra, but that there will actually be a reduced number of social rented properties. Does he not see that the maths do not add up?
Greg Clark
The reduction in social rented properties happened under the previous Labour Government, when the stock fell by 400,000. Our determination is to build more homes of all types, so that we can house the growing number of young people who want to own and rent homes of their own.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Greg Clark and Graham P Jones
Greg Clark
I want to make some progress, and the hon. Lady intervened earlier.
Let me say something about the definition of sustainability, which I know has attracted some interest. The definition that we have used is the one used by previous Governments. It is the Brundtland commission’s definition, which has stood the test of time. It has been suggested that it is a high-level definition, so there should be a further elaboration of it. Hon. Members will know that planning policy statement 1, for example, contains the Brundtland definition in one paragraph and includes an extra 10 lines referring to the sustainable development strategy. That has been part of the previous document and some organisations and perhaps some Members have suggested that we should make reference to the current version of the sustainable development strategy, the 2005 document.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It appears that rumours are circulating that Colonel Gaddafi has been captured. If that is true, will you ask a Secretary of State or a Minister to make a statement to the House today?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
What I can say is that it is up to the Secretary of State to decide whether to make a statement. The point has been noted and everybody is aware of it. Has the Minister finished?
Localism Bill
Debate between Greg Clark and Graham P Jones
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I want to address new clauses 13 and 14 on EU fines. I believe that ministerial advice stated that individual fines to local authorities would be appropriate where there was a direct causal link, and where councils were guilty of action or inaction. One example is waste, on which I would like to address two key issues: EU directives on recycling and landfill taxes.
The Local Government Association briefing is dismissive of the Government’s proposals. It states:
“Moves to allow Ministers to force English councils to pay parts of fines imposed on the UK government by the EU are unfair, unworkable, dangerous and unconstitutional. This is an unprecedented power for Ministers to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny and will inevitably lead to legal battles as Government tries to apportion “blame” for EU fines.”
The LGA urges that the policy be scrapped, and continues:
“In effect it means a Minister may simultaneously be prosecutor, judge, jury, and co-defendant, when Ministers themselves may actually be responsible for fines being levied. This is neither impartial nor localist.”
There are reasons why the Government are responsible for such fines perhaps being levied, but I want to address the confusion that seems to exist in Government. The Minister for the natural environment—the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—said in Committee in March that local authorities would not face what I describe as “bin taxes”, which are charges on local authorities and their residents for not reaching the EU’s 50% threshold. I asked him:
“I want to press the Minister on EU fines for England and Wales on waste collection. Does he support the individual fining of authorities that do kerbside collection and that are struggling to reach 50%, as suggested by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government?”
The Minister replied:
“I can tell the Committee that local authorities will not be fined individually for not achieving 50%. I can give that assurance…If we are failing, it will be lamentable”.—[Official Report, Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee, 8 March 2011; c. 9-10.]
There seems to be a great deal of confusion between the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this issue. To be honest, I would like the proposal scrapped, but we at least need some clarity on how to reach 50% recycling rates and avoid EU fines.
The Bill does nothing to protect my constituents, particularly given that councils in east Lancashire have been hit extremely hard by DCLG cuts. Residents in my local authority, which was Conservative until last Thursday night—thankfully we now have a Labour authority—had achieved a 40% recycling rate, or just under. In effect, we are talking about a bin tax by any other name, and it is unfair. The message to the Minister this evening is that it is not the fault of the residents of Lancashire. The county council’s waste private finance initiative schemes would have resulted in a 90% recycling rate, but they were scrapped a few months ago. Up until a few months ago we had a strategy that would have enabled us to avoid EU fines, and we are talking about some of the most deprived communities in this country.
There are also issues around recycling centres. If the Government will not invest in recycling centres, or if the spread of recycling centres across the country is disproportionate, that is not fair either, but that is a Government policy. It is not an EU policy; it is a policy that the Government will be answerable for. The LGA is quite correct to say that the Government will be held to account; indeed, this issue could end up in the courts.
However, there is a second, more important reason why the scheme is not fair—a reason that I put to the Under-Secretary—and it concerns the difference between kerbside and co-mingled collections. Kerbside collection rates are around 30% to 40%, whereas co-mingled collections through recycling centres are hitting 80%, 90% and beyond. Local authorities in areas with co-mingled recycling will have high collection rates, but they will also have problems with contamination, which I accept. The Government are trying to encourage people not to co-mingle, but to separate. However, collection rates in areas with kerbside collections are much lower, so EU fines are unfair.
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I do not want to stop the hon. Gentleman in his tracks, but I think that I can reassure him. He is operating on completely the wrong premise. There is no suggestion at all that a fine would be levied on an authority because of its performance on recycling rates. The only suggestion is that if the authority does not adopt a plan as required—that is, something specifically required of that authority—and if it has been warned that it needs to have one, that will be the occasion for a fine. That authority’s performance is completely irrelevant, whatever it might be. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman and allow him to return to the issue at hand.
Graham Jones
I thank the Minister for that, because he is essentially saying that he has just ripped up his own new clause, which now has no teeth—he has just taken them all out. If local authorities are to come up with a plan, they will come up with one and carry on recycling at 30%. However, the Minister is not going to say to local authorities, “Well, actually, because you’ve got a plan, we’re going to do something about it.” Instead, he will be saying, “You’ve got a plan, so we’re going to do nothing about it.” He has taken all the teeth out of his own new clause, so why has he proposed it? Why has it taken him until today to say what he has said this evening, and why do ministerial statements say that the proposal involves waste? He is effectively telling people that—