Housing
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
The point I wanted to make is not that we have built all the homes that were needed—it would be absurd to say that—but that we have turned around a situation that was proving ruinous and was destroying the aspirations of people up and down the country.
Greg Clark
I will make some progress but then of course I will give way to the hon. Lady.
I think it is fair to reflect at the beginning of this Parliament on the situation we inherited and that that had gone wrong under the previous Government. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East and other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), have been good enough to admit that not enough was done under that previous Government, but as for the solutions that Labour has suggested, the hon. Lady should again reflect on the fact that she was the shadow Housing Minister in the period running up to the election campaign, and I again might have expected her to be a little more self-deprecating about her own record of promoting solutions to the problems of getting homes built.
Yesterday, one of the hon. Lady’s close colleagues, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), cited Labour’s failure on housing policy as one of the reasons that Labour lost the election. She said that her party’s plans for housing at the election “lacked ambition” and that they failed to explain to the voters how they would help first-time buyers. The prescription that she offered the British people just four weeks ago included a mansion tax, rent controls and restrictions on home ownership. Does she still agree with those policies? Are they still party policy? They would have been a disaster for the people of this country, and that is not just my view; it is the view of the electorate and also of the acting leader of the Labour party.
Greg Clark
The verdict on the hon. Lady’s proposals at the election was delivered very comprehensively.
I mentioned the interim leader of the Labour party. She commissioned polling on why Labour did not win the election and said that it
“uncovered a feeling of relief among Labour voters that the party had not won”.
She also said:
“It doesn’t matter how many leaflets you deliver if the message is not right.”
Even senior Labour Members have reflected on the fact that their housing policies at the election were not adequate for the task. I concede that there is one exception, however. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who I gather is running for office, has said very boldly that the last election manifesto was
“the best manifesto I have stood on in four general elections for Labour”.
That gives us an insight into the future of the party’s prospects. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East agrees that it was a manifesto worth fighting on.
Heidi Alexander
The Secretary of State seems to have an awful lot to say about the record and policies of the last Labour Government but, surprisingly, a lot less to say about his own Government’s record over the past five years. Will he explain why the number of homes built for social rent has fallen to a 20-year low?
Greg Clark
I have been indulgent in answering Labour Members’ questions, but I am nevertheless keen to explain the different approach that we took at the beginning of the last Parliament.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Clark
My ministerial colleague quite rightly calls on me to mention the signal role played by Harwell and, indeed, many other space and scientific establishments across the country. It was a great day for UK science.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
In response to my earlier question, the Secretary of State boasted that a number of firms were already benefiting from the Government’s direct lending facility. Will he name the firms, in addition to Carillion, that have benefited to date?
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
There is specific reference in the guidance that councils are under a duty to protect valued local community facilities.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
How is affordable housing defined in the reworked NPPF and is it entirely consistent with the definition contained in PPS3?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman is incorrect. The allocations that have been made are on track, and the correct proportion have been made for this point in the programme. Many match-funding opportunities are available, and they are being taken up, not least in Yorkshire. The chaos caused by the previous administration of the programme lost £100 million of taxpayers’ money that could have been invested, but by making the changes that we have made, we have saved that money for the taxpayer.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
17. What progress the Troubled Families Team based in his Department has made in its work.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Greg Clark
That was more hope than expectation, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will finish shortly. I did not think anything more interesting would happen today than our discussion of the national planning policy framework, but I was clearly mistaken.
The Government have not revoked the sustainable development strategy of 2005. Members of the Environmental Audit Committee who interviewed me last week asked some questions about it and it is the subject of one of the suggestions that have been made in the consultation. Let me explain why it was not included in the draft as it stands. As I say, it has not been revoked or repealed in any way. It is simply a matter of whether a document produced in 2005 has the timelessness of the Brundtland definition.
It was necessary to update the 1999 strategy in 2005. Six years on, there are some respects in which thinking on sustainability has progressed. For example, there is the idea that the separate pillars of the economy, the environment and the social aspects of sustainability can be traded off, one against the other. Some people argue—and I think there is some merit in doing so—that that is a rather defensive position and that one should be looking for positive improvements to the environment, not simply to trade-off. That is very much the thinking in the Government’s natural environment White Paper, which talked of a net gain for nature. In response to the consultation we could listen to such representations, but let me say simply that our intention was to make sure that we are not stranded in our thinking when we might have a more progressive approach to sustainability.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As he will know, the parish council in Attleborough, in his constituency, is already drawing up a neighbourhood plan, so that plan can have statutory force as soon as the provisions of the Localism Bill come into effect. I encourage other councils throughout the country to join the more than 90 parishes and neighbourhoods that are drawing up neighbourhood plans, even in advance of the Bill’s provisions coming into law.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Minister will know that I do not share his optimism about the effectiveness of his planning process proposals in engaging people. How will relaxing the planning rules on converting offices into homes give more powers to neighbourhoods and communities?
Greg Clark
Having debated these matters with the hon. Lady in the Localism Bill Committee, I would have thought she would be the first to recognise the need to turn derelict buildings that are not being used into housing that can be used for people in city centres. I am surprised at her attitude. However, I can update her. I know that she expressed some scepticism about the idea that people would be enthusiastic about this, but I have to tell her that since the Bill Committee, we have been vastly oversubscribed by enthusiastic councils in all areas of the country that are eager to get on with neighbourhood planning. That has surpassed our expectations and bodes pretty well for the take-up of the rights.
Localism Bill
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark
Greg Clark
New clause 15 clarifies that it is reasonable for a planning authority to take such funds into account if they are to be used in connection with the planning application. On the use to which the funds are put, I know that in Committee my right hon. Friend and the Opposition Front-Bench team considered whether the provision could be drawn more widely to include affordable housing. It has not been possible to draw up a definitive amendment in time for Report, but I am sympathetic to those concerns, so we will introduce further suggestions in the Lords.
Heidi Alexander
Earlier in his remarks, the Minister was quick to quote the Royal Town Planning Institute on the progress that he would say has been made on the duty to co-operate, so could he tell me, in relation to new clause 15, why the RTPI writes:
“The Government’s new amendment to make financial considerations a material consideration is deeply flawed and potentially very damaging to proper planning and contradicts assurances given by ministers just 12 weeks ago”?
What does he have to say to the RTPI?
Greg Clark
I have given clear assurances at the Dispatch Box that this is not what the RTPI perhaps suspected or what the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich clearly suspected: that this was some grand plan to—as he put it—buy and sell planning permission. That is not the case. There is no change in the dispensation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Clark
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Anyone reading Question 8 on the Order Paper could be forgiven for thinking that what many Tories and Liberal Democrats would like is a never-build-anything-anywhere policy. What assurance can the Minister give me that the natural nimby inclinations of so many on his Benches will not result in fewer affordable homes and fewer jobs being provided in Lewisham East, where they are so desperately needed by my constituents?
Greg Clark
The hon. Lady may not have noticed, but the effect of the previous Government’s policy was to reduce housing development, so that virtually none happened. The strategies that we have talked about—the targets imposed—have deluded her into thinking that targets are the same thing as building. However, things have not happened that way and she should wake up to that.