Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

1. What his policy is on the use of brownfield land for new developments.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

The Government strongly encourage the reuse of suitable brownfield land. Our national planning policy framework makes it clear that local authorities should give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements for homes and other identified needs. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further empower local leaders to regenerate urban centres by strengthening and adding to existing measures.

[Henry Smith]

Homes England proposes to build up to 10,000 houses on greenfield sites west of Ifield in my constituency. What directive has my right hon. Friend’s Department given to the executive agency Homes England on the Department’s brownfield-first building policy?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that question. I cannot go into individual planning cases, but Homes England is leading a programme of urban regeneration. The work that we are doing in London’s docklands and in Leeds, Sheffield, Wolverhampton and other areas demonstrates our commitment both to levelling up and to making sure that, for environmental and economic reasons, we develop brownfield land first.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Lady’s position, and I will look closely at that proposal. I agree with her and, indeed, with the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), that the green belt is a valuable environmental asset that we need to protect, but sadly that is not the view of the Leader of the Opposition.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

In reforming planning policy to deliver more homes, can I have an assurance that the brownfield-first policy will be paramount to protect the green belt and green fields from development?

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to reform planning policy.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to give residents greater input on local developments.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to give residents greater input on local developments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend. There are measures in the Bill to try to address build-out rates, which are an important element that we have to tackle. Under the Bill, it will be necessary to supply the local authority with a commencement notice, an agreement on the number of houses that will be built each year and a completion notice. We are absolutely on this, and I assure my hon. Friend that we will do everything we can to ensure that the houses that have got permission are built.

[Henry Smith]

I welcome the Government’s reform of the planning system, but Homes England proposes the development of up to 10,000 houses on flood-prone green fields to the west of Ifield, just outside my constituency. That will put unacceptable pressure on local infrastructure, and although local people in my constituency will be most affected, they have no say over it. How will these planning proposals allow the people of Crawley to say no to the West of Ifield development?

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. Yes, we want to make sure that people are able to buy homes that are affordable. That is why we have introduced the first homes scheme, which allows for a discount of at least 30%, and up to 50% in areas of high unaffordability. It is why we have changed the affordable homes programme to allow people to buy a smaller share of their property and then “staircase” at lower amounts. It is why we have the Help to Buy scheme, and why we have the guaranteed 95% mortgage scheme. The Government are absolutely determined to ensure that people can get on to the property ladder, in a way that the Opposition never have and never will.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to his post. In doing so, I cannot miss the opportunity to request a meeting with him so that I can convey the real concerns of local residents to the west of my constituency boundary, in the parish of Ifield, at proposals for 10,000 houses on greenfield sites.

[Michael Gove]

Of course I cannot comment on any individual planning application, but I know what a brilliant job my hon. Friend does in representing his constituents, so I look forward to meeting him to listen to the case he is making, or to a member of my ministerial team doing so.

Housing Developments: West Sussex

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

It is good to see colleagues from West Sussex here this evening. The Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), wanted to be here, but is away on Government business overseas. He is taking a close interest in these matters, and is also keen to see that the Government find the right balance.

West Sussex is a proud county that has contributed greatly to the history of this country. Romans, Saxons and Normans all settled in Sussex first before going on to make a lasting impression on many other parts of the United Kingdom. Much more recently, our ports and airfields were central to the defence of our realm in two world wars. The Minister’s Department may be interested to know that the six Sussex rapes are among the very oldest recorded form of local administrative units in the country, still reflected today in the six martlets on the Sussex flag.

More pertinently to today’s debate, Sussex sits between two immovable features—the coast of the English channel and Greater London. In many places, it is the only ribbon of truly green land preventing unbroken concrete from connecting the two. I requested that the House discuss this important issue back in July, as my constituents in Arundel and South Downs were already feeling the strain of a planning system that had the unique quality of pleasing absolutely no one. I suspect that I make common cause with the Minister when I say that the planning system we have today is too slow, too adversarial and too expensive, and yet still manages to create huge amounts of blight and burden on communities without delivering the volume, quality or even type of homes that we need. Planning permissions are already in place for more than 1 million homes, enough to satisfy the nation’s needs for years to come, but those homes are not getting built. Labour’s tax raid on pensions channelled savings instead into buy-to-let property, and we have a legal commitment to net zero, but we are building homes in the middle of nowhere that are wholly reliant on a car to go anywhere.

Housing is a market where intervention has been heaped on intervention, so that, like a teenager’s carpet, we can no longer see the original pattern. That matters terribly, because right now so many of my constituents from Adversane to West Grinstead, Barnham to Wineham, and in villages of every letter of the alphabet in between, are having their lives blighted by the prospect of inappropriate and unsustainable development. It is on their behalf that I speak today.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important Adjournment debate. The ancient parish of Ifield just outside Crawley borough is facing the threat of some 10,000 houses in unsustainable circumstances on the floodplain. Would he agree that it is very important that while we should provide additional housing for future generations in West Sussex, we must have the environment paramount in our considerations?

[Andrew Griffith]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that. I shall come to the point about the provision in the planning system for different landscapes, including floodplains, which, as we know, West Sussex has in abundance.

The aspiration of owning one’s own home is one that every homeowner, parent and grandparent can support. I was proud last December to stand on a manifesto that pledged to tackle a problem that has been ducked by so many previous Governments, but let us also be clear that that manifesto also said that we would

“guarantee that we will protect and restore our natural environment”.

It also said we would “increase bio-diversity” and devolve

“power to people and places across the UK.”.

I am an optimist, and I believe that, with care, it should be possible to do all those things.

The Government’s recent planning White Paper has many features that I welcome, such as local design statements, more emphasis on brownfield land and faster neighbourhood plans, but I would argue that, perhaps not for the first time this summer, well-meaning ministerial intent has been sabotaged by a “mutant algorithm” cooked up in the wet market of Whitehall. There are seemingly three fundamental flaws in the standard methodology. First, it appears to be entirely blind to geography, which is not a great look for a planning system. If, as in West Sussex, much land is physically incapable of being developed or is protected in law, the algorithm appears to completely ignore this. For example, nearly 50% of Mid Sussex District Council’s land is in the High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty, another 10% is in the South Downs national park and the district is one of the most wooded in the whole south-east. My constituents in Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common are rightly concerned that if this protected land were excluded without an adjustment to the numbers, the algorithm would force unrealistic amounts of development in what should, in any case, be a precious green corridor linking the ecology of the South Downs and the High Weald.

Also, the algorithm must only work in dry weather, as much of my constituency lies on the floodplains of the Rivers Arun, Adur and Rother, something that even a cursory look at the lacework of blue lines on an Ordnance Survey map would reveal. Anyone relying on the Environment Agency’s narrow definition of flood risk will spend much of their winter bewildered by the waters lapping around their waist, as residents of Pulborough, Fittleworth and Henfield know all too well. Promoters of a 7,000-home development known as Mayfield Market Town clearly fall into that category, as locals know that a large proportion of the proposed site sits under water for a good proportion of the winter. I guess we could build the homes on stilts, like those over-water tropical villas, but that does not quite explain how the residents will get in their cars to drive the many miles that development in such an unsustainable location would require. All that is before we take into account the down-catchment impact of run-off from concreting an area that currently acts as a huge sponge, filling our chalk aquifers and preventing flooding of our coastal towns downstream. My constituents in Hassocks and Barnham have both had the disturbing experience of raw sewage emerging from the drains after planners failed to understand how the water table on a floodplain works.

Secondly, the standard method algorithm is backward looking and self-perpetuating; unlike the famous investment disclaimer, past performance here is treated as entirely a predictor of future success. Districts with high rates of house building in the past are assumed to continue that into perpetuity, so this fatally undermines any opportunity to level up away from the over-heated south-east of England.

Planning for the Future

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We will publish shortly the exact details of the new scheme, but it is our intention that it will be available for both the private and social sectors and that this will encompass all unsafe materials above 18 metres for what are commonly considered high-rise buildings. I would like it to include those buildings that are just below 18 metres, because there are some buildings where there has been a gaming of the system by some developers, such as the building in Bolton, for example, that was 17.8 metres. There will be a small degree of flexibility to resolve that issue, and this should enable no leaseholder to be trapped in their building. The funding should be available for all who require it, and, as I say, in the social sector it will be available to the relatively small number, but an important number, of housing associations and councils that do not have the resources available to do the work themselves.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that under the planning system there should be a presumption not to build on green fields or on floodplains and that there should also be environmental sustainability. Does he therefore share my concerns that the west of Ifield Homes England development represents none of those criteria?

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful for the right hon. Member’s comments, and I saw the early-day motion that he laid in the House to that effect, but we must be guided by the evidence. My predecessors chose to provide the £600 million remediation fund in relation to ACM in high-rise buildings because the expert panel which advises us had said that that was the urgent challenge that needed to be addressed. We have commissioned experts from the Building Research Establishment to carry out further tests on a range of materials, including HPL. I will publish the information shortly, and will say more at that time.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T10. I declare an interest, as a member of the Crawley towns fund board.Can my right hon. Friend say a little more about how he envisages the realisation of the £3.6 billion that the Government are investing in our town centres and high streets?

[Jake Berry]

I too declare an interest, as a member of the Darwen towns fund board.

I think that we shall be hearing a bit more about that as we work with Members of Parliament, local authorities, businesses and community groups, and ask them to come forward with exciting long-term plans for the rejuvenation of not just their high streets but their towns. We must all remember, Mr Speaker, that there is a reason why you no longer have a tallow merchant in the high street in Chorley. High streets and town centres have always been changing, but with our stronger towns fund we can ensure that we are the handmaidens of that dynamic change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s point about asylum dispersal and the costs of that. Obviously, the Home Office leads on how funds are supported in different authorities—indeed, in Scotland as well—and I will certainly pass on his points to the Home Secretary.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

On funding to local communities and the Stronger Towns fund announced earlier today, can I get an idea of how much Crawley constituency will get? It has two of the most deprived wards anywhere in the south-east. I do not want to hear from the Front Bench that we are on the B list where we can bid for funding. This funding is needed now.

[James Brokenshire]

As my hon. Friend will know, there is a statement coming up later this afternoon, so I will save my comments for that, but it is a £1.6 billion fund, with a competitive element, and I would encourage people to bid into that.

Stronger Towns Fund

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I absolutely recognise the impassioned statement that the hon. Lady has set out on the significance of our towns. We see this as a partnership. Ultimately, those bids, those ideas, and those things that will make a difference in our towns, have to come from the community—from councils, businesses and civic leaders who can shape those ideas, make sure that those bids are competitive and ambitious, and deliver the transformation that she wants for her area and that I would want for her area too. We will work with this, and we will make it work so that towns are seen to have that strength, we get the deals in place and see the sort of thing that she is talking about.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Almost £1 billion has been allocated to the new stronger towns fund. When will we know when those allocations have been confirmed to individual communities?

[James Brokenshire]

There are two elements, as my hon. Friend will appreciate. The first element is the notional allocations that I have set out, and we will work to provide further detail in relation to the LEP allocations and the next steps on that. Then there is the prospectus that sits alongside the £600 million, which will allow people to bid. I anticipate that there will be different phases, because different towns and communities will need to build their plans and get their ideas together, but I will set out further details in due course.

Local Government Finance

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I need to make some progress due to the time available for this debate.

To do more, it is crucial that we listen and respond to what local authorities are telling us, not just on the NHS and social care, but on all issues. It is in that spirit that we are increasing the rural services delivery grant by £16 million in 2019-20 to maintain it at last year’s level. In addition, after consulting widely, we have decided directly to eliminate negative revenue support grant—where changes in revenue support grant have led to a downward adjustment of some local authorities’ business rates top-up or tariff—in 2019-20. I recognise the strength of feeling about that, and I believe this is the most straight- forward and cost-effective approach for the next year.

We also want to continue rewarding councils for delivering the homes we need. I therefore confirm that the new homes bonus baseline threshold will be maintained, at a cost of £18 million. The message about councils wanting certainty to help them plan also came across loud and clear in the consultation. To that end I can confirm that, in 2019-20, local authorities, with the exception of police and crime commissioners, will retain the same package of council tax referendum limits as in 2018-19. This will protect local taxpayers from excessive increases, in line with our manifesto commitment.

Every council has the freedom to set higher council taxes if it wishes, provided it gains the consent of local people in a referendum. I am also providing an additional 2% council tax flexibility to Northamptonshire County Council to assist with improvements to council governance and services after its serious issues.

With the end of the current multi-year deal in sight, it is clear that we need to take a longer view on how we fund councils as we move to a stronger, sustainable, smarter system of local government. Preparations this year for increased business rates retention, a new approach to distributing funding between local authorities and the upcoming spending review will be pivotal to this, as will the important work under way with local authorities and the wider sector to better understand service costs and pressures. Again, we are listening and responding.

For years, councils have asked for more control of the money they raise, and we are giving it to them through our plans to increase business rates retention to 75% from 2020, in the process providing local authorities with powerful incentives to grow their economies. Local authorities estimate they will retain around £2.4 billion in business rates growth in 2018-19 under the current system, a significant revenue stream, on top of the core settlement funding I am outlining today.

The pilots testing increased business rates retention have, unsurprisingly, proved very popular, and I am delighted there will be 15 new pilots for 2019-20 covering 122 local authorities. We will also be piloting 75% business rate retention in London and continuing our existing pilots in devolution deal areas.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for including West Sussex in the business rates retention scheme and for the 4.2% increase the county council is getting. Crawley Borough Council has reserves of over £21 million. What more can be done to make sure that councils use such large reserves more efficiently?

[James Brokenshire]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which he has championed his local area. As a former local government leader, he has shown what can be delivered through local authorities, and I commend him for that.

My hon. Friend highlights the increased spend that West Sussex will gain as a consequence of the settlement before the House, but obviously it is for local authorities to work smartly and thoughtfully in relation to their retained reserves. There is a clear need for reserves, which he will understand, but he rightly underlines the need to use those funds sustainably, appropriately and effectively.