National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Hilary Benn and Paul Farrelly

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Like the Minister, I would like to express my appreciation to my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). I thank her and my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) for their work on the Opposition Front Bench in holding the Government to account. I also welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington North (Helen Jones) and for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) to the shadow Department for Communities and Local Government team. Alongside them, and on either side of me today, we have continuity in the form of my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and for Derby North (Chris Williamson).

I welcome today’s debate. I am sorry that the Secretary of State did not open it—although he has done us the courtesy of attending—because given that he is seeking, with the Minister, to make the most fundamental change to our planning system for more than two generations and given that this is the first opportunity for the House to debate the matter since the publication of the national planning policy framework, it would have been good to hear from him. I look forward to the next occasion. Nevertheless, this debate, which we welcome, is extremely timely. The Minister expressed it well: planning at times and to some people can seem rather technical, but in fact it is about how we shape the places in which we live and how we build our communities. That is what Civic Voice has described as “everyday England”.

We know that there is a finite quantity of land. As Mark Twain famously said,

“buy land because they’ve stopped making it”.

There are many competing demands on land. England is a very densely populated country, and the population is growing. The planning system’s job is to help us to meet our future needs for housing, jobs, economic development, transport, growing food, tackling climate change and generating energy in a way that balances all these things—the right sort of development in the right place, which, in the end, is what we all want—while protecting the natural environment, by which I mean the moors and the mountains, the rivers and the lakes, the green fields and the countryside that make up our islands’ unique and beautiful landscapes. They matter because we cherish their beauty and their capacity to lift our spirits and because, as human beings have belatedly learned, they sustain our very existence. We need planning to protect this environment because, in the absence of that balance and if we fail to reconcile

“competing economic, social and environmental priorities”—

in the words of the Conservative planning Green Paper—there would be a free-for-all.

I welcome the idea of simplification and the principle of greater clarity, and I support enabling planning decisions to be taken as near as possible to those whom they will affect. It was, after all, a Labour Government who introduced the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which helped local councils to designate green belt. However, the central problem raised by the draft NPPF and the reason the Government are in difficulty is that Ministers have failed so far to convince people that they have got this balance right. It seems that even Conservative-controlled Tunbridge Wells borough council, which is the Minister’s own local authority, is unhappy about his reforms. It is reported that the council “strongly disagreed” with the Government’s suggestion that the NPPF had the right approach towards sustainable development—I shall return to that point—and argued that it was

“vague and open to interpretation”.

The council also strongly disagreed that green belt would be protected under the NPPF. People are entitled to ask, if the Minister is having difficulty persuading his own Conservative-controlled council to support his plans, how anybody else can be expected to have confidence in them.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

We are fortunate in Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent to have a robust local core spatial plan. I do not know whether that applies to Tunbridge Wells, but much of the country does not have such a plan. Is there a case for arguing that the Government should take a considered pause in the implementation of the framework and resource councils sufficiently so that they can put local plans in place?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I shall come to it later because it is fundamental to the likelihood of what the Government say that they want to achieve—few would disagree with the ambition—actually happening, given the nature of the framework and the issues with its implementation.

Business of the House (Thursday)

Debate between Hilary Benn and Paul Farrelly

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Farrelly]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there could not be a greater contrast between the way in which the coalition Government are handling this and the way in which the Labour Government handled it seven years ago, no matter on what side of the argument one stands? Then the 105-page White Paper was published a whole year before the debate and the changes were introduced only after a general election, so the British public had the opportunity to vote on them.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend anticipates the very point that I will come to a little later in my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I am sure that the occupant of the Chair will have noticed that advance bid, but I fear that tomorrow many Members will end up disappointed because not enough time has been allocated for the debate.

[Paul Farrelly]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of all the details of the business due to come forth tomorrow? Can he satisfy himself that we will actually get five hours and not fewer?

[Hilary Benn]

That is the point I advanced a moment ago, because whether we get the full five hours depends very much on what happens before the debate. I fear that we might not, which shows just how inadequate the motion is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

It certainly will not.

[Paul Farrelly]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are now only 21 hours, give or take a minute, from now until the moment of interruption tomorrow? Depending on how long the debate goes on tonight, Members may need some time to recover so that they are in full possession of their wits for tomorrow’s debate. Would it not be better to delay tomorrow’s debate until next week at least?

[Hilary Benn]

A very powerful case has been made this evening for providing more time, and given where we are now, the only way in which more time could be provided would indeed be for the matter to be put off until another occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed. Given the number of things that the Deputy Prime Minister has had to say about the tuition fee increase that he intends to vote for tomorrow, the very least he could do is to come into the debate. I hope that he might be able to participate, because many people would like to hear how he explains the change in attitude—the 180° turn—that he has performed in a very short space of time.

[Paul Farrelly]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the ground keeps shifting from day to day? The coalition Government have now admitted that deterrence because of debt is an issue, and they have announced a national scholarship fund. Does he consider five hours to be sufficient time in which to debate all the details of the proposals and to examine whether the Government are, in effect, just making policy up on the hoof?

[Hilary Benn]

It is clearly not sufficient time to debate those matters, which brings me to the second reason why more time needs to be found, which is the nature of the change that the Government wish to make. The proposals on fees that we are being asked to consider tomorrow cannot really be seen in isolation from the wider Browne proposals or the Government’s spending review. The truth is that they are intimately bound up, one with another, which is why the House needs proper time to consider both. As we know, the huge fee increase is a result of the Government’s decision in the spending review to impose on universities not the average cut that they have been applying—a cut of 11%—but an unprecedented 80% reduction in university teaching budgets.