National Planning Policy Framework

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate the Government on their revisions to the NPPF; they have genuinely listened to the real concerns that I and a good number of my hon. Friends put to the Minister. In particular, I thank him personally for the gracious way he listened to our concerns and for giving them a lot of time. I am pleased that he has taken them on board. I think that the document now strikes a good balance between the need to speed up the house building process and the need to protect our green spaces, which is what we all want to see.

Together with the other elements of the Localism Act 2011, the measures are very welcome in my area of Milton Keynes. We want to grow. There is no nimbyism in Milton Keynes, but we want to be in charge of our own destiny. Instead of having the top-down targets that were imposed on us before, which led to the wrong type of development, as other hon. Members have said, we can now shape our future and our destiny and build the new city we want to see.

I would like to challenge one of the comments the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) made on the abolition of regional and national targets, which was that that somehow meant that local areas cannot co-operate with each other to develop infrastructure plans. I draw the House’s attention to an example in my constituency: the building of the east-west rail link. That involves co-operation between many local authorities on not only the railway line itself, but housing and economic growth projects. We are all working together exceptionally hard on that, so I reject her assertion.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Iain Stewart]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not take any interventions, in order to leave time for other hon. Friends who wish to speak.

My one specific point, picking up on the good point my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) made, is on the time scale for abolishing the regional spatial strategies. For reasons I will not go into, we all welcome that, but there is an issue in Milton Keynes about the timing of abolition. Our core strategy will be examined in July, and there is concern that, if the RSS is still in place during that examination, it might undermine the progress we are seeing on the localism agenda. I simply urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to do all he can to get the RSS finally abolished as quickly as we can. Apart from that small, specific point, I repeat my congratulations for what the Government have achieved. They have listened and had a genuine consultation, and I heartily support the new document.

[Mr Raynsford]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In slimming down my speech to meet the four-minute time limit, I involuntarily forgot to mention my interests, which I normally declare at the start of a speech, so I would just like to put the record straight.