Jack Dromey
Main Page: Jack Dromey (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
On Tuesday, the Chamber resounded to paeans of praise to the Minister from the Minister. It would be churlish not to acknowledge that a decent man with an open mind has listened to the powerful case that was made by Labour, the countryside, heritage representatives, the business community and the Select Committees.
There have been moves on brownfield development, albeit that they do not go far enough. Under Labour, brownfield development went from making up 50% of development to more than 70%. It is a mistake for the word “prioritising” not to be used. There has been progress on the intrinsic value of our green and pleasant countryside, on garden grabbing, on the sequential test and in the strengthening of the duty to co-operate.
In our debates on the Localism Act 2010, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), listened and acknowledged that we needed “larger than local” decisions. He could not use the phrases “regional” or “sub-regional” because he would have been sat upon by the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, moves there were.
This is no way to conduct a campaign—[Laughter.] Ours was a very good campaign. This is no way to conduct a debate on matters as important as this. Concerns remain about how the NPPF will work at the worst possible time, and significant weaknesses remain within it.
The hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) was right to celebrate the purpose of planning. I thought that he was going to go on to celebrate one of Labour’s greatest achievements, when in 1947 it introduced the post-war planning system that sought to reconcile the need for growth with a say for local people and protection for the natural environment.
The planning system was not the problem that the Prime Minister pretended it was. It was preposterous of him to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that the problem with housing was the planning system. It was nothing of the kind. Planning applications were overwhelmingly granted speedily and there was development land with planning permission sufficient to build 300,000 homes. The fact that homes are not being built is nothing to do with the planning system; the principal problem is the failed economic and housing policies of this Government.
This has been a master class in how not to conduct a debate, with polarisation and the demonising of critics. Even the usually sane Macmillanite Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), engaged in absurd hyperbole, criticising the National Trust as being akin to “Trots”.
I have acknowledged that progress has been made. I will now turn to the problems. There is no vision for England—no spatial plan that brings together housing, economic development and infrastructure to ensure that if there is growth, all parts of England will grow.
There are no longer any strategic planning mechanisms capable of dealing with the problems that exist. I will give one example. Stevenage badly needs to build thousands of homes, but it cannot meet the demand in Stevenage. It will have to build outwith Stevenage in Hertfordshire. The chances of Hertfordshire co-operating with Stevenage to ensure that its housing need is met are remote in the extreme.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) was right to say that we have witnessed a remarkable collapse in the building of affordable housing—a 99% collapse in the figures for the past six months. We now see in the NPPF the potential downgrading of the importance of affordable housing. The Wolfson paragraph, as I have come to call paragraph 173, allows affordable housing to be traded off in the development process. Lord Wolfson complained on “Newsnight” about how a friend of his, a developer, hoped to develop a major site in Clerkenwell but was unable so to do because the council insisted on affordable housing. The council was absolutely right to do so, and it is wrong to downgrade its importance in development.
Anna Soubry
It is kind and generous of the hon. Gentleman to give way. Does he agree that it is imperative, as well as Labour party policy, to protect our green belt? Will he join me in urging Labour-controlled councils not to allow the development of thousands of homes on our precious green land?
Jack Dromey
Labour, as the champion of the countryside and the green belt, strongly believes in a brownfield-first presumption.
On the subject of housing and more generally, our fear is that the planning system will be thrown into chaos at the worst possible time. Growth is key, but all the predictions from all those to whom we talk suggest that we run the risk of hiatus, confusion and planning by appeal. That is what the planners themselves believe. In a poll, 86% said that they predicted with certainty that there would be potentially years of such problems as the system bedded down.
The Communities and Local Government Committee was right to say that brevity is not necessarily clarity. I am surprised that among the tributes read out on Tuesday there was not one from planning lawyers, because Ministers are the toast of planning lawyers. They believe that homes will be built as a consequence of the new NPPF, but they will be homes in Marbella—second homes for planning lawyers who make a killing on the back of the confusion and uncertainty that the Government are creating.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
My father-in-law, who has been a listed buildings expert for his entire career, is delighted with the Government’s latest iteration of the NPPF and thinks it will add significantly to house building in this country.
Jack Dromey
I ask the hon. Lady to give my best regards to her father-in-law, even if his judgment is profoundly suspect.
There are two problems with the transitional period. We agree with a plan-led approach without hesitation, but cash-strapped local authorities will struggle in the time available to develop plans that are crucial to protecting the interests of local communities, with those communities being at the heart of developing those plans. The neighbourhood planning process, on the other hand, is ill resourced by the Government, and we fear that it might well become the preserve of the better-off. We want neighbourhood planning and a real say for people in developing their localities, but that cannot be simply for those who can afford it.
Has progress been made on the high street? Yes, it has. Labour, as the champion of the high street, was the first party to table amendments to the Localism Bill, and eventually the Portas review was announced. There is no question but that there is all-party support for the fact that the high street is now centre-stage. Although the Portas review takes us a long way in the right direction, the Government were wrong to reject some of Labour’s proposals that should have been included, for example in respect of retail diversity, to give local planning authorities real powers to ensure that our high street is protected, including from the flight to out-of-town retail centres.
I say this in confusion—[Laughter.] That is what happens if you are sprinting. I say this in conclusion about the confusion on the Government Benches. Better the NPPF certainly is; flawed it remains. Will it work? Our fear is that, no, it will not.
Andrew Stunell
The Chair of the Committee—incidentally, it made an extremely important contribution to our consideration of these matters—makes an important point. I say to him and to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) that as the targets went up under the last Government so the performance of housing went down. The idea that there is some connection between top-down, top-driven targets and performance on the ground is not supported by the evidence. What we maintain—and as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and others—is that there is clear evidence that when local communities are put in the driving seat they fully understand the need for homes and jobs for their children and grandchildren, as well as parks and recreation spaces.
Jack Dromey
On the figures, and comparing the record of the Labour Government and this Government, can the Minister confirm that in the first 18 months of this Government house building is down by 11% compared with the last 18 months of our Government?
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Gentleman was honest enough to say that housing did not have centrality under the last Government—his words, not mine. The number of housing starts in 2011, the first complete year of the coalition Government, is higher than the housing starts in 2009, the last complete year of the Labour Government. We have a programme that has 170,000 social and affordable homes in it, and more than 112 contracts have now been signed with the Homes and Community Agency and various partners to make those homes a reality.
In the limited time left, I shall address the points made by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods). If I do not respond to Members’ questions, I am more than ready to follow them up after the debate. The transition arrangements have been agreed with the Local Government Association, so it is somewhat petulant for it to complain. It is also absurd for it to complain that this document contains obscure language, when it is responsible for the 1,000 pages and obscure and impenetrable language, which only people with PhDs in planning can understand, of the planning policy guidance document.
Some contributions to the debate demonstrated that local authorities are already getting to grips with the duty to co-operate. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) asked whether joint plans would be acceptable.
I could talk at length, but I have run out of time. I look forward to hearing what Members’ queries I need to follow up on.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of the National Planning Policy Framework.