Warwick District Council: New Offices

Jake Berry Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on securing an important debate not just for his constituents but for various areas of the country—Members from across the House have made contributions, so he is obviously raising issues from their constituencies that they want to discuss.

To focus on Warwick initially, Mr Howarth, you, like me, are a proud northerner. I am also Minister for the northern powerhouse and it is appropriate for me to respond to this debate given that Warwick Castle was founded in 1068 by William the Conqueror, who was dealing with a rebellious set of northerners. I think we are both rebellious northerners and so it is appropriate for us to discuss Warwick under your chairmanship.

We heard an intervention by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) and I would like to frame the debate in terms of what his local authority has achieved by active management of its estate. The council has been inventive about how it has used its civic buildings in the centre of Rochdale, which adjoins my constituency—I know it extremely well—and it took a decision to move out of its iconic grade I listed town hall, which is a fantastic building and is now used largely for civic and private events. That shows how with active planning good local authorities may move offices to the betterment of the people they represent.

The iconic Rochdale town hall was, unfortunately, one of Adolf Hitler’s favourite buildings, but he told the Luftwaffe not to bomb it during the second world war, because he wanted to take it down brick by brick and to move it to Germany. A better use of it at the moment would be to replace the chimes from the Elizabeth Tower, the bong of Big Ben in particular, which we are all missing after it came back into use for a time over Christmas and new year. I hope that, with me, the hon. Member for Rochdale will continue to press the BBC on an issue that is important to the north of England.

[Tony Lloyd]

I endorse strongly what the Minister is saying. Hearing the northern chimes of Rochdale town hall on the BBC would enlighten the world about the beauties of the north.

[Jake Berry]

We are as one on that—“bong” is all I can say.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Peterborough (Fiona Onasanya), who raised important issues in her constituency, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has great experience as a former deputy leader of West Oxfordshire District Council. In his time there he was always involved in saving the local authority money, not for the sake of it or from any ideologically driven point of view, but so that he and his colleagues in the local government family of West Oxfordshire could invest in public services and public service delivery.

Before I move on to the main part of my speech, I will take the opportunity, on behalf of all hon. Members present, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in particular and me, to put on record our thanks to all councillors in our local government family who, regardless of political persuasion, work so hard to serve the communities that they represent.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington is aware that the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role in any planning applications in the United Kingdom. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the merits of Warwick’s local plan or to discuss in detail the application that he mentioned specifically. Equally, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on what is essentially a local decision by Warwick council to relocate its offices. However, I am aware that that is part of a wider efficiency plan that includes a review of council assets. Local authorities are right to manage their own assets and expenditure responsibly in a democratically accountable way. Warwick District Council is a stable, well-managed, fiscally prudent, Conservative-controlled council that has achieved a surplus on its general fund revenue budget in each of the past six years and is projected to do so again in this financial year, which shows that it has a history of taking difficult decisions to better serve the people in Warwick, as a prudent local authority.

The hon. Gentleman raised concerns about affordable housing provision. I will set out our national policy on this issue and what our national planning policy framework does to encourage the delivery of affordable housing. I will touch on parking facilities and how the framework promotes sustainable transport solutions. I will also say a bit about how we require local authorities to make sure that the money they expend is spent well and that they take prudent investment decisions.

The Government’s priority is to boost housing supply and to build more affordable homes, supporting the different needs of a wide range of people. That is why the Prime Minister recently announced an additional £2 billion of funding for affordable housing, increasing the affordable homes programme in the 2016 to 2021 budget to more than £9 billion, to deliver a wide range of affordable housing, including social rent homes, by March 2021. The new funding will support councils and housing associations to build more genuinely affordable homes in areas of acute affordability pressure, where families are struggling with the cost of rent and some families may be at risk of homelessness.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of homelessness and families waiting on the list during his maiden speech; it is absolutely right and appropriate that in this House we focus on what is a hugely important issue for us all as constituency MPs and for the Government. Our expanding programme will provide a wide range of homes to meet the housing needs of a range of people in different circumstances and different housing markets. Further details on how social rent will be prioritised in the areas of greatest need will be published shortly. The Government have also confirmed plans to create a stable environment by setting long-term rent deals for councils and housing associations in England from 2020. Increases will be limited to the consumer prices index plus 1% for the next five years until 2020.

On our national planning policy, our housing White Paper shows that the Government are strongly committed to a plan-led system, where new homes are provided through up-to-date local plans prepared in consultation with local people. The giveaway about local plans is in their title: they should be local, widely consulted on and driven by local authorities, not by Government. The White Paper also includes proposals for local authorities to have clear policies for addressing the housing needs of particular groups. As part of that, we expect local authorities to identify their affordable housing need. As always, we expect them to make a planning judgment—as they do now—to understand how many affordable homes should be built in their local planning area.

As I started out by saying, it is up to local authorities to determine how their own affordable housing policy is applied, and to determine their own planning applications in line with their own view. Planning law requires that applications for planning permission must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Viability is a material consideration. Different sites have different costs, and it might be appropriate for local authorities to seek different levels of local planning applications, including affordable housing, in certain circumstances.

[Matt Western]

I am interested to hear the Minister’s specific comments on One Public Estate and the fact that this authority has chosen to ignore the possibilities offered by the Government’s own policy on that. Also, will he concentrate on the 40% figure, where the authority is failing against it at a 0% level?

[Jake Berry]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me down a path. I am tempted, but I will not venture down it, because, as I am sure he is aware as a county councillor and as a Member of this House, the Secretary of State in my Department has a judicial role in local plans, local planning policy, and all planning applications in England. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for me to comment in the way that he has asked.

Viability assessments play an important role in making sure that both plans and individual proposals are deliverable. However, we recognise that viability assessments can add complexity and uncertainty to the planning process, which have led to delays and diminished contributions towards infrastructure and affordable housing. That is why in our recent planning consultation we included proposals that seek to simplify the process, creating more certainty about the contributions that developers are expected to make. That will also increase transparency —I think that the hon. Gentleman will like that—so that local people can better understand what contributions may be expected to be secured from developers. Of course, that will not be the whole solution, and we will continue to consider further reform of developer contributions.

I note that the hon. Gentleman has concerns about parking provision in his local area. Planning policy on transport provision set out in our national planning policy framework promotes sustainable solutions to give people a real choice about how they travel. The framework expects councils to support developments that facilitate the use of public transport, walking and cycling where it is reasonable for them to do so, and to focus significant developments in locations that can be made sustainable in terms of transport. Local authorities are expected to improve the quality of parking in town centres so that it is convenient, safe and secure.

All local authorities have a duty to deliver the best value for the people they represent. I hope that Warwick District Council and all local authorities will have in their mind when they look at plans anywhere in the country how they can save money for the council tax payer and refocus that on the priorities that we have discussed, such as affordable housing, which, as we all know, is hugely important. Our Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that tackling the housing crisis is the top priority for her Government and I am absolutely proud to play my part in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in ensuring that we deliver on that promise.

Question put and agreed to.