National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Stunell

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stunell]

I shall certainly respond to my hon. Friend, because the same point has been raised by others, including the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who asked how the duty to co-operate will work. I think that my hon. Friend is asking the same question. The duty requires—not allows, but requires—ongoing constructive engagement on all the strategic matters arising between councils when they prepare their local plans, and councils will be required to consider whether they enter into agreements on joint approaches and on the preparation of joint policies on cross-boundary issues. They will also have to satisfy the independent examiner of the local plan and to demonstrate compliance with the duty of co-operation when they do so. If they fail to satisfy the independent examiner, the plan will fail. That would be a powerful sanction to encourage council A to bear in mind the importance of taking into account its consultation and co-operation with council B. I hope that my hon. Friend finds that response helpful.

There is a pressing need for reform of our national planning policy. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington seemed to be caught betwixt and between. He accused us, on the one hand, of ripping it up, but, on the other, of arguing that we need a presumption of sustainable development. Perhaps the Labour Front Bench team needs to establish exactly what it believes is its principal criticism of what we are doing.

[Joan Walley]

The argument is not about sustainable development, but about its definition. We do not want a definition under which economic development simply trumps all the other aspects of sustainable well-being.

[Andrew Stunell]

I hope to cover that point more fully in a few minutes. The hon. Lady and I, surprisingly enough, are on the same page. It is not a question of whether to have sustainable development. In fact, the emphasis is on “sustainable” not “development”. I shall come to that in a moment.

The current system is unworkably complex and has been criticised soundly by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. There are more than 1,000 pages of national planning policy and at least 6,000 pages of guidance. I challenge any Member, even if they have 26 years of professional background, to say, in all honestly, that they have read all 7,000 pages—nobody has. It is a long-running accident. The complexity of the system not only slows down decision making and frustrates the sustainable growth of the country, but alienates and frustrates local people. It does not allow for the rapid creation of the new homes that we desperately need for young families who are already struggling to scrape together a deposit or stuck on an endless waiting list, and it hinders the creation of the new jobs that will breathe fresh life into local economies.

That is bad enough, but on top of that, as all hon. Members have experienced, the planning system too often reduces people, at a local level, to impotent rage and denies them any real engagement in shaping the future of their communities. That cannot be a good system. A streamlined system focusing on key priorities will be more accessible and transparent. In the future, anyone who wants to understand the principles informing how decisions are made will be able to do so. That does not suit many of the professionals, but it should suit our constituents and the House.

Housing Market Renewal

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Stunell

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stunell]

I certainly intend to give answers about that.

Perhaps I should say something about the baggage that I bring to the debate. I first secured elected office in 1979, having run a successful local campaign to prevent the wholesale demolition and redevelopment of homes in Chester. I am happy to say that those homes are still there and are now seen as highly marketable assets. We all bring different stories and different perspectives to the debate. I am well aware that good regeneration work has been undertaken in Merseyside and elsewhere, and I am also well aware of the challenges that have been faced in the area. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree mentioned the Picton and Kensington renewal areas in her constituency.

Several contributors to the debate have acknowledged that not all housing market renewal schemes got off on the right foot. Not all of them were pursued in the right way and, in fact, not all of them were appropriate. A number of them certainly generated significant local controversy and failed to engage properly with local communities. Quite often, the renewal process divided local opinion. Amid the understandable passion that has been brought to the debate, it is important that we keep some perspective on that particular point.

I shall start by responding to some of the specific points that were raised before going on to deal with several of the broader points that I think need to be set out. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) asked for several specific assurances. Officials from my Department are more than ready to work with Stoke-on-Trent council and others on the future direction of the north Staffordshire regeneration area. Indeed, officials are already in discussion on the basis of the bids and applications that have been put in for the £30 million match funding that has been referred to, so I am happy to give her that assurance. I have visited Stoke-on-Trent and looked at some of the situations that she described.

[Joan Walley]

My concern is not just about the transitional fund and securing our share of it, because that is geared towards demolition. I want to see how all the different funding can be aligned so that we can get investment in homes, communities and local regeneration. If the Minister can help with that, I will be very happy to do whatever I can to facilitate it.

[Andrew Stunell]

At the risk of having to issue a correction—I do not have a magic wand—I can say that those discussions will be wide-ranging. Of course, they can be as wide-ranging as Stoke chooses to make them.

I want to move on to something that I am sure the hon. Lady will want the official discussions to cover. She mentioned the link between enterprise zone applications and regeneration. She is absolutely right to say that there should be as much synergy as possible in public investment, or in public stimulation of private investment, in both of those. It is entirely right and proper that discussions range across the boundaries and that we should not put these things in separate silos.

The hon. Lady also asked specifically about the local government resource review and the Government’s announced, albeit not yet detailed, proposals for returning business rates to local authorities. I do know the answer to her question; indeed, it has been given from the Dispatch Box. However, she will have to wait for the detail of that answer for one or two weeks, when we actually publish the proposals—the correct civil service word for that is probably “imminently”. I assure her that neither Stoke-on-Trent nor any other local authority will find themselves at a financial disadvantage in the first year of the operation of the scheme. It is central to the proposals that we are bringing forward that that should be the case.

[Joan Walley]

I realise that time is short, but our concern is not just about being disadvantaged in the first year; it is about the level on which future decisions are made. We could well find ourselves falling severely behind after three years. Will the Minister please feed that back into the final version when he announces it in two week’s time?

[Andrew Stunell]

The hon. Lady’s point is thoroughly understood. I do not think that she will be disappointed, but she is tempting me on to territory on which it really is not right for me to advance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Stunell

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Given that today is the last day for representations to be made in the formal consultation on the grant settlement for local authorities, will the Minister assure me that he will take seriously the representations from Stoke-on-Trent and its Members of Parliament during our welcome meeting with him last week? We cannot afford these cuts.

[Andrew Stunell]

I thank the hon. Lady and her colleagues from Stoke-on-Trent who came to see me last week. I assure her that her words and theirs were clearly heard, and that they will be taken into account along with all the other representations that we have received.

Coalfield Communities (Regeneration)

Debate between Joan Walley and Lord Stunell

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stunell]

I would not want the January meeting to be regarded as the earliest time at which it is possible for us to make an announcement. I take account of what the hon. Lady says. I would share her concerns if delay in making an announcement led to problems that could otherwise be avoided. I hope that I may, in my last 30 seconds, add something that will help her in at least one respect.

The Government welcome the Clapham report and agree that, often, local authorities working with local people know best what the particular needs are in their area. This Government’s strong, consistent message is that it is the people in a locality or neighbourhood who most often appreciate what the problems are and what the potential solutions might be, rather than people located more remotely, particularly in Whitehall.

The Government are keen to drive forward coalfields regeneration. We believe that a bottom-up, community-focused approach should be central to the next phase of coalfields regeneration. We are carefully considering the recommendations and hope to respond formally in November. As agreed, the full published report is already on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. For some reason, there was serious concern in July that we would keep it secret. We have no intention of doing that.

Hon. Members know that the spending review has been challenging. Over the next four years, DCLG’s overall resource will reduce by 33%, with capital spending reduced by 74%. Alongside this, we are devolving more than £7.6 billion directly to local government to set its own priorities. We are giving more flexibility to local government. We are delivering 150,000 new affordable homes and protecting the Supporting People programme, importing an extra £1 billion into it from the NHS. We are investing £1.7 billion in regeneration and local economic development over the next four years.

One or two hon. Members mentioned young people’s capacity and ambition, and opportunities for them. The introduction of the pupil premium will be a significant step forward that will help young people in communities such as the ones that we are talking about.

[Joan Walley]

My concern, which I raised earlier, is that the coalfields programme is about more than the Coalfields Regeneration Trust; it is about the national coalfield programme per se, including the part delivered by the Homes and Communities Agency. Given what the Minister has just said about the pupil premium being used to help people in deprived areas to get more, is he considering cross-cutting these issues so that coalfield communities, which suffer worse and have most deprivation, can be prioritised in respect of funding from the education and DCLG budgets, and all the budgets that will be working towards creating jobs? If jobs are not created in coalfield communities, we will have no hope whatsoever for the future.

[Andrew Stunell]

I shall correct one detail: the pupil premium is intended to support disadvantaged children, whatever community they live in, rather than disadvantaged communities. In her main point, the hon. Lady describes exactly what the Government are doing. We are working hard to have community-based budgeting that draws together funding from all the different public sources and allows priorities to be set locally to deliver what is needed, without the necessity for everybody to operate in silos. I hope that the hon. Lady will see the benefits of that. We have established 16 pilot areas for this year and will be rolling that process forward rapidly over the next couple of years.

We have increased the regional growth fund from the original £1 billion that was announced to £1.4 billion, and have extended the life of the fund from two years to three years. I hope that that gives some comfort to those who are concerned about the issue.

On the regional development agencies, two bids have been presented to the Government for local enterprise partnerships for the north-east. Announcements will be made in due course. There could have been only one local enterprise partnership covering the whole north-east, had those involved wished to do that. On the future of coalfields regeneration, I provided assurances during the debate in July that we had no plans to dismantle the programme. The Minister for Housing and Local Government has already said, in response to the report on the review of coalfields regeneration, that it is crucial that former mining areas continue to get the support that they need.