Public Landmarks Review

Debate between John Hayes and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who of course has a statue to the Earl of Dudley looking over his town in the west midlands. The Leader of the Opposition should take his Mayor in hand, but I am afraid that I must borrow from Euripides, who famously said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. If Euripides were with us today, he would probably say that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make members and leaders of the Labour party, because the leader of the Labour party has gone mad. He has been captured. He is a POW—a prisoner of woke. I trust that he will be released so that he can direct his friend the Mayor of London to pay greater attention to Londoners, because it will be for them, ultimately, to judge whether that £1.1 million of public expenditure is spent on statue destruction, or whether the Mayor might better spend his time and the public’s money trying to put up more homes for Londoners rather than pull down their statues in public parks.

I suspect that the Mayor’s real interest is to distract us and draw our attention away from his lamentable failure to build a better future for Londoners. To borrow from Churchill—by the way, his statues are going nowhere—Sadiq Khan is a very modest Mayor with much to be modest about. Let me be quite clear: his lopsided commission has no mandate to advocate for the removal of existing statues. The Government’s policy is that historic statues should be retained and explained rather than removed, and any such proposed removal of an historic statue should rightly be, and will be, subject to planning permission or listed building consent.

[Sir John Hayes]

And, I hope, to acclaim. In congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) on securing the debate, may I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to support the idea that I advanced of more plaques and statues, particularly for winners of the VC and GC, who, by the way, are drawn from all ethnicities?

Planning and House Building

Debate between John Hayes and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I shall certainly look very closely at the representations on the consultation that he makes.

The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear that we have to be bold in our vision for the future of planning in our country. That is why we have put forward two sets of proposals for consultation to address our needs both in the short term and the longer term. The first, on changes to our current planning system and local housing need calculations, closed last week. The second, on our White Paper “Planning for the Future”, which sets out our long-term ambitions, closes on 29 October.

Our long-term proposals will create a reformed system that not only delivers the homes that we need but puts communities at the heart of a process that encourages more local community involvement, fairer contributions from developers, more beautiful homes and communities, and stronger environmental outcomes.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has spoken of Conservative principles. He will agree, I am sure, that any Government who blighted the countryside with more ubiquitous, huge housing estates would not deserve to be called Conservative. I know that he is a notable aesthete. Will he give the House an assurance that he wants to build better and more beautiful, in line with the views of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, and indeed, in doing so, quash some of the fears and quell some of the doubts?

[Christopher Pincher]

I can give my right hon. Friend that absolute assurance.

On the question of the near-term local housing need calculation, it might be helpful if I explain the background to our proposals to revisit it. In 2018, we introduced a standard method for calculating local housing need that was designed to give communities the transparency they deserve by showing the minimum number of homes that areas need, but it is clear that the current formula for local housing need is inconsistent with our manifesto aim to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. Existing adopted local plans provide for only 187,000 homes per year across England. This is not just significantly below our ambition but lower than the number of the homes we delivered last year. It is also lower than the estimate of groups as diverse as KPMG and Shelter who say that we need to deliver homes for sale or for rent north of 250,000 per year to meet our need.

To address that in the short term, we committed to reviewing the standard method at this year’s Budget. The consultation is now closed, but I can assure the House that over the past two months my Department has actively engaged with the sector and is listening to feedback. Many right hon. and hon. Members will know that I too have been listening and discussing carefully. I am especially mindful that Members are concerned about geographic imbalance—having too many homes in the south and not enough in the midlands and the north. Equally, I recognise anxieties about what these changes might mean for our countryside in contrast to our urban areas. I therefore want to reassure the House that through this consultation process we are committed to addressing any supposed imbalances. I recognise that our future is not just about what we build but where we build it. The standard method has focused on affordability. That is natural, because our concern is that there are areas that are least affordable, and it cannot be right that where historically supply has not kept up with demand, people are prevented from living where they most want or need to live. But we must also consider other factors. The House has considered, and we will consider, such factors as stock renewal, so we level up those areas of our country—not just the midlands and the north; there are areas of East Anglia, too—that suffer from poor-quality housing and infrastructure; and brownfield regeneration, so we improve home-building opportunities in our towns and cities on urban land for too long derelict or unloved.

Our changes to the standard method in the short term will be just a starting point. We know that the housing numbers generated by the standard method will not necessarily be the numbers that areas plan for, because of the physical and geographic constraints placed on them, as my right hon. Friends the Members for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and for Leigh (James Grundy) and many others mentioned. Land availability or local constraints might mean that there is a need for neighbouring areas to meet demand more appropriately. We look forward to giving our detailed response to the consultation following a careful analysis of all responses. Until such time, all the figures that are bandied about in the media, some of which were quoted in the House today, are entirely speculative.

Our White Paper “Planning for the Future” represents our long-term aspirations to reform our planning system to make it fit for the future. Anyone who knows our planning system knows it to be opaque, slow and almost uniquely discouraging for all but its most expert navigators. Currently, it takes on average seven years to complete a plan and a further five years for associated permissions to be granted. Our planning White Paper proposes a modern, digitalised and map-based system, with up-front strategic controls, leaving local planning authorities and, crucially, local communities much more empowered to design the neighbourhoods that they want, that look the way they want, and that have the infrastructure they need.

The House will be concerned to hear that only around 3% of local people respond to planning applications. In local plan consultations, engagement can fall to less than 1% of the local community. That is simply not acceptable in a modern democracy, and we will change the system to increase local involvement. Our planning White Paper proposes a simpler, clearer process for planning design.

Community Housing

Debate between John Hayes and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), as he has just demonstrated, is an energetic and vociferous champion of those who want to take matters into their own hands—people and communities who want to take the initiative and provide for their own housing needs. He just said that he could bottle his thoughts. In fact, I think he has just uncorked quite a few of them, and we are all grateful to him for doing that. As the founder of the all-party parliamentary group on self-build, custom and community house building and place-making, he has successfully driven this cause forward in this place and elsewhere over many years, and I thank him for bringing this important topic back to the Floor of the House.

In the time that I have, I will say, on behalf of the Government, that the community-led housing movement comprises a broad coalition of community land trusts, housing co-operatives and other organisations set up by local people with the specific purpose of providing good-quality, affordable housing for themselves and their wider communities. With Government support, those organisations are working to deliver housing in every corner of our country.

We want to do more to foster that kind of self-determination, self-empowerment and can-do attitude. We recognise that the community-led housing sector offers significant potential to help meet housing need across England. Crucially, the support and close involvement of local communities enables land to be brought forward for development that is not likely to be made available, or of any interest, to mainstream, speculative developers. That means that, rather than competing with the mainstream house builders, the sector is increasing the overall supply of housing while diversifying the market and increasing resilience in the house building industry.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

But quantity needs to be matched by quality and design, and beautiful houses should be the entitlement of all communities and all types of Britons. I know the Minister is committed to that, because he is an aesthete like me, but what are the Government going to do to guarantee it?