National Planning Policy Framework

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

First, I want to note the very unsatisfactory nature of the debate on this important issue. Our debate has taken place in two bits at the end of two days, and the Government’s business managers could have found more time for it over the past few weeks. I know that the Minister was also keen to have the debate.

On behalf of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, I would like to express our thanks to the Minister for the process that he went through, for informing the Select Committee at an early stage of his intention to produce a draft national planning policy framework, for inviting the Committee to look at the proposals and for listening carefully to our views and accepting in full or in part 30 of our 35 recommendations. I suppose we could look at this in two ways: either the Select Committee’s report was excellent, or the draft document was somewhat flawed. Perhaps it was a bit of both. I do not want to be churlish, however. There have been distinct improvements, which we welcome, particularly in relation to the definition of sustainable development.

I also want to thank the Chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), for the work that her Committee did, and for ensuring that the presumption in favour of sustainable development was set into the framework of the local plan, because the local plan must be at the heart of any plan-led system. There are some concerns about how far the issue of brownfield priority was taken, but the test will be in the practical application of the framework. Another welcome measure is the incorporation of offices and other development, as well as retail, into the sequential test to protect district, town and city centres. Those and other changes in the final document are very welcome.

I do not have time to go through all the points in the document, as our time is constrained and other Members want to speak, but I shall draw out one or two areas in which things could go wrong, or that are in need of clarification or perhaps further review at some stage. That is not to say that there are not other good things in the document, but I want to draw out the issues that need further testing or scrutiny.

The test of this document is not whether it is better than the first draft but whether it is better than the existing guidance that has been in operation up to now. The test is also whether it delivers better planning for communities and individuals, and for developers as well, because they are important in creating homes and jobs. What test do the Government want to apply to judge the success of the system? Is it a requirement to meet the Housing Minister’s target to build more housing in this country than we were building before the recession? Is it a requirement to ensure that we develop enough renewable energy projects to hit our climate change targets? I assume that those are the Government’s objectives. However, during our discussions on this matter, in the debate on the initial draft and in the comments on the Minister’s statement, an awful lot of Members on the Government Benches seemed to be saying, “We want a planning system that stops development in our areas.” I just worry that there might be some conflict—

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

No, that is not true.

[Mr Betts]

Well, we have seen a lot of letters to newspapers saying, “Please stop all these wind turbines being put up”—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I got an immediate response to that one. How, in the end, does a planning system relate all the individual local decisions and wishes of local communities to the Government’s national targets to deal with climate change and house the people of this country?