Budget Resolutions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for an excellent speech. I make no apology for raising what I consider—he might agree—to be several points of minutiae in respect of the levelling-up agenda.

The first such point is the line in the Budget papers about the delivery of £750 million over the spending review period to carry through devolution. We have all become familiar with the county deals and the appearance of mayors, but beyond all that I recommend an aspect of devolution at a much lower level: neighbourhood plans, which have proved to be an enormous success. They have transformed how villages and rural parishes look at themselves and plan for the future and, of course, they have delivered more housing than the targets set by district councils in the first place. Neighbourhood plans have been a great success in rural areas, but I anticipate that we will need to work to make sure that cities, and areas within them, accept neighbourhood plans as a way forward to see for themselves how their neighbourhood can be changed for the better.

Secondly, the community ownership fund is incredibly important for rural areas such as my own. We have lost a tremendous amount over the years, including many pubs, as has been pointed out, and many villages have lost sports facilities. The community ownership fund can be used to try to put some of those things back, because where there have been developments, the developers have not seen fit to work with communities to put many of those things back into communities.

Thirdly, I encourage people to look at the permitted development rights in respect of towns and cities to make sure that they are genuinely applicable to rural areas. Many of them, particularly those that deal with high streets, are not applicable in rural areas. It would be useful to have a distinction between the two.

Lastly, I welcome the £1.8 billion that is to be spent on housing, particularly on brownfield sites. The national planning policy framework clearly set out a brownfield-first presumption in the planning system—we have said that on many occasions—and I know because I helped to write it into the national planning policy framework. The £1.8 billion shows that we are prepared to put money where our mouth is and will deliver a lot of affordable houses on brownfield sites, which I fully support and recommend.