Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Nick Boles

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

May I ask the Minister why his Department is keeping further education and skills out of the Liverpool city region deal? They are crucial to the Liverpool city region.

[Nick Boles]

I am not directly responsible for city deals, but there are many such deals around the country that have specifically majored on the inclusion of skills—Manchester and elsewhere. I am happy to look into it, but I am sure it was not because we resisted. Frankly, we are very keen for local authorities and local enterprise partnerships to take a bigger role.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Nick Boles

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

15. What assessment his Department has made of the extent to which the sequential test has inhibited out-of-town retail development.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

We have maintained strong planning policies requiring a town centre-first approach, including the sequential test. This ensures that out-of-town development goes ahead only where there are no suitable sites in an existing town centre.

[John Pugh]

I thank the Minister for that response, but we are being given some conflicting evidence: research by the Association of Convenience Stores shows unabated expansion. Will the Minister conduct some further independent research into supermarket out-of-town expansion?

Out of Town Supermarkets

Debate between John Pugh and Nick Boles

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing it, on a subject that is obviously and evidently of great personal interest to him.

You will understand, Mr Hollobone, my anguish and dismay at having to admit that I do not agree with much of what my hon. Friend said. Coalition is strange and curious and I suspect that many of us—not least, I suspect, my hon. Friend—have at times found it trying, but it works best when we admit to some differences in starting points while nevertheless hopefully being able to reach consensus on how to move forward. It is with what I believe is my hon. Friend’s starting point that I am in greatest disagreement.

I am firmly of the view that supermarkets have been a powerful force for social and economic good in this country for the past 50 years. I am firmly of the view that people on modest incomes around the country, in his constituency of Southport and in mine of Grantham and Stamford, have the opportunity to buy a range of quality food and other items that were unaffordable or unavailable to all but the very rich when I was growing up, and probably when my hon. Friend was growing up.

[John Pugh]

I think the supermarkets, like coal mines, have been extraordinarily good for the country as a whole and an excellent development. My argument is not for or against supermarkets, but about their placing in a commercial environment. Just as a coal mine is a good thing, one does not necessarily want one nearby. A supermarket may be an excellent thing, but one wants it in the centre of town.

[Nick Boles]

I wish I could accept that that is what my hon. Friend was saying. He accused supermarkets of behaving like the mafia, and talked of them bribing and threatening. When he said supermarkets may do good, he then mentioned recycling as if the provision of high-quality, low-cost products to people on low incomes is not in itself a good thing, and employing thousands of people on flexible time scales that fit in with family life is not a good thing. I profoundly disagree with that characterisation of supermarkets.

Nevertheless, I am in agreement with my hon. Friend, as is Government policy, that it is important to find a way to encourage and promote development of new supermarkets to fulfil a vital and much appreciated need and the equally strong desire to preserve the range, vitality and diversity of retail uses in thriving town centres. That is the difficult balance that Government policy, as he observed, throughout the last Government and the present one—

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

No one is wilier than the hon. Gentleman at putting words in my mouth that I did not say. For the record, I make it clear that I do not accept that the rate of approvals for out of town developments has gone up. We will look at the evidence that has been presented, and he is perfectly right to suggest that we should draw our own conclusions. I was not aware of the problem to which he refers, but we would all be interested to look at any evidence he has—systematic evidence, rather than episodic cases.

The three parties represented in this debate agree on the “town centre first” policy, and we all agree it is important that the sequential test is properly done and maintained, and that planning authorities should feel confident in making decisions on particular applications in accordance with what the sequential test and the impact assessment tell them about the effect of a potential out of town development on the vitality of a town centre. We hope and believe that planning authorities will have that confidence in the future.

I offer a small olive branch to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport by saying that I would be delighted to find out from the Minister in the responsible Department what is holding up the response to Southport’s businesses improvement district application and do anything I can to urge a swifter response than has been received to date.

[John Pugh]

I thank the Minister. I assure him that, despite my forensic character of expression from time to time, there is little that divides us on the main principle.

[Nick Boles]

On that note, I have nothing further to add. Coalition harmony has broken out once again.