Housing Targets: Planning System

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

My right hon. Friend is right. Whoever sets the targets, whether at national or local level, when it comes to planning permission for development, there should be an insistence that the infrastructure is put in place before the housing is started. That can be done, but too often is not. I can give an example: we had a major development on the Isle of Sheppey many years ago, which subsequently led to 2,000 houses. At the time, permission was granted for only a couple of hundred, until such time as a new bridge and other new infrastructure was put in place. That has to be done far more often.

I have raised a number of issues today that are of concern to Swale Borough Council. However, the biggest collective grievance is the imposition of mandatory housing targets and the five-year land supply rule.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward the debate. My constituency neighbours his, and we in Rochester and Strood have seen the stresses and strains on local services and the planning department in order to meet unrealistic housing targets, which are particularly imposed on the south-east, where we are based. Does my hon. Friend agree that the targets should be designed at a local level, and that communities should be empowered to object to unrealistic developments that do not deliver the services that the people living in those communities demand?

[Gordon Henderson]

I do agree. It is critical that local people have a say and set the targets, because unless there is local support for something, it will never work. Looking at it cynically, we might say that many local authorities are deciding to build houses in inappropriate places because they can blame the Government for the fact that they have to meet housing targets. If it was up to local people, that would not happen. From a purely cynical point of view, it would be better to let local people do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

Improving access to finance is the mission of the British Business Bank, which addresses gaps in the finance market through guarantees and through debt and equity finance. The bank recently launched an online finance hub to help entrepreneurs identify the most suitable finance options for their needs. It is currently supporting about £5.2 billion of finance to almost 75,000 businesses across the United Kingdom.

[Gordon Henderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her response. As somebody who campaigned to get her elected, may I say how good it is to see her on the Front Bench?

Small businesses play an important role in my constituency’s economy. Will my hon. Friend tell me what the Government are doing to tackle the late payment culture, which has such a negative effect on small businesses?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. It is great to be answering a question from him at my first Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy oral questions today. I know his constituency well, and I know that he represents the interests of his small businesses.

It is true to say that late payments are an issue that we want to tackle. Debt to small and medium-sized enterprises has halved since 2012. We have established a Small Business Commissioner, and introduced a requirement for large businesses to report publicly on their payment practices. However, we want to go further and bring in new measures to underpin the prompt payment code. We work closely with the Federation of Small Businesses, which has said that

“it is good to see the government getting serious about this issue, especially when it comes to large firms paying their supply chains promptly.”

Housing in Kent

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Gordon Henderson

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

I am more than happy to agree, and I will raise that issue later in my speech.

I mentioned that Kent is having to plan for 155,000 homes by 2031. However, in the same period, the number of jobs likely to be created in Kent has been estimated to be only 121,000. In essence, Kent local authorities are being expected to plan for 34,000 homes for people who work outside the county. In contrast, Cornwall—which I know is on the other side of the country but is still part of the United Kingdom—is only being expected to plan for 47,500 homes to be built in the county. That is less than one third of the target being imposed on Kent. Continued housing growth in Kent at the current level is simply unsustainable. It will lead to the loss of more and more green fields and inflict immeasurable harm on our beautiful county, which, after all, is the garden of England. Those additional homes will lead to thousands of extra cars on our roads, thousands more children in our schools and thousands more people using our health system, all of which are already stretched to the limit.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. In Medway alone, we are facing an arbitrary demand for an extra 30,000 houses. Does he agree that the high housing targets we are seeing across Kent are undeliverable and will do nothing to benefit or improve the lives of the people who already live in our communities, unless there is acceptance of the burden being placed on Kent, backed up with proper investment in infrastructure and services? He has outlined some of the pressures.

[Gordon Henderson]

I do agree. I was born and raised in Medway and am a proud man of Kent. I believe we have taken more than our fair share. Unfortunately, the problem is not new for Kent. Our local authorities have consistently had high housing targets imposed on them. The need for such high targets comes from migration, both internal and external. Kent County Council’s figures show that 84% of population growth in Kent is due to migration, with the Government consistently imposing high housing targets to keep up with the movement of people.

More migrants, mean more houses, mean more migrants, mean more housing. It is a vicious circle that has resulted in agricultural land being covered in concrete and many natural habitats being lost. The situation is not helped by a planning system that encourages developers to build on green land despite brownfield sites being available, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) said.