Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Laura Trott Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Thank you very much for calling me in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. Over the past few days we have been debating the Gracious Speech of our monarch, who has been nobly carrying out this duty for longer than anyone else has been sitting in either House. Over that time, she has been the only constant. Her words and policies have changed with the will of the people who have chosen her scriptwriters through election. It is an extraordinary recognition of the reality of power and duty. Her subjects have the power to force her to read the words, and she dutifully does so, giving us an illusion of constancy in a changing world. That illusion is no trick; it is a vital part of the stability of our nation. It allows continuous innovation without fear, and novelty without revolution. As democrats have always known, the alternative to constant change is not stasis but sudden violence. The earthquake is no alternative to the bicycle. Her Majesty has been providing the constancy that has enabled that change and avoided violence, and we have been blessed to live in a newer, more peaceful Elizabethan age.

Our civic Union, which has grown out of the union of the high kings of Ireland, the tribes of Wales, the clans of Scotland and the kingdoms of England, is another constant. It has provided certainty for 300 years, and those who threaten it should think about the difference between expedient interest and long-term strategy. To lose our nation would be not just a question of currency or governance but a moment of profound disorientation for many, as so many would be left with the question of what is home. That is why I have chosen to speak today on the importance of home.

Across our nation today, almost 100,000 people are living in temporary housing. They are families like ours who are living with the uncertainty that temporary housing ensures. They have narrower windows for decisions, timelines moved from months and years to days and weeks, and injections of transience, not just in geography but in aspiration. This corrodes the ties that bind communities and undermines the ability to invest in the future. Children find it harder to study and make friends, and their results suffer. Adults cannot invest in their own futures, turn jobs into careers or accommodation into homes. At every level, this costs us all. How many Einsteins could not finish their schooling? How many Flemings did not start their education? How many Dysons did not have the time to set aside to innovate?

That is why this emphasis on housing matters, but it is much more than an emphasis on housing; it is an emphasis on community. It is a reversal of the policies that have sadly endured for too long and have slowed down the ability of owners and occupiers to be one and the same. That has stolen energy out of our economy and stability out of our nation. As Jack Airey argued in a Policy Exchange report in 2019, “Building Beautiful Places”, which built on the work of so many others, including of course Sir Roger Scruton, we need to feel at home not just in our home but in our community, our town and our country. How we build what we build builds us up or drags us down. It is profoundly important to remember why we build, not just where.

There are huge examples of successful construction and opportunities where we have seen shared space inspire co-operation and inspire changing, caring atmospheres. We can deepen community and we can intensify co-operation, but it demands that we build on the nature of our community and respect those who are there. When we rebuilt this place, we did not just enrich Pugin but enriched Britain, because the fire that started with the tally sticks destroyed not just an old Parliament but an old world. It brought about a new innovation in currency and a change in our economic future. It removed the restrictions that for many had held back our economy.

This is a time when we need to talk again about those changes, because the Queen’s Speech does not cover the changing nature of currency, the changing nature of the economy, and the innovations that we are seeing online through various forms of cryptocurrencies. I will not, in the few moments I have left, go into why I am going to be bullish on Ether and not Bitcoin, or the nature of the change in the Treasury that is needed to enable innovation that sees the sharing of prosperity on a global basis rather than a local one.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. Does he agree that we need to ensure that we have local engagement in a digital way in our planning concerns as we go forward?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and neighbour. As she has kindly spoken about digital, I will continue for a moment on why I think the Treasury needs to create a safe space for cryptocurrency development.

Setting the standard for this new economy will shape a new electronic age—a new digital world. Just as our laws—the laws passed in this place and in the old Parliament—created the trading economy that enabled so many to prosper, and created the concepts of individual ownership, corporate responsibility and indeed private responsibility, we now need to see those values injected into new changes. If we do not get this right, these standards will be set by authoritarian Governments with no interest in innovation, or in wild places where there is no regulation and no accountability.

As we come to the end of the Queen’s Speech debate tomorrow, I hope that the Government, and the Treasury in particular, will reflect very hard on the nature of crypto exchanges, because they will fundamentally be the underpinning of a new trading world, and the standards that are set for them will either see us all prosper or see us cut up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I must say that the Government side of the House absolutely agrees with what you have just said, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was almost a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) until that point in his speech, but I venture to suggest that the environmental achievements of this Government dwarf anything attempted by any Labour Government.

This Gracious Address was a Queen’s Speech for the next generation. The draft Online Safety Bill will protect our children online and make sure that what is illegal offline is also illegal online. The Environment Bill will protect our children’s environmental heritage. There was a commitment to recover our public finances so that we do not leave the next generation in unnecessary debt. The planning Bill has the heavy responsibility of balancing a commitment to build the homes that the next generation absolutely need with protection of the green spaces that are absolutely our children’s inheritance, too.

The importance of green space has been well rehearsed from a health and mental wellbeing perspective, but green spaces will also be very important in achieving our environmental targets; they capture carbon, are important for air quality and provide space to prevent flooding. Protecting the green belt will be vital in meeting our very ambitious and important environmental targets.

The White Paper that the Government produced last year was a clear step in the right direction in striking that delicate balance. Local plans will be at the heart of trying to strike the right note, protecting the green spaces that local people love while developing the homes that we need. I am glad that they will be streamlined so that we can stop the ridiculous situation in which we found ourselves in Sevenoaks: our local plan, which was supported by local people and would have delivered hundreds of homes, was thrown out by the planning inspector on the basis of a tiny technicality. That was absolutely absurd, so I strongly support the Government in what they are trying to do to streamline the process.

I also support the traffic light system being put in place, which will offer protection to the green belt. We must ensure that this is reflected in the housing targets given to local areas, because although we absolutely must and should build, we need to show flexibility so that we can protect our green belt and areas of outstanding natural beauty, which are as much our children’s inheritance as are decent homes to live in.