Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Laura Trott Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I am grateful to be given the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. I want to focus particularly on planning and local government. There is much in the Bill to welcome, around enforcement, around the strengthening of local plans and particularly around getting rid of the pernicious duty to co-operate, which is what complete scuppered our local plan in Sevenoaks, for reasons that were completely inexplicable.

The local authority took a local plan to the planning inspector that would have tripled our housing targets, yet despite being surrounded by local authorities that have similar green belt constrictions to our own, it was chucked out by the planning inspector. There was no ability for the Secretary of State to do anything about it at the time, so the changes in the Bill are really positive and will make a big difference to local authorities.

I echo the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and others about planning inspectors. These people are unelected and unaccountable and we need to do something about them. At the moment, the powers do not rest with local authorities as they should do; they rest with the planning inspectors. I think all of us here will have examples of planning inspectors going against the national planning policy framework, with no ability for recourse whatsoever. That has to change. In many ways, the new power of the Secretary of State to intervene will restore democratic accountability that is not there at the moment.

I want to make three points to Ministers about the Bill. First, I back up what my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) said: it is not right to force district councils into combined county authorities. The Secretary of State was spot on when he said that one size does not fit all in local government. I have an unbelievably good local district council and I want it to remain; I would be very grateful if the Minister summing up confirmed that no powers will be taken away from my district council without its consent.

Secondly, the Secretary of State talked in his opening remarks about not having dormitory towns, but I have the opposite problem from that faced by many of my colleagues in that we have a thriving local high street yet shops are too often being turned into houses because of huge local demand. Recently, Courtyard Antiques, a much-loved shop that has been trading for a number of years, has been taken over and turned into houses because of the demand. We must look at this; it is too easy for change of use to be put in place and it is depriving our towns of thriving local high streets.

I cannot finish without talking about housing numbers and calculations. That is not part of the Bill, but obviously changes to the NPPF will be needed as a result of it. Many Members have said that we need greater protections for our green belt. It is absurd that in Sevenoaks, which is 93% green belt, the current proposal is to build 12,000 houses on 10 square miles. That is insanity. We must have changes that give some control back to local authorities on establishing need and that take into account green belt where it exists. That will make a significant change to our local communities. We need to set one simple test for ourselves: if it is green belt, it will be protected, and if a planning application is put on the green belt the answer will be “No.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Trott Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I would challenge the hon. Gentleman’s arithmetic, but I know time is short. All I will say is that when I visited Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd less than a fortnight ago there was jubilation, not on my arrival but on the arrival of the money from the levelling-up fund that is helping fantastic figures in Welsh local government to deliver for their citizens. I hope I have the chance to visit Ceredigion to see how we can support more projects there.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I urge my right hon. Friend to increase protections for the green belt in the forthcoming planning Bill. In Sevenoaks we are 93% green belt, yet we are constantly inundated with speculative planning applications that worry the local community. The answer should be clear: if it is green belt, it is protected; and if it is a speculative planning application, the answer is no.

[Michael Gove]

I would hate to be a developer facing my hon. Friend. When it comes to these speculative and ill-thought-out planning applications, developers had better put on their armour because she fires truth bullets at them from the hip, and repeatedly. Of course it is vital that we protect our green belt. However, the best protection that any local authority can have is to make sure its plan is properly designed and adopted.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Trott Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to modernise the planning system in England.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to modernise the planning system in England.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

We will modernise the planning system, ensuring a simpler, faster and more predictable system that delivers more homes, more infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, and honours our commitment to net zero and the environment. Our reforms will also make the planning system more accessible through digital plan making, ensuring more local people—more than the 1% who currently engage with the planning system—can get involved. We are taking power out of the hands of the big developers and giving it back to local communities and small builders so that, together, we can build back better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

This Government made a manifesto commitment not just to protect the green belt, but to enhance it. At the moment, planning policy is clear that building on the green belt should be contemplated only in the most exceptional circumstances, and we intend to continue that through our modernised planning system. I appreciate the pressure that my hon. Friend and his constituents are under as a result of the proposed Greater Manchester spatial framework, which does not seem to accord with the wishes of local residents. I hope that as we come out of the pandemic, Manchester City Council and others with a good record of house building and regeneration will find opportunities for imaginative building on brownfield sites and around the city centre.

[Laura Trott]

I listened carefully to my right hon. Friend’s earlier answer, but does he agree that in any future planning reforms we must increase protection for our green belt? In Sevenoaks and Swanley, we are 93% green belt, yet we are constantly inundated by speculative planning applications such as that at Broke Hill, which worry the local community. The message should be clear: if it is green belt, it is protected, and if a planning application is put in for the green belt, the answer will be no.

[Robert Jenrick]

The point that my hon. Friend touches on is that the current planning system is not well regarded and is not producing the kinds of outcomes that we want; that is precisely why we want to reform and modernise it. We want to ensure that protections such as the green belt have the weight that they deserve in the planning system and that we can cut out speculative development unless it is approved by democratically elected local councillors at their sole discretion. The system that we are bringing forward does exactly that. Local authorities will need to have a plan; if they have a plan that is allocated land, there will be no need for issues such as speculative development and the five-year land supply.

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Trott Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to support high streets.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to support high streets.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to support high streets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. We are seeing profound changes to the high street. As it begins to reopen later this year, we will need an extremely flexible planning system so that we can ensure that small businesses and entrepreneurs can adapt and evolve. We will need a mixed economy, ensuring that there are housing, leisure, shops and restaurants in town and city centres. That is what we are seeking to achieve. We have already put in place, at great speed, a number of significant planning reforms: for example, our reform of use class orders; the ability of local councils to hold markets and of pubs to have marquees in their gardens for longer than they would have done in the past; and permitted development rights to enable businesses that are no longer viable to be turned into high-quality homes so that people of all ages can live in the towns in which they work.

[Laura Trott [V]]

The past year has been incredibly difficult for businesses on the high streets across Sevenoaks and Swanley, but while some landlords have shared that burden others have not. What more can the Government do to encourage landlords to adjust rents where businesses have lost significant trade, or indeed have been unable to trade?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises an important question. We are experiencing probably the most significant adjustment in commercial property in our lifetimes and the Government are doing a number of things to assist that process. First, we have helped businesses with their cash flow during the pandemic through the business rates holiday and the business grants that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has made available. Secondly, we have given businesses peace of mind during the most difficult months by introducing legislation to protect them from eviction, and from forms of insolvency and debt collection if they cannot pay their rent during this period. Finally, we have worked with the sector to publish a code of practice to help to support rent negotiations.

What is required now, if it has not happened already, are very urgent conversations or mediation, if that is necessary, between landlords and their tenants to ensure that where they can pay, they do so—we expect that to happen—and where they cannot pay, sensible, pragmatic arrangements are put in place. It is not in the interests of good landlords to lose viable businesses at this moment and we strongly encourage landlords, if they have not already, to have those productive conversations as quickly as they can.

Planning and House Building

Laura Trott Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing this incredibly important debate. It is also a pleasure to follow my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), whose sentiments I entirely endorse.

I want to make one central point today, which is that we must take the green belt into account when calculating housing targets. Of course we need to build houses and help families to get into their first homes, but we cannot be blind to local geographical circumstances when setting these targets. The White Paper sets out many laudable changes to modernise the planning system. It says that the green belt will be protected, and that is right, but we see no evidence that this is being taken into account in the algorithm. I understand that the algorithm reflects housing need and not a target, but it would be wonderful to hear from the Minister how the aspirations in the White Paper will be met so that we take the green belt into account, because the figures that it is suggesting for Sevenoaks are simply undeliverable.

My constituency is 93% green belt. The district is 142 square miles, of which 10 square miles are available to build on. The algorithm is suggesting that we build 12,000 new homes on those 10 square miles over a period of 15 years—10 square miles, I should point out, that are already highly developed. My local council has done a brilliant job in the last five years. It has delivered 357 houses a year, which is more than double our current target, but less than half of our new target.

In Sevenoaks, we have reason not to trust the planning inspector. Our new local plan delivers more than 600 new homes, but the planning inspector gave no flexibility for the green belt. There was no concern for protecting our local area. This is simply not good enough. Sevenoaks needs the ability to build sustainably, led by our local council, so that we have homes that local people need, but this must not come at the expense of our precious green belt.

I support the White Paper, but we must be clear how the aspirations are met in the housing targets that we are given. I hope that we will take the green belt into account, deliver on our promises in the White Paper, and trust local councils to deliver the houses that our local people need.

End of Eviction Moratorium

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady has heard clearly the measures that I have laid out to support tenants who find themselves in difficulty. Tenants who have not paid their rents for more than six months, which predates the covid emergency, may well find themselves in receipt of a notice from their landlords, and that notice to move will be much quicker. That seems to me to be a fair balance between protecting people who have got into difficulty through no fault of their own, which is why we have extended the notice period that landlords have to give other tenants, and protecting landlords and the neighbours of antisocial tenants, or tenants who are not paying their rents and have not been paying them for some time, so that we protect people who are doing the right thing as well as landlords who also want to do the right thing.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I welcome the confirmation that as eviction hearings resume, cases of antisocial behaviour will be prioritised. However, to follow on from the question from the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), will the Minister confirm that my constituents who are suffering from this blight will now have to wait only four weeks before being put out of their misery?

[Christopher Pincher]

I can confirm to my hon. Friend that neighbours of antisocial tenants will find that their landlords are able to move much more quickly now to seek justice and to seek repossession of their properties and ensure that that sort of behaviour is stymied.

Lifting the Lockdown: Workplace Safety

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

We are working on the guidance with a number of business representative organisations and with the trade unions, and when we complete that work, we will publish it at the appropriate moment. The Health and Safety Executive will be right at the core of that work, in checking and in enforcing, and, as I have said, workers will be able to approach both the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities if they do not feel that the organisation within which they are working is adhering to that guidance.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con) [V]]

Many of our essential workers are, of course, already in the workplace, for which we are hugely grateful. The Minister confirmed that we will learn from them, but can he also assure the House that we will manage any disruption to them as a result of other sectors going back to work, for instance in PPE and transport requirements?

[Paul Scully]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we will indeed look at all of this in the round to ensure that we can work out the different scenarios as people return to work. What we have at the moment is a very different situation from what we will have when restrictions start to be lifted, and that will be a very different situation from what it might be when the economy is fully open. We must understand that, and we will work with the people who are already working and with the business representative organisations that I mentioned earlier.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Trott Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I think that a target of reducing emissions by 75% from 2025 is ambitious. It is very clear that the more stringent targets we are setting mean that it may not be necessary for councils to set different local standards. We have had a consultation, which closed on 7 February. More than 3,000 submissions were made to the consultation from big builders to think-tanks to local authorities, and we shall certainly be listening to that and taking it into account.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to increase the supply of housing to meet demand.

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

21. What steps he is taking to increase the supply of housing to meet demand.

[Laura Trott]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Can he reassure the House that this very welcome house building will not come at the expense of green belt, especially in Sevenoaks?

[Robert Jenrick]

We recognise how highly many people value their local green belt, including no doubt my hon. Friend’s constituents in Sevenoaks, but meeting these legitimate aspirations must not mean that the acute housing needs of communities go unmet or the dream of the next generation to get a place of their own goes unfulfilled. Local communities wishing to preserve the green belt sustainably must therefore meet local housing needs in other ways: through gentle density, through reimagining town centres and through aggressively redeveloping brownfield land. I intend to encourage each of those.

Criminal Law

Laura Trott Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It has been a long journey to get sexual assaults, in particular, treated as among the most serious offences in the justice system, so I welcome the changes in the statutory instrument.

Standard determinate sentences are given out for minor offences but also for the most serious. Having no distinction in the automatic release trigger point between the two is clearly an injustice that needs to be rectified. When implementing this change, we must ensure two things. First, some prisoners who carry out the most serious crimes should not be automatically released at all; rather, their release should be reviewed by the Parole Board and covered by rules applying to extended determinate sentences or sentences for offenders of particular concern. The statistic, which the Minister highlighted, of 84% of rapists being given standard determinate sentences is one of concern, but one I know he will look at in the sentencing review.

The proportion of sex offenders who reoffend within a year is 14%. As part of the sentencing review, we should look at how a judge assesses whether someone represents an ongoing danger to the public and whether a standard determinate sentence is appropriate at all. Regardless, it is important when we introduce this change that we do not inadvertently reduce the use by judges of the ability to categorise offenders as dangerous and therefore necessitate Parole Board involvement. Undoubtedly some prisoners will still pose a danger to the public after two thirds of their sentence is complete and therefore will not be suitable for standard determinate sentences, regardless of these now being more robust. That is obviously not the intention, but we should monitor the change to make sure that it does not have this effect on sentencing decisions. Over time, we should also reduce the use of standard determinate sentences for sex offenders in general.

Secondly, the driving force behind these changes is to help victims have greater confidence in the criminal justice system and to keep offenders off our streets. The fear of meeting attackers again continually comes up among victims in my constituency and in victims surveys. These changes will help immensely with that and give victims time to deal with their horrendous ordeals. We will have the chance later, however, to go further, particularly on licensing conditions. At the moment, victims have to request that no-contact conditions be included as part of their licence. We should consider making that automatic over time. It would help to relieve the burden on individuals.

To conclude, it is important that we keep these changes under review—we must make sure that the most serious offenders go before the Parole Board and are not let out automatically—but this SI is right. It is a necessary and welcome step forward for victims of the most serious crimes.