Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall) [V]]

The Secretary of State expects to announce his decisions on the unitary proposals before the summer recess. Alongside those decisions, he will publish a summary of the consultation responses. I assure my hon. Friend that that will include all the detail he seeks and much more alongside it.

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to the one and only Ian Liddell-Grainger.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger [V]]

That is the most pathetic answer I think I have heard in 20 years. The Government’s consultation for the unitary was finished months ago. I have asked parliamentary questions and written to the Minister—I have tried everything. If on 13 December 2019 the returning officer in Thornbury and Yate had stood up to announce that a total of 52,000 votes had been cast but refused to declare the winner, there would have been outrage. Why will the Government not come clean over this? Why are they holding it back? Why on earth has this become an issue? Let us just hear who won the Government’s consultation. Please tell us now and tell the House.

[Mr Speaker]

Let me remind the Member that I am not responsible for the answer, and I am certainly not taking the blame for Bridgwater and Somerset. Minister, please pick that one up.

[Luke Hall]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There is no broken commitment. We always said that we would publish the outcome before the summer recess, and we are absolutely on track to do that. We received more than 5,500 responses to the consultation on local government reorganisation in Somerset and, when we publish the information, which will be on schedule, as promised, we will show the proportion of respondents who supported the different proposals, together with a summary of their expressed views. I assure him that we are on track to publish before the summer recess.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The anti-corruption campaign Transparency International says that the Conservative party has become overly dependent on donations from developers. It is particularly concerned that Ministers failed to report the details of what they talked about to developers in over 300 meetings about which they simply disclosed generalisations such as “housing” or “planning”; it fears that that could amount to what it calls aggregate corruption. Will the Secretary of State now publish the full minutes of all those meetings so that the public can see exactly what Ministers agreed to do for their developer paymasters?

[Robert Jenrick]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, all meetings that Ministers have are correctly identified on the register of interests, but I have to say that he has been on quite a journey. One adviser who worked with him as leader of Lambeth Council has been left bemused: is this the same Champagne Steve he remembers meeting with developers? It is not just him who has invited charges of shameless hypocrisy; the Leader of the Opposition has received thousands of pounds of donations from developers, and the deputy leader of the Labour party caused a splash in the papers the other day for accepting £10,000 from developers for her leadership campaign.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Could the right hon. Gentleman withdraw the word “hypocrisy”? Hon. Members would never be hypocritical.

[Robert Jenrick]

I will certainly withdraw that, at your request, Mr Speaker. We can only imagine how much the deputy leader of the Labour party will be asking for when it comes to her impending leadership campaign.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]]

In Wolverhampton, green space has been put forward for housing development by the city council. I am sure that the council would welcome reassurance from the Secretary of State that there can be discussions with his Department about the accuracy and reasonableness of those numbers going forward. Does he agree that city centre living is key, and that councils must be imaginative when incorporating housing into retail and leisure developments? I am thinking specifically of the Westside development in Wolverhampton, which could be reviewed. That is key to supporting a city centre economy—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Robert Jenrick]

As a son of Wolverhampton, I know the city well and I wish it well. It is absolutely right that we need to build more homes in our town and city centres, and that is what the Government are doing. That is why we brought forward changes to permitted development, why we created the right to demolish and rebuild a building, and why we are bringing forward reforms to modernise the planning system. That is the way we protect the green belt for future generations. From Wolverhampton and the Black Country, one has to drive only a few miles into the most beautiful countryside of Shropshire and south Staffordshire. I want to preserve that, which is exactly what our planning reforms will do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

The Conservative party has always been the party of home ownership, which is a fundamental tenet of what we seek to achieve. We want to extend opportunity to all. We are bringing forward the Bill to help the next generation of young people on to the ladder. Of course, we are also doing brilliant things such as First Homes, whereby we offer discounts of up to 30% to 50% to local first-time buyers throughout the country. I was pleased to unveil the next site for those near my hon. Friend’s constituency in Cannock the other day.

[Mr Speaker]

I am now suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I need to advise the House that Dame Rosie Winterton has been contacted by the NHS covid-19 app and advised to self-isolate. It is therefore necessary to appoint a temporary Deputy Speaker to serve for the remainder of this week. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) for being prepared to take on this role at short notice.

Ordered,

That Judith Cummins shall act as Deputy Speaker to serve in place of Dame Rosie Winterton until the rise of the House on Thursday 22 July; and that she shall exercise all the powers vested in the Chairman of Ways and Means as Deputy Speaker.—(Mr Rees-Mogg.)

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[Mr Speaker]

It is not often we give much to Yorkshire.