Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)Department Debates - View all Lindsay Hoyle's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(3 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe come now to the newly named Department. We have questions for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communications—[Interruption.] I mean Communities, not communications! I hope that there will be communications, because otherwise we will be in trouble.
I welcome the Secretary of State to his role.
The Gosport peninsula is more than 80% built on, and a further 12% of it is conservation area. There is simply nowhere to build the wildly unrealistic 2014 housing numbers without decimating any remaining green areas and, of course, the vital strategic gap. Worse, the 2018 Office for National Statistics population data reveal that our actual housing need is 3,000 fewer homes. I really understand that the nation needs houses, but this Government champion localism. Will he please give me hope that they will not be imposing unrealistic, outdated housing numbers on us?
I feel I should doff my cap at the munificence of this Parliament towards Scotland.
Devolved Governments are not involved, consulted or considered in trade deals; Scotland is shut out of carbon capture and storage, despite the hot air of Better Together promises; and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 undermines the last two decades of the devolution settlement. In what ways does the Secretary of State think that bypassing the democratically elected devolved Parliaments shows that this Union is indeed a partnership of equals?
I meet weekly with First Ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. If the hon. Lady were privileged enough to be able to observe those meetings, she would see that they are like a nest of singing birds. They are festivals of cordiality. I recognise that the SNP needs to keep its activist base happy with the recitation of these grievances, but the reality is that those who serve in the Scottish Government know that we in the UK Government are their friends and partners, and Scotland has no better friends than the other citizens of the United Kingdom.