Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I welcome the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) to her new position. I wish her and her team all the very best.

I have been a Member of this House for six-and-a-half years. In the countless contacts I have had with my constituents over that time, one issue has come up more often and more consistently than any other: housing. I am sure other hon. Members would say the same. Whether it is a lack of affordable accommodation, standards not being met, calls for housing to be built on one site or campaigns against it being built on another, the subject dominates inbox, postbag and surgery alike. Meeting that challenge requires action on many fronts, but at the heart of it all is the need for a clear, fair and, above all, effective planning system.

My two Conservative predecessors at the Department for Communities and Local Government did more to reform planning than all their Labour counterparts combined. More than 1,000 pages of policy was reduced to just 50 and the Housing and Planning Act 2016 did much to streamline and speed up the process. It is a record of real action and real change that is already paying off. The year 2015 saw more planning permissions delivered than in any year since records began. Almost 900,000 new homes have been delivered in England alone since the start of 2010.

As I said just last week, however, there is much more to do. The Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that, if we are going to build a Britain that works for everyone, we need a housing market that works for everyone. That means doing still more to tackle the housing shortage by giving communities greater certainty over development and reducing the time it takes to get from planning permission to completion. This Bill will help us to do just that.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way so early. He is quite right about the inbox: this subject dominates so much of the dealings we have with our constituents. There are two areas the Bill does not cover that I think it ought to. I wonder if, over the course of the next few weeks, he and his fellow Ministers could consider whether the Bill should be amended to deal with them.

The first point is that inspectors, on dealing with developers’ appeals, take into account the number of planning permissions given but not the number of housing starts. Planning permissions are in the hands of the district planning authority, but housing starts are in the hands of the developer. If the developer will not make use of the planning permission, it is unfair on the district council and unfair on the affected neighbourhood that does not want to see the planning go ahead.

Secondly—I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be very, very quick indeed—in relation to matters going up to an inspector, I gather from the Minister for Housing and Planning that they cannot be called in once they have gone to the inspector, but they ought to be if there is to be any even-handed justice and equality of arms.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Just before the Secretary of State responds, my patience with and tolerance of the extremely long intervention by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not to be taken as a precedent.