Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

I am obviously aware of the Greater Manchester spatial strategy. I need to be a little careful, for reasons I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand, not to comment on the detail of that, because it may well end up on my desk. However, he raises a really important point. The Government are very interested in the wider application of the process that is happening in Greater Manchester. As he says, a number of individual local authorities have decided that rather than produce their own plans they will produce a strategy for the wider area. There is much to commend that in principle. However, if that plan is slightly more distant from individual local communities, it is important that there are mechanisms by which people can engage in the process and do not feel that planning is being done to them rather than their having an involvement.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will in a second, because I suspect that my hon. Friend has a very similar issue—potentially —in his area.

I will certainly reflect, in any regulations that we might bring forward, on what the issues might be when there is a wider strategic plan. If the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) wishes to talk to me informally about some of the things he has experienced, I would be very happy to have that conversation.

[Mr Jackson]

For once my hon. Friend is wrong, because I do not have a problem with my own devolution settlement. In fact, I am a sinner repenting: I was quite hostile to it, but now I think it is going to work out for my constituents in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

May I take the Minister back to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen)? Will he ensure that any guidance on the neighbourhood planning regime also takes into account strategic housing issues relating to projections of housing need and the strategic housing market assessment to which local authorities have to refer before they put together their own local plan? That is an important document and it needs to be robust.