Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Mike Amesbury

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

That is a very interesting point. I am sure a Minister will take that up and consider it with the hon. Member.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Cheshire West and Chester Council and I have put in an excellent bid in round 2 of the levelling-up fund for the corridor at Winnington bridge. On what day in January can we expect a positive outcome?

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Mike Amesbury

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I reiterate my thanks to my hon. Friend, who has worked so hard with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet to make sure that we get our planning system right, on behalf of and with so many colleagues on our Benches. I assure him that we in the Department for Levelling Up—me and the Secretary of State—believe that we have come to a better solution. We are committed to delivering it, as I am sure my hon. Friend and others across this House will see in the policy that we will propose in the NPPF and bring forward before Christmas.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

rose—

[Lucy Frazer]

I will make a little progress, because I would like to address the Government amendments, which I will do in five categories. First, we are making it easier for people to develop where they want to develop, and where it delivers the best gain to the community and ensures that planned-for development actually happens. I will highlight five measures in this first category.

Through new clauses 49 to 59, we will pilot community land auctions. They will seek to increase the supply of land and aim to capture more land value more effectively to the benefit of the local community. Planning permission will not be granted automatically on sites allocated in the local plan through the auction process.

Through new clauses 60 and 69, we are allowing for street votes enabling residents to come together and propose additional development on their streets in line with their preferences—subject to meeting prescribed requirements—and vote on whether it should be given permission. In speaking to those new clauses, I would like to acknowledge the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and the “Strong Suburbs” report by Policy Exchange.

We are making it easier for people to access suitable plots to build their own homes. We are building on the immense work of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon). We recognise the importance of self-build and custom housebuilding, and new clause 68 clarifies the duty on authorities to provide for plots for such homes in their planning decisions.

We will also seek to reduce barriers to smaller-scale developments that communities can easily get behind. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) has worked significantly on that area. I can confirm that our intention is to consult on changing national policy to encourage greater use of small sites, especially those that will deliver higher levels of affordable housing.

Importantly, we are ensuring that when permissions are given, developments can be built out quickly. New clauses 48 and 67 deal with that. Members across the House have been concerned about the rate at which development occurs once planning permission has been granted. It is wrong for developers simply to sit on planning permissions, because that increases the number of permissions that have to be granted and risks overdevelopment. The Bill introduces further steps to tackle the issue, including a requirement for developers to report on the rate at which they build, and allowing authorities to deny permission for further development on the same sites where the developers have failed to build out. All those measures will encourage development where people want it and where they have agreed to have it.

Universal Credit Project Assessment Reviews

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Mike Amesbury

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I will make some progress for the moment.

By means of today’s motion, the Opposition seek the disclosure of various documents to a Select Committee. There is a procedure whereby Select Committees can ask for such documents themselves under Standing Orders. When I asked the Library last night whether there was any record of the Work and Pensions Committee having asked for these documents, I was told that there was no such record. If there had been such a request, there might have been the opportunity for a discussion between the Chairman of the Committee and the Secretary of State about the basis of the request and the use to which the documents might be put—the very issues that have been raised in this debate.

Raising such matters can be achieved in various ways, including through written and oral parliamentary questions, urgent questions and debates. Again, I asked the Library whether the Opposition had availed themselves of any of those procedures with regard to this request. The only record that the Library had of any such request related to one parliamentary question tabled three years—two Parliaments—ago. In this Parliament, we have had six debates on universal credit, as well as two ministerial statements and one urgent question. On none of those occasions has the relevance of these documents been raised, and nor have they been asked for. If it were in the public interest urgently to disclose the documents, I would have expected Labour Members to have used one of those routes to request them through official channels over the course of this Parliament, but they have not done so. This is the first time the matter has been raised in this Parliament.

My question is whether it is appropriate to use an important procedure of this House to require the Government to produce documents when no prior official request has been made to obtain them through the usual procedures that are available to hold the Government to account. Is it appropriate to request important documents from the Government for the first time in a Opposition day motion when the contents of that motion were not known by the Government until yesterday?

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Of course it is right for the Opposition to raise the problems of universal credit at every opportunity. Surely the hon. and learned Lady can understand that. I know that the additional 30% of people using food banks in my constituency understand it.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, as universal credit is an important measure. I endorse that point, which many Members have made today. Universal credit affects those who need help the most, and that is the issue that we should be debating, rather than the disclosure of documents that could have been asked for before, to which the Secretary of State has now willingly granted access. We do not need a five-hour debate. It is the issues that affect our constituents that need to be debated, not a procedural request for documentation. In the course of the Standing Order No. 24 debate on the need for more Opposition day debates, the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) stated that such debates were important as

“the key means in this House of raising issues of concern to our voters.”—[Official Report, 17 July 2017; Vol. 627, c. 616.]

I am sure that my voters care about universal credit, and I am sure that they care about getting people into work, but I am not sure they would welcome a day-long debate about a request for documents that could have been made, and granted, through the ordinary procedures of this House.