Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Maria Miller and Mark Field
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend has raised an important point, to which I am sure the Minister will respond later. One of the problems is that proposals for the construction of houses which might include disability accessibility are judged by the same group who made the proposals in the first place. There is, at the very least, some conflict of interest in the way in which the process currently works.
Ensuring that enough homes are available is, rightly, a priority for the Government, and I applaud their commitment to helping to ensure that people have the security of owning their own homes. Hundreds of my constituents have already benefited from the Help to Buy scheme. I know that many of them keenly await the roll-out of the right to buy scheme, and will take careful note of anything that the Minister may say about it. Let me, at this point, thank him for his support for the new self-build scheme that was announced in my constituency just before the Christmas break.
The Minister is clearly committed to ensuring that the new starter homes are of top quality. Those are not just warm words; the Minister has taken action. The design panel of which he has spoken at length during the Bill’s earlier stages will play a significant part in ensuring that the plans for starter homes are of the highest quality. My new clause would ensure that the top-quality plans that he rightly endorses are turned into top-quality buildings each and every time, and I hope that he will respond to it positively.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
No one wants to see jerry-built properties; we all want to see high-quality properties being built. However, will my right hon. Friend give some indication of the discussions that she has had with providers of starter homes about the risk that the building of extremely high-quality homes will lead to a diminution in the overall number of starter homes, and to a reduction in what might be called the conventional affordable supply that is intended to meet the needs specified in section 106?
Mrs Miller
My right hon. Friend is right to suggest that there could be a trade-off in terms of quantity and quality, but I do not think that that should be used to disguise the need to ensure that every single house that is built reaches the standards that are already in place. My new clause does not ask for higher standards; it simply asks for the standards that are already in place to be applied uniformly to every house that is built. It is not a question of creating new standards; it is simply a question of applying the standards that already exist.
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Debate between Maria Miller and Mark Field
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us—even on this side of the House—are firmly in favour of same-sex marriage, and voted and will vote for it on Second and Third Reading, but are none the less very concerned about the lack of equality that applies to civil partnerships? We want the Government to act on that with some urgency. However, we also want to make clear that those of us who would otherwise have supported some of the Government’s amendments are trying not to wreck the Bill but trying to make it better, and to ensure that the concept of equality applies to civil partnership as well as marriage.
Maria Miller
I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s intentions. I assure him that we intend to proceed swiftly with the review of civil partnerships, although we naturally want to take full account of discussions of the Bill in the other place. We would not want to pre-empt those discussions by embarking on a review before their conclusion, but we will certainly consider how we can proceed with a consultation speedily, given the strength of feeling.