Planning (Enforcement) Bill
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)
What superb speeches we have heard today, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) for his proposals to strengthen the hand of local planning authorities, protect our precious green belt, and crack down on rogue development. He makes an important point that this is not just about protecting our green spaces, but is a basic issue of fairness. As the hon. Member who represents the place where Magna Carta was signed, he is very conscious of fairness and the rule of law. Of course, when Magna Carta was signed, barons tried to drag concessions out of a rather unwilling Executive, but in this case we are entirely in alignment. I am sure hon. Members across the House will have experienced problems similar to those he describes. They are problems we must solve, and I look forward to doing so with my hon. Friend.
While the Government are very sympathetic to the objectives of the Bill, we believe that the changes that we need to enforcement are best developed as part of a package and aligned with our wider planning reforms. As my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge will know, we are currently reviewing these departmental programmes and engaging with key parties ahead of setting out our proposed way forward.
I believe that hon. Members across the House will agree that the current system does not always serve local communities effectively, which is why we want to modernise the planning system in England, so that it strengthens enforcement and provides better outcomes for local authorities and communities. We want to make it easier for local planning authorities to tackle deliberate unauthorised development and ensure that the retrospective planning process is not abused. At the same time, we want to see retrospective applications used only by those who have genuinely made a mistake.
I know how important it is to make sure that local authorities have the right capabilities to implement these reforms, especially with respect to the planning enforcement regime. The additional £65 million announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget will enable us to make the upfront investment in skills, digitisation and capability required to make these reforms a success. My hon. Friend proposed the creation of a database of local enforcement registers. While the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) raised some important questions about this, we are keen, as part of the investment we are making in digitisation, to make sure that more data enforcement is digitally available to be shared among local planning authorities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge raised a series of really important issues about the potential gaming of the system, and those are exactly the kinds of issues that we are looking to address. To address the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), who asked whether sites that had been illegally developed would be considered brownfield as a result, my understanding is that most local planning authorities would not consider them to be brownfield sites as they had not been subject to previous lawful development. There is, of course, some theology around what exactly is brownfield, having been asked before whether Stonehenge is a brownfield site. That is one, perhaps, for the philosophers, but, on that particular point, I hope that I can put the mind of my hon. Friend at ease.
Today, in addition to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, we have heard some really excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti), for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), for Bracknell (James Sunderland), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and for Bury North (James Daly). My normally mild-mannered hon. Friend the Member for Meriden was, I think, channelling John Rambo when he said, “We are coming for you”, and we absolutely are. I am not sure what was put in his tea this morning, but he is passionate, and rightly so, because this is a hugely important issue.
We have also had hugely important contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), for Truro and Falmouth, for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). We all share the same concerns and we all want to see the same things changing and to fix these unfairnesses. This Government are committed to improving the planning system.
Sir Christopher Chope
Does my hon. Friend share the sense of urgency that has been palpable in all the contributions from the Conservative Benches? From what he is saying, it seems as though the Government are in the process of kicking this down the road.
Neil O’Brien
I absolutely share the sense of urgency of my hon. Friend, and it is something that we are actively working to solve. Yes, absolutely, the level of interest from hon. Members, particularly on the Conservative Benches, is striking and they are quite right to be provoked and interested in this important subject.
This Government are committed to improving the planning system so that it works more effectively, delivers better outcomes and supports our mission to level up communities right across the country.
Common Frameworks: Quarterly Report
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
I am today laying before Parliament a report, “The European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks: 26 March to 25 June 2021”. I am laying this report because it is a legal requirement under the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 for quarterly reports to be made to Parliament on the progress of the work to develop common frameworks. The report is available on www.gov.uk and details the progress made between the UK Government and devolved Administrations regarding the development of common frameworks. This report details progress made during the twelfth three-month reporting period, and sets out that no “freezing” regulations have been brought forward under section 12 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. A copy of the “The European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks: 26 March to 25 June 2021” report has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The publication of the report reflects the Government’s continued commitment to transparency.
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Shrewsbury Town Centre Redevelopment
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, and to listen to the passionate speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). I congratulate him on securing this important debate and on his unwavering commitment to advocating for his constituency, which I know about from talking to him at first hand. I strongly agree with him that the levelling-up agenda is for the whole country, not just some parts of it, and on the essential importance of accountability, value for money and better understanding what use taxpayers’ money is put to. I will use the time that remains to talk a bit about how the levelling-up agenda can serve Shrewsbury and the rest of his constituency.
The levelling-up agenda is about empowering local leaders and communities. It is about boosting living standards, particularly where they are lower. It is about spreading opportunity and improving public services, particularly where they are weak. It is also about ensuring that communities right across the UK can take pride in their neighbourhoods and the places they call home; my hon. Friend spoke passionately about some of the glories of Shrewsbury and some of those things that people are rightly proud of. I have been encouraged by what I have read about Shrewsbury and the vision and plan of local leaders, particularly in Shrewsbury’s “Big Town Plan”, which is extremely exciting and includes the ambitious redevelopment of the Riverside shopping centre, which was included in the bid that my hon. Friend spoke about.
As my hon. Friend knows, the Chancellor recently announced the first-round award of £1.75 billion to 105 successful bids from the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund. Bids were assessed completely impartially by officials against four components: value for money, deliverability, strategic fit and characteristics of place. In the interests of transparency, alongside the winning bids my Department published an explanatory note detailing the levelling-up fund assessment and exactly how bids were shortlisted and decisions reached.
Sadly, many more bids were received than funding was available for in the first round. I am sure my hon. Friend knows that it was a competitive process with lots of strong bids. I assure him, however, that that is not the end of the process. Although Shropshire Council’s bid to support Shrewsbury’s regeneration was not successful in this round, I strongly encourage it to bid again in the second round of the £4.8-billion fund, which, to answer his question, is expected in spring next year.
The levelling-up fund is not the only mechanism through which we are supporting levelling up in Shrewsbury and Shropshire, and it is not the only opportunity that will be available. I will touch on some of the things that we have done. As part of our ambition to rebalance the economy, we have invested more than £6 million in Shrewsbury’s transport infrastructure in the last five years. Funding from our local growth fund supported the Shrewsbury integrated transport package to improve road junctions, invest in sustainable transport and improve the town’s commercial centre. I congratulate my hon. Friend on helping his area to secure the important improved train connection that he mentioned.
In 2019, that funding was complemented by a further £2 million from the local growth fund to help to restore the iconic Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, which is home to the world’s first iron-framed structure and complements all the other wonderful heritage buildings that my hon. Friend spoke about. More recently, I was pleased that £5 million from the getting building fund supported Shropshire Council’s remodelling of the Pride Hill shopping centre, which will create 250 well-paid jobs.
My hon. Friend will agree that that is levelling-up in action and is testament to the Government’s ambition to support Shrewsbury to grow and thrive in the coming years. We recognise that more needs to be done, however, and I know that some of the projects mentioned today have been supported by European funding in the past. Now that we have left the EU, there is scope to go further and faster.
That is one of the reasons why the Chancellor confirmed more than £2.6 billion for the forthcoming UK shared prosperity fund over the spending review period, which is another opportunity to level up Shropshire. That will ramp up to £1.5 billion a year by 2024-25 and the total spending will, at a minimum, match the size of EU funds in each nation of the UK. We will publish further details about the shared prosperity fund in due course, and I encourage my hon. Friend to ensure that Shropshire Council is aware of the opportunities that the fund presents.
Daniel Kawczynski
I am listening intently to my hon. Friend. Before he finishes, I take the opportunity to invite him to Shrewsbury in the Christmas recess so that he can see the town centre.
Neil O’Brien
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s invitation and I will try to find a time—nothing would give me greater pleasure; it sounds wonderful. I am interested in how the levelling-up agenda can help places such as Shrewsbury.
My hon. Friend rightly focused on regeneration, which is a challenge that all places face at the moment as we move towards more shopping online and as town and city centres have to change to meet the challenges of the new era. He will have noticed the funding that the Chancellor set out in the spending review for brownfield regeneration, through which there may also be opportunities for the local council, including, as he mentioned, by talking to Homes England and to the high streets taskforce. I will endeavour to make the connections offline between central and local government officials that he asked for.
We all agree that, however far Government funding goes and however many different good and targeted spending streams we have, spending by the Government alone can go only so far in fulfilling our levelling-up agenda. We want to encourage strong local leadership to truly deliver and power the productivity growth that is essential for rebalancing our economy and our country. One only has to look at the success of some of our metro Mayors, such as Andy Street, in attracting private sector investment, spurring growth and acting as powerful ambassadors for their regions, to see the tremendous potential of further devolution beyond our largest cities.
That is one reason why, where there is strong local support, we want to roll out those powers and opportunities to the rest of the country too, using county deals. My hon. Friend has expressed a strong interest in how such a deal could support local regeneration and drive growth across Shropshire. I look forward to discussing that further with him as my Department prepares to publish its levelling-up White Paper. It will set out our plan to improve livelihoods and opportunity in all parts of the UK, building on our work so far, including on devolution and urban regeneration.
My hon. Friend mentioned local enterprise partnerships and the great work of Mandy Thorn. I agree with him on that, and I pay tribute to the work of people in local enterprise partnerships. Earlier this year, we initiated a review into the role of local enterprise partnerships. We now intend to consider the future role of LEPs and the local business voice in the White Paper that I just mentioned, alongside our commitment to extend devolution and strong local leadership into county areas, so my hon. Friend will hopefully not have to wait too long for greater clarity on the future role of LEPs. Our levelling-up taskforce is also working closely with relevant Departments across Whitehall to ensure that reform in multiple different policy areas all comes together to empower local leaders and ensure that levelling up will be greater than the sum of its parts.
Once again, I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution to the debate and for securing it. I will reflect on the very important points that he made, and I will continue to engage with him—hopefully, I will take up his offer of a visit—and to work with local partners to support their efforts and pursue this very important agenda. The Government intend to equip areas with the tools, funding and resources they need to become the masters of their destiny. This mission has arguably never been more important than it is today, as we forge a national recovery out of the covid pandemic.
The forthcoming White Paper will set out further details of our approach and how we can support places such as Shrewsbury to realise their ambitions and plans for growth. As my hon. Friend set out so eloquently, Shrewsbury has a rich history as a vibrant and enterprising town. Together, I believe that we can build on his work and that of his local partners, to ensure that Shrewsbury’s future is as bright and prosperous as its illustrious past.
Question put and agreed to.
Concordat on Statistics Between UK Government and Devolved Administrations
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
I welcome the UK Statistics Authority publishing the new concordat on statistics between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. This concordat represents a significant milestone in our work to put data at the heart of decision making in Government and build on the successful collaboration between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations not least as we have seen in response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Collecting and analysing data that is easily comparable UK-wide helps us to share learning. It gives us the power to understand and learn from each other on the success of policies in order that we can collectively deliver the best for citizens across the UK. This concordat sets out the agreed framework for co-operation between the UK Government, including the UK Statistics Authority, and devolved Administrations, in relation to the production of statistics, for and within the UK, statistical standards and the statistics profession.
In conjunction with wider agreements on inter-governmental relations, this concordat reflects the commitment of each Administration to work together towards a more coherent statistical picture across the UK while recognising that the policy context will not always be identical.
Access to UK-wide data will help to empower leaders across the UK to make the best decisions for their citizens, providing greater insight and opportunities to improve our public services. The covid-19 pandemic is a prime example of how using UK-wide data can help us tackle common challenges and deliver the best outcomes by working collaboratively with one another.
This concordat represents a renewed commitment to work together to tackle shared challenges. I am grateful for the work of UK Statistics Authority and devolved Administrations to agree to this framework. The concordat is signed by the national statistician, Sir Ian Diamond and the permanent secretaries to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Department of Finance, Northern Ireland, the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, and the chief statisticians of the devolved Administrations.
The concordat will be made available on gov.uk and a copy deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.
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UK Community Renewal Fund
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)
I will shortly announce 477 projects supporting people and communities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which are set to receive a share of over £200 million, helping support local areas to pilot imaginative new approaches and programmes that unleash their potential, instil pride, and prepare them to take full advantage of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund when it launches in 2022. The UK Community Renewal Fund is part of the Government’s plan to level up our regions and create a more united country.
This is levelling up in action—investing in projects across the whole of the UK that will make a real difference to people’s lives. Supporting those on low incomes to become budding entrepreneurs, investing in local businesses and councils at the forefront of our decarbonisation drive, and funding new education and training facilities that will help people go far but stay local. Through this fund we are also empowering local leaders to shape the places they live, guaranteeing that these investments have a lasting impact.
Below is a selection of UK Community Renewal Fund projects that will be funded:
Over £1 million to upskill people in retrofit and modern construction skills in Devon to support the decarbonisation drive in the property sector, helping people get construction jobs and ensuring businesses have the skills they need.
£201,064 to support unemployed and disadvantaged residents in Carmarthenshire into self-employment or to start their own business, by investing in digital, employability and entrepreneurial skills. The programme will also fund a bootcamp for female entrepreneurs, developing a networking group for women in business.
£67,626 to deliver deaf awareness training and basic British Sign Language to customer facing staff at a range of organisations throughout Rhondda Cynon Taf. The money will also be used to set up local community groups for the elderly who are hard of hearing, tackling loneliness and isolation.
£72,501 to support neurodiverse people with conditions such as Tourette’s, OCD, ADHD/ADD and Dyslexia in Antrim and Newtownabbey to secure employment and prepare for the world of work.
£612,000 shared between Inverclyde and Aberdeen City for a pilot to support 16–24-year olds from deprived areas to upskill and secure jobs.
Delivering on the commitment to level up all of the UK underpins the choices made in the Budget and spending review. The historic levels of investment confirmed through SR21 will improve living standards for people and places across the UK, helping ensure that people’s opportunities in life are not determined by where they live. Investing in people will boost employment, wages and prospects. The Budget and spending review launches the UK Shared Prosperity Fund worth over £2.6 billion, to help people access new opportunities in places of need. Funding will rise to £1.5 billion a year by 2024-25.
[HCWS369]
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
We are committed to ensuring that the community renewal fund reaches those most in need. To achieve that, we identified 100 priority places across Great Britain based on an index of economic resilience measuring productivity, household income, unemployment, skills and population density. Other places were also able to bid and the assessment process considered both the strategic fit and the deliverability of bids.
Justin Madders
Could the Minister tell us, when the pilots have concluded, how the shared prosperity and community renewal funds will interact with levelling-up bids? In future, will there be an overlap? Will it be possible to bid for both? On the levelling-up process, will he meet me to discuss Ellesmere Port’s excellent and ambitious levelling-up fund bid?
Neil O'Brien
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, the community renewal fund is intended to act as an innovative source of funding to try new ways of doing things as we move on from EU structural funds, and to enable us to start working on new ideas ahead of the levelling-up fund.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
High Streets
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) on securing this debate on the future of our high streets. I thank her for speaking so passionately on behalf of our constituents. I strongly agree with her comments about the importance of our high streets in tackling loneliness and connecting communities.
Without a doubt, the covid pandemic has wrought some heavy blows on both our high streets and our wider economy. As the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) said, changes that were already taking place before the pandemic have been magnified. We have seen profound changes to the way we shop, live and work right across the UK. None the less, we know that our high streets are resilient and adaptable, and we are committed to helping them not just recover but thrive and flourish in the weeks and months ahead.
That is why we have committed unprecedented levels of support and funding for high-street businesses throughout the pandemic—£352 billion in total, to help those negatively impacted by covid-19. That package includes £60 billion of business rates relief, business grants, the coronavirus loan schemes and the coronavirus job retention scheme, which has supported more than 90,000 jobs in Lewisham East, as well as the deferral of income tax payments. Another £2 billion was made available to local authorities in additional restriction grants, with councils encouraged to focus that support on the sectors that remained closed the longest.
Mr Sheerman
Does the Minister think that the Government missed an opportunity when they introduced the plastic bags charge, which has produced millions? We were promised that the money would flow into communities and the regeneration of local towns, so why has most of that money flown into the back pockets of the supermarkets? Why can we not have that money to regenerate local businesses?
Neil O'Brien
I fear that the hon. Gentleman is going to take us on a diversion. The tax has been hugely successful. It has eliminated billions and billions of plastic bags from our planet. We can take some of the other points that he raises offline.
In Lewisham, the support that we have introduced has equated to about £40 million in business grants to small businesses as well as those in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. Lewisham council estimates that it will have awarded £55 million in business rate relief to local businesses between March 2019 and March 2022. A further £34 million has been provided to the council in local restriction support grants and Christmas support payments. I am sure that the hon. Member for Lewisham East agrees that that funding was invaluable for businesses during an incredibly difficult 18 months.
Earlier this year, we also announced the £56 million welcome back fund, building on the success of the reopening high streets safely fund, to give people reassurance that they can shop and socialise in a covid-secure way. The hon. Lady is, I am sure, aware that more than £250,000 was awarded to Lewisham council through the welcome back fund. I am delighted that the local authority and businesses themselves have been able to take advantage of that support. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) talked about the benefits it brought in her constituency, too.
That funding has been complemented by a commercial property eviction moratorium, which has now been extended to 25 March 2022, helping high street shops hit hard in recent months to stay afloat and weather the storm. To provide more certainty to tenants and landlords, the Government plan to legislate for a process of binding arbitration, following a call for evidence launched in April and engagement with business owners. The legislation will ringfence debt relief accrued from March 2020 for commercial tenants impacted by covid-19, and it will introduce a system of binding arbitration for landlords and tenants that cannot agree between themselves on agreeing, deferring or waiving rent arrears.
All that adds up to a concerted effort to protect businesses and livelihoods during and after the pandemic. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) said, the Treasury has indeed thrown the kitchen sink at backing our high streets over the past two years. Even before covid-19, however, it is important to stress that the Government had demonstrated their commitment to supporting our high streets to embrace change, to respond to the evolving patterns of consumer demand, to create a vibrant, mixed-use town and city centres, and to drive investment in parts of the country that historically have been underserved.
Our future high streets fund, for example, supports 72 places from Wolverhampton to Woolwich, just down the road from the constituency of the hon. Member for Lewisham East, with a share of more than £830 million. That funding is being used by councils to deliver ambitious plans to regenerate high streets while helping them to recover from the pandemic.
More broadly, our towns fund is supporting 101 places to bring forward schemes to spur growth and to breathe new life into communities, while creating thousands of jobs. We can already see some brilliant examples of how that fund is helping to transform those towns across the country. Southport has turned its old theatre into a convention centre, a state-of-the-art venue, in an attempt to bring in more than 1 million new visitors every year.
Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
Order. The Minister has made it clear that he is not taking interventions.
Neil O'Brien
Despite being a Huddersfield boy, I cannot take further interventions, because we are pushed for time.
In Worcester, support from our future high streets fund is being used to renovate several iconic and beautiful buildings, including the local corn exchange, driving footfall and preserving the community’s heritage. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn and Haslingden (Sara Britcliffe) also talked about the good that such schemes are doing in her constituency. Those are the kind of transformative projects that hold the key to restoring local pride and laying the foundations for our long-term economic recovery. That is exactly what underpins our levelling-up fund, which will be available to local areas across the UK.
Neil O'Brien
I am afraid I cannot take further interventions as I am a bit pressed for time. I am so sorry.
We will invest £4.8 billion in the levelling-up fund to build the next generation of roads, bridges, railway stations and 5G networks to connect communities and businesses faster than ever before. However, significant though such interventions and all that spending are, I think we all agree that, no matter the scale of Government investment, money alone cannot solve all the problems that businesses on our high streets face.
That is one reason why my Department has recently published the “Build Back Better High Streets” strategy, which has a bold and imaginative vision for the future of our high streets—a future in which businesses and communities have the freedoms and flexibilities to innovate and adapt to a new post-covid world. The strategy forms a key part of the Prime Minister’s plan to level up. It will deliver visible changes to local areas and communities across England, transforming derelict buildings, supporting businesses, cleaning up our streets, improving the public realm and supporting a renewed sense of community pride for future and current generations.
To enable places to adapt and to reinvent their high streets, the strategy builds on some of the earlier planning changes that we have already made. We introduced the temporary permitted development right for moveable structures so that pubs and restaurants could move the indoors outdoors using marquees and canopies. I am sure hon. Members across the UK will have seen the effects of that. We have acted to make it easier to host market stalls, car boot sales and fairs for longer, without needing a planning application. We are consulting on making those changes in relation to marquees and markets permanent.
In 2020, we made a use classes order creating a new class E, which gives businesses the freedom to adapt and reinvent themselves. An office can easily become a café, a shop, health surgery or nursery without requiring planning permission. To support high streets to become places where people shop and spend their leisure time but also live, we have created a new permitted development right that allows the creation of much needed new homes in the hearts of our towns and cities. This right helps to repurpose vacant buildings, avoiding premises being left empty for long periods. Our further permitted development rights allow buildings to be extended upwards to create new homes and the demolition of vacant and redundant shops and offices so that they can be replaced with quality homes right in the hearts of our towns and cities.
I again thank the hon. Member for Lewisham East for her excellent speech and all the other Members who contributed to this excellent debate. The Government remain steadfast in our commitment to help our high streets adapt and thrive as they recover from the pandemic so that they can play their part in levelling up communities across the country. Indeed, my Department, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has a fundamental role to play in delivering this agenda. I know that I speak not just for myself but for the whole of our ministerial team in saying that we are committed to working with Members from across the House to create the stronger, fairer, more united kingdom we all want to see as we emerge from the pandemic. We also want to work hand-in-hand with local authorities and businesses to make that vision a reality.
I have not had time to pick up on every point that hon. Members have made or all the excellent projects that they promoted during the debate, but I will be happy to do so offline afterwards. I hope that, together, we can ensure that our high streets remain the beating heart of our communities for generations to come.
Greenbelt: Local Plans
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. It is also my particular pleasure to be able to address hon. Members as the representative of the new Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Levelling up is about empowering local leaders and communities and creating nice places to live, both of which are highly relevant to this debate.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) for securing this important debate. His constituency, as he said, includes areas governed by two local authorities—Watford and Three Rivers. His constituents are hugely fortunate to have my hon. Friend as their MP. He is a relentless, articulate and learned champion for them, particularly on this issue. He asked me to confirm that he cannot interfere in the planning process. He cannot control the numbers the local authority chooses to go for—I am happy to confirm he is correct on that.
Let me reiterate the Government’s absolutely unwavering commitment to protecting the green belt. There has been no greater advocate for the green belt and for our valued countryside than the Prime Minister. He could not have been clearer in his address to the party conference two weeks ago. Homes should not be built on green fields if we can possibly help it. Instead, we should focus on boosting construction on brownfield sites. I will talk about both of those today.
I am naturally very sympathetic to the concerns of local residents, but hon. Members will appreciate that the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role in the planning system, so I cannot comment on individual planning proposals. While the Government set national planning policy in England, local authorities are responsible for local planning matters, including the distribution and density of development across their areas, the designation of land as green belt and co-operation with neighbouring authorities on matters that cross boundaries. Local plans are the key documents through which local planning authorities can set out a vision and a framework for the future development of their area but, crucially, planning must be carried out in democratic consultation with local residents so that everyone can have their say. The community’s voice must be heard. My hon. Friend talked about the central importance of consultation and democracy in his speech and the good work being done by some of the groups in his constituency. I am sorry to hear that he feels that in his constituency there has been a tremendous democratic failure on the part of the council to listen and act on residents’ concerns. He mentioned a couple of particular sites where that was the case.
On the green belt, as my hon. Friend knows, the manifesto on which the Government were elected was unequivocal in its commitment not just to protecting the greenbelt and the countryside, but to enhancing it for future generations. The green belt is vital in preventing urban sprawl and stopping encroachment on our beautiful countryside. That is why national planning policy delivers strict protections for the green belt, along with strong safeguards against boundary changes and development.
Councils must meet two clear tests to make any changes. The first test outlined in the national planning policy framework ensures that local authorities are prevented from changing a green-belt boundary other than in exceptional circumstances. They must show that every other reasonable option has been exhausted, and that includes using brownfield land, optimising the density of development and discussing whether neighbouring authorities can take some of the development. In addition, local authorities must consult local people before submitting a revised plan for examination by an inspector. If a local authority finds that it really cannot avoid removing land from the green belt, it is expected to offset the loss of that land through environmental and access improvements to the remaining green belt.
The second test sets out that, where there is a green belt, local authorities should regard the construction of most types of new building in that green belt as inappropriate. They should be refused planning permission unless there are very special circumstances. Let me use this opportunity to reassure hon. Friends and Members that we will continue to afford maximum protection to our green belt. We stand squarely behind that commitment as we take forward our important agenda to level up the country. It is important to stress that national policy sets the expectation that local planning policies and decisions should enhance as well as protect green-belt land. Most of the green belt is countryside, often containing valuable biodiversity soils and attractive landscapes.
As the Prime Minister has made clear, we must reduce pressure on green fields by focusing on delivering beautiful homes on brownfield land, particularly in urban areas. The national planning policy framework strongly encourages regeneration and the reuse of brownfield sites, especially for development to meet housing need and to regenerate our high streets and town centres, as we all want. Local plans should support opportunities to remediate contaminated land or identify underused sites as the first priority—and we were the first Government to require councils to make registers of all their brownfield land.
Of course, brownfield does not just mean derelict plots; they are obvious brownfield. We have already widened permitted development rules, allowing extensions, adaptations and even demolition of unwanted commercial buildings such as boarded-up shops and warehouses, which are natural candidates for new homes. The framework also makes it clear that by achieving the right density of development, a neighbourhood can ensure that urban land is used efficiently. Minimum density standards, in a sort of gentle densification—not tall towers—encouraged by the new national design code guidance, will help to save brownfield land. There is a big difference between gentle density and tall towers, and I highlight to any council the pioneering work of Create Streets on the subject.
We recognise that brownfield sites are harder to deliver, and in some circumstances councils require additional support to maximise their use, so we are helping to fund regeneration, as well as favouring it through legislation and guidance. Only last week, we allocated £58 million to 53 councils through our brownfield land release fund, and that funding will boost local areas by transforming unloved and disused sites into vibrant communities for people to live and work in. With the demolition of unsightly derelict buildings and disused car parks and garages, that is levelling up in action and a clear example of our restoring local pride in place while building the homes this country needs. Crucially, this funding will help to protect the countryside and green spaces. We expect another 5,600 homes to be built on those brownfield sites, supporting young people and families across the country into home ownership.
That is just the latest instalment. Government have made significant investment to unlock brownfield sites—for example, the £4.35-billion housing infrastructure fund, the £4.95-billion home building fund, the £400 million brownfield housing fund and the £75- million brownfield land release fund. Furthermore, through land remediation relief, the Government provide a deduction of 100% from corporation tax, plus 50% for any qualifying expenditure incurred by companies as a clean-up of contaminated land acquired from third parties. No Government have ever invested in brownfield-first regeneration such as this. I hope the councils in my hon. Friend’s constituency will avail themselves of all this help to do brownfield first.
In 2018, we introduced a new standard method in the national planning policy framework for assessing local housing need. My hon. Friend referred to that in his speech. It helps communities to gain a clear understanding of the minimum number of new homes required to inform local plans. I must be clear, however, that the local housing need calculation is by no means a top-down imposed housing target, nor does the method dictate where the new homes go. It is just a starting point when measuring an area’s housing need. A local authority still has to set its own housing target, after taking account of local constraints, including, of course, the green belt, and plan for the right mix of housing type and tenure and in the right places.
My hon. Friend asked me to confirm, as I can, that the use of the standard method in plan making is not mandatory. If it is felt that circumstances warrant an alternative approach to using the standard method, a local authority can put it forward for examination as part of its local plan, although that comes with the caveat that it will be scrutinised closely. Last year, we improved the standard method further, which resulted in an uplifting of the previous figure by 35% in our 20 most populated urban areas, a further move to support a brownfield-first, regeneration-led approach to development.
That enables us to plan for enough homes in a way that maximises the use of existing infrastructure and supports development that is close to shops, schools, local services and good transport connections, and reduces the need for long journeys by car. It will also help drive the regeneration of our high streets, while levelling up our town and city centres across the country.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue today. To raise our sights a bit, the main purpose of the green belt is to ensure that our towns and cities grow in a sustainable way. In the lead-up to the UN climate change conference—COP26—the enormous potential of the green belt and other greenfield land is very visible, helping to support climate change resilience, as part of our green infrastructure, and as an aid to help the natural world to grow and recover. That makes it all the more important for communities to be able to engage with the planning process, making full use of the new digital tools available, to ensure that councillors and planning authorities make the right decisions when they come to balance homes and jobs with protecting our precious countryside for future generations to come.
Question put and agreed to.
Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]
It is a particular pleasure to see the new Minister in his place today. He is a man who has spent a lot of his life working to improve housing conditions for the poorest people in this country, so he is absolutely the right man in the right place at the right time to take forward this hugely important work.
Much has already been said, so the few additional things that I would add are as follows. First, it is important that we look at the other dimensions of fire safety as well as just cladding. I have been asking written questions about fire doors in particular. I was told that we do not hold any central data on the quality and state of fire doors in social housing blocks. I hope that the Government will audit, and get social landlords to audit, the state of those doors, making sure that they have at least the 30-minutes protection that we expect, and that we will work through all the other dimensions of fire safety as well as cladding.
When it comes to cladding, may I express my hope that we will see the people behind this tragedy brought to justice? It has been absolutely extraordinary to watch the proceedings of the inquiry and to see some of what has come out. In The Times the other day, Dominic Lawson summarised exchanges of emails between employees at Kingspan after the Grenfell tragedy. They joked about rigging tests and about how they lied, saying, “Yes, mate, it’s all lies. All we do here is lie.” The testimony of an employee of Celotex, Jonathan Roper, said that his company had behaved in a completely unethical way. Then there are the officials from Arconic, who are refusing to testify at the inquiry, hiding behind the French blocking statute. I hope that the Government will use all the means at their disposal to put maximum pressure on the representatives of these companies to come and face the inquiry and, ultimately, to face justice for what has been done.
Finally, I encourage Ministers to keep going in their efforts to remove unsafe cladding. I welcome the £1.6 billion that is being spent on this. I welcome the progress that is being made in reducing and removing ACM cladding. The removal of ACM cladding from the social sector is great. I hope that Ministers will continue to press on with the new regulator for construction products, so that such a tragedy does not happen again. Ultimately—let me put it like this—I hope that we can make sure that those who are suffering through no fault of their own are not made to pay and that the people behind the Grenfell tragedy are made to pay.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
Let us remember that the last Labour Government left house building in this country at its lowest ever level in peacetime—the lowest since the 1920s. The statistics that we published at the end of last year show that this Government are building more homes than any Government has built for almost 40 years, and were it not for covid, we would have built more homes than any Government since that in which Harold Macmillan was Housing Secretary many years ago.
We will keep on building more homes. We will keep on investing in homes through the affordable homes programme and more investment in brownfield land, and we will keep on bringing forward ambitious planning reforms to free up the planning system, to support small builders and entrepreneurs and to create and sustain jobs for the brickies, the plumbers and the self-employed people the length and breadth of the country who need a Conservative Government to be on their side. I would respectfully ask the hon. Lady to back us. She and her colleagues have voted against every single one of those measures since the pandemic. People across this country need those measures to get this country building and support jobs.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)
Contributions from housing developers see around £7 billion a year invested back into communities, building more homes and vital infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, and helping to deliver more than 30,000 affordable homes last year. But, as my hon. Friend has raised with me a number of times, the system is still too long-winded and complex. To fix that, we will introduce a flat rate, non-negotiable single infrastructure levy. As set out in the “Planning for the future” White Paper, that will accelerate house building, aim to raise more revenue than under the current process and deliver at least as many on-site affordable homes. We will publish more details on this soon.
Neil O’Brien [V]
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as raising more for the infrastructure that is needed to support new housing, more of the cost should be borne by developers rather than taxpayers, and that we should give more power, freedom and flexibility to local councils about how they spend those revenues in line with local priorities?
Robert Jenrick
The current system is not successful. It leads to long-winded wrangling. It places the cards in the hands of big developers, rather than local councils, communities and, in particular, small developers, who find it too costly and complex to navigate. The new infrastructure levy will be simpler and more certain and, as my hon. Friend says, it will do two important things. First, it will raise a larger amount of money, capturing more of the uplift in land values, so that more money can be put at the disposal of local communities. Secondly, it will give greater freedom to local councils to decide how they choose to spend that, so that development can benefit communities in flexible ways.