Food Prices (Planning Policy)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, in this, my first speech as a Minister—I hope that it is my worst speech as a Minister, in that things can only go up from here.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) on securing a debate on a subject that is very near to his heart and to that of many of his constituents. It is also near to the heart of many of my constituents and, indeed, of my own father, who has a small farm—much smaller than my hon. Friend’s—in the fine county of Devon.

I want to address the original subject, although the debate has been an excellent one, taking in almost every aspect of Government policy, for most of which, fortunately, I have no responsibility. The original subject, however, was the link between the planning system and the recent effects on food prices.

Perhaps the only part of the contribution from the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) with which I could agree was when she doubted the direct impact of land use and the planning system on food prices. This country imports a great deal of food—nearly 50%, but fortunately not more—and most foodstuffs, but not all, operate in a global market. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) pointed out, the reasons for recent rises in food prices are mostly global energy prices, the change in the value of sterling relative to other currencies and the changing nature of the demand for food from the rapidly developing countries of Asia and elsewhere.

I do not believe that the planning system can be held responsible for the pressure on food prices. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), pointed out that even if we cannot do much directly about food prices, we have a great interest in ensuring that we have a basic level of food security. Clearly, that is where the use of our land is important.

I hope that I can reassure hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, about the status of agriculture in the planning system, and particularly in the much slimmed-down planning policy framework introduced last year. Agriculture is the only industry—given how hard farmers work, it deserves to be called an industry—that has specific status in the planning system and explicit consideration in national policy. The policy framework is very clear about the importance of preserving agricultural land. Paragraph 112 states:

“Local planning authorities should take into account the economic and other benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land. Where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, local planning authorities should seek to use areas of poorer quality land in preference to that of a higher quality.”

That is an explicit indication to local authorities to try to preserve high-quality agricultural land where possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood said that much of the green belt is agricultural land, so any incursion into it for other uses is a particular threat to agricultural land. Here, too, I believe I can offer him reassurance that I hope will also reassure people who have other concerns about the green belt and the Government’s intentions. In the national planning policy framework, the Government have put in place very explicit and strong protection for the green belt. Paragraph 79 states:

“The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts. The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open; the essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness and their permanence.”

Agriculture is one of the few productive uses of land that preserves its openness by definition.

Paragraph 83 states:

“Local planning authorities with Green Belts in their area should establish Green Belt boundaries in their Local Plans which set the framework for Green Belt and settlement policy. Once established”

it

“should only be altered in exceptional circumstances, through the preparation or review of the Local Plan.”

My hon. Friend expressed concern that some authorities, including authorities in Nottinghamshire, have not attached sufficient priority to the development of brownfield sites. All I can say is that national policy is very clear about priorities. Paragraph 17 states:

“Planning should…encourage the effective use of land by reusing land that has been previously developed (brownfield land), provided that it is not of high environmental value”.

There are certainly strong indications to planning authorities that green-belt land should be preserved and that brownfield land, when possible and viable, should be developed in preference.

I hope that it will reassure hon. Members to learn that in 2010 only 2% of new dwellings were built on the green belt, and that the quantity of green belt has increased since 1997 because local authorities, which control the designation, have designated new land as green belt. Housing development on greenfield land, which is distinguished from green-belt land, has accounted for only 0.3% of the total land area of England since 1985. House building on green land has been on only 0.3% of the country’s total area. Some of the more apocalyptic visions painted not by hon. Members, but others outside, of Governments of various stripes concreting over the countryside have no basis in fact.

[Andrea Leadsom]

On a point of clarification, when the Minister says that so little greenfield and green belt land has been developed, does he include planning that has been granted, or just planning that has gone ahead?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend. I believe that that applies to buildings that have already gone up. Obviously, some permissions have been granted and development has not yet taken place, but I do not believe that would change the picture dramatically, because most permissions apply to land outside the green belt—much of it, although not all, to brownfield land. Our planning policies provide protection for agricultural and green-belt land.

The importance of diversification in the rural economy has been discussed; we heard about it from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood and others. Many of my constituents in Grantham make the journey to my hon. Friend’s farm shop, which is famous in those parts, so I know that that diversification has been successful. The national planning policy framework makes explicit the requirement for policies to

“support economic growth in rural areas in order to create jobs and prosperity…To promote a strong rural economy…neighbourhood plans should…support the sustainable growth and expansion of all types of business and enterprise in rural areas, both through conversion of existing buildings and well designed new buildings”

and

“promote the development and diversification of agricultural and other land-based rural businesses”.

I am happy to say that the Government are looking closely at the matter, and hope to introduce specific proposals to make it easier to convert agricultural buildings into homes and for other uses without having to go through the planning process. I believe that planning policies provide many of the protections that hon. Members seek. However, I am aware that much of the debate has focused on the balance between the demands on agriculture for food production, and other uses of land, whether agricultural or other, for renewable energy.

The national planning policy framework requires local planning authorities to have a positive strategy to promote renewable and low-carbon energy. We must remember the history of the energy situation in this country. We recently received a warning—I think it was from Ofgem—that we face a real risk of the lights going out in relatively few years. The main reason for that is the complete failure of the previous Government to grasp any difficult nettles—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

Perhaps I could finish slating the previous Government before giving way. They completely failed to grasp any difficult nettles, whether in relation to building nuclear power stations or encouraging renewable industry and gas plants.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is making a brave fist of slating the previous Government, but he has just heard his hon. Friends, one after another, oppose renewable energy from onshore wind farms or solar farms on agricultural land. He should tread carefully. Can he explain why the Government have seen a fall from third place as an international destination for inward investment in renewables in the year when the previous Government left office, to seventh and still falling? Will he explain that to us as he slates the former Government?

[Nick Boles]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The Government’s policies are very clear. We need a positive strategy for renewable energy.

However, I assure hon. Members that there is a clear policy on how individual applications should be decided. Policies should be designed to ensure that adverse impacts are addressed satisfactorily, and planning applications for renewable energy should only be approved if the impacts are, or can be made, acceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood is an indefatigable campaigner on this issue, and I am very aware that he, I, and many hon. Members on both sides of the House represent people who do not feel that all decisions—particularly about wind farms, but the point also applies to other renewable energy uses—have dealt satisfactorily with those impacts.

Hon. Members will be delighted to hear that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change recently launched a consultation and a call for evidence on how developers are engaging with local communities, and in particular, on how developers of wind farms and other renewable energy sites are sharing the benefits of those sites with local communities. A lot of lessons from elsewhere in Europe show that sharing the benefits is a good way to secure local consent for developments that are otherwise justifiable.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The Minister was in safer territory when he was praising the previous Government for protecting not only green spaces, but the green belt from development. We all accept that the planning community now thinks that under the present Government brownfield protection has been watered down, not strengthened. He was, however, getting to the heart of what we are discussing. I am not clear that what he is suggesting will help local communities and authorities—faced with a market that is promoting the use of land for renewable energy—to decide on other uses, particularly in relation to more land being given over to food production. How will the Government help local authorities and the Planning Inspectorate make those difficult decisions?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady is quite wrong; I never praised the previous Government for what they did to protect the green belt. They only ended up doing so by completely failing to build any houses and failing to meet the nation’s housing need, thus landing the Government with the difficult task of maintaining protections for the green belt and precious open land, while also increasing the rate of house building. As in so many other areas, we are trying to clear up the mess that Labour created.

[Mr Spencer]

I share the Minister’s experience, certainly with regards to Nottinghamshire. The regional spatial strategy, which was the flagship for development under the previous Government, put enormous pressure on the Nottinghamshire green belt. All the heartache I am experiencing now is caused by some of the sites that were brought forward under that strategy. Only the localism agenda and freeing up the planning process have given us a chink of light to defend some of those green-belt areas and to try to force local authorities to develop brownfield sites first.

[Nick Boles]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s description of the effect of the previous Government’s policies on the green belt and elsewhere.

To return to the difficult planning balance to be struck on renewable energy, I hope that hon. Members and others are encouraged by the call for evidence from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. When I visit the Planning Inspectorate for the first time next week, I will be happy to ensure that it is aware of the call for evidence, and that the result of that call is taken into account in the inspectorate’s judgments on how the impacts on communities are being managed, and whether those impacts have been managed satisfactorily before granting planning permission.

On the other hand, I do not want to be disingenuous. I do not believe that the Government can move to a position where wind farms are built with no objections from people who live nearby. I have a lot of sympathy for the attempts by Lincolnshire and others to define acceptable boundaries. It is right that things are dealt with case by case, because sometimes the distance can be more disturbing in a flat area of the country, as Lincolnshire largely is, than it would be in a hilly area. Although the wind farm might be close, there might well be a hill in between. It is not right for the Government to have blanket policies on such subjects, but the impacts should be properly assessed and accounted for in the decision making of planning authorities and the Planning Inspectorate.

I move on to the contribution made by the hon. Member for City of Durham. Mr Streeter, you may have heard, as I did, the Prime Minister’s excellent speech to the Conservative party conference, in which he talked of the “party of one notion”—that is, the hon. Lady’s party—and that notion was of course, borrowing. The Prime Minister is right to say that borrowing is the ready stand-by of the Labour party in response to any issue.

In planning, borrowing has a slightly smaller role to play, but a couple of other notions are the ready stand-bys of a Labour Government and Labour Ministers when confronted with any planning question. The hon. Lady is no exception; she calls for more guidance, more targets, and more direction of local communities, so that they know what is good for them. Well, I am delighted to say that Lord Taylor, the Member of the House of Lords whom the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) congratulated on work for the previous Government, is conducting a review of planning guidance. The aim is to reduce the guidance for local authorities from 6,000 pages, which the hon. Lady clearly feels is insufficient, to something more manageable. I look forward to receiving the results of that work.

In conclusion, my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood spoke of the importance of diversification in the agricultural sector, and of farmers being left to make their own decisions, while not being skewed excessively by the interventions and subsidies provided by Government and other branches. He left us with a particularly appealing image of natural, green cemeteries where people can be buried and which support a flock of sheep. As a son of a sheep farmer, I cannot think of any better way of ending my physical existence than as nutrition for high-quality grazing for sheep.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

We move to our next debate, on the important subject of Government policy on plastic bags.