Nick Boles
Main Page: Nick Boles (Independent - Grantham and Stamford)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
The rise of internet shopping and the changes in people’s working patterns pose immense challenges to the traditional high streets. Our recent relaxation of use class restrictions will support innovation and promote imaginative new uses for existing buildings.
Jonathan Reynolds
We have been working hard in my constituency to improve our town centres by knocking down derelict buildings, encouraging more civic events and attracting new businesses, but we need more powers and tools at our disposal, not fewer. These changes will make it easier for clusters of businesses such as betting shops and payday lenders to open. Why are the Government ignoring public opinion and not allowing local communities to have the powers they need to shape the decisions that affect their local high streets?
Nick Boles
First, the relaxation relates to temporary use for only two years, so it is more about innovative models of business than about established businesses that would have substantial start-up costs. Secondly, local authorities already have powers, known as article 4 directions, to set aside any permitted development that they think inappropriate for a particular part of their area, and I encourage them to use them.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
High street businesses rely on footfall; indeed, that is their lifeblood. Does my hon. Friend believe that his planning reforms will give sufficient help to the high street businesses in my constituency to increase their foot traffic and ensure that they thrive?
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We in this House and the people in the town halls cannot entirely predict what will work in the different town centres of the land. The best way to do this is to make it easy for new businesses to set up and pull in the people who will then benefit the existing businesses in our town centres.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Given what the Minister has just said, will he explain why he has taken away from local councils and local communities the power to shape their high streets? Who does he think will benefit from the deregulation of use classes?
Nick Boles
Labour through the ages—including, indeed, the father of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)—famously believed that the Government could run the economy and decide how we should be competitive. Government Members believe that it is business and entrepreneurs who can decide how best to achieve thriving high streets and town centres, which is why we are determined to make life easier for them, as Mary Portas recommended in her review.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I am not sure the Minister answered my question, so I will answer it for him. The people who are likely to benefit are payday loan companies, whose presence on our high streets has already increased by about 20% in the past year. Why does he think that those companies need a further helping hand, rather than our communities who are crying out for the powers to diversify their high streets according to local needs determined by them?
Nick Boles
It is classic, is it not? “Determined by them” means determined by public servants and councillors, not by entrepreneurs and the people they want to attract as customers. There is still, as there has always been, an ability to suspend a permitted development that is not right for an area. That is why Barking and Dagenham council is consulting on an article 4 direction, which we welcome. That is exactly the right use of the law, which existed under the Government whom the hon. Lady supported.
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
3. What assessment he has made of the average change in income of working families as a result of changes to council tax benefit.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
16. What assessment he has made of the results of the neighbourhood planning referendums to date.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
In all three referendums, residents have voted overwhelmingly in support of neighbourhood plans. More than 90% of voters said yes in Eden and Exeter St James and 76% in Thame.
Tim Loughton
I welcome the Government’s use of referendums in neighbourhood plans, which contrasts with the heavy-handed, top-down regional planning strategies of the last Government. Will the Minister confirm that my constituents in Adur, who face excessive house building on our diminishing green spaces—including, often, on floodplains between the downs and the sea—will be able to influence our draft local plan through the use of referendums, and that the planning inspector will be sympathetic to this manifestation of the localism promoted by the Government?
Nick Boles
I am delighted to be able to reassure my hon. Friend that a plan cannot be found sound unless it has undergone a great deal of consultation by local people; an inspector will expect that to have happened before they examine the plan.
Harriett Baldwin
Further to that question, will the Minister help my communities, who are very excited about this neighbourhood planning idea? Once the local plan has been submitted, can they still work on developing their neighbourhood plan?
Nick Boles
Yes. It does not really matter what state the local plan is in; it is always possible for communities to work on neighbourhood plans and we strongly encourage that. Whether the neighbourhood plan is made before or after the local plan, it simply has to be in conformity with the core needs identified in the local plan; it can move ahead independently of it.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
17. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of government schemes to increase house building. [R]
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
T3. The localism agenda is welcome, but what can my hon. Friend say to communities in my constituency, such as Collingtree, whose preference for the location of 1,000 new homes is being undermined, or Helmdon and Sulgrave, whose recent judicial review overturned a wind farm proposal, yet the developers are straight away having another go?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
On wind farm developments, the Government will be making announcements shortly. On housing developments, the key is for every local community to produce a plan—either a local plan or, even better, a local plan and a neighbourhood plan. That is the way for local communities to get control over the developments that take place in their area.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
May I join the Minister in condemning the cowardly killing of Drummer Lee Rigby, and express from the Opposition Benches our deep condolences to his family and his friends on their terrible loss? I echo the Minister’s remarks about my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford). I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the phone conversation that we had the following day, and he and the Government have the full support of the Opposition for the efforts that he and all of us must make to counter the causes of that kind of hateful extremism. Will the Minister tell us what steps he and his colleagues in the Department now propose to take to do this?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Planning Minister is aware of an unacceptable planning application in Micklethwaite, in my constituency, which has already been rejected by the local council, the planning inspector and the Secretary of State, but which through legal proceedings has gone back to the Secretary of State for redetermination. A decision was expected by now. Will the Minister tell us when we can expect that decision from the Secretary of State, and, even better, confirm that he will once again reject that unacceptable proposed development?
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend has been indefatigable in his representations on the issue. He knows all too well that I cannot say anything about it, but he has made his representations here, in his constituency, in the Tea Room and almost everywhere else.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
If a fire brigade is “spun out”, to use the Government’s terms, what procurement route could be taken to prevent tendering to the private sector within a three to nine-year window? If the Minister cannot say, why are he and the Government actively funding the process as a stepping stone from mutualisation to privatisation?
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend look again at how inflated claims for compensation in the case of article 4 directions can deter their proper use by local authorities, as in the case of the Porcupine pub in Mottingham, in my constituency?
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend knows a lot more about article 4 directions than I do, from his experience as a Minister in the Department, and he will know that we are undertaking a review of how they work so that they are properly usable by local authorities.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
If the Government are serious about increasing housing supply, will they look again at lifting the current cap on council borrowing for house building, and at providing direct capital spending to allow councils to build a mass programme of affordable housing?