Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Boles and David Rutley

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

That is a powerful message, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for delivering it. It is a message that all of us in the House, whatever party we represent, should be taking to every business and employer in our constituencies. If they are not offering apprenticeships now, why not? What is holding them back? We want them to come forward and offer apprenticeships and traineeships for our young people.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

11. What steps she is taking to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed in the workplace.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We have reformed the way in which 16-to-19 education is funded and the qualifications that count in league tables. We have also raised the quality of apprenticeships and traineeships, and enabled more students to take part in work experience. Students who do not hold at least a grade C in maths and English GCSE at age 16 are now also required to continue to study those subjects.

[David Rutley]

It is good to see schools such as All Hallows Catholic college making enterprise a priority in education. However, a recent study by the Chartered Management Institute pointed out that while 89% of businesses rate business experience as part of education, only 22% are prepared to provide such opportunities for young people. What steps are the Government taking to encourage more businesses to step up to the plate and provide opportunities for young people across the country?

[Nick Boles]

The key change that we have made is to make it easier for colleges and schools to go out and actively create those work experience opportunities. Previously, colleges and schools offering 16-to-19 education were funded on the basis of the qualifications that students were taking, and that meant that they were not being rewarded for their work in creating work experience. Now they are funded per student, and work experience is specifically allowed as one of the things for which they can be funded. That has meant that further education colleges are now directly incentivised to create those work experience opportunities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Boles and David Rutley

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to encourage development on brownfield land.

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

The Government are determined to make the best use of brownfield land and meet as much of our housing need as possible on brownfield sites. Earlier this month, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State announced an ambitious package of reforms to accelerate development on brownfield sites and deliver up to 200,000 homes by 2020.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

Our policies are clear that brownfield development is supported unless the brownfield site in question has a very high environmental value. In order to bring forward proposals for development on green-belt land, councils have to satisfy a high policy test of exceptional circumstances and they also have to go through a process of intensive consultation through a local plan process before they can change green-belt boundaries.

[David Rutley]

In a recent Civitas pamphlet, Peter Haslehurst from Macclesfield highlighted the importance of brownfield development and the need to learn lessons from other countries, particularly the United States, in taking that forward. What steps are being taken by my hon. Friend’s Department to learn from international case studies to help further accelerate this important work?

[Nick Boles]

We should always be willing to learn from other countries, but we should also not talk down our own achievements. More than two thirds of all new houses are built on brownfield sites, but we can always do more and that is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has proposed housing zones, with a package of £400 million, to help put in place local development orders on brownfield land so that development comes through more quickly.

National Parks

Debate between Nick Boles and David Rutley

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I would be delighted to look closely at that, not least because this gives me the opportunity to tell the hon. Gentleman—whom I long to call an hon. Friend—that I lived in his constituency about 25 years ago on Sketrick island, which is one of the most beautiful settlements in the stunningly beautiful Strangford lough. As a Devon boy, I find myself deeply divided between the beauties of Dartmoor, which I grew up with, and the beauty of Strangford lough, which I enjoyed for but one summer—but what a summer it was. I would be happy to look at those examples.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I would like to build on an important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham). The Minister is expressing eloquently the need for balance in this discussion, and it is also important to achieve balance across the different needs and characters of different national parks. In some, buildings are often very isolated—in the peaks, for example—but not so isolated elsewhere. Building and constructing on isolated barns, or whatever else, would be entirely inappropriate in one national park, but might be more appropriate in others where there is less space and geographic expanse to fill.

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend succinctly makes the argument for why it might well be appropriate for national parks to retain the ability to decide on a case-by-case basis whether such development is possible. I hope that I have explained that the intention behind the proposed permitted developed right is to bring forward more housing on land that is already developed, and to make maximum use of the buildings that our ancestors saw fit to build, so that we do not have to put up any more buildings on green fields than is necessary to meet our housing and other needs.

I recognise, however, and the Government recognise, that national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty are so called for a reason and have a special status. It is a status we must respect, and it is important that we think hard and listen to the arguments put to us about the appropriateness of this measure in those areas. Although I cannot anticipate the Government’s final position, I reassure you, Mr Speaker, my hon. Friends, and my honorary hon. Friend, that the Government have heard the arguments loud and clear.

Question put and agreed to.

Planning and Housing Supply

Debate between Nick Boles and David Rutley

Thursday 24th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nick Boles]

There are many questions that I have not yet answered, and there are only so many minutes left. I want to come on to the point of prematurity that some Members have raised. There is a difficult balance to be struck. One extreme would be to say that it does not matter how early stage a local plan is; as soon as an authority has started on a local plan, the draft policies, which have not yet been examined, consulted on or tested, should determine decisions. That is at one end. I understand that no one is suggesting that it should be at that extreme end. At the other end, we say that no weight should be accorded to a plan until it has absolutely finished the process.

The balance that we have put out in the draft guidance is that once a local plan has been submitted for examination—not completed or passed—it should carry significant weight if there are no substantial unresolved objections to parts of it. A neighbourhood plan has to pass a referendum, which is a big moment at which it might fail, and it starts to acquire weight when it has been presented to the local authority for what is called the local authority publicity period. I accept that both those stages are towards the end of the process. However, the difficulty if we try to move them earlier in the process is that—I promise you—developers will go to court, they will seek the judge’s interpretation and they will say, “This plan hasn’t even been consulted on. It hasn’t even been tested by examination. How can it be the basis for a decision, when in every other way this proposed development meets all of the policies in the national planning policy framework?” That is the argument that they will make, and indeed it is the argument they are making in cases right now.

Therefore, it is not simply in the gift of Ministers to move that decision point through guidance; we cannot do that. We have to put it at a point that the courts will find reasonable as an interpretation of the requirements for a plan to be sound and robust. We have set it where we have because we think that is the most reasonable position, but I am very happy to invite colleagues here in Westminster Hall today to meet my officials to discuss whether there is a way of finding another time frame that would stand up in court. However, I would simply share with them the view that the bar that would stand up in court is a very high one, and I have concluded that the position that we have outlined in the guidance is the one that will not only stand up in court but provide some protection for those plans that have reached an advanced stage of development.

[David Rutley]

Notwithstanding the point that the Minister is making, can he confirm that the planning horizon currently is to 2030 and any talk of moving to 2050 is for the birds, to use a technical term? Would he also use his good offices, given that there is good will—particularly in Cheshire East—to conclude local plans, to bring the requisite expertise to enable us to get over this hurdle as quickly as possible?

[Nick Boles]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of two very important specific questions, to which it is a great pleasure—and a rare one—to be able to give an answer that I hope is satisfactory. The answer to the first question is that there is nothing in the Localism Act 2011, in the NPPF or in any aspect of Government planning policy that requires someone to plan beyond 15 years. So, anybody who is suggesting that there is any requirement to safeguard land or wrap it up in wrapping paper and ribbons for the future development between 2030 and 2050 is getting it wrong. There is no reason for it and my hon. Friend can knock that suggestion straight back to wherever it came from.

Regarding help for authorities, I will make an offer to everyone here in Westminster Hall who has an authority that is having difficulty resolving the final objections to a plan that is still in draft form. It is that I am very happy to ask officials in my Department and—perhaps even more usefully—the recently retired chief inspector and another recently retired very senior inspector to meet those authorities to help them, in a sense, to understand what are the practical things they have to do to get the plan to a point where it can pass examination.

I fully understand that there is a frustration, namely that people cannot negotiate with an inspector, because an inspector is basically like a judge; it would be like someone negotiating with a judge in court as to whether they will be found guilty or not. The inspectors cannot negotiate, but that is why we have created a resource within the Department that is able to provide that practical support, and I am very happy to offer it to Cheshire East and to other boroughs where it would be necessary.