Future of the Planning System in England

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

Select Committee Statement

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the Select Committee statement. Clive Betts will speak for up to 10 minutes. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call Mr Betts to respond to these in turn. I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Clive Betts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

I do not think either is really mentioned in the White Paper, which is something we drew attention to. The lack of any mention of climate change comes back to the lack of any linkage with some of the Government’s environmental proposals. On levelling up, I refer to the fact that the Government changed the housing needs formula midway through our inquiry and moved some requirements to build homes from southern, more rural areas to major cities, many of them in the north and midlands. Many cities will struggle to deal with that without building on their green belts—that is the feedback we are getting, including about problems in London. However, the requirement to build homes for areas outside the major cities in the north will be reduced, which does not quite square up with an ambition to get more development, infrastructure and jobs in the north outside the major cities, and removing that requirement will also mean a lack of support from Homes England to get the building under way. That is a major concern, which we have drawn attention to and needs addressing.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his statement and for responding to Members’ questions today. We will now suspend for three minutes for covid protection measures.