Business of the House

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Richard Drax

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) will have heard, some of my hon. Friends are saying no. My answer is, on the contrary, yes; I agree with him about that.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I am grateful to my neighbour for giving way. If I might quote him, he has just said that the problem is that if his Bill does not get through tonight, “we leave the EU in a few days’ time.” Is that not what 17.4 million people in this country instructed us to do, and expect us to do? The Bill does nothing but prevent that.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I know that my hon. Friend and neighbour, who is an admirable constituency MP, holds that very strong view. As he knows, I do not share it. Those 17.4 million people mandated us to leave the EU, and I am entirely aligned with the Prime Minister in believing that we have a solemn duty to fulfil that mandate. My hon. Friend interprets that mandate as meaning that we should leave with no deal just over a week from now. I do not, and I do not believe that a large proportion of the 17.4 million people do, either—or would do, once they saw the results. However, that is a matter of dispute between us that does not have anything to do with the business of the House motion, to which I shall return.

Police Grant

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Richard Drax

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman is playing with figures slightly. In a sense, I believe that the Government have honoured that promise, but it depends, as I have said, on council tax being raised every single year. In some cases, it is not, and, as we have heard, the various bands raise different amounts of money. The Minister is well aware of that, and he is doing his best.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Does my hon. Friend and neighbour agree that history suggests that complicated formulae invented by clever statisticians usually go horribly wrong? There is a great deal to be said in this instance, for the reasons that he advances of transparency, simplicity and stability, for tilting towards a formula based on population that we can all understand. Not only would that help Dorset, but it might help the country as a whole.

[Richard Drax]

It is well known in the House that my right hon. Friend is an extremely intelligent man, but I did not know that he was able to foresee what I was about to say in my very next sentence. Perhaps he has read my speech; I do not know. That is exactly the point I was going to make next, and I thank him for his intervention. A fair settlement would use population, not crime statistics, as the basis of any formula. Another hon. Friend has mentioned sparsity and rurality, which are central to counties such as mine. The population measure is fair and robust, and it can be monitored. It is not influenced by police action. Crime statistics ignore things such as road safety and fear of crime, and they assume the same police response for every situation.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Richard Drax

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I am listening intently to the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend and neighbour. Does he agree that the planning process is often not clear, especially regarding the points that he mentions? In my area—the Purbeck District Council area—people have a lot of different views about how many houses there should be. Two numbers have been suggested, but we cannot find anyone who can agree on a number without fear of going to the planning inspector. The lack of clarity, or the lack of guidelines or of regulation—I do not know what it is the lack of—leads to chaos, anger and confusion.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend illustrates very well the point I am trying to make. There is actually perfect clarity on that subject in the local plan that his local authority and mine have jointly drawn up, but an expert is needed to interpret it for the neighbourhood. We cannot expect the parish council to know the answers to the questions, and if it asks inexpert people, it will get conflicting answers—very possibly more than two wrong answers if it consults more than two inexpert experts. A certain amount of money is required so that the parish council can employ a genuine expert who can give it good, clear answers to questions. As I have said, a second person is also needed—quite a different sort of person who can imagine for the neighbourhood what things could look like. By putting those together, we can overcome the obstacles to neighbourhood planning.

Unfortunately, those people do not come for free; they have to be paid for. Over the years, the Department has rightly produced funds to enable parish and town councils and neighbourhood forums to employ people, but unfortunately the funds were based on the presumption, which is now mercifully falsified, that neighbourhood planning would be slow to take off, and that very few plans would be produced at any given moment.

I am delighted that the number of neighbourhood plans is very great, and I hope it will be much greater—I hope that they become the norm and that tens of thousands arise in our country in the coming years. However, I very much doubt that the Chancellor of Exchequer, who faces one of the most difficult fiscal situations in our history, will come up with the funds required to meet that need, given the other priorities he faces. New clause 5 would find a solution to that problem and provide the money to employ experts on behalf of neighbourhood planners in parish and town councils. It would do so by using an existing pool of funds, as there is already a provision to share the community infrastructure levy that arises from each house built. Under the law, 25% is due to the parish or town council in the area where the neighbourhood plan is drawn up.

One problem is that the CIL money comes in after the houses are built, whereas the money is needed before—it is needed even before the neighbourhood plan is in place so that experts can be employed to help its production. The question is how we advance those funds. The new clause suggests that we could, through the Bill, put beyond doubt a local planning authority’s lawful ability to advance sums that would accrue to the neighbourhood when the neighbourhood plan is up and running and the houses are built for the purpose of employing experts to assist in the production of the neighbourhood plan. In that way, the houses could be built and the money could come in from the community infrastructure levy, meaning that the local planning authority could be repaid.

Despite the helpful way in which the Minister has engaged in the discussion, I do not say that the mechanics of the proposal are perfect. I hope he is willing to look at it in detail as part of a range of options for solving the problem to which I allude. I hope that, when the matter is considered in the other place, the Government will come forward with their own vastly superior, rock-solid measure to solve the problem. Otherwise, neighbourhood planning could be stymied not just by the problems that my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs cited, but by an inability to pay for the expertise required.

Weymouth to Waterloo Rail Line

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Richard Drax

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. In fact, it is key, as the Minister well knows, because this is a point that we raised with her only an hour or two ago. I say to her gently and humbly that if Network Rail could possibly do the study and come back with some sort of affordability plan, that would help us. We went away from the meeting that the Minister kindly held feeling very positive. At the moment, the local enterprise partnerships all down that line—this is the plan—would be very keen to draw up some sort of business plan and come back to her. What we do not want—my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) mentioned this—is to do all the work, and for Network Rail to come back and say, “That’s not how we did it,” or “They have missed out this or that,” or “They haven’t put this into the equation.” That would be unfortunate, particularly if a great deal of money was spent on the report that the LEPs are considering drawing up. Some clarity from the Minister at the end of the debate would be most helpful.

It is estimated that the plan for a service via Yeovil would take between three and five years to complete; as with all these things, it would not happen immediately, but it chimes with the Dorset local master plan to reconnect the south and north of the county by train for the first time in almost 30 years, and to link Dorchester and Weymouth to Exeter in the west. As the Minister knows, the Members to my west, east and immediate north are all involved in this potential project and would benefit equally. We are all in this together.

I and many others believe that the proposal would have a dramatically beneficial effect on Weymouth and Portland and, as discussed earlier with the Minister, the whole region. Weymouth and Portland would be connected to a vital east-west arterial route, and that would promise better access for businesses, visitors and tourists, and hopefully generate more investment in the resort.

It is lovely to see my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset here. Dorchester would play a key role because it is in a key location. With the housing on the Prince of Wales’s land—this was discussed with the Minister earlier—and other developments across that part of the world in the years ahead, we must have an updated, modern railway system; otherwise, we will simply not cope.

[Mr Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

It is absolutely true that my constituents in Dorchester and Sherborne, and indeed those between them, would hugely welcome the plan that my hon. Friend is describing. Does he agree that if we could get the LEPs to co-ordinate with Network Rail on the specifications of the report, we should be able to establish a very strong business case?

[Richard Drax]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. It would be useful to have some clarity from the Minister. We are very willing to help out and to do our part, but some guidance from Network Rail would be hugely helpful, so that it does not say that all the work that we have done does not come up to scratch. Some negotiation between the two parties would be hugely beneficial.

The knock-on effect—all good—would be dramatic for train times. Pending a study, it is estimated that Weymouth to Waterloo would take two hours, 25 minutes; the typical time now is three hours. If there was a direct service from Salisbury to London, that time could be reduced by a further 10 to 15 minutes. That would have a knock-on effect for the rest of the region. Yeovil to Waterloo would take two hours; Honiton to Waterloo would take two hours, 30 minutes; Exeter to Waterloo would take two hours, 50 minutes; and north Devon—a crucial area that is growing and has very little rail network—to Waterloo would take three hours, 55 minutes. If the non-stop Salisbury to London service introduced a third service in the hour, it would greatly reduce the time—by another 10 to 15 minutes. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury is very keen on that.

I have done the train journey to Weymouth in my constituency; three hours is a long time for visitors and businesses, and is beyond daily commuting. What we need, as I am sure the Minister knows, because she has been to my part of the world many times, is to break away from the seasonal hole. It is important to my constituents; they can have longer-term careers and prospects only if we attract investment. I have said, and will say again, that because of the inability to improve our roads dramatically—we can tinker at the edges—rail connectivity really is the key, just as it was for George III and his team. If it was good enough for him, it is good enough for my constituents.

As the Minister knows, the Yeovil option has the support of the local chamber of commerce and the local enterprise partnerships up and down the line. I know of two that are behind it, and further work has been done. I cannot see them not being involved. Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, North Dorset District Council, bordering LEPs and councils, my right hon. and hon. Friends who are sitting around me, and many others who are not here would benefit. I am sure that those who are not here would have been here, if they could.

Bringing these huge benefits to so many for a relatively modest investment in railway terms—the Minister said how amazing it was that even a little work costs a lot of money, but in railway terms, this would be a fairly modest investment—would be an achievement that we could all be proud of. Dare I say that as Conservatives—I am proud that we have a Conservative Government—we always go on about jobs, prosperity, wealth and the northern powerhouse, which I totally accept and am totally behind, as I am sure are my colleagues, but how about the south and south-west powerhouse? It depends so much on rural activities, and we need all the help we can get.

I have requests for the Minister. First, will she consider commissioning Network Rail, with the LEPs, if indeed that is the way we go, to undertake a study to look at this idea? Secondly, will she instruct the Department to include the scheme in the south-western refranchising specification, if indeed that is possible? I believe this project is innovative, affordable and doable, and has far-reaching benefits for my constituents and those represented by MPs who are here, and those who are not here. Let us not forget that one of them—the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)—is a Labour MP; I am sure that if he knew this debate was taking place, or could attend, he would be just as keen on the project. I hope that the Government will play their part in making it happen.