Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

North West Leicestershire is one of a number of local authorities with which we are working. The affordable homes programme and, indeed, the ability to use right-to-buy receipts are critical to making sure that we deliver the social homes the country needs.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

2. If he will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of updating the report on the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford growth arc published by the National Infrastructure Commission in 2017.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

The Government completed a 12-week public consultation gathering views to shape a vision for an Oxford-Cambridge arc spatial framework. We are currently considering the responses to that consultation and will provide more information in due course.

[Richard Fuller]

Over the past decade, housing growth in Bedfordshire has been two and a half times the national average, with acute pressures on our GPs, dentists and other local services. Today’s progress review by the National Infrastructure Commission confirmed what many of us have always known—namely, that East West Rail is an excuse for even greater housing development in Bedfordshire and the region. Will my hon. Friend please meet me and ensure that we do not progress housing growth in the Ox-Cam arc before the shortages in services are settled?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the concerns of his constituents, which are shared by many communities. We know how important it is that infrastructure is delivered alongside housing growth. That is why, through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, we will require local authorities to produce an infrastructure strategy as part of the infrastructure levy. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

4. Whether his Department is taking steps to reform the leasehold system.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

6. If he will bring forward legislative proposals to give freeholders rights to directly challenge management and service charges equivalent to those of leaseholders.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lucy Frazer)]

The Government are committed to building on the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 and delivering the second phase of our major two-part leasehold reform programme within this Parliament. This will make it easier for leaseholders to purchase their freeholds and will establish greater fairness between those parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I can give my hon. Friend assurance that the many measures we will bring in will affect not only new purchasers but existing leaseholders. We will be bringing forward legislation later in this Parliament.

[Richard Fuller]

In my constituency, Councillor Weir of Great Denham, Councillor Gallagher of Shortstown and Councillor Dixon of Stotfold are leading efforts on behalf of local residents who own a freehold property to challenge excessive fees, lack of transparency and poor service by estate management companies. Will the Minister review the terms of reference of the property ombudsman to make it easier for homeowners—freeholders—to challenge these unfair practices?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight unfairness in relation to freeholders. Estate management companies must be more accountable to homeowners on how money is spent to maintain privately managed estates. We will be giving freehold owners on these estates new rights to challenge costs and appoint a manager, as well as requiring private estate management companies to join a redress scheme.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I know that my right hon. Friend is very interested in these issues and is conscious of beauty and the importance for us to maintain that. Of course local authorities will be able to take their local decisions on those matters that concern them.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to hear what the Minister is saying about improving the efficiency of the process. She will know that my amendment 75 talks about the fact that the guards are down for local authorities when their local plan is in abeyance. That was brought into sharp relief in the village of Harrold. It was only thanks to local councillor Alison Field Foster and the local parish council that development could be stopped. Is what the Minister is saying today going to close that gap to make my amendment unnecessary, or will there still be a liability for local authorities under her plan?

[Lucy Frazer]

I have studied carefully my hon. Friend’s amendments, which are all on interesting points. We do not think that there is a need for those amendments, because there are provisions in the Bill to ensure that local communities can make decisions to protect local communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

I thank the Minister for reaching out and having conversations with colleagues. The pace of housing development and the consequential pressure on access to public services is one of the most important, and certainly one of the most frequent, issues raised with me by constituents. Context is important. The people of Bedfordshire are not against new housing—indeed, in my constituency we are doing our fair share and a lot more besides, with three to five times the national average of growth—but what local people most want from the Bill is greater local control over the siting and type of new developments, an avoidance of growth that is too rapid and, most of all, improvements to public services such as GPs and school places before there are additional large-scale housing developments. I seek changes to the Bill to achieve those ends, although I recognise from what the Minister said that the Bill is making some progress on all of those fronts.

Amendment 75 seeks to close the loophole that developers use to get around delays in local plans to secure unwanted developments. Amendment 74 seeks to include specific goals regarding net zero, biodiversity, the circular economy and recycling in neighbourhood plans. New clause 87 seeks to provide specific assistance via regulation for listed buildings where there is a wish to insulate or make other changes to the properties consistent with net zero goals. Finally, amendment 76 seeks to implement the manifesto commitment of infrastructure first to improve access to local services.

On amendment 75, good people play by not just the letter but the spirit of the rules. Right after becoming the Member of Parliament for North East Bedfordshire, I was made aware of a loophole in planning law that was being exploited by developers to obtain permission for developments not wanted by local people while a local plan confirmation is in abeyance. The amendment seeks to close that loophole.

I tabled amendment 74 because I am very concerned that Parliament has set a legal requirement to achieve net zero without properly assessing the methodologies or potential costs to taxpayers and consumers for achieving it. I am concerned that the technologies that we need are still evolving and that lowering the overall cost may take action on a community level rather than an individual level through, for example, charging points for electric vehicles or decarbonising home heat. The amendment would require neighbourhood plans to include considerations of three issues important to our natural environment: achieving net zero, promoting and increasing local biodiversity and improving levels of recycling.

New clause 87 is on listed properties. At my local surgery sessions, I have met a number of residents who live in listed buildings and are really concerned that restrictions stop them from insulating their homes or making other changes that might be needed to comply with future legislation. The new clause would place a requirement on the Secretary of State to make regulations making it easier for owners of residential listed buildings to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings and, importantly, place requirements on Historic England to be supportive of such measures and efforts taken by residents.

Finally, amendment 76 is on the Conservative manifesto commitment. I was pleased to see our manifesto commitment to infrastructure first and to listen to what the Minister has said today and in earlier stages of the Bill about the progress that we are making. However, I want to be sure that there is sufficient progress, particularly with regard to the pressure on GP services and school places. I am hopeful that, in summing up, the Minister will talk further and in more detail about how measures in the Bill will deliver on the Conservative manifesto commitment for infrastructure first.

Through a combination of ensuring that we have local control over how housing is developed, a further, deeper commitment at a community level to understanding the practical changes that need to be made to achieve our net zero goals—things like equitable insulation for homes—and to achieve local transportation methods that are green and clean, there are great opportunities in the Bill. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the reason we have had such difficulties in local government spending is the terrible state of public finances that this Government found when they came into power 10 years ago. It is only because of the hard work that we have done over the last decade to repair the public finances that we have been able to provide additional funding for local government.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

11. What recent progress he has made in delivering an “infrastructure first” approach for planning and house building.

[The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)]

This is essential to our planning reforms. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill introduces a new infrastructure levy. It will ensure that developers contribute funding for infrastructure such as schools, GP surgeries and new roads, and it will give local authorities control over how that is provided to best meet the needs of local people and development.

[Richard Fuller]

Can I encourage the Minister in his push for an “infrastructure first” approach with an example from my constituency? Quite a few years ago, a developer in the village of Biddenham proposed that a GP surgery be located there, and gave some land for it. It was to bring in patients from Biddenham and the neighbouring village of Bromham. All the houses have been built, but no part of that new GP surgery has been built. The good news is that the building will start later this year, but can the Minister assure me that the problem regarding the interactions between the clinical commissioning group, Bedford Borough Council, NHS Estates, GPs, the developer and the builder will be cleared up? No one is to blame, but I bet that if he had already introduced “infrastructure first”, we would have that GP surgery today.

[Stuart Andrew]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Councils, health bodies and everybody else need to get much better at this. Local planning authorities and CCGs should work together to provide the planned provision. Under our new levy, councils will be able to borrow against future levy receipts to forward-fund the infrastructure that is needed. I am arranging meetings with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to discuss the very issue that he brings to our attention.

General Practice: Large Housing Developments

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my county colleague and hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing the debate. He will know that this is a particular issue for Bedfordshire.

In my own constituency over the course of the last decade, the town of Biggleswade, the village of Stotfold and the newly parished area of Fairfield Park have been dramatically transformed by housing growth. In many instances, that has created very welcome, happy communities and neighbourhoods for people, which have grown and become a natural part of the environment; but we cannot ignore the pace of growth and the impact that it has had on those residents new to the area, and on the existing residents who have accepted the additional growth in their areas.

Two issues make for happy communities. First, is the pace of growth sustainable and are the services there that people come to expect from the Government, in terms of school places and, as we are discussing today, of GPs?

My constituency is growing at a rate of about five times the national average. Between 2015 and 2020, the population of this country grew by about 1.9 million people. If all constituencies grew at the same pace as mine, there would be over 5 million new people in this country. I ask the Minister, when it comes to housing, could we please consider an absolute cap on what local communities are expected to have in any long period of time? If we do not have that pressure against market forces, I fear that we are building some concerns for the future.

I know that Conservative colleagues—replete in their number here today—have a large number of questions about planning reforms. I would just say this to the Minister. The previous Secretary of State focused, I think rightly, on the efficiency of the process of planning: how do we get more houses built? That is important. Will the Minister also focus on how effective the planning is for the communities where those houses are built? If we have that slight nuance in the approach on planning, I think that would be helpful.

Of course, I come today not to bury the Minister, but to praise him; because he knows that his colleague in, I think, June 2021, in response to a debate that I called on housing growth in my constituency, killed the 1 million housing target that was in the Labour peer Lord Adonis’s housing target for the Ox-Cam arc. The Minister also knows that his Department, under the new Secretary of State, has said that it wishes to de-emphasise—to flush away—the Ox-Cam arc, which Lord Adonis, the Labour peer, was using as his Trojan horse to build a million houses in the play spaces of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. It is welcome that those changes were made, so I want to put on record my thanks to the Minister and ask him to make sure that we follow through to ensure that unreasonable targets are not placed on councils in the Ox-Cam arc area.

The Minister also knows that his colleague said that he would arrange meetings for me with the Department for Education for school places and with the Department of Health and Social Care on GP places. I am grateful to the Department for allowing that meeting to take place with school places; we had a very good meeting with the Department for Education, but I am interested to learn more from the NHS. I am completing a survey of GPs and around June this year will have the opportunity to present a report. Will the Minister follow up on that with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that I get access to the Secretary of State when that report is ready?

I just want to make a couple of points on GPs, if I may. As many colleagues have said, I know that people are frustrated that they cannot get access, but they should know that their GPs are working very hard. I would make this point: abuse is never acceptable when people contact their GP surgery. People should hold back. Don’t go all Will Smith, right?—don’t go all Will Smith when you call your GP surgery. Make sure you take that extra breath when you talk, because the people you are talking to are under considerable pressure.

We need to look at the GP partner model. I know there are many who would like to say that that model is an oddity in the new world. No, it is not. Entrepreneurship and the idea of running your own business has its place in primary care. We need to make sure that we open up and broaden the way in which we give people access to primary care. We have to recognise that GP access is a bottleneck in the system. I fully support infrastructure first, but the answer is not always more people. Often, it is more efficient processes with the existing people, or new avenues for people to access the care.

Will the Minister go back to his colleagues, as he considers GP practice and housing growth, and say, “Please make more progress on giving people the power to understand how they can access primary care”? We are making good progress with the NHS app, but it is an NHS app designed for us that actually looks like it was designed for doctors; it is very hard to make effective consumer decisions using the app. I ask the Minister to broaden the access for people to get into primary care through chemists and other facilities, and to please move forward with diagnostic centres.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I have spent many happy hours in Greenock and am looking forward to many more. I imagine that time there can only be enhanced, whether in Cappielow or anywhere else, with the hon. Gentleman. The key thing about the levelling-up fund is that constituencies across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, have benefited. I look forward to working with him and others to ensure that—[Interruption.] As a Morton fan, he will appreciate that patience is a virtue.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The forthcoming levelling-up White Paper is an opportunity to undo the imbalance in investment in active travel networks between towns and urban areas, which get the lot, and villages, which get very little to connect them. Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a meeting between me and one of his Ministers, together with members of Potton Town Council and Sandy Town Council, to talk about their active travel network?

[Michael Gove]

Yes.

Levelling Up: East of England

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Peter Aldous]

I wholeheartedly agree. Northern Ireland and the east of England have many things in common: Northern Ireland is the most western part of the United Kingdom, and I represent the most easterly constituency in the United Kingdom. Levelling up must go round the whole United Kingdom—north and south, but also, as we are hearing today, east and west.

The White Paper is long overdue, but I recognise that the once-in-a-generation challenge of covid-19 has diverted attention and I acknowledge that my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are still relatively new in office. Although we have yet to see the detail of the Government’s levelling-up policy, there are some early signs that the east of England might be overlooked. From my perspective, the purpose of this debate is to highlight that concern and to obtain from the Minister an assurance that that will not be the case—that our region will not be ignored and the needs of local people and local businesses will be fully and properly taken into account.

It is first necessary to set the scene as to what is happening in the east of England.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

May I intervene before my hon. Friend moves on to broaden out his argument? He was talking about the east of England being overlooked in levelling up. Is there not an additional concern that, in the levelling-up agenda, the east of England will be seen as an area where more houses can be built and taxes can be raised to be spent elsewhere? Those two considerations are important parallel aspects of levelling up that affect the east of England, particularly constituencies in Bedfordshire.

[Peter Aldous]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right: if more housing is to be provided, the infrastructure to go with it needs to be provided. I will comment on that. I will also address the fact that the east of England is at the moment a net contributor to the Treasury, and if we do not invest in the east, there is a risk that we will destroy the goose that lays that golden egg.

At first glance, the east of England appears relatively prosperous, even though wages in many areas lag behind the national average. In 2019, the east of England accounted for 9% of the UK’s GDP, although it had a GDP per head below that of the UK as a whole. There are significant pockets of hidden deprivation, particularly in coastal communities, such as the Waveney constituency that I represent, and in rural areas. Those are often concealed, as they lie close to more affluent places.

Oxford-Cambridge Arc

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for securing this debate, which is very appropriate for not only those from our county, but those from adjacent counties as well. I pay special tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who is here to show solidarity and concern for his local residents. He is an MP, and our only Minister, who continues to put the needs of his residents first. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) for their contributions.

May I start by inviting the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), to take a special trip to south Buckinghamshire? There is no better way to understand the complexities of what we are discussing in this debate than to visit and see at first hand what things are like in places such as Denham, Iver, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and Marlow. We would love to have the Minister, and I think he might enjoy the trip.

In addition to what my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has already alluded to, I would like to speak about the Oxford-Cambridge arc, the spatial framework and what appears to be a top-down housing target. Housing numbers are clearly the primary objective for establishing the arc and a token account is paid, through various vision documents, to innovation, environmental improvements or other place-based factors. However, it is unclear why the arc would be a key enabler for these in preference to working on a cross-boundary basis with existing strategic authorities, as initiated by England’s Economic Heartland.

I mention England’s Economic Heartland because Bucks, and particularly south Bucks, has the highest level of entrepreneurs, small business owners and self-employed people in the whole country. We are an economic powerhouse, and we will be so particularly after covid and the covid recovery. We are very focused on economic growth, job creation and vital infrastructure in Bucks. The housing will follow that, but we need to get the fundamentals right.

Local communities fear—as do I, as the local MP—that when that is combined with the changes to planning regulation, proposed planning regulation or the use of the old housing need algorithm, we will not be able to cope with the housing numbers that are placed on us. That is true of places across my constituency, but Bourne End and other towns have already seen the effects of over-development where all strategic green space and common land have already been given over to developers.

The spatial framework is something that I object to. With the existing planning responsibilities, it is unclear, as it appears to insert an additional layer of Government direction on housing and potential economic development. The framework proposals would need to be incorporated into new local plans, or the plans would risk being found unsound. Without a democratic mandate and with the possibility of facing strong opposition from local groups and planning authorities, it is unclear how these proposals would move forward. We do not have the strategic oversight of the London plan or a mayoral structure that has devolved power, so who would be accountable for this democratically unelected right to impose on us?

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has put her finger right on the heart of it. In other areas where they have these grand regional plans, there is a regional identity and a democratic personification of that in a regional Mayor. We do not have that in the Ox-Cam arc, do we?

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Although I am not advocating any more devolved power, if people in London and the west midlands do not like the strategic framework, they can at least vote the Mayor out. That is not the case here, and we have some of the most economically valuable land in the country. Covid has only shown how valuable and desirable our part of the country is to live in. People want to move from London to south Bucks. My fear is that the housing numbers and the algorithm set will just meet the housing demands of London rather than meeting the needs of local residents, who are desperate for more infrastructure, GP surgeries, better roads, better wi-fi connectivity and the basic amenities already afforded to London residents. Again, I would welcome the Minister visiting and touring south Bucks to see the unique perspective and challenges that we face.

I ask the Minister and the Government to support the alternative Buckinghamshire approach. Buckinghamshire and its council are not anti-growth. It is accepted that housing growth will continue at already high rates. However, those targets should be determined at local level. Bucks, in co-operation with its LEP, Buckinghamshire Business First, and health partners already put forward to Government an ambitious recovery and growth proposal. Discussions on that have commenced.

We urge the Government to work with Buckinghamshire Council to progress this bottom-up, democratically driven approach, to accelerate jobs, infrastructure and economic growth, rather than follow top-down and imposed targets within the structure of the arc or strategic framework, without democratic accountability. We have seen examples of how well we can work together, because every single week those partners were working and talking together during covid, to deliver the covid response effectively for Bucks residents. I believe we can move forward with an economic recovery plan for Bucks and Milton Keynes.

I have a few questions for the Minister, based on concerns residents have continually raised with me, about housing numbers and demands. The concern from residents across south Buckinghamshire is that more people from London will come to Beaconsfield, Marlow and Gerrards Cross, and the vital housing of bungalow-style, single-storey homes for older residents or the children of Bucks residents who are desperate to get on the housing ladder, will not be provided. If a percentage of housing were allocated only to Bucks residents, that would go a long way in securing more local support on the ground.

Do the millions of homes mentioned as part of the arc factor into the existing extremely high housing numbers already proposed in Buckinghamshire, or will they be additional numbers imposed on us at some point? How up to date are the data that inform the supposed need for the arc in the first place, given that covid and Brexit have changed the numbers and demands for inner London, outer London and surrounding green belt areas? Is the demand still the same as it was before?

With yet more pressure being put on Buckinghamshire, we require more protection for our green spaces, which have been left, unlike in London, without the expected levels of protection. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has AONB land, as has the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green). I have nothing, apart from Burnham Beeches, which is run by the City of London. I do not have a lot of common land that is protected. We do not have metropolitan open land, because that is an inner green belt protection.

There are basic statutory protections for existing green space that we do not have in my constituency. Most of our green belt land is agricultural green belt land, which is owned by independent farmers or the council. That is problematic for development because it can be sold off piecemeal, and whole areas of biodiversity and vital areas of green infrastructure will be lost for ever, because there is not strategic oversight or protection put in place on that land.

Many other members of the arc have that protection, but south Buckinghamshire does not. As the local Member of Parliament, I want to fight to ensure that existing green spaces, biodiversity and protection for the lungs of London are in place for future generations. The relentless expansion of development into the lungs of London will have a dire consequence, not only for Buckinghamshire but anyone in outer London who values decent air quality, lower carbon emissions and a better quality of life.

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[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Very easily, Sir Edward. It is a pleasure to have a chance to contribute, and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on securing the debate. If I may, I shall start with one of the points that he raised. Coming in as a Member of Parliament in 2010, we thought we were burying regional development agencies in the east of England, one of which was the East of England Development Agency. However, if one looks to the origins of the Oxford-Cambridge arc idea, essentially it is a regional development corporation idea: it stems from 2003, during the Blair period. It was given body and voice by the 2017 National Infrastructure Commission report by Lord Adonis—another leading figure of that period of government.

The first—and fundamental—question that has been raised by other Members during the debate is that this is a plan for an area that has no cohering identity. I almost feel like an interloper, Sir Edward. Before your inclusion of me in the debate, I felt like an interloper anyway, given the strong Buckinghamshire feeling about the debate —and all praise to Buckinghamshire. I am proudly from Bedfordshire and represent North East Bedfordshire. However, that makes the point, does it not? Essentially, this is not some grassroots, built-up, passionate call for helping our region to develop and unifying us into an identity that can have meaning for people on the ground—our local residents. No, no: this is a Blairite top-down plan, to be imposed on people in the region whether they like it or not.

I say “whether they like it or not” because, rather sadly, the spatial framework, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) spoke about, takes that additional step forward. It says that the arc’s 23 local planning authorities cannot continue to plan separately because

“planning at the local level for homes, business space, infrastructure and the environment is not integrated, and is unable to take an Arc-wide view.”

Well, my constituents do not want local planning to take an arc-wide view; they want it to take a local view—a neighbourhood view. The Government need to understand that the question that has been posed today is, how is that going to work when there is an absence of democratic accountability?

It is worse, because the spatial development framework goes on to say that all local plans must conform to the spatial framework, including the requirement that housing needs are met in full. Out of the window goes any discretion on housing growth targets. They must be met in full. For local authorities in my constituency, who are already achieving growth rates in housing well above the national average—my constituency is already growing at three times the national average—having a top-down target imposed with no discretion on local authority housing growth seems to me to raise major questions about democratic accountability.

Let us go to the two fundamental points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe. Where did this come from? Was it a plan for housing or a plan for economic development? If it was a plan for housing, let us get to the rub of the 1 million houses. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will say in a few minutes that the 1 million housing target is not a target. I know he will say that, because he has told me that in a debate, and it will be welcome to hear. The truth of the matter is that that target at the time included more than a quarter of a million extra houses that were going to be placed into the Oxford-Cambridge arc because that aspiration could not be met in London. It is an important point of principle of this Government to ensure that the housing needs of areas such as Greater London are met by regional authorities themselves and not displaced to other areas.

On housing growth, I would like to hear from the Minister what balance the Government will be able to provide for housing growth with the pieces of infrastructure that people care about. We have heard about expressways and railways, but what people care about in terms of infrastructure is: can I get an appointment with my doctor because my child is sick? Can I get my son or my daughter into a good local school? That is what people want to hear across the Ox-Cam arc and in the rest of the country. I know that the Minister and the Government are committed to that, but that is where our priorities should lie when we think about what to do with this particular region.

If the plan is an economic one, let us remember what the basis of it was: that somehow, by connecting or improving the connections between two major universities and other universities—of course, I would say Cranfield is also a major university, but let us say Oxford and Cambridge—we would unlock economic growth. That is the state-driven answer to how we unlock growth: “We can connect it.” So let me ask the Government: where is the international example of that having worked in practice? Can they name one example anywhere in the world where countries have joined universities to create economic growth? I bet they cannot, because most countries understand that we create economic growth around centres of educational excellence. We focus on the centres of educational excellence and build out that network of localities and business parks and innovation around where that core of academic excellence is. That is already happening in Cambridge, it is happening in Oxford, and it can happen around Cranfield. That is where the Government’s focus with the Ox-Cam arc should be moving.

There are some shared interests. There is the opportunity for more growth in housing. The Minister is absolutely right to focus on the core fundamental Conservative principle that everyone at every age should have the opportunity to own a home. That is something that we all want to do, and we want to do it in a way that is supported by local communities.

On the infrastructure, my colleagues from Buckinghamshire have already said bye-bye to the expressway, so we will have an expressway from Cambridge through Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes, and then we can stop off and get on—I do not know what they have in Buckinghamshire—perhaps a dirt track until we reach Oxfordshire, and back on the expressway again.

Heaven knows what will happen to the railway line. I know that the people of Cambridge are up in arms about it, and I know there are questions in North East Bedfordshire about it. If those transverse cross-country pieces of infrastructure are called into question, should we not have a rethink about how this interlacing, connecting Ox-Cam arc strategy would better be replaced with a central specific focus around certain areas for development there? There is probably more of a community interest between the good people of Buckinghamshire and the good people of Oxfordshire, and there might be a good common interest between the people of Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire, rather than saying that people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough should somehow feel an affinity with the people of Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Alluding to the history between Oxford and my constituency, we were the first stop-off on the coach trip from London to Oxfordshire. The economic prosperity of Beaconsfield was built on providing meals, entertainment, hotels and livery to those making the vital trip from London to Oxford. There is that historic link, but my hon. Friend is right that the Oxford-Cambridge arc is not attributable to any of those historic qualities or natural linking that might be found in other regions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend is right to bring in that historical perspective. Sir Edward, may I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister if we can have a Conservative vision of the Oxford-Cambridge arc? Let us not just take the Blairite vision off the shelf and say that the Government must now impose it.

What would a Conservative vision look like? First, it would be grounded in local democratic accountability, at the lowest possible level, with parishes, neighbourhoods and towns making decisions and not having them dictated by the state. Secondly, it would be a vision that rested primarily on the private sector to determine what would happen and where, and ensure both business and housing growth. We have recent evidence of that. According to Property Week, last year the Oxford-Cambridge arc was already seeing the largest inward housing investment. The market is working it out; we do not need a Government top-down plan to do it.

Thirdly, there is a role for Government in co-ordination, which we can understand, but the focus should be on international examples that can be repeated here, rather than trying to create something that has not got any international power and saying, “Let’s try and make it work here.” That means creating a focus of innovation with innovation grants and support in towns and cities across the arc.

There should be a focus on green transport initiatives and commuter transport initiatives, getting people from Cambourne into Cambridge in a green and environmentally sound way that works with the flow of people, building communities around Cranfield that work on unmanned vehicles, and undertaking initiatives around large public bus transportation systems in Oxfordshire, which are based on electric or battery-powered vehicles. Working with local councils to find out what people need locally, in combination with innovation and support from the Government, will allow the brains in those cities to create new champions who can create examples for the rest of the world.

House Building Targets: North East Bedfordshire

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of housebuilding targets in North East Bedfordshire constituency.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham; it is a particular pleasure. I am grateful to the Speaker for granting this debate at this time, because it enables me to engage directly with the Minister on the existing impact of high levels of house building in my constituency ahead of his finalisation, with the Secretary of State, of the forthcoming planning Bill.

I place on the record my thanks to the Minister for his willingness to meet me on multiple occasions—I have lost count—to discuss the particular effects on my constituency of development from a wide variety of sources: the construction of East West Rail; the creation of development corporations; the 2017 Oxford-Cambridge arc proposals—highly questionable, in my mind— from the National Infrastructure Commission; road improvements, including on the A1 at Black Cat roundabout; and the processes of the local plans for Central Bedfordshire Council and Bedford Borough Council. The Minister has always been open to discussions, and I am grateful for that.

In this short debate, I will cover the Conservative party manifesto commitment to “infrastructure first”; the Department’s view on housing consequences from East West Rail and other transport decisions; environmental impacts of particular concern in areas where local authorities are having to meet housing growth targets that are well above average; and some critical requests for consideration by the Minister in the forthcoming planning Bill.

Let me let me start with some context. My constituency is already recording housing growth at roughly three times the average of the constituencies of all Members of this House. The National House Building Council provides some statistics: in 2018, North East Bedfordshire’s figure for new homes registered was 2.2 times the national average, in 2019 it was 2.9 times the average and last year it was 3.5 times the average. We anticipate that that rate will continue to increase in relative terms. Moreover, the Office for National Statistics states that in terms of absolute population growth, in the decade to 2026 the local authority of Central Bedfordshire, which covers part of my constituency, ranks second only to Leicester of all local authorities outside London. The population of North East Bedfordshire is already growing fast, and that rate of growth is getting faster. The absolute growth in population will be one of the highest in the country.

The effects of this house building are already having an impact on the availability of local services. Difficulties in accessing GP services are already being felt across my constituency: from Arlesey and Stotfold to Biggleswade and Sandy to Harrold and to Sharnbrook, residents have contacted me to say how increasingly difficult it is to access GP services. This is not to do with covid; it is directly to do with population growth. A House of Commons report on changes in the numbers of GPs, trainees and locums for clinical commissioning groups across the country records a 6% decrease in the number of qualified permanent GPs for the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes CCG since 2019. In that CCG, which covers my constituency, there were 2,112 patients per full-time equivalent GP as of December 2019, compared with 1,722 in England as a whole. There is already a disparity in access to GP services, which is only likely to grow, given the growth in housing numbers.

The Minister and I—and indeed you, Sir Graham—stood on a manifesto commitment of “infrastructure first”, pledging that we would ensure that new roads and services were in place before people moved into new homes. Does the Minister acknowledge that securing access to GPs and school places is a crucial principle of our “infrastructure first” pledge? Will he commit to an urgent review, with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and in the Department for Education, to assess the current and projected requirements for my constituency and plans for improvements?

Let me turn to other aspects of infrastructure: roads and railways, of which my constituency has many, in part thanks to a 2017 National Infrastructure Commission report entitled “Partnering for Prosperity,” which was chaired by Lord Adonis. The report stated, with reference to the area between Oxford and Cambridge:

“Without swift and determined action to overcome the area’s housing crisis, it will fall behind its international competitors and fail to attract and retain the talent and skills it needs.”

I will not question that, although I feel that it was a bit tendentious in its expectation. This technocratic report went on to state:

“If the arc is to maximise its economic potential, current rates of house building will need to double—delivering up to one million new homes by 2050.”

However, the target of 1 million homes was wrong. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. The target included an allocation of overspill of 230,000 or more from London. It was based not on the fulfilment of the projections, but on the over-fulfilment of the highest projection of growth for the area. In short, it was a number plucked out of thin air by Lord Adonis, to get a PR-ready headline, but it bears only a tangential relationship to reality. Yet this “one million new homes” figure remains a potential threat to the already successful plans for housing growth in my local authorities of Central Bedfordshire and Bedford Borough Council. Can the Minister reassure me that this fantasy figure of 1 million new homes in the OxCam arc no longer plays a role in housing targets for the area?

From my discussions with CPRE and local environmental groups in Bedfordshire, I know there are considerable concerns that the rate of growth of housing means that biodiversity and access to green spaces are threatened. Does the Minister recognise that these frequently heard concerns, which I know concern him as well, are even more important in areas of considerable housing growth? Will he commit to requiring developments in Central Bedfordshire and Bedford Borough Council local authority areas to embed environmental considerations from the very start of the planning process, rather than making them considerations somewhat later down the track? I believe we need to prioritise access to our environment for residents where housing development is considerably above the national average. The Minister and the Department need to take action to move forward those considerations right to the start of the planning process.

A key part of the National Infrastructure Commission report was the creation of the east-west railway, linking Oxford to Cambridge and to points beyond them on both sides. This project is well under way, but the process has created concerns and confusion for many of my residents. I do not want to draw the Minister into transport-related matters, but can he advise me on a couple of points?

First, in the discussions with local authorities about the East West Rail project, were any considerations of consequential requirements for additional housing ever made by his Department or by the Department for Transport? If so, what were those additional requirements? Secondly, the Minister may be aware that, in part at the request of the leadership of Bedford Borough Council, the east-west railway is now planned to go via the town centre and then north across my constituency. That was a considerable surprise for many of my residents, partly because Bedford Borough Council’s recommendation was put into the consultation without the Mayor or the leadership letting the councillors know that. They did not even have a vote on whether to put it into the consultation. It was a surprise, because people saw that route and thought it was longer, more costly and hillier than alternatives.

I am agnostic on what the route decision should be, but I am not agnostic on the facts that underpin decisions when they are made. As we know, with very large infrastructure decisions, it is important that local communities understand and see that the process is transparent, and understand and see the data underlying any decision.

Given that surprise, will the Minister advise me—not on transport matters, but specifically on housing ones—whether that particular route decision to go through the town amended any expectation of consequential housing growth over any other route options? He may not have answers to my two questions today, but if he would commit to writing to me about them, I will be very grateful.

As I mentioned, my constituency has multiple changes planned or in progress, yet I am advised by local authorities that the level of co-ordination between Departments—over changes in water routes, railways, roads and other utilities—is extremely poor. That causes greater uncertainty in the preparation of local plans and greater disruption for residents. Will the Minister pay particular regard to improving such co-ordination in his forthcoming planning Bill? Furthermore, I encourage him in his efforts to reform CIL, the community infrastructure levy, as part of the effort to give local authorities the resources they need to fund required infrastructure.

The planning Bill offers a positive vision to enable housing developments to proceed more effectively and with more, not less, local community involvement. Does the Minister agree that any future changes in planning regulations should include, and indeed enhance, the involvement of local people in shaping and protecting their communities? Does he share my desire that the voice of local residents, easier access to proposed developments in their areas, the empowering of neighbourhood plans to have real teeth, promotion of micro-scale developments, encouragement of more smaller local builders and the closing of loopholes for creeping developers to exploit should be clear objectives of his plan and his Bill?

From discussions with town and parish councillors, in Potton, Upper Caldecott, Everton and Harrold in particular, I know that those are aspects of reform that are crucial to them. Reassurance of the power of democratic involvement in the planning of local communities is particularly important to North East Bedfordshire given the scale of change. Will the Minister also advise me what his Department sees as the respective roles of the spatial framework, development corporations and local authorities in setting and meeting housing targets in my constituency?

Finally, I have some further points on the planning Bill. Given the market failure in house building, greater recognition of the social contract is needed in fulfilling the country’s ambitions of making home ownership more accessible. The Local Government Association states that there is already planning permission for more than 1.1 million homes. Currently, there are no real penalties for failure to build when permission is granted. That free ride should end, with existing approvals given a “build by” sunset clause on planning rights and all new permissions issued with a build and council tax schedule.

Without such action, the ability of local authorities to fulfil their part of the social contract—from the national Government’s objective to the local plans for housing, the neighbourhood and parish council’s control over what happens in their communities and builders building what the country demands and requires of them—will be fundamentally undermined. I hope that the Minister will bear those particular concerns of North East Bedfordshire in mind.

The value of the debate for me has been in being able to demonstrate to the Minister that in one of the constituencies in the country that is facing some of the most considerable change—potential and current, of which house building is a crucial part—his Department and his ambitions for the planning Bill can have real impact and real contact. I hope that he will take away some of the points that I have made as he finalises his preparations for the planning Bill.

Employment Rights

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

In terms of fire and rehire, that guidance will be there. As I have said, fire and rehire in itself is not a binary view. Clearly we need a dynamic labour market. We need to protect businesses from making redundancies and losing those jobs, and we need to save businesses. That is why we are progressing along the way by charging ACAS with strengthening the guidance in this area. We will be working throughout the next few months to make sure, when we have parliamentary time to bring the employment Bill through and create the single employment body, that the guidance will be there and the prep work will have been done.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The best form of employment protection is a thriving entrepreneurial business sector open to innovation and creativity. The Minister has already outlined that the UK has an enviable flexible labour market with the highest participation rate of people in work, the highest levels of employment we have seen for many years, the fastest ever increases in the minimum wage and the highest take for the minimum wage as a proportion of average earnings. Rather than going back to the ideological arguments of the Opposition, will my hon. Friend join me in praising the Biggleswade branch of the Department for Work and Pensions, which I was in a conversation with today? It is embarking on promoting the kickstart programme to get more people into work, particularly young people.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend speaks in his usual eloquent way, talking up the dynamic, flexible economy that makes the UK fantastic and the envy of the world in terms not only of its workers’ rights but its flexibility, which is why we are attracting so much inward investment. I am glad to hear about the Biggleswade jobcentre promoting the kickstart scheme, because it is such initiatives and the extra money we are giving to employers to take on more apprentices that will create levelling-up potential and give people opportunity.