Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

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

Reducing and minimising burdens in the planning system is essential if the system is to work effectively and if we are to remove a financial burden on the economy, which has been estimated in figures quoted in the Killian Pretty report as being up to £2.7 billion a year. That therefore forms a central part of the Government’s reform proposals in the localism and decentralisation Bill and the national planning framework. We have already taken specific steps, with which I would be happy to acquaint the House in more detail if time permitted—for example, by consolidating 17 regulations into one and three preservation orders into one, saving £1.5 million already.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The £400 million redevelopment project in the Gloucester Quays in my constituency was unnecessarily delayed for more than a year as a result of being called in by the previous Government. Does the Minister agree that local planning decisions are now precisely that, that they will no longer be subject to frequent interference by the Government and that today we can send a clear message to developers and investors—in Gloucester and elsewhere—that we are open for business without delay?

[Mr Speaker]

Briefer this time.

[Robert Neill]

Localising decision making and planning is central to the Government’s policy. Ministers have made it clear that they will exercise the power to call in only very sparingly where matters of significant national interest and policy are concerned.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that in looking at the abolition of the regional spatial strategies, the Select Committee is receiving evidence that because those strategies had an evidential base—not merely in respect of house building numbers, but in many other matters on which local development frameworks were based—many local authorities are now having to go back and redo that evidential base at a local level, causing an enormous amount of work and inconvenience to them? Did the Minister take account of those extra burdens when he decided to abolish the regional spatial strategies?

[Robert Neill]

The vast majority of local authorities I have spoken to greatly welcome the abolition of those strategies, which imposed undemocratic targets on them. There is no need to rework the evidence base—it is already there. We have given local authorities the power to revise the figures that were arbitrarily imposed on them from above.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to encourage locally supported sustainable development through the planning system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

13. What progress he has made on his proposals for the future of small business rate relief; and if he will make a statement.

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

The coalition agreement contained a commitment to find a practical way to make small business rate relief automatic. We have had discussions with interested parties, and we are now assessing the options.

[Mark Lancaster]

Milton Keynes is a dynamic and entrepreneurial city, and the Government’s moves on small business rate relief are most welcome, but will the Minister tell the House what more the Government could do to encourage local councils to be more flexible in offering different incentives to new businesses?

[Robert Neill]

We are considering the possibility of giving local authorities wide-ranging discretionary powers to grant business rate discounts, so that they can respond to local circumstances by reducing local businesses’ bills. We are also taking steps to ensure that no new supplementary business rate can be imposed without the backing of local firms in a referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming the plan set out by Wirral council under its leader Jeff Green to tackle the debt left in the council by the previous, Labour, administration, first through introducing transparency by publishing all expenditure over £500 and, secondly, through a wide consultation with all the Wirral public?

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

I recently visited Wirral and met Councillor Green, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the council is using a number of innovative measures not only in the transparency agenda, but in the imaginative use of community facilities such as fire stations working conjointly with youth groups in the big society.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Will the Liberal Minister now answer the question that has already been asked twice during this Question Time? What is his assessment of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report about extensive job losses in the private sector?