Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and Rosie Cooper

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

2. If he will encourage local authorities to increase their use of local suppliers in the provision of goods and services.

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

It is clear that there is significant scope for major savings in local authority procurement from the £62 billion spent each year. By making these savings, we can enhance front-line services, save taxpayers’ money and help to pay off the deficit. To encourage that, we are cutting red tape to open up procurement, especially to small and medium-sized firms. While it is up to a local area to decide from whom to procure, local authorities clearly have significant spending power, which should be used to help drive local growth.

[Rosie Cooper]

Leeds city council has the charter for procuring community benefits, which encourages all current or potential council suppliers to commit to providing added benefit to the local community, particularly in disadvantaged parts of the city. What action will the Minister take to encourage local authorities to take up schemes such as that seen in Leeds to encourage buyers to use local businesses? That would certainly benefit the towns and villages in my area and businesses in West Lancashire.

[Robert Neill]

The Government have supported the local productivity programme, which has been developed by the local government sector, led by the Local Government Association. We are looking at ways to improve access to tenders and procurement, especially for small and medium-sized firms, including promoting greater use of the online contract finder tool, which is a potential benefit for local British firms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Neill and Rosie Cooper

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the effects on fire authorities of the planned reductions in grants to local government.

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

As part of the local government settlement for 2011-12 and the provisional settlement for 2012-13, an assessment of the reduction in spending power for individual, single-purpose fire and rescue authorities was published and is available in the Library.

[Rosie Cooper]

Since 2004, Lancashire fire authority has successfully reduced expenditure without jeopardising public safety—incidents of arson and fire casualties have been reduced by more than a quarter. Lancashire faces cuts of 4% next year and there are fears that the back-loaded cuts at the end of the comprehensive spending review period will mean a 15% reduction. What reassurances can the Minister give to my constituents and firefighters that those latest cuts will not jeopardise or threaten their safety?

[Robert Neill]

Bearing in mind that the formula grant amounts to some 50% of the income of single-purpose fire and rescue authorities, which therefore have other sources of income through council tax or reserves, the reduction in spending power for Lancashire in the current year is 1%, and next year it will see an increase in spending power of 0.1%.

Urban Supermarkets (Planning)

Debate between Robert Neill and Rosie Cooper

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I will reflect on that, and explain the ways in which we propose to deal with such issues in a moment. The example given by my hon. Friend highlights the balance that must be struck between competition and trading opportunities between different operators in the same area on the one hand, and legitimate planning considerations on the other. Sometimes there appears to be an overlap between the two in the minds of the general public, which is not so easy to translate into planning law.

Let me return to the issue of the impacts of changes of activity that do not require permission. In general, we would expect businesses to operate responsibly, and to be sensitive to the communities within which they operate. When neighbours raise legitimate concerns about development, it is in the interests of businesses— particularly those with a strong community presence, such as supermarket chains—to take them seriously and respond positively.

Local authorities also have wider responsibilities and powers to investigate complaints about problems such as noise. Authorities must take “all reasonable steps" to investigate any complaint in relation to noise. I have no doubt that the local authority cited by my hon. Friend is diligent and well aware of those powers. Authorities are expected to raise the issue with the person or organisation causing the nuisance, giving the details of the complaint and asking for steps to be taken to reduce the noise. If the local authority believes a statutory nuisance is occurring, or is likely to occur or recur, it must take action.

That is where we are at the moment and we do not want to dismiss my hon. Friend’s concerns. There may always be individual cases where the balance between avoiding bureaucratic overload by requiring permission for a simple change of use and guarding against unacceptable impacts gives rise to unintended consequences. With more and different types of retail activity and means of dealing with storage, for example, one must be alert to changing circumstances that may not have been anticipated when the regulations were drafted. I have a lot of sympathy for this situation and, as I have indicated, I would hope that the local authorities use powers against nuisance if that is the appropriate route.

The point raised by the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) relates rather more to the case of the operation of the rules in relation to temporary permission rather than use classes, but it is a legitimate area of concern. I do not doubt that.

[Rosie Cooper]

The Local Government Association and local authorities know that supermarkets will breach their planning consent for six or seven weeks each year coming up to Christmas. By the time authorities act, the supermarkets have taken things down and it does not matter. They are flouting the rules and getting away with it. The LGA is looking to us to try to do something about it.

[Robert Neill]

I understand that, which is why I am about to set out the way in which we will address these concerns. We are keeping the use classes order under review, but at present we feel that the balance that it strikes is about right. However, there are specific issues that need to be examined. We are determined to do more to help local planning authorities and communities shape the places in which people live.

Much of the coalition's work since May has therefore focused on overseeing a fundamental shift of power away from Westminster to councils and communities. We believe that, generally, planning should be a local matter, with planning decisions being made at local level wherever possible. We will ensure that national planning policies support local decision making. In the past, national planning objectives have been set out through a series of planning policy guidance notes, and more recently planning policy statements. These cover a broad range of policy themes and are piecemeal in nature. This is why we said in the coalition agreement that we will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development. This simple and consolidated framework will set out not only what the Government's economic and environmental priorities are, but how they relate to each other. Such a framework would also set out, in general terms but in sufficient detail to provide clarity, what was expected, both of the planning system and in terms of delivering national priorities.

We will make an announcement—in short order, I hope—as to how we propose to take forward the national planning framework and the implications for specific areas of policy. That is an appropriate vehicle to look at the operation of the PPSs and PPGs. In pulling together a more holistic approach with the national framework, I suggest that that is the appropriate vehicle by which the Government can address what may have been anomalies or circumstances that have arisen since the previous use classes orders were drawn up and to see if what we have now remains appropriate for the future. There may be ways in which we can better achieve a fair and proportionate response to the legitimate needs of development on the one hand and the equally legitimate concerns of the neighbours of those who carry out economic activity on the other. The coalition’s proposals for that framework provide a good opportunity for us to address sensibly precisely the issues raised in this debate.

Question put and agreed to.