Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Stephen Williams

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

The Government strongly exhort all local authorities to have an up-to-date local plan in place, and 80% of authorities now have a published plan and 62% an adopted plan. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman’s authority in Lincolnshire is not following suit.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Habinteg, Age UK, Aspire, Care and Repair, Disability Rights UK, Leonard Cheshire Disability and Mencap all supported Labour’s push to amend the Infrastructure Bill to ensure high standards of accessibility in new housing. Why did the Government oppose those efforts?

[Stephen Williams]

I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). Every local authority is different and demography varies from area to area. Part M of the building regulations has a baseline requirement for accessibility to be built into new homes, and the housing standards review provides two upper tiers—equivalent to the lifetime homes standard—for local authorities to adopt. On top of that there is also a wheelchair housing standard for accommodation that caters for particular specialist needs.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Stephen Williams

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

The right hon. Gentleman enjoyed, I am sure, the deliberations in Committee, including my right hon. Friend the Minister telling us about mobile telephone reception in Lincolnshire and having to stand on a chair in order to take a call. This is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with, and the Government have listened very carefully to what was said in Committee and to the representations made by interested bodies. We have decided at this stage to withdraw the proposals as drafted, but this issue will have to be revisited.

I turn finally in this wide-ranging group of new clauses and amendments to the part of the Bill that introduces zero-carbon homes—a part of which I am particularly proud—and the Opposition’s amendments. Amendments 67 and 71 seek to give preference in all cases to on-site carbon abatement measures. That would cause uncertainty and cost to house builders, because the house builder and the building control body would have to agree a “reasonable” on-site energy performance level on a case-by-case basis before any development could commence. The house building industry needs to know the technical requirements and the costs it will face in order to plan for the future. That is why we set specific performance standards in the building regulations —standards we have already tightened twice during this Parliament, and which, as a result of the Bill, will be further tightened in 2016 to make sure that our constituents have the pleasure of living in not only a new home but one insulated to the highest possible performance standards.

With those brief remarks—not quite as brief as you would have liked, Madam Deputy Speaker—I commend the new clauses and amendments in the Government’s name and ask the House to resist those in others’ names.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

As the Minister acknowledged, there are a lot of amendments on different topics in this group, and I will do my best to respond to the Government amendments and speak to the Opposition ones in as coherent and related a way as I can. However, I point out that we have just over half an hour left, and lots of Members want to speak. That again demonstrates that the Government have rushed the Bill and not left enough time for the House to scrutinise it properly.

Government new clause 14 is a technical amendment and provided that the Greater London authority is on board with it, we see no reason not to welcome it.

We welcome new clause 16, in the name of the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). His proposals are in line with our localist policy to return decision making about permitted development and change of use class to local authorities and the local communities they represent. We are very much against permitted development being able to ride roughshod over the needs and wishes of local communities, so we welcome the amendment and concur that having to make a pub an asset of community value, or make an article 4 direction, is bureaucratic and burdensome on local communities and not at all necessary. The hon. Gentleman’s new clause provides communities with a straightforward way of saying what is happening to their local pub and whether or not they wish a change to be made.

On Government amendments 45 and 84, the Minister will know that in Committee we called for greater clarity on how the species control agreements would work in practice. For example, when would one be considered complete, and requirements no longer be needed? We therefore support amendment 45 and the Government’s clarifying this point. They have also clarified that landowners who cannot dispose of land due to legal restrictions will still be subject to these agreements and orders. However, important questions remain about the cost and implementation of species control orders that the Government need to answer in statutory guidance.

On Government amendment 46, we are pleased that they have excluded from the species control orders the European beaver, a native species that has established populations in the UK. However, the classification of the beaver under part IB of schedule 9 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981—“Animals no longer normally present”—is bizarre and lists them alongside the wild boar. It seems strange that, despite European beavers being recognised as a native species to the UK and a natural component of British river systems, they will need a licence from Natural England to continue to exist in the wild. The Minister knows that we proposed in Committee an amendment—supported by a number of non-governmental organisations, including Friends of the Earth—stating that the Government’s definition of invasive non-native species should correspond to the EU habitats directive adopted in 1992. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister why they have not gone down that route.

I was very disappointed with the Minister’s response to new clause 3, which seeks to shake up the way we progress national infrastructure matters. It would establish an independent national infrastructure commission in order to offer strategic planning to meet our national infrastructure requirements, and provide a greater degree of devolved power to ensure that large-scale projects also relate, where possible, to local priorities. I was surprised that in Committee, Government Members—and indeed the Minister himself—were so dismissive of the recent CBI survey showing that, despite some advances in national infrastructure policy, the UK is still some way off delivering the transformational upgrades the country needs. There is a widely acknowledged view that we are lagging behind other countries on national infrastructure delivery.

New clause 3 seeks to bring an evidence-based assessment of our infrastructure needs before the House for approval. The process would be supported by sector infrastructure plans, and there would be a time scale for implementation. That would get us out of the parliamentary cycle, and away from the stop-start approach to national infrastructure. All we have heard from the Minister is more complicity and a lack of engagement about the need for a timely upgrade to our national infrastructure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a really good point, which we did not rehearse very well in Committee. If we had had adequate time today, we might have considered the consultation’s shortcomings and the fact that people had to choose from a very limited number of options.

I should point out that we have great concerns about the general carbon abatement provisions. It is really important for the Minister to clarify what the allowable solutions measures will contain. That was not clear in Committee, so we sought clarification, but we still have not received any. Will clause 33 make it a definite requirement for all homes to be built to the equivalent of code level 4?

[Stephen Williams]

In case I cannot respond on that point later, I can say that it is definitely our intention that on-site requirements should come up to code level 4, and that those for allowable solutions should come up to code level 5. On sites and exemptions, we are obviously looking at the consultation. The number of units will be one factor, but we might look at company size and square meterage—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We have had a great many interventions in this debate. I appreciate that the shadow Minister has had only a moderately long time in which to speak and that she has a lot to say. However, I must now appeal to all Members: we have 21 minutes left and a great many matters to discuss, so they must all speak quickly. If everybody proceeds with no repetition, hesitation or deviation, everyone will get to speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Stephen Williams

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

I hear what my hon. Friend says and I heard what the Prime Minister said. He was obviously better briefed on Manston airport than I am, so I simply commend to my hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s words in answer to his previous question.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Last week the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who has responsibility for housing and planning, was clear in rejecting urban extensions, yet under his Government brownfield development has fallen from 70% under Labour to just 53% now. As his new proposals to support brownfield development will help only about a third of councils, where do the Government think the new houses will go?

[Stephen Williams]

We have announced a £400 million fund for local authorities to bid to create new housing zones, with 20 in London and 10 around the country. With the additional money the Mayor of London is putting in, that is a £600 million investment. We will also publish a consultation next month on further measures to get planning permissions on brownfield sites, and we are working with local authorities to produce a support package, available from next March, to further encourage the use of brownfield land. There is, therefore, a lot of activity taking place in this area.