Building Homes

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. He is right: we have made a number of changes to the framework to further strengthen references to climate mitigation and adaptation. We have made a number of other changes relating to flood risk and sustainable drainage systems, and how we can support those through the planning system. On BNG specifically, I am more than happy to have a detailed conversation about our thinking on how to successfully roll out BNG across the country and ensure that it works not just on large sites, but on small sites in particular.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

In his statement, the Minister referred to the undermining of the capacity of our great towns and cities to realise their economic potential. Does he not realise that by effectively absolving the Mayor of London of his housing responsibilities, he is exacerbating the problem of inner-London boroughs, such as Lewisham and, dare I say, Greenwich and Woolwich, using the green fields of Kent as a dumping ground for their housing problems? We are fighting a rearguard action to protect our farmland from development, in the interests of our countryside and, more importantly perhaps, of sustainability. He refers to brownfield sites. What he has announced today is the undermining of the Secretary of State’s right to rule finally on planning issues after they have been to the Planning Inspectorate. She will now have no credibility at all.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have a lot of time for the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that sort of hyperbole is beneath him, if I may say so. We are not absolving the Mayor of London of his responsibilities. The previous Government put in place a system whereby the arbitrary 35% urban uplift applied not merely to the core of a city region—as it does in every other part of the country—but to every London borough. That produced a fantastical figure that was completely divorced from reality. We have abolished that urban uplift and reset the standard method. That still leaves London with an incredibly stretching target of 88,000 homes per year, which is more than double recent delivery. We want to work in partnership with the Mayor of London, but we will be pushing him to increase his ambition for what can be achieved in London, and his delivery.

We place great importance on agricultural land and food production. The national planning policy framework remains clear that where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer-quality land should be preferred to those of higher quality. Those protections remain in the framework.