Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Roger Gale and Angela Rayner

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

We are working with local authorities, and the Bill includes provision for strategic authorities so that we can look at where we have sites and ensure that people are accommodated. It is for local authorities to be able to do that.

The Bill starts with a quicker and more certain system for big ticket infrastructure projects. It will slice through the bureaucracy and speed up transport projects. It will overhaul how Government decisions on major infrastructure projects can be challenged, so that meritless cases will have one, rather than three, attempts at a legal challenge, stopping cases from being dragged endlessly and needlessly through the courts.

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

Somewhere knocking around in the system is a Government press release that says that the National Grid Sea Link project is being obstructed by too many objections. The reason that it is being objected to is that the National Grid wants to build a 90-foot-high converter station the size of five football pitches on the Minster marshes in Kent. We must have the right to object to that kind of project.

[Angela Rayner]

I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that there is not a loss of the right to object. In fact, we are strengthening and clarifying those processes as part of the Bill. I will say it again: there will be a quicker and more certain system for big ticket infrastructure projects. The Bill will slice through bureaucracy and speed up transport projects. What it will not do is allow meritless cases to have three attempts at a legal challenge. It will stop cases from being dragged endlessly and needlessly through the courts. It will begin to strip away the unnecessary consultation requirements that do nothing to improve applications and do not meaningfully engage communities, but slow down the delivery of infrastructure that will benefit communities in the future. It will create greater flexibility so that projects can go through a more appropriate and faster planning route.

English Devolution and Local Government

Debate between Roger Gale and Angela Rayner

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Some of us have been around the local government reform circus on a number of occasions in the past, and I fear that the Secretary of State will find that this piecemeal approach will be disastrous. One of the oldest local government unions in the country, the Federation of Cinque Ports, may heave a sigh of relief, but I suspect that the district, city and county councils in Kent will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. We have one unitary authority—Medway—and two that we thought were going to be unitary authorities, which it now seems will not be unitary authorities, so how can the Secretary of State reassure me that we will not be left with a lot of lame duck local authorities for the foreseeable future?

[Angela Rayner]

First, the right hon. Gentleman cannot be old enough—surely not. I say to him gently that he also cannot have it both ways: he suggests that the reform is piecemeal, but his Front Benchers are suggesting that I am tearing down local democracy, which is just not true. Local areas are coming forward, and we are working with local councils and local areas. I have talked about the real-terms cash injection, which my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution will set out in detail later this afternoon, and about the collaborative way we want to work with local authorities. I do not see any lame duck local authorities out there; I see local authorities, of all political persuasions, delivering vital public services, that have felt absolutely pillared by the previous Government, and now we see a Government determined to change that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roger Gale and Angela Rayner

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the housing crisis in Scotland, where too many families are waiting for too long for a safe and secure home. I completely back all the brilliant work that my friend the Scottish Labour leader is doing, and I know that the choice will be stark for people in Scotland in May 2026; it will be between a national Labour Government delivering for the working people of this country, and a clapped-out and failing SNP Government north of the border.

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

Given that the Secretary of State’s avowed goal is to create more social housing, can she explain to the House why Labour-controlled Thanet district council is seeking to build a large housing estate on the outskirts of Birchington-on-Sea, on prime agricultural land? There is little demand for those houses, and little provision of social housing. Can she have a word with the leader of Thanet council?

[Angela Rayner]

In our new national planning policy framework, we have set out how we are protecting agricultural land, but we have also set out the fact that our country faces a housing crisis. I cannot believe that the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency does not have a crisis, because it is everywhere.

Building Homes

Debate between Roger Gale and Angela Rayner

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. She is absolutely right, and her question builds on one that I answered previously. We have to protect our green belt, and the proposals we are putting forward do that. They also mean that we will have the right type of homes and the infrastructure. As part of this process, there will be nature considerations and rules around that. There will also be the infrastructure that people need, as well as access to the countryside and healthy living. My hon. Friend can look at a number of parts of the consultation that refer to how we are delivering better, greener areas for people. Hopefully, her constituents will be able to get behind that.

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

It is good to see you in that Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether the Secretary of State has discussed her proposals with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the National Farmers Union, but the answer she gave on food production was risible. What she has announced today is effectively a recipe for disposing of the land that will be needed to feed our children and grandchildren. Just before she goes ahead with that, will she tell the House how many planning consents that have been granted are sitting there unbuilt-out? Should we not use those first?

[Angela Rayner]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman with absolute respect that he should please read the consultation. We think that we do support our agriculture, which accounts for just over 10% of land—the best and most versatile land. I talked before about protecting the best-value land, and we will do that. The land we are talking about—grey belt, which we define in the NPPF consultation—is not agricultural land; it is disused garages and things of that nature and not, as the right hon. Gentleman wants people to believe, the land we need for food.