Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Greg Clark

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady will find that the rate of additional stock that is being provided in response to the reinvigorated council right to buy is running at over one for one, and the agreement that we have been able to reach with the housing associations—if she has not had a copy of it, I will make sure that she gets one—makes it very clear that these homes will be replaced on at least a one-for-one basis. I should not say “replaced”, because the homes continue to be occupied; they trigger an additional home that is being built.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

rose—

[Greg Clark]

I shall make some progress, then I shall give way. I am coming on to talk about London, and the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt have something to say then.

We scrapped the regional spatial strategies and we saw planning permissions increase as a result of those reforms. We have allowed local communities to have more of a say through neighbourhood planning, and now over 1,600 neighbourhood plans have been adopted or are in production. We built 260,000 affordable homes, nearly a third of them in London, and in the next five years we will build 275,000 more, the most for 20 years. We have helped hundreds of thousands of people achieve their dream of home ownership, with Government schemes such as Help to Buy doubling the number of first-time buyers in the previous Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

On affordable homes in London, does the right hon. Gentleman accept his Department’s own figures, according to which, over the past three years, 9,025 homes have been sold in London under right to buy and there have been 1,310 starts on replacements? That is seven homes sold for every home started. If that is the Government’s record, why should we believe that things will be different going forward?

[Greg Clark]

I was going on to say that in London during the first year of the reinvigorated right to buy, 632 homes were sold and already, a year before the deadline for councils, 1,115 starts have been made. The rate of provision of additional homes in London is running at nearly two for one. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will celebrate that.

When we reinvigorated the right to buy for council tenants, we ensured that every home sold to a resident would allow another home to be built. It is as much a policy for expanding the housing stock as it is for extending home ownership, desirable though that is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

The record will show, Mr Speaker, that I have been generous in giving way to London Members, including the Labour mayoral candidate. If that does not illustrate a fair approach, I do not know what does.

[Sadiq Khan]

Will the Secretary of State give way? (Laughter.)

[Greg Clark]

I will not—I am going to make some progress—but the right hon. Gentleman is plucky in his endeavours.

During the last Parliament, we reformed and streamlined the planning system. We abolished more than 1,000 pages of central policy, and revoked the regional spatial strategies. Local councils have responded well to that devolution of power, as we knew they would: 82% of councils have published plans, compared with just 32% in May 2010. Since we introduced the national planning policy framework, the number of new homes planned for locally has increased by 23%, and 1,600 neighbourhood plans are in production or have been adopted.

It is right to continue in that direction of reform, which is why the Bill takes steps to simplify and speed up the process of adopting neighbourhood plans and giving them earlier force. It helps councils to galvanise development in their areas, whether through improvements in the compulsory purchase system or through the establishment of development corporations. In return, however, it tells the 18% of councils that have not yet produced a local plan that five years after the publication of the NPPF in 2012 they will have had enough time in which to do so. If plans have not been produced by then, the Government will have the power to intervene and, working with local people, help bring the process to fruition.

All Members want brownfield land to be prioritised for development. The more of it that is brought back into use, the more our countryside can be safeguarded. The Bill establishes a new strategy register for brownfield land so that councils can have an up-to-date and publicly accessible source of information about land that is suitable for housing.

Housing

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Greg Clark

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I think that the Opposition were complacent about the record that they left and the poor quality of the policies that they proposed. In relation to Oldham and to Greater Manchester, I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome the Greater Manchester agreement and the city deal, which has explicitly created a housing fund for the area reflecting the principles of localism that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) mentioned. This will allow the leaders of Manchester to invest in more homes for Greater Manchester. That is a big step in the right direction.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his new job. I wish him well. I cannot, however, believe that he compared the current Prime Minister to Winston Churchill.

One of the reasons why London is better than Paris and New York is that our inner cities are diverse. Families of all different backgrounds live there. Does the Secretary of State recognise that if councils are forced to sell a third of the most expensive council properties, inner cities will be hollowed out, which will lead to social cleansing?

[Greg Clark]

I certainly respect and celebrate the diversity of our cities. It is an essential part of their character. In the requirements that we make, we will ensure that the replacement is within the communities from which something has been taken. It is important to preserve that. I was on the board of an inner-city housing association in central London, and that made an important contribution to the city centre.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) mentioned neighbourhood planning. He is absolutely right that that has made a big contribution. We will simplify neighbourhood planning and provide extra funding for councils so that communities can get on and accelerate such plans.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Greg Clark

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

No, the hon. Gentleman is out of date. Of the applications made since 10 June, more than 90% have been successfully confirmed with Government data, so it is going extremely well. The electoral registration community around the country is pretty pleased with the progress.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s good news about the take-up and about online registration. To go back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith), is the Minister aware that more than 250 local authorities have not confirmed whether they have data matched their registers with central Government databases, as they were supposed to do, and that almost 100 have failed to conduct a door-to-door canvass at least once in the past five years of those who are not on the register? Will he look into that and tell us what he is going to do about it?

[Greg Clark]

The right hon. Gentleman is getting ahead of himself. The new system started on 10 June. There is a big campaign in which every electoral registration officer will write to every household in the weeks ahead. They will then follow that up with the door-to-door canvass. After that is the time to see how they have performed. The right hon. Gentleman needs to reflect on the current rather than the past system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Greg Clark

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I do indeed agree and my hon. Friend was a stalwart in campaigning for the city deal. The people who know and understand their areas best are those who live and work in them. That is the simple principle behind our city deals and the policy of this Government.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

May I thank the Minister for his answers and his commitment to this area in general, which we support? Council leaders of all parties in London and the Mayor of London believe that greater powers, including financial responsibility, should be devolved to London. The Minister answered the question from the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) about business rates—a move that we welcome—in the past tense. Do the Government have any plans to transfer power from Whitehall to city hall and town halls in London?

[Greg Clark]

Yes. I know that the right hon. Gentleman takes a personal interest, as he is hoping to move on from this place to city hall, although he might face a tough fight in doing so. We are committed totally to moving power from here to the city halls and town halls of the country. At the moment, we are negotiating a £2 billion a year transfer of funds from the centre to every city and county across the country, including London, to put control of these resources in the hands of local people rather than officials in Whitehall.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Greg Clark

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As a Manchester MP, he will know that the Greater Manchester combined authority is perhaps the best example of the fruits of the co-operation between local authorities. The relationship between the combined authority and the local enterprise partnership is very close, and that closeness of working has been one of the key contributors to the economic success of Greater Manchester in recent years.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that one of the recommendations of the Heseltine review emphasised the importance of businesses and others engaging with young people in colleges and schools. In Northern Ireland, the schools initiative model has made a difference in raising the electoral registration of young people to 50% more than would otherwise be the case. The Minister gets on very well with the Secretary of State for Education—better, I think, than the Deputy Prime Minister—so will he discuss with him bringing this model on to the mainland so that we can all see the benefits that Northern Ireland saw?

[Greg Clark]

The House will know that I am very keen to make sure that every young person gets the chance to vote. One of the announcements that I made in recent weeks was to make £4.2 million available to every local authority in the country specifically to enable them to fund talks and exercises in schools in order to sign up young people to vote. I am glad that that has the right hon. Gentleman’s endorsement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Greg Clark

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

In the interests of the coalition, the Deputy Prime Minister occasionally allows his coalition partner to answer questions.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I am also surprised that the Deputy Prime Minister is not answering the question. [Interruption.] I have been called to stand up and speak, and I will do so.

Over the past three years, the size and cost of the House of Lords has gone up. Does the Minister realise that the more Tory and Lib Dem peers the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister appoint, the less effective the House of Lords becomes, because they do as the Government Whips say? Does the Minister therefore agree that, over the past three years, the House of Lords has become bigger, more expensive and less effective?

[Greg Clark]

The right hon. Gentleman does not have a shred of credibility, because Labour voted against the proposals that would have blocked that. Of course, we all know that 408 peers were created under the previous Labour Government.