Speech in Westminster Hall - Wed 13 Mar 2024 Planning Reform
"I beg to move,
That this House has considered reform of the planning system.
The housing shortage that we face in this country is the great crisis facing the United Kingdom today. Since 1973, house prices have more than tripled in real terms, with the average house price today reaching …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have seen that in my constituency, where a new GP surgery in Nunthorpe, a suburb in the south of the town, has changed people’s attitudes to new homes coming in. However, we need to institutionalise that sort of offer to residents. The planning …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"That is a very reasonable question. I would need to look at the detail of the policy to see whether simply raising the cap further or scrapping it would be the best solution to the problem. Do I accept entirely that we need to make sure that councils are not …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"I totally agree. The hon. Gentleman is exactly right: councils need to have the planning departments to process the applications, and too often, as we know, good planners are poached by consultancies when they are needed in our local government system. The answer is to allow local authorities to capture …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"I think localism as a principle of good Government is very important. I am a strong believer in the mayoral devolution of the kind that the Government have introduced in recent years. I will come to the hon. Lady’s question about how we can best address the balance between local …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"In response to the hon. Lady’s point, I am strongly in favour of making sure that we can better enshrine the protections for the areas of genuine natural beauty and community amenity, rather than having a reductive debate that simply suggests that the entirety of the green belt is an …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"I confess that I think the issues surrounding phosphate and nutrient neutrality need to be addressed—indeed, I commented on this with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) this morning—by looking at the underlying causes of the problems and allowing mitigation measures to be put in place …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech
"I thank the Minister for her gracious comments about giving me time to respond. This has been a very good debate and, despite the proximity of an election, a remarkably consensual one about a number of the issues that we know we need to overcome if we are to build …..." Simon Clarke - View Speech