Greater Manchester Spatial Framework

Debate between Simon Danczuk and David Nuttall

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have you taking charge of this debate, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg) on securing the debate and for the very sensible and valid points he made in his opening speech. There can be no doubt that the spatial framework produced by the Greater Manchester combined authority has caused enormous consternation across my Bury North constituency. It is probably one of the biggest issues that I have come across in the last 10 or 12 years.

It clearly makes sense for any local authority or group of local authorities to have a plan, to review that plan and to determine how many houses might be needed for the next few years. I think we could all agree on that. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, I have my doubts about how robust the figures used in the framework are, with immigration over the past few years—I am not making a political point; this is just a fact—running at more than 300,000 a year, which even the latest figures show.

[Simon Danczuk]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that he belongs to a party that has been in government for a considerable time and that said it would dramatically reduce the number of immigrants coming into the country. There has been a complete failure by his Government to do that.

[Mr Nuttall]

I do not want to be diverted on to a debate about immigration when we are discussing housing, but the two things are connected. More can be done and I have argued that point many times in the Chamber. One thing has fundamentally changed since those figures were drawn up and that is the referendum we had in June. That will enable this country to have more control over its borders as far as immigration from the European Union is concerned. That is a fact. We can debate lots of other things, but that will happen, and I wonder to what extent that has been reflected in the numbers.

The biggest concern of most of the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have contacted me about the plans is the erosion of the green belt. My view is that the green belt is there for a purpose. It was put there to protect the land from development.

Before I came to this place, I was involved in the legal profession. We acted for one or two house builders, so I know how they operate. I can tell the House this: given the choice between developing a nice, flat, green field and having to sort out a brownfield site, they are going to choose the greenfield site every single time. The plan is like manna from heaven for developers. They were asked to put in bids and to give expressions of interest. Obviously, they came round Greater Manchester and thought, “This is fantastic! We’ll have that site, we’ll have that one, we’ll have that one and I wouldn’t mind building a few houses there!” In my own patch, for example, Bury’s green belt is threatened around Elton reservoir, with nearly 3,500 new homes planned, and between Walshaw and Tottington, where another 1,250 homes are planned. Some 100 homes are planned in Holcombe Brook and they are nibbling at the green belt around Gin Hall for an industrial estate.

I appreciate that I do not have time to go into detail about all those sites, but I want to place on record a point about infrastructure, which has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members today. We do not have to speculate on what will happen; we just need to look at the history. My constituency has had house building galore over the past few years. We can see what happens. House building goes ahead without any of the necessary infrastructure in place, without the necessary road improvements and without schools. On the site at Walshaw, the spatial framework says:

“Elton High School is within easy reach of the site. The school is currently subject to a Government-funded rebuilding programme that will provide good quality opportunities for secondary education in the vicinity of the site”.

It is not “will”—it has already happened. It is open and the school is there. The point is that the school is full. There is no point saying that it is going to provide extra places for all the thousands of new homes that are going to be built. That is just one example of how the spatial framework does not take account of reality.

I agree that brownfield sites should be developed before greenfield sites, but I can be as sure as anything that if this plan sees the light of day, the developers will all want to put pressure straightaway on building on the greenfield sites and the brownfield sites will still be brownfield sites in 20 years’ time. They still will not have been developed.

Finally, perhaps—I do not know what time you want to start the wind-ups, Mr Howarth?

National Living Wage

Debate between Simon Danczuk and David Nuttall

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Simon Danczuk]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is a real concern for local authorities, and there is disparity across the country. That is a good point.

The other point about business rates is that there is an issue with the fact that the relief will not be introduced until 2017. Small businesses will struggle for a whole year before they receive the relief that is in the Budget. As I have already mentioned in this Chamber, the retail business rate relief grant has been stopped this year for small business owners as well. Small businesses employ 35% of the nation’s workforce, but they employ more than half of those who are on the minimum wage. From 1 April, small businesses will be dealt a double whammy of increased wage bills and a reduction in support from business rate grants. They will be under real financial pressure for a whole year.

[Mr Nuttall]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Danczuk]

I am going to make a little bit of progress. Larger retailers will be able to offset their costs by reducing the benefits that they pay out, such as Sunday pay, as we have seen from the examples that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden has raised in the media recently. Smaller businesses will have to put up prices, slow recruitment or perhaps downscale their operations. Some will have to shut down because they are unable to shoulder the costs until 2017 after having struggled for years. The truth is that the new national living wage should have coincided with the changes to the business rate system.

Next I want to mention the pressures facing the social care sector, which has faced a wave of pressure from the Government over the last few years. We have heard much recently about the social care precept, which enables councils to raise council tax by 2% to pay for care costs. Senior members of Rochdale Borough Council have told me that with the introduction of the national living wage, the precept will provide very little extra funding, if any. Poorer areas such as Rochdale—this is similar to the point made about business rates—will raise only just over £1 million from the precept, because of the council tax bands of the properties in the borough. Even the Conservative-led Local Government Association has warned that the national living wage will put adult care services at breaking point.

The new change is even more worrying in view of the fact that many in the care sector are not even paid the minimum wage. Work by Unison has shown that pay structures, such as not paying travelling time, mean that those who care for our elderly loved ones are not being paid for the vital work that they do. If we want to give careworkers the wage that they deserve, it must be adequately funded. They are some of the most hard-working people, and they deserve to earn at least the minimum wage. Unless the appropriate funding is in place, that simply will not happen.