Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend, who no doubt will have noted the statement we laid before the House last week. I appreciate that planning for Traveller sites can be contentious and raises a number of complex issues, so I am happy to visit him in Kettering to see them at first hand.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Gordon Marsden. Not here.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

22. What assessment he has made of the availability of one-bedroom homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

T6. My constituents welcome the scrapping of the last Government’s guidance—

[Mr Speaker]

I don’t know why the hon. Gentleman has resumed his seat. I was merely looking at him and listening attentively, as always.

[Robert Halfon]

Anything to catch your eye, Mr Speaker. My constituents welcome the scrapping of the last Government’s guidance on diversity and equality in planning, but many residents in places such as Nazeing are concerned that Travellers can apply for retrospective planning permission. Will my hon. Friend come to my constituency, meet with local residents and reassure my residents who feel the planning system is biased against them when it comes to Travellers?

[Mr Speaker]

I should just say to the Secretary of State that I thought the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) was the man in the mustard suit, but the Clerk, who is the fount of all wisdom, advises me that its colour is tangerine.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

T9. Despite the Government’s rhetoric on early intervention, Sunderland council’s early intervention grant is 47% lower than it was in 2010, while the Secretary of State’s council in Essex has had a cut of just 36%. Can the Secretary of State tell us by how much more the Government will cut Sure Start and other early intervention programmes over the next two years, and whether these disparities in cuts will be reversed or entrenched?