Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Stephen Williams and Andrew Gwynne

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

That is similar to examples that I gave earlier, in which councils were conservative, with a small “c”, in their interpretation of the legislation. The Localism Act makes it clear that if 21 people come forward and say, “This is an asset of community value to us”, the local authority should list it unless the criteria set out in the Act apply. The Act contains nothing about compensation, requirements for business plans, or any of the other matters that campaign groups have brought to my attention. We are reviewing the Act, and I trust that all those concerns will be knocked on the head in due course.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The process described by the Minister seems incredibly convoluted, not least because if a listing application is made, the local authority will decide on the application, and it will then receive planning protections. Why not just give the planning protections in the first place, and allow the local authority to decide, through the planning process, whether or not the pub should be saved for the future?

[Stephen Williams]

Precisely for the reasons just outlined in an intervention from the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who has a very good record of campaigning in this area. A blanket protection for every single public house in the country, which is what the new clause envisages, would protect pubs that for various reasons are no longer enjoying the patronage of the community. In my constituency, lots of pubs have closed, but it is usually because of demographic change. Some parts of my constituency, which had a “white working-class community” 20 or 30 years ago, are now populated primarily by recently arrived Somalis and other people. Obviously the pubs in those areas have closed, and some have been converted to other uses, but some of them are still derelict. Is the hon. Gentleman really saying that in all those circumstances, whatever they might be, full planning permission should be required simply to change the use of a former pub to something that may be of benefit to the community?

The Government are proposing to look at the public houses that are genuinely popular and valued by the community now, giving them the protection that is already allowed under the Localism Act, and further enhancing that protection under the planning laws, saying, “You cannot convert this pub into another use or demolish it without planning permission.” That should address all the worries that people rightly have about the pubs that really are important to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Williams and Andrew Gwynne

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

The national planning policy framework does indeed incentivise local authorities to bring forward brownfield sites first, and the Government want 90% of suitable brownfield land to have permissions in place through local development orders by 2020. With regard to my hon. Friend’s local authority in Kirklees, there are 718 long-term empties for which it charges the council tax premium, raising £387,000. If it worked with the owners to bring those properties back into use, it would get £783,000 in new homes bonus this year, plus £4.7 million over the full six years that the funding is available.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

From the Minister’s response, we might think that everything is perfect in the garden, but the Office for National Statistics has shown that over 1 million homes are still empty. At the same time there are record numbers of people in this country wanting to rent affordable homes. What is he going to do to ensure that local authorities that are not using their powers to bring empty homes back into use now do so in order to end this absolute scandal of homelessness and empty homes in Britain?

[Stephen Williams]

I do not recognise the figure that the hon. Gentleman cites, but I will have a look at it. My information is that in England the overall number of vacant properties has fallen from the 770,000 when we came into office to 635,000 now. I write constantly to local authorities to remind them of the suite of powers available for bringing empty homes back into use, and I have gone on a series of visits across the country to encourage social enterprises, in particular—I have visited Leeds Empties, for example—to work with the community in order to achieve the double benefit of bringing a home back into use and getting some social enterprise spin-off benefit.