Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work
Debate between Theresa Villiers and Rosie Winterton(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Two goals—economic recovery from covid and levelling up opportunity in every part of our country—are at the heart of this bold and ambitious Queen’s Speech. There are proposals to give millions of people the skills they need to make a success of their lives, proposals to upgrade our infrastructure, particularly 5G and faster broadband, proposals to create green jobs in the industries of the future and proposals to lead the world in life science and new medicines. All these will help to deliver progress on those two crucial goals.
I warmly welcome the return of the Environment Bill, with its ambitious framework to set rigorous new targets on matters such as protecting nature and improving air quality, and I am pleased to see action to bring an end to the live export of animals for slaughter or fattening, which is something I have campaigned against for nearly two decades. My time as Environment Secretary gave me some insight into the legal complexities of the issues around live exports, so I will be scrutinising the Bill carefully to ensure it does everything possible to bring an end to that cruel trade.
I sound a note of caution on one aspect of the Gracious Speech: planning reform. In December last year, more than 2,000 local councillors signed an open letter against key proposals in the “Planning for the future” White Paper. The White Paper would see England divided into growth, renewal and protected zones. Local democratic input into planning decisions would be removed altogether in areas designated for growth. That means there would be many thousands of developments over which local people would have no say at all. There would be no planning application to which to object, so the big campaigns led by residents, with which we are all so familiar, would become a matter of history.
The White Paper’s proposed substitute for the planning process in such growth zones is greater community input into the local plan, but that is just not an adequate replacement. It will require people to anticipate, potentially years in advance, proposals that might conceivably affect them in the future. Moreover, a drastic reduction is envisaged in the time allowed to complete a local plan, inevitably meaning less input from the public, not more.
Even in areas where planning applications would still be necessary, the White Paper proposes that, under the guise of simplifying and speeding up the process of creating a local plan, general development management policies should be set nationally. Deployed at local level, those policies currently perform a vital role in preventing overdevelopment. Removing this tool from planning committees and subjecting the whole of England to a one-size-fits-all model, imposed centrally, could give the green light to many high-density building proposals previously blocked by locally elected councillors.
In the weeks ahead, as Ministers—including, no doubt, the Chancellor—take final decisions on the planning Bill, I urge them to drop those aspects of the White Paper that reduce democratic involvement in the planning system. It is not too late to come up with planning reforms that help us to deliver the homes we need but do so with the consent and support of local communities, not by imposition against their will. I urge Ministers to do that, and I look forward to working with them on this important goal.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Speakers Nos. 6 and 7 have withdrawn, so I call David Davis.
UK-US Trade Deal
Debate between Theresa Villiers and Rosie Winterton(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I intend to run this statement until about quarter past 6. I urge short questions and short replies. Anybody who was not here at the beginning should not be standing. I will prioritise people who did not get called during the previous urgent questions.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Is the Secretary of State able to promise that the Government will not remove current restrictions or tariffs on food imports unless those imports are produced to standards of animal welfare as tough as the ones that we expect our own farmers to meet?
The Climate Emergency
Debate between Theresa Villiers and Rosie Winterton(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before the Secretary of State comes back in, let me say that there is a lot of pressure on time this afternoon, so I urge hon. Members to make short interventions.
Theresa Villiers
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He correctly points out that the NFU has suggested going further and faster in meeting the net zero target in relation to farming, and I very much welcome that ambition, which is in tune with the reforms to farm support that I will come to in a moment.