Tristram Hunt
Main Page: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Hilary Benn
I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that we made changes to the system and that one of the groups that we brought into the new national set-up was, indeed, energy. The Government’s provision does not change how decisions are taken—it adds big commercial applications. We await an answer on whether that will include leisure and retail. The hon. Gentleman needs to consider that carefully.
A number of other clauses give rise to concern and will be scrutinised carefully in Committee. Clause 7 seems to propose to scrap the special protection enjoyed by our national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and to allow telecoms companies to install cabinets and masts wherever they want. First, the Secretary of State told us earlier not to worry and that that applies only to broadband, but could he please point to where in clause 7 it says that that is the case? It does not.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend see the irony, as many Opposition Members do, in the fact that the Government, after a great hue and cry over wind farms last week, are now intent on dismantling the very special place of our national parks in British culture?
Hilary Benn
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why those who care passionately about the national parks are so concerned about the clause.
Secondly, the Secretary of State said that the clause would make no change to the power of planning authorities to object. I draw his attention, however, to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport press notice of 7 September, which says that the Government will legislate to do a number of things, one of which is to ensure that
“broadband street cabinets can be installed in any location other than a SSSI”—
in other words, in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty—
“without the need for prior approval from the local council”.
The notice then goes on to say, in paragraph 5(c), that
“overhead broadband lines can be installed in any area without the need for planning or other permission”.
No wonder there is great confusion and concern about this clause, because it is not clear what the Government’s policy really is. Section 109 of the Communications Act 2003 refers to the use of “electronic communications apparatus”, not “broadband boxes and cabinets”. I listened carefully to the Secretary of State, and he did not give one single example—again, there was no evidence—of the problem specifically in relation to national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. As he should know, the national parks want broadband to be rolled out, but they want it to be done in the right way. I can give him lots of examples of national parks authorities that are taking precisely this approach, but here is just one: in the past five years, North York Moors national parks authority has approved 94% of planning applications and notifications for telecoms equipment. Where is the problem and where is the evidence? In the light of this, I can entirely see why the English National Park Authorities Association and the Campaign for National Parks want the clause removed. The current protection to which the Secretary of State must have regard—conserving the beauty of our national parks and AONBs—cannot be allowed to be undermined by the Government’s desire to look as though they are doing something about growth.
The Secretary of State used to boast that he was protecting village greens, but his proposals will make it much more difficult for people to register them. For instance, there is the positively Kafkaesque proposal that the moment a planning application is published, someone can no longer seek to register a green. Since the first that most people will hear of an application is when it is published, this seems to be a pretty clever way of stopping people exercising their rights, unless they happen to be mind readers. In a very small number of cases there is a problem—that is why we published the consultation paper when we were in government—but this is a heavy-handed, disproportionate and clumsy measure, and we will table amendments in Committee to create a more balanced way forward.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
I want to take us back to the Planning Act 2008. There was a sense that it had an element of a fast-track system in it, but it is instructive to learn that business leaders believe that it has had no effect. We moved on and introduced the Localism Act 2011 and the national planning policy framework to lay the foundation for an improved planning system. These aim to deliver a simpler, faster, less bureaucratic system that is also infinitely fairer. It cannot be right that only those in the know knew what it was they should know. It is right that the system broadened that out so that we can all have a share in the planning system.
The first phase is complete. The Localism Act 2011 is through, and the nation is now busy planning. The national planning policy framework is through, too, and it has laid the foundations for a simpler and quicker system. However, as the Secretary of State has said, there is still much more to do. What is going to happen to the remaining 6,000 pages of guidance, which the committee chaired by the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), is tackling, and how are we going to speed up the system? We must also encourage councils to deliver.
The planning system has failed to deliver the infrastructure that the UK requires. I am not alone in saying that: some 97% of business leaders questioned in a CBI and PricewaterhouseCoopers survey said that the planning system had failed to deliver, and 76% regarded the planning regime as a significant barrier to infrastructure development.
Tristram Hunt
The hon. Gentleman is setting out an interesting narrative. Is he seriously suggesting this Bill was planned before the summer recess?
John Howell
Yes, I am suggesting that parts of this Bill were planned before the recess. Its proposed changes are a natural result of the changes we introduced through the Localism Act and the national planning policy framework, and if the hon. Gentleman looks more carefully, he will see the links between the bits that came before and the bits that are coming now.
The Local Government Association stance that planning is not the problem is fundamentally misleading. It is based on an analysis—I use that term loosely—of 400,000 planning permissions that have been granted, but we are not told whether they are viable or even where they are. We are asked to believe that 400,000 houses have been given planning permissions and are ready to go today as if nothing stood in the way.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson). He and I spent many a happy afternoon on the Joint Committee on House of Lords reform, which was a hugely effective use of our time. The failure to use that time effectively is why we are here today, as the Government try desperately to fill the gaping hole in their legislative agenda.
I would like to begin at the beginning. The Government inherited a difficult economic scenario, then proceeded to make it infinitely worse by slashing capital spending, sucking demand out of the economy and sending us into a double-dip recession. Since then, they have been in catch-up mode, trying desperately to find policies that will get us out of our economic situation. Their first attempt to find a solution involved the national planning policy framework. There was no real evidence base for that proposal, but we none the less spent a happy spring and summer debating it. There was no evidence that relaxing planning permissions would give the kind of economic boost that we needed.
When we looked at the economy of Ireland, which has one of the most liberalised and disastrous planning systems in Europe, at the economy of Spain, with its equally unregulated planning system, and at the economy of Italy, it became clear that the deregulation of planning was not going to provide the economic boost that we were looking for. We went through chaos and U-turns with the national planning policy framework. It was an absurd idea, and we are now told that this legislation is the follow-up to it. I remember sitting through those debates, however, and no Minister at the Dispatch Box ever said, “Hold on, we’re going to come back with the Growth and Infrastructure Bill in the autumn. This is all part of a grand plan, an organic process, a strategy for growth.” No; we had an enjoyable debate on the framework and it was signed off, but there was no hint at that time that we would be back here debating these issues now.
We are back here debating these matters, however, and once again we have heard unpleasant abuse and ridicule being heaped on environmental and civil society groups such as the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England, which have dared to come up with objections to the growth-at-all-costs plans of this Government. The new planning Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), has called members of the National Trust “luddites” for daring to suggest that we should value such things as beauty and planning in our natural environment.
This is a dog’s dinner of a Bill, brilliantly dismantled by the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), in his clinical dismemberment of the provisions before the House. I am pleased to see that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has beside him a copy of the report by Lord Heseltine, “No Stone Unturned”. If he turns to page 2 of that document, he will see a picture of Joseph Chamberlain, complete with an orchid on his jacket. If he turns to the final page, he will see a picture of Manchester town hall. The point of the Heseltine review is that it is a celebration of local government, of regional identity and of local civic pride. Yet, one week later, we are debating this Bill, which is all about the destruction of local democracy and the dismantlement of local action by local people.
Clause 1 is dirigiste and Napoleonic. Above all, it represents a massive U-turn by the Government from their localism agenda. We have only to look back to the passage of the Localism Act 2011, when the former planning Minister, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), said that
“we should move away from a system of planning by development control, where recourse is made to the Planning Inspectorate rather than local decision makers, which is how the future of our communities has been developed. I want fewer appeals to the Planning Inspectorate and more decided locally.”—[Official Report, 17 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 273.]
[Interruption.] It is no wonder, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) says, that that Minister has now gone.
Instead, we are seeing a remarkable U-turn from localism to centralism, which is stripping designated local planning bodies of their capacities. We do not know how the capacities are going to be designated in the case of failing local authorities. When the Secretary of State was asked today for an example of such a local authority, he cited Hackney. We have discovered, however, that when efficiency and the time taken to process planning permissions are taken into account, there can be no suggestion that Hackney would fall into that category. The Secretary of State was making it up as he went along.
The language being used is instructive. It is the language of special measures, similar to that used of schools that the Secretary of State for Education deems to be failing. The same relentless centralism that we are seeing from the Department for Education is now being spread to local government. Any pretence of localism has ended today. There will be an end to pluralism and an end to natural rights, with no right of appeal.
Is the Bill a solution to the problem? We understand that there are problems promoting growth, but is further deregulation of the planning system the answer? I know that this Government are not particularly interested in evidence-based policy making, but the evidence suggests not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chairman of the Select Committee, set out in great detail, 87% of planning applications are approved and 400,000 new dwellings have approval. It is not the lack of planning policy that is preventing their development. More than 90% of applications are decided in 26 weeks. Where, then, is the problem when it comes to planning policy? As we know, the problem is the ability to gain mortgages, the lack of demand in the economy and the lack of confidence in the economy: none of these problems is going to be solved by this kind of reform of the planning system. In fact, we shall see more confusion, more disarray and more delays in the planning system as a result of yet another bout of “initiative-itis” from the Government.
Again, where is the problem with the section 106 agreements? We have heard various curious statistics from the planning Minister, the basis of which he has refused to reveal. Everyone who has something to say about construction and development and the role of 106 agreements says that there is no problem with how these matters are currently dealt with. The provisions in the Bill could slow up development, as developers wait for changes to happen and will not get on with the construction that we all want to see.
Clause 21 deals with the major infrastructure regimes. It will continue the instability and the confusion. Under the clause, businesses and commercial projects of national significance can be taken into the hands of the Planning Inspectorate. However, these will not be subject to national planning policy statements, and we do not know whether retail parks or indeed leisure parks will be included, so all that the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), has tried to do with respect to high street development, the Portas review, city centre development and so forth could be undone at a stroke by what is in the Bill if development law suggests that retail parks assume this national development significance.
Let me deal with clause 7. As you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker, the national parks movement grew out of the inter-war sprawl when our natural environment was under attack. Our green and pleasant land was being ruined by urban sprawl and excessive deregulation. This was the precursor to the development of the green belt and the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, but also to the national parks movement. The Bill begins the dismantling of that very important protection for our great landscapes of Exmoor, Dartmoor, the Lake district and the Peak district. It begins with broadband boxes, but then what? Once the sacrosanct nature of these developments is taken away, we will be on a very slippery slope.
Clause 23, which deals with employee owner shares, provides us with a sense of chaos in that we can go from national parks to employee owner schemes in the same Bill. How can that be any cohesive plan for economic development? As a rule of thumb, we can all agree that policies announced at the Tory party conference are never a particularly good idea. Labour Members adore shared ownership, as it is part of the heritage of mutualism, co-operatives and socialism, but we do not promote it at the expense of the fundamental rights of an employee. If we look at international examples, it does not seem to me that the great success of the German economy over the last 10 years was the result of an attack on employee rights in any shape or form.
This is a wretched little Bill, which should go no further. What is interesting is that it speaks to the current state of the Conservative party. I can trace no influences from the Liberal Democrats. We have heard speeches saying how bad the Bill is, but that they will have to vote for it. The most influential speech this afternoon was expressed, I felt, in the rather elegiac tones of the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), who lamented the loss of his vision of what this Government should be about, as localism and decentralisation died—sacrificed on the altar of a failing economic strategy as centralism took over. With that came an attack on what the Conservative party is meant to be about. What is it that they are “conserving”; what are they interested in looking after in this country? It is another assault on the British cityscape and on the British landscape.
Good planning—not confusion, disarray and hapless deregulation—is essential for sustainable economic growth. If we want growth and infrastructure, we need stability and order in the planning system, not this dog’s dinner of a Bill.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) for the welcome he gave me, if not for drawing attention to the difference in our ages. As a former President said, I was not going to make an issue of his youth and inexperience.
I also thank all those who have contributed to the debate, but before I reply to some of the main points, I remind the House of the purpose of the Bill, which is to support local growth and local jobs by tackling the barriers that hold back investment and growth, and that slow down sustainable long-term development. Through this Bill, six Government Departments come together to make the planning system quicker and more efficient, to accelerate investment in the modern infrastructure that our economy needs—including faster broadband and more energy generation—and to introduce a completely new type of employee ownership.
The Bill has the support of the business community. The British Chambers of Commerce said that it welcomed legislative measures to promote growth and infrastructure and the measures in the Bill to speed up and simplify the planning system. The Confederation of British Industry said:
“This new Bill should give confidence to business that the Government understands the need to fast track important infrastructure projects to boost growth. “
It welcomed the measures aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in the planning system.
I turn to some of the questions that have been put. The shadow Secretary of State asked me for an assurance that any amendment to clause 23 would be brought forward in this House and I am happy to give him that assurance. That is the aim of the timetable that we have set out in the consultation.
We had some notable contributions from Government Members, including from the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert)—it was good to hear from him. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) raised specific questions about the effect of clause 7 on national parks. I am happy to write to both of them with specific reassurance on that point.
Michael Fallon
I will in a moment.
I welcome, too, the support that we have had from my hon. Friends the Members for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), for Henley (John Howell), for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and others. My hon. Friends the Members for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for Waveney (Peter Aldous) raised specific questions about business rates. What I can tell them is that the Valuation Office Agency will be publishing data shortly, which we will collect in the impact assessment, which will be available to the Committee scrutinising that particular provision.
I turn to the principal issues raised by Opposition Members about clause 1. First, they asked where the evidence was of delay. Let me answer that directly. Less than 60% of major planning applications are decided in 13 weeks. Secondly, if Coventry can increase the percentage of all its applications that are determined within 13 weeks from 54% to 98%, and if Surrey Heath can increase its percentage from 42% to 100%, then any council can. Let me be clear: efficient councils have nothing to fear from clause 1.
Only a small minority of councils need to raise their game. Let me reassure the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke): we are not, as she feared, speaking of a massive number of councils. It is a small minority who need to raise their game if we are to ensure their local areas do not lose out in the recovery that is now under way. The Labour party had exactly the same concerns. In its last year in office in 2009-10, it cut the planning delivery grant for 22 local authorities on the grounds of poor performance. It was concerned, just as we are concerned. Applicants do not have to go to the Planning Inspectorate. Clause 1 makes it very clear that they simply have that alternative.
Turning to clause 5, there are, of course, concerns about the amount of affordable housing, and especially about those schemes that are stalled in section 106 negotiations. I need to repeat the point made earlier by the Secretary of State: affordable housing that is stalled for a minimum period of five years is not affordable housing—it is non-existent housing. We already know there are 1,400 sites comprising some 75,000 homes waiting to be unlocked. We accept that some councils are already renegotiating. However, even on the Local Government Association’s figures, 60% of councils are not renegotiating. Some 20% of councils are unwilling to negotiate. If we do not act, each of their schemes must wait for a further five years before appealing to the Secretary of State. For anybody who genuinely wants to see more affordable housing, that is simply unacceptable. If some councils can renegotiate, then all councils can renegotiate, and all councils should renegotiate. The shadow Secretary of State cannot have it both ways. At one point he suggested the measure was unnecessary and would not have any effect. Then he complained that developers would wait for it to take full legislative effect.
Turning to clause 7, I was asked about the definition of electronic communications equipment. The Bill has to be technology-neutral, so this clause could apply to all electronic communications equipment. However, as we have said before, the intention of the Bill is to allow cheaper and quicker deployment of broadband street cabinets and overhead infrastructure, not mobile phone masts. Let me reassure those who have concerns about the possible impact of this provision on our national parks and other protected areas that, under proposals on which we will shortly be consulting, providers will still have to notify local authorities of their plans. They will be encouraged to engage with local authorities and communities as a matter of best practice, and they will have to sign up to a code of practice on the siting of this infrastructure, to ensure that that is handled sensitively.
Michael Fallon
I will give way in a moment.
The right hon. Members for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) and for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) asked about the definition of significant commercial development under clause 21. We will consult on that definition soon, and on whether a new national policy statement should be put in place.
I can understand Labour’s ambiguity on this topic. Since the last election a succession—an entire football team—of former Ministers have admitted that their approach was too top-down: the Leader of the Opposition; his brother; the shadow Chancellor; the shadow Energy Secretary; the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary; the shadow Health Secretary; the shadow Culture Secretary; the right hon. Members for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham); the hon. Members for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck); and, latterly, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). On his first appearance, he said that
“Labour was wrong…to downgrade the role of local government.”
One year on, at the Labour party conference last year, he said, after all, that he supported regional housing targets:
“you’ve got to have that strategic approach…in the regional spatial strategy framework.”
There we have it: they are against a top-down approach but they are back in favour of regional spatial strategies. Of course we will listen in Committee as we debate each—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister of State is not giving way. He gives every indication at this stage of wishing to plough on, and that is his entitlement.
Michael Fallon
Of course we will listen in Committee to the debate on each clause, but the Labour party is going to have to be a lot more persuasive than it has been this afternoon.
Tristram Hunt
Will the Minister return to the points raised by the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) that this wretched little Bill constitutes a total reversal of the localism strategy of the past two years and is a classic case of centralism based on a failed economic strategy?
Michael Fallon
I have already made it absolutely clear that as we have simplified the planning guidance, we are, of course, also responsible, as are local councils, for the efficient delivery of planning applications. I repeat that good, efficient councils have nothing to fear from the Bill.
Let us examine the previous Government’s record: in 13 years, they passed 15 planning Acts; six years after their main planning Act of 2004, fewer than 60 out of 335 planning authorities actually had the core strategies they were supposed to have; and after 13 years of top-down housing targets, they ended up with the lowest number of new homes built in any peacetime year since the 1920s. And who can forget the shambles of the eco-towns? Ten were promised, only three turned out to be viable without public subsidy, amazingly only one was assessed as environmentally friendly and, of course, none of the 10 was actually built. That is Labour in a nutshell: nought out of 10 for delivery. They give the builders of the Potemkin village a good name. So there we have the Labour record: planning authorities with no plans; development agreements commissioned but not actually signed; affordable housing commitments demanded but not actually built; eco-towns promised but none—not one—actually delivered. The Labour party is defending a record of failure and supporting a position of stagnation.