National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Marcus Jones

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison). I associate myself strongly with his comments about the protection of specific areas of green belt, as well as those about green spaces. As ever, Her Majesty’s Opposition are here to help the Government get out of a hole, and it is a hole of their own making. The production of the draft national planning policy framework has been a disastrous process, and I very much hope that we will begin to see some sense from Ministers as they respond to the consultation. In fact, I think that we are beginning to see that now. It is a great pleasure to hear that they have dropped the rather abusive and unconstructive tone that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) mentioned. Talk of smear campaigns by left-wingers and “nihilistic selfishness” on the part of organisations such as the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Campaign to Protect Rural England does little to elevate the debate or enable us to think creatively about planning in this country.

The point of today’s debate is this: the national planning policy framework as drafted threatens to undermine the very successful urban renaissance of recent years. I know that we now have a “Cities Minister” from Tunbridge Wells—that great conurbation—but even the Tory party’s recent conference in Manchester should have allowed it to see the great success of Labour’s “brownfield first” densification strategy of recent years. All of that could be undone by the current document because, as we have seen, it allows a series of get-out clauses for expansive free-for-all development, which will inevitably mean greenfield, if not green-belt, development. As the Home Builders Federation puts it, the NPPF allows a new presumption

“that requires local planning authorities to explain why development should not go ahead rather than placing this onus on the applicant of convincing the authority as to why it should be approved.”

The HBF regards this as

“a radical change of approach”.

In one sense, this should not come as a surprise, as a little history will show, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you will allow me. When we look back through the 20th century, we discover that the Conservative party in office is very rarely a friend of the countryside. In the inter-war years, we saw the remarkable expansion of ribbon development, laissez-faire sprawl and unregulated suburbanisation. England was uglified as the Tories, as usual, gave the whip hand to developers, who quickly sought to merge town and country.

Thankfully, the forces of progress intervened when, in 1926, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England was established. Then the great Herbert Morrison introduced the green belt around London and we thankfully had a Labour Government who introduced the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, the national land fund, the national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and the rolling out of the green belt—the securing of our post-war planning settlement, which separated rural from urban, town from country, which is now under threat by this new policy.

What I have described has made England what it is. Whereas the Conservative party cannot bear the idea of planning and would rather have the anywhere/nowhere sprawl of modern America—or, increasingly, of Italy and Spain—we Labour Members believe in preservation, zoning, development and planning. This is not nimbyism, but a sophisticated approach to how we should deal with planning issues. This is particularly the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) suggested, when we come to complicated matters of climate change and recycling.

Of course, when the Tories came back in the 1980s, they sought to undermine all that all over again. Once again we had the deregulation of planning, out-of-town shopping complexes and sprawl—the result of laissez-faire deregulation. In 1997, the tide turned again—thanks in part to my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford)—as we sought to undo the damage. Not only did my right hon. Friend sanction another national park—opposed by the Conservatives—and conserve the green belt, but the percentage of new dwellings built on brownfield land rose from 56% in 1997 to 78% in 2010. The results are there to see in our cities. In 1990, there were barely a few hundred people living in the centre of Manchester; today, there are more than 20,000. In Liverpool, the inner-urban population increased as well.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

The hon. Gentleman extols the virtues of the “town centre first” policy. I know that he is a well-known historian, but history tells me that that policy was adopted by the previous Conservative Government, not the Labour Government.

[Tristram Hunt]

We were so happy when the former Secretary of State, the former Member for Suffolk Coastal, John Gummer, saw the light. I agreed not only with his “town centre first” plans, but with his plans for the regeneration of major stately home building, although that does not make me popular on the Labour Benches. Now, however, the “brownfield first” plan is gone; planning permission is to be granted where the plan is absent, silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date. That means developers can build where and when they like. What makes the English landscape so special—that rural/urban divide and the post-war planning settlement—threatens to be undermined. It is threatened because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central said, there is no economic growth. The Government’s growth strategy has collapsed, and they think that ripping up the planning process will solve the problem.