Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and David Drew

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered use of permitted development and the nationally significant infrastructure project regime for shale gas exploration and production.

First, may I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this important debate, which I am honoured to lead? I also thank colleagues from all parties who have turned up to contribute, even though we have had a rather long and difficult week.

This debate follows two over-subscribed Westminster Hall debates. Last October, the Government consultations on giving shale gas exploration permitted development rights and classifying sites under the national significant infrastructure regime came to an end. The Government have yet to publish their responses to those consultations and are instead choosing to push the issue into the long grass. The first two Westminster Hall debates on this subject made one thing clear: Parliament has a view and would like to be heard. The proposed measures to give shale gas exploration permitted development rights and to classify sites under the national significant infrastructure regime are a bad idea for many reasons, but I shall focus on two central points.

First, to give fracking companies access to permitted development rights under the mantle of nationally significant infrastructure deprives local communities of a voice. Secondly, and even more fundamentally, fracked fuel is a fossil fuel. To support the new development of any fossil fuel is a travesty, given that the threat of global warming should urge us all to rethink completely how we produce our energy.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has secured this debate and congratulate her on the way she has started it. Does she agree that the context of the Government encouraging fracking is bad enough, but the way in which they have treated renewables, by making them so difficult through the planning process and completely cutting away the subsidy regime, means that renewables are now at a standstill? It is a disgrace.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I could not agree more. We have such a long way to go before we become carbon zero and it is so important. What are the Government doing promoting fracked fossil fuel over renewables? We are living through a global climate crisis.

Services for People with Autism

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and David Drew

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Huw Merriman]

I will take two more brief interventions, and then I will make some progress.

Local Authority Housing

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and David Drew

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Drew]

Of course I want to build more social units. The leader of Stroud District Council—Councillor Steve Lydon, who is a good friend of mine—came to see the shadow Housing Minister and has written to the Prime Minister to ask for help with this particular problem. We are pleased to be a pilot area for business rates retention. That helps with the problem of potentially negative revenue support grants, which affected our ability to do some of the things that we would like to do with housing, but this is a different matter. This is about the housing revenue account and about allowing Stroud the freedom to go on and do what the Government want local authorities to do, which is to provide the answer to the immediate housing problems. This is about having the vision to look back and to look forward.

The last time we genuinely met housing targets was in the 1950s, when that well-known socialist Harold Macmillan was able to prove that public authority housing was the best way to deal with a housing crisis. He was convinced of that, and I am convinced that we can play our part.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good case for his local authority to be able to build more houses, although the circumstances are difficult. Does he agree that we also need to ask the Minister about the 50% of local authorities which, after being encouraged by the Government to sell off their local housing stock to housing associations, no longer have a housing revenue account? What should they do when all their housing stock has been transferred to social housing associations?

[Dr Drew]

I am largely talking about the role of the local authority, and we had that issue, but we defeated large-scale voluntary transfer. That happened the last time I was an MP, and I actually led the campaign against the Conservative council. We won because the tenants decided that it was important that we kept local authority housing not for themselves, but for the generations that follow. I am pleased because we still have the ability to do the things that we need to do both strategically and in reality by building our own houses.

Social Homes for Rent

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and David Drew

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I asked for this Adjournment debate for two reasons: first, because the Minister for Housing and Planning declined to call in a planning decision in my constituency under which 99 social homes for rent will be lost in a big regeneration scheme; and secondly, because in the recent Budget, which was meant to be the housing Budget, the Chancellor did not once mention social homes for rent. The two are linked.

The social housing association that will deliver the regeneration at Foxhill in my constituency is being forced to act like a private developer because no public subsidies have been given and the regeneration must be self-funding. Some 70% of the new homes built on the site will be sold privately, and the remaining 30% will be split between social homes for rent and a shared ownership scheme, which is where it becomes non-transparent. The Government put the two together, yet there is a world of difference between them. Thousands of families will never be able to put down a deposit even for a shared ownership home. All they can afford is a decent home for rent, yet the number of homes built for social rent has fallen dramatically.

Government statistics show that nearly 40,000 social homes for rent were built in 2010-11, and the figure for 2016-17 was just 5,380. In the 2016-17 financial year, 12,383 council homes were sold under the right-to-buy scheme. Year in, year out, the number of social homes for rent is being reduced.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the problems with the way in which the Government currently deal with authorities such as mine in Stroud that actually own the stock is that there is an artificial cap on borrowing and, worse, for every house sold 70% still goes back to the Treasury? That cannot be fair, can it?

[Wera Hobhouse]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The Budget also announced that the cap on local authorities’ housing revenue accounts will finally be lifted, but only in high-demand areas. It has not been clarified how authorities will apply, which makes it difficult for local councils.

People on low incomes, people working on zero-hours contracts and people on universal credit increasingly have nowhere to go except into social housing, which exists as a safety net provided by the state for people who are just about managing.