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Winchester T: 01962 893 893 F: 01962 893 883
London T: 020 7812 6490 F: 020 7812 6677
info@remarkable-engagement.co.uk
Find out more about Localism visit localism-agenda.com
Budget debate (day three)
Day three of the budget debate saw the House of Commons discussing the specific provisions from the budget that related to planning. Interestingly, although planning featured heavily in the opening by Eric Pickles and Caroline Flint's response, it featured little in the main debate.
Eric Pickles (Con)
Opening the debate, Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) praised the Government for setting aside £3billion to support councils with a freeze on spending.
Mr Pickles criticised Labour's opposition to the council-tax freeze that many local authorities are implementing, and cited examples of Labour-controlled councils that had taken up the offer.
Mr Pickles criticised Labour's stance on cuts, arguing that "Labour's spending plans would have made bigger cuts to housing, regeneration and local government".
He went on: "Communities and Local Government was the unprotected department under Labour's plans. Unprotected departments would have received a larger average real-terms cut over four years under Labour than they are under the coalition's deficit reduction plans over the spending period."
Mr Pickles said that every department had a role to play in the growth agenda, and central to that was the DCLG, as "one of the most deregulating departments in Whitehall". He even stated (were it not for cost) that he would like to rename his department the Department for Communities, Growth and Local Government.
He did not feel that the Budget contradicted the Localism Bill: "Over the course of the past 10 months we have... scrapped the Whitehall density targets for housing, which encouraged garden grabbing and a glut of flats... Today, we are going further still to create the conditions for growth."
David Wright (Lab) said that several new towns still had pockets of land that were controlled by the Government, and asked whether these might be released to Local Enterprise Partnerships if they came up with a scheme to promote growth. Mr Pickles said that the Government's intention was "to release an awful lot of Government land".
Mr Pickles emphasised the importance of house building for the wider economy:
"Every new home supports four jobs in house building and two more in related industries. The availability of new homes helps people move around the country for work. Getting the housing industry moving again is key to restoring growth. Under the new Government, house building stats are up 23% and construction orders for new private housing are up 50% compared with Labour's last year. But we need to go much further. There are about 200,000 granted planning permissions out there in the country, but the homes are not being built."
Mr Pickles said that the answer to this was not targets, but to look at the root causes:
Mr Pickles went on to say that for too long "the planning system has been a source of friction between councils, communities and businesses", and that this is what needed reforming. He said:
"At the heart of our approach to planning is a presumption in favour of sustainable development. We need a system that consistently and predictably says yes to the right kinds of development. We will consult on plans to streamline the information required to support planning applications. We will introduce a planning guarantee so that no planning application will spend more than 12 months with decision makers, when a timely appeal is made. We will consult on proposals to bring empty commercial buildings back into use as residential properties. Let us cut the red tape and make it easier to turn run-down old eyesores into much-needed new housing. At the same time, we will maintain protection for the environment, including by safeguarding the green belt, which was under threat from Labour's regional plans."
Clive Betts (Lab) asked about the policy that would mean there would be a presumption in favour of an application in a local authority where there was no up-to-date development plan. He asked whether it would mean that a developer would have less chance of getting approval in an area with such a plan: "In other words, will there be a two-tier and differential planning system in this country, which we have never had?"
Mr Pickles said that all local plans would have to reflect the presumption [presumably referring to the presumption for sustainable development]. He said that "if a plan is ambiguous or out of date, that presumption [in favour of development] will take effect, but there might be an existing plan that conforms to the presumption in favour of sustainable development." He quipped that "members will now understand why planning is such fun".
Mr Pickles reiterated that the Labour system has created the lowest new build figures since 1924: "The Labour party rails against the system and the machine, ups its targets and achieves absolutely nothing. That is what central control brought us - growth constraint, innovations stifled and an economy needlessly held back."
Caroline Flint (Lab)
Caroline Flint led the Labour response, as the shadow Secretary of State for the DCLG.
She criticised the Budget and the more general cuts that the coalition Government had made, and said that it was a direct result of these policies that the Office for Budget Responsibility had downgraded its growth forecast.
She said that Labour would agree that the planning system "is crucial for growth, because it supports economic development, helps to create jobs and contributes to our prosperity as a nation".
She criticised the reforms to date, saying that that "following the Government's chaotic and botched reforms to the planning system, there has been a dramatic fall in the number of planning permissions for new homes, which are now at a near-record low... In the first quarter of 2010, before the election, more than 40,000 planning permissions were granted to developers for new homes, but by the third quarter, after the election, that had fallen to just 30,000."
She then stated:
"The Chancellor sought to address that last week, but I am afraid that in doing so, he sounded the death knell of localism. I offer my condolences to the Communities and Local Government Secretary for the demise of localism, because after months of the Government pledging people power to the people - neighbourhood plans, communities in the driving seat and so on - the Chancellor blew localism out of the water in a single sentence. He said that:
'... from today, we will expect all bodies involved in planning... to prioritise growth and jobs, and we will introduce a new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is yes.'"
Ms Flint said: "While the Secretary of State trumpets devolving power to local people and promises to give them a real say in the development of their area, the Chancellor wants to make it easier for developers to bypass the planning system altogether. They cannot both be right, which reinforces the confusion that has paralysed the planning system in the past 10 months."
Ms Flint said that the policies announced in the Budget, including abolishing any obligation to develop brownfield sites, meant that, by definition, more greenfield sites would be developed: "I do not hear any cheers from Government benches for that one."
She said that added to that "chaos in the planning system" were the 200,000 new homes that plans have been dropped for.
On the New Homes Bonus, Ms Flint said that "no one is convinced that [it] is the pancea to the housing crisis that the Government believe it to be".
Debate
In the main debate, Annette Brooke (Lib Dem), commenting on the proposal to allow conversions from commercial to residential, said: "...I can see instances where it would be beneficial and others where it would be detrimental. The overriding question for me is how this fits with localism, local decision making and indeed the proposed neighbourhood plans."
She also questioned that presumption in favour of sustainable development, asking: "...I welcome the removal of nationally imposed targets, but with this presumption, can valuable green spaces, which are not green belt, be protected with a neighbourhood plan?"
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