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8.3 pm
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro and St. Austell): There are good reasons for tonight's debate. At present rates of development, one fifth of England will be urban by 2050, with a green-field area the size of Bristol being built on every year. However, so far, most of what we have heard tonight has been a party political battle. It would help us to remember that the Conservative Government set the 4.4 million predict-and-provide target. Equally, the Labour Government have so far failed to get us out of it. That is why we have suggested that the Conservative motion might merely be amended to refer to the party's record as part of the problem. The Minister has more accurately represented some of the real difficulties that the Government face than did anything that we heard from the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns).
The figure of 4.4 million new homes by 2016 was the product of a Conservative Government who allowed huge green-field and out-of-town developments to take place, often after overturning local council objections. Too late, that Government recognised the problem. The Minister neglected to mention that the proportion of development on brown-field sites was rising towards the end of the Conservative Administration, but they were shutting the stable door long after the horse had bolted. Many developments, particularly out-of-town stores around the country, are all too physical evidence of that.
The Deputy Prime Minister vowed this time last year to break the mould of predict and provide. Those were fine words, but action has been slower in coming. It has certainly been slower than everyone wants, and slower than it should have been. Reports suggest that the Government are considering an increase to the original new homes figure.
In The Guardian on 14 January, Lord Rogers, who chairs Labour's urban task force, suggested that the 4.4 million could rise to 5 million based on new population projections that show higher-than-expected increases in the south and in East Anglia. Other newspaper reports have suggested much the same. The Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning went on record in an interview for Country Life in June 1998 to confirm that he--and, presumably, his Department--believes that the current estimates for required new housing are too low. He said:
Mr. Grieve:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with two things? First, times have changed. Over the past decade, perceptions of what is acceptable development have altered, on a European basis. Secondly, the Government have come up with the notion of sustainable development as the centre of their policy, and the figures advanced for the amount of housing required do not fall within the category of sustainable.
Mr. Taylor:
It was not the Labour Government who invented the term sustainable development, but they have certainly said that they will implement the idea. I welcome that. There are questions about the figures, and I have raised my own concern. There are even bigger questions of whether policies are in place to achieve sustainable development, about where development goes and about how it evolves.
The debate on "Planning for the Communities of the Future" took place almost a year ago. So far, however, the Government's strong rhetoric has not been matched by strong action. The real failure contained in Labour's amendment to the motion is their failure to recognise that action has not been taken. As Tony Burton, assistant director of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, said in The Times at the end of January:
How far have Ministers succeeded in preparing regional planning guidance that will allow local authorities to review their development plans quickly? Labour is still passing the buck. The Government claim to be decentralising planning control, but they are continuing with business as usual. In Hampshire, the Government pressed the authorities involved in the Hampshire structure plan to increase planned housing provision for 2001 to 2011 from 44,000 to 56,000, in line with regional planning guidance. That is an old decision, based on old policy.
The Deputy Prime Minister himself has forced Devon to accept house-building targets that will reduce large areas of the county to urban sprawl. Countryside near Broad Clyst, the National Trust village near Exeter, and in South Hams, between Dartmoor and the sea, will be desecrated by thousands of new homes.
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions issued a statement on 1 April 1998 outlining the implications of the White Paper, "Planning for the
Communities of the Future", for the development plans and regional planning guidance currently under review. The statement on transitional arrangements straightforwardly, and rightly, admits that the full implications of the White Paper cannot be felt until RPG and structure and local plans have been reviewed around the country. None of the good words can possibly turn into action for years to come.
Without the right planning rules and financial incentives, the good words may make little difference in the long run. There is a need to move forward. If the Government believe all that they have said about protecting the countryside, and that their new approach will make a real difference, it is time that they put in place mechanisms to allow councils to take decisions on the new basis instead of on the policies for which the Government have rightly criticised their predecessor.
The White Paper also contained a statement on green-belt land, with which it is difficult to disagree. It said:
However, the principle of green belt is that, once allocated, it provides protection on which people can rely. If new green-belt land is allocated, that is a bonus, but we are not talking about a mathematical equation. It is not all right to add land here at the expense of land developed elsewhere. The green belt is intended to provide genuine protection for the countryside around developed areas, preventing urban sprawl, not to be altered at will.
If the Government genuinely believe that much green belt was wrongly allocated in the first place, it is far better to review the matter as a whole and consider it independently, by means of a commission, an inquiry or whatever, than to take ad hoc decisions, tearing up protection and justifying that by additions elsewhere.
We have seen that happen in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where the unitary development plan proposes the development of 2,500 executive houses and a business park on 480 hectares. Earlier, reference was made to the 2.5 square miles of green belt west of Stevenage in Hertfordshire which was released last year for 10,000 houses. The Minister is right to criticise the previous Government's record on release of green belt. Clearly, the previous Government was at least as culpable and arguably rather more so. Nevertheless, that is the biggest single release of green-belt land ever and does not appear to match up to Labour's rhetoric.
Nothing can be guaranteed altogether, and these are difficult issues, but development should be exceptional, certainly not large scale and commonplace, as it was under the previous Government and still is now.
In June 1998, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the Government's policy has added an additional 30,000 hectares of land to the United Kingdom's green belt. Adding new land to the green belt is easy. Any Minister can do that simply with a stroke of a pen. It is resisting its future development that is the issue, and, on that, the Government are failing in their own terms.
Green-field and green-belt sites are still being developed as before, local councils are still being encouraged to build more homes than they think
they need, and Labour is still umming and ahhing about whether the figure of 4.4 million new homes stays, increases or is dropped altogether.
The Liberal Democrats believe that there is a straightforward package of measures that the Government should adopt to stop unnecessary development in the countryside and revitalise our towns and cities. The two go hand in hand and the Minister was right to say so.
The revision of PPG3 could and should have been completed earlier. That would have provided a clear sign in national planning guidance of the change in approach, and would have immediate effect by now. The Government are in favour of that change, and that is welcome, but it is still unpublished, even in draft, and the final version is probably 12 months away.
We advocated a stop to controversial major new development plans and approvals until the new PPG3 is published. That would ensure that the Government's plan, monitor and manage strategy became a reality within months, not years, but it has not happened.
In the White Paper "Planning for the Communities of the Future", the proposed new regional planning system leaves the DETR to produce the projections and the regional planning conferences to produce the guidance, but the Secretary of State has the final say as to whether the figures are acceptable. We are not really moving from predict and provide; the Government are simply disguising their own role. That allows the Government to pass the buck under the guise of regional decision making, but to have the final say if they do not agree with the plans--a factor that will rest heavily on the shoulders of those given that responsibility at regional level.
In the same document, the Government aim to raise the proportion of new homes built on previously developed land from 50 to 60 per cent., but state that a national target may not be meaningful at regional or local levels. Perhaps so, but how will the Government co-ordinate the regional targets in order to ensure that they all add up to the desired 60 per cent. nationally, or is it a target for which the Government will not accept responsibility, arguing that, unfortunately, decisions were taken at a local level that they did not want, but they did not intervene because they were decentralist?
Changing planning policy is part of the way to achieve that, but we need to recognise that financial and social pressures are also involved. The Minister asked for the Liberal Democrats' suggestions. I agree with what the Government are arguing for, but I am pointing out that they have not done it and, until they do so, they cannot deliver. Changing planning policy is only part of the solution, and I want to deal with a couple of fundamental points before I finish. At the moment, it is far cheaper and less risky, and so more profitable, to develop green-field sites.
"The figure of five million is entirely speculative but it will be in excess of 4.4 million."
Yet, in his statement on 23 February 1998, the Deputy Prime Minister promised to abandon predict and provide, and to protect our green fields, saying:
"It is our firm policy to protect our countryside and revitalise our towns and cities".--[Official Report, 23 February 1998; Vol. 307, c. 22.]
The Liberal Democrats welcomed the emphasis placed by the Deputy Prime Minister on the need for an urban renaissance for the benefit of both town and country, and
on a higher target for housing on previously developed land. We welcome the move away from predict and provide, a move for which we have long campaigned. However, the Government seem still to be confused about whether they really mean what they said.
"We are living in a policy vacuum. While Prescott talks about urban renaissance and the best use of recycled land, green fields are being built on."
No new planning policy guidances have been issued. We are told that the new draft PPG on housing will be published soon, but it has not been produced yet and it has taken too long. Without scrapping existing planning guidelines and starting over, little can change. Meanwhile, applications are still dealt with on the old predict- and-provide basis and on old structure plans based on premises in place under the previous Government. Those plans will remain in place for many years to come unless the Government come up with a fast scheme to revise them.
"There might exceptionally be benefits in releasing for development indifferent Green Belt Land, if that means protecting better quality land elsewhere".
The Minister highlighted the dilemmas there, and he was right to do so.
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