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1.13 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) on the cogent way in which he has dealt with a difficult subject, and on the timing of his debate. The decisions that the Secretary of State will make on housing projections--how many houses will be built between now and 2016--in Gloucestershire will affect all the constituencies there, but particularly my hon. Friend's constituency, and my own constituency, approximately 85 per cent. of which is designated, in one way or another, for planning purposes, and which has the highest percentage of housing stock designated as listed buildings.
In a very short speech, my real message to the Minister is that we must get the numbers right. My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury should be congratulated on the work that he has done to try to ensure that the number of new houses is set at 50,000 and no more, as that would be the appropriate number if the national average were followed. As a result of the examination in public,
the inspector decided that Gloucestershire should have a higher number of new houses, at 1.03 per cent., than the national average, which is set at 1.01 per cent.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury, I am very keen to prevent excessive building in rural areas. The manifesto of each of the three parties states that each party wishes to protect the environment. I believe that the sensible place to build houses is near to people's work, as doing so would avoid excessive use of motor cars, with all the environmental benefits that that brings. Some of the rural areas designated for new houses by Gloucestershire county council, after the Government's imposition of an excessive number of houses, are totally inappropriate for large-scale new settlements.
In the previous Parliament, the Minister and I both served on the Environment Select Committee. Therefore, he will know as well as I do that we are not using existing housing stock as well as we should, and that much of the housing survey shows that our existing housing stock could be better maintained. The proposal on VAT made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury is worth considering.
I also agree with my hon. Friend that we should do more to encourage people to live above shops. In many of our towns and cities, whole streets have hardly anyone living above shops. More should be done to ensure security of tenure, and council tax should be used to encourage larger shop owners and retail chains to persuade people to live above shops.
I agree with my hon. Friend also that we should not unnecessarily cover in houses our precious rural areas, particularly the green belt. Once those areas have been covered with houses, there will be no turning back. We should adopt a regional realism in housing policy. Why should Gloucestershire have to build houses in numbers above the national average? Why should it have to build above the south-western regional average? Why should those houses be imposed on Gloucestershire?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) on securing this debate, on a subject to which I know that he attaches great importance. The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) has also contributed to the debate. I tell him that, if he wants to pursue the matter in the same non-partisan spirit as that shown by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, it is not terribly helpful to suggest that the Government are imposing figures on Gloucestershire, and that the previous Government did not do so. The reality is that the figures being debated were developed using a system that operated under the previous Government and have been inherited by the current Government. We are seeking to change the procedures, as I shall describe shortly. However, it is a travesty to pretend that the Government are trying impose something that the previous Government were not.
I tell the hon. Member for Tewkesbury that household growth is a difficult issue facing society. Some people would like to believe that such growth can be wished away and that no new houses have to be built. However, I think that he realises that that is not realistic. He is concerned with provision of people's housing needs, and appreciates that it is important that society should try to provide appropriately, although in a manner that does not damage the countryside. We have to consider estimates of prospective need for housing and to try to do the best that we can--recognising that household projections cannot be an absolutely accurate science, but that it is necessary to make the best possible estimates.
It may be useful to the House if I start by explaining how household projections are arrived at, and how they are translated into development plans. As the hon. Member for Tewkesbury will be aware, in announcing recently the latest household projection figures, the Secretary of State recognised that household growth may be slowing. In particular, the projections show that the number of new households projected to form in England over the 25 years between 1996 and 2021 is about 3.8 million, compared with the 4.4 million projected for the previous 25-year period, which will end in 2016.
The 3.8 million figure is derived principally by projecting previous patterns of population change and household formation, and should not be seen as a forecast or estimate. It is based entirely on what might be expected to occur if previous trends continue. It is heavily dependent on the assumptions. As the hon. Member for Tewkesbury pointed out, and as the Government are stressing, trends can and do change.
The suggestion from the latest figures is that the pace of household growth may be slowing down. Part of the underlying reason for that is that recent evidence has shown that cohabitation is increasing at a faster rate than expected, and there are also a smaller proportion of women who are widows or divorcees.
We must not think only in terms of numbers. We are keen to focus the debate on how we should plan for future homes in a sustainable way. The consultation paper, "Planning for the Communities of the Future"--which we published last year--set out the results of our analysis of the system that we inherited from the previous Administration for calculating and providing for the country's housing needs. The paper set out our strategy for promoting more sustainable patterns of development and encouraging urban renewal.
We are also seeking to ensure that, where development is needed outside, or adjacent to, urban areas, that must be sustainable and must be combined with an active approach towards the protection of the countryside. Those proposals represent a sustainable and comprehensive approach to meeting housing needs in the country well into the new millennium. They differ from the previous approach in that there is no longer adherence to the principle of "predict and provide". We are seeking to implement a principle of "plan, monitor and manage", recognising the need for planning and the need to monitor actual trends and to vary the arrangements according to experience.
We have also changed our approach to establishing the housing numbers by region. Our new draft planning policy guidance 11 on regional planning, which sets out our proposals for improving the preparation and content
of regional planning guidance, represents an important step in modernising the planning system and reflects our commitment to decentralised decision taking.
The new arrangements give greater responsibility to local authorities, through regional planning conferences, in preparing regional planning strategies, and should mean increased regional ownership of the policies and increased commitment to their delivery. Instead of the Government, the regional planning body will be responsible for preparing the draft regional strategy, including proposing the amount of additional housing needed in the plan period.
We have also recently announced household projections for each of the Government offices of the regions, and, again, those should not be regarded as forecasts or predictions. Other factors should equally be taken into account so that regional planning bodies should, against the background of need and capacity, take a realistic and responsible approach to planning future housing provision.
Of course we realise that similar information at sub-regional level will be useful as background for the regional planning process and the preparation of regional planning guidance, so we will be writing to the regional planning bodies to make relevant information available in a form consistent with that published as part of the last set of household projections in 1995. It takes longer to develop the figures sub-regionally, which is why they have not yet been published. As soon as we are satisfied that the figures are as accurate and appropriate as possible, we will publish them.
The new arrangements provide a more open and inclusive process for determining planning issues at the regional level. The new strategies, including the new housing figures, will be tested at public examinations by independent panels whose reports will be made public. The new procedure has been piloted in East Anglia, where a public examination was completed last month. The south-west regional planning guidance is still at draft stage, and is due for public examination early next year.
One of the key tasks of new-style regional planning guidance will be to provide guidance on the overall level of housing and its distribution within the region, making full use of previously developed land. In assessing the housing provision required for the 15 to 20-year period covered by the strategy, we expect the regional planning body to work with other regional stakeholders to establish the level of housing likely to be required to meet the region's housing needs.
In making the assessment, the Government's latest published household projections should be taken into account. Equally, urban capacity studies should be undertaken to explore the implications of changing policies and standards which would reduce the land take of new development while securing attractive residential environments. Against that background of need and capacity, the regional planning body should be able to take a realistic and responsible approach to future housing provision. It must be prepared to justify its views fully in public at the examination of the draft regional planning guidance. The structure plan and unitary development plan authorities will, of course, be party to the process.
Once the housing requirement has been established and confirmed by the Secretary of State, following the public examination, the presumption is that structure plans and
unitary plans should then focus on the broad distribution and the location of growth. It is the essence of the plan, monitor and manage approach that both the assessment of housing requirements and the distribution within the region should be kept under review. If there are signs of under-provision or over-provision, we expect both the regional planning guidance and development plans to be reviewed accordingly. We need to work together to ensure that the new approach is developed in as constructive a context as possible.
I shall deal now with the housing figures in the review of the Gloucestershire structure plan. Regional planning guidance figures were agreed by the authorities in the region in 1994. They showed that 53,000 extra homes were needed in the county between 1991 and 2011, based on 1989-based household projections. In reviewing the structure plan, the county council took a figure of 50,000 extra homes as its starting point. Of this total, about 9,100 were allocated to Tewkesbury.
The plan was subject to public scrutiny at an examination in public in September 1998. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury said that this was held by a Government inspector. I should stress that those holding the examination form an independent panel. They are drawn from the Government inspectorate, but they report to the county council. Their role is to assess the evidence submitted by all who contribute to the examination in public.
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