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10.23 am
Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester): I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) on securing this important debate. When the news of the Crow report was released in Hampshire, there was genuine shock and concern among my
constituents and constituencies across the entire Hampshire region. It was one of the few times since I became a Member of Parliament that my telephone began to ring quickly after an announcement. It is because of that shock and concern that I am disappointed with the quality of the debate last night and this morning. We appear to be listening to a history lesson on party politics about who said what and how much greenbelt or brownbelt land has been built on. Some speeches have tried to blame a certain party for this development.
I can say categorically that my constituents and others in the south-east do not want this to be turned into a cheap party political issue. They want to see a way forward to solve some of the difficulties that we all face in our areas as Members of Parliament.
Mr. Rapson:
I want to thank the Gentleman because, when this issue broke, he was the first person to contact me. I appreciated that because he wanted to talk constructively about the way ahead. The hon. Gentleman is trying to keep this out of the political arena and work constructively.
Mr. Oaten:
Hon. Members may laugh, but, among Hampshire Members, there has been cross-party support, Tory and Labour. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Rapson) has responded to a letter from me to take part in this debate. I appreciate the fact that, across Hampshire, we have managed to keep politics out of this issue. That must be the way forward if we are to serve our constituents properly.
Hampshire Members are concerned that, over a couple of years, Hampshire has gone through a process of battling with the difficult figures that have been imposed on us. We have just agreed on a figure of 56,000 homes for the Hampshire area. That took considerable manipulation of public opinion. It was difficult to persuade people that that figure could be accepted--most of the community were, like me, against it. Therefore, one can imagine the horror when, having agreed on 56,000, we are told one week later that the figure for Hampshire should be 169,000, making it the highest figure of all the south-east counties.
Mr. Love:
Does the hon. Gentleman reject the collective nimbyism of the Conservative party? If so, does he accept, as the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs does, the robustness of the figures showing the need for additional housing over the next 20 years? Does he also accept that if we do not build that housing, people will go without?
Mr. Oaten:
People need housing in the south-east and I do not take a nimby approach, but I am concerned about the public's confusion.
We hear some encouraging noises from the Government. We hear that they do not want to build on greenfield land, that they want to protect the countryside, reduce traffic growth, encourage bottom-up planning and address the difference of the balance of growth between the regions. They also want to try to end the policy of predict and provide. The public hear those announcements and are encouraged, but the report from Professor Crow contradicts all that. It is no wonder that the public feel confused and let down by their politicians.
The Government's response to the report presents the Deputy Prime Minister with the first opportunity to demonstrate that he means some of the rhetoric. I hope that, when the Government respond--perhaps the Minister will do so this morning--they will show that the language that they have used will be matched by their response to the document.
The biggest area in which the Crow report is out of sync with moving Government opinion is on the whole issue of predict and provide. We know that predict and provide is a hit-and-miss approach to housing. We know that if the figures are wrong and there is building on greenfield land, it can no longer go back to being greenfield land. It is a dangerous approach, which we reject. However, some individuals argue that such housing would be a good thing for the south-east. We are seeing the development of some organisations that are arguing that the south-east should be the powerhouse of Europe, that it should be in the top 10 regions of Europe and that we should be moving forward and making it dynamic region.
I do not want the south-east to be one of the top 10 regions in Europe if the price for that is ruining our countryside, clogging up our roads even more and making our schools too full. That is not the approach we want. Of course we want economic advantages in the south-east, but quality of life is a much more important principle than some of the economic gains. If the price of that is building new houses, I reject that approach.
We should also be looking at a balance of economic gain among the regions. Pushing the south-east forward in the way that is being suggested by some of the housing figures and documents I have read is not the right way forward. We need to balance the north-south divide. I am sure that hon. Members who represent seats in the midlands and the north would welcome some urban regeneration and progress in their areas.
Even if we believed that we needed these housing numbers in the future, in reality, what we would get would not meet demand. In the future, we will need more homes for single and elderly people. A great deal of demographic evidence suggests that that is correct. The Crow report is a green light to developers to build four and five-bedroom executive homes on greenfield sites with no infrastructure next to them. That is not where our new homes and our future population need to be.
In the Whiteley area of my constituency, I have seen what can go wrong when greenfield sites are suddenly covered with such executive homes. There is a development of nice homes in Whiteley, but no community. There are no postboxes or telephone boxes, no bus routes through the development and no community centre. The local schools cannot take the children who live in that development, and there is pressure on the GPs in the area. There is disquiet about traffic problems, because there is chaos day in, day out from traffic trying to get into the area. Those problems were caused because the planning was ill thought through. Homes are built on green fields without the infrastructure being put in place.
Mr. White:
One problem is that the type of housing to be built is not a planning consideration. Social housing
Mr. Oaten:
The hon. Gentleman is right. We should find ways of building more affordable homes in the south-east.
If we are to avoid the Whiteleys and the big greenfield developments that do not work, we must provide more affordable housing. We should build more housing in villages, so that our youngsters can stay there. We need housing to ensure that young professional couples on fairly small salaries can afford to live in those communities. In Winchester, the price of housing is phenomenal and out of all proportion. We must have much more affordable housing in the future.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet):
I should like to follow the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) by giving practical examples of where the planning process is going wrong and where it will go further wrong. In the villages of Beltinge and Broomfield in Herne Bay in my constituency, planning applications have been submitted for hundreds of houses. No consideration has properly been given to the fact that there is insufficient water and primary health care provision, that the junior schools in Herne Bay are bursting at the seams, and that the secondary school is over-subscribed and the children have to travel out of the town past their nearest school to another school to obtain their education.
The Environment Agency, for its own ludicrous reasons, is trying to prevent Mid Kent Water from extending a reservoir. The water regulator, under pressure from the Government, is trying to cut the investment by Mid Kent Water in capital projects by a massive 40 per cent. Southern Water, which is responsible for the disposal of sewage in the area, is also having its capital expenditure cut. The Government have cut their contribution to Kent county council's funds, leaving less money for investment in education, while the council is having to find £5 million to subsidise asylum seekers under a programme that the Government have failed to get to grips with. That is not joined-up government.
Crow proposes to impose 250,000 homes on the county of Kent with no consideration of how water, sewage services, medical care or education will be provided. Unless and until this joined-up Government can do joined-up writing and read joined-up writing, this project will be an absolute disaster. I urge the Government to review and reject the Crow report.
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