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Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman clearly takes that view as well.
The Bill raises important questions, although it takes such a form that it is difficult to believe that it will achieve its objectives. However, that is not to say that it should not be supported as we must discuss many issues, one of which is the key factor that we cannot change our planning system and the attitude of developers entirely by planning means. There has to be a fiscal aspect and the big question for the Government is why the consultation process on how we deal with brownfield versus greenfield development in fiscal terms appears to have started only as a result of the Budget. Why have not we made more progress? What is the timetable for putting in place measures to deal with those issues and value added tax in respect of re-use and refurbishment of derelict property as against new build?
Local government issues also need to be addressed. One of my hobby horses in local government was precedent. We could not do what was transparently sensible as a planning authority because that would have set a precedent that would be used by others to breach the ramparts that had been erected against sensible development. Precedent comes up so many times in local government and we should address it.
The cumulative effect of applications is also an issue. Other than at the local plan and structural plan formation stages, local authorities can deal with single applications only on their merits, irrespective of the cumulative effect of a number applications. That poses a problem not so much for housing development, but for mineral development. An application may have a certain effect on the water table so what effect would half a dozen different ones for the same confined area have on the water table? Such consideration cannot be undertaken because it is outside planning law.
We need to consider the appeal system very carefully. Of course some system is needed in extremis, but local authorities constantly run scared and make decisions that they would not otherwise make simply because they are afraid that they might end up in a worse position after an appeal. We need a system that bolsters local decision making, except when that is irrational or unreasonable, not one that imposes an alternative view from the national level.
The Government are beginning to address those issues, and I am glad that they are. Our debates over the past couple of years have improved all hon. Members' understanding of some of the issues, not least because of the influx, at the last election, of a number of Members with local government experience who know something about the practicalities. I look forward to more of the same, because we are not there yet. We do not have a fiscal framework that directs development to the right places, and we do not have a planning framework that is sufficiently robust.
Mr. Paul Stinchcombe (Wellingborough):
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make a brief contribution, and for allowing me to make it early. I apologise for the fact that I may not be able to stay for the whole debate because of other engagements.
It is a pleasure to speak about the Bill, for which I have some warm feelings. It is a particular pleasure because this is the first time that I have spoken in the House about planning matters, although for 12 years prior to my election I seem to have spoken of little else. I must make some declarations of interest at the outset--first as a planning barrister, secondly as a columnist on Planning magazine, thirdly as the former chair of development control in an inner-London borough, fourthly as a life member of Friends of the Earth, and finally as chair of LPEG, the Labour Planning and Environment Group, a national organisation of Labour party members with an interest or expertise in planning and related issues. It was established by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) when he was Opposition environment spokesman. A couple of weeks ago, it publicly endorsed the campaign of the Empty Homes Agency for the availability of new economic and statutory tools to return more empty homes to use.
The interests that I have declared are not just interests; they represent several years of experience, and what I shall say now is the product of that experience--of the hundreds of inquiries in which I have participated, of the experts whom I have heard and cross-examined, of the consultations that I have had with developers, objectors and local planning authorities--some represented by Opposition Members--of the planning committee meetings that I have chaired, and of the planning applications that I have helped to determine.
In the light of that experience, I believe that the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) has done the House a great service. He has raised issues of fundamental concern. As he said, all the experts anticipate that we shall need to find some 4 million homes in the next 10 to 15 years. That is a huge potential need to be met on an island with limited space. As a member of Friends of the Earth, I do not just confess but positively assert that I want to protect habitats from bricks, mortar and concrete. I want as many houses as possible to be built in towns and villages rather than in the open countryside. I want them to be near transport hubs and near destinations to
which residents can walk, rather than destinations that are miles away and accessible only by car. I want them to be built on brown fields rather than green fields. I want us to learn how to recycle land, just as we have learned to recycle glass, tin and paper.
I know that I am not alone in wanting those things--one has only to witness this debate and our recent political history, when Front Benchers of all the major parties outbid each other in terms of setting targets. If the Tories managed to build only four homes out of 10 on brown fields, we asked for six, and others asked for even more.
Yet as we have been saying all these wonderful things, and have all been agreeing on the laudable objectives, three quarters of a million homes have been standing empty. A quarter of a million have stood empty for a year or more. Those homes are not all owned by absentee landlords or speculative developers; some are owned by Government Departments, and 140,000 are owned by public authorities. According to a parliamentary answer that I received yesterday, 11 per cent. of homes owned by national health service trusts are empty. That is a shocking state of affairs. Some empty homes are owned by councils that are both local planning authorities and housing authorities, but that often do not even have an empty homes strategy to guide them.
Most experts agree that, as well as those empty homes, we could find a quarter of a million more in the spaces above shops in the high streets in our town centres. That is the most sustainable location that could be provided for new homes. Goodness knows how many more homes could be created in empty and derelict factories--not just Manhattan-style lofts for e-millionaires in Clerkenwell or Shad Thames, but homes for the homeless in the old boot and shoe factories in Wellingborough and Rushden.
The present position is madness. Four million homes are needed, and there is a cross-party political commitment to protecting green fields, yet still we see bulldozers in fields as urban properties stand idle, empty, underused and unused.
As I have said, I have warm feelings for the Bill. It is clearly well intentioned, and it strikes at a legitimate target. I only wish that it had been presented when Nicholas Ridley was Secretary of State for the Environment, and was lighting his bonfire of planning controls--introducing planning policy guidance 6, and positively encouraging the building of hundreds upon hundreds of out-of-town superstores accessible only by car. As I speak, they are still blighting the town centres and the atmosphere.
When the Opposition were in power, a Bill such as this would have made a real difference, but this Bill is not being debated in those circumstances; it is being debated now, just weeks after the Government's introduction of PPG3--the most significant advance in planning guidance in respect of housing for a generation. Through PPG3, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has implemented many of the good intentions in the Bill, but in more workable ways--as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) pointed out in what I thought was a very good speech. It is clear from the Bill, however, that the draftsman not only could not have seen PPG3, but had not anticipated it, notwithstanding the four documents that led to it: "Planning for the Communities of the Future", "Planning for Sustainable Development", "Towards an Urban Renaissance", and the consultation draft of PPG3 itself.
From those four documents, it was already apparent that new planning imperatives were being developed following the 1997 election. It was clear that a new PPG3 was coming, and that it would direct more new development towards brownfield sites and away from greenfield land. It was clear that it would direct new housing towards existing urban areas. It was clear that it would do all the things that the Bill seeks to do.
Sir Nicholas Lyell:
The hon. Gentleman knows what he is talking about, but the key aspect of the Bill is the fact that it will provide a study and a public record of all the land that may be available. Does PPG3 do that?
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