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Government Planning Policy
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I must tell the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.17 pm
Mr. Archie Norman (Tunbridge Wells): I beg to move,
- That this House condemns the apparent intention of Ministers to ignore the recent vote by members of SERPLAN to limit the number of new houses built in the South East and to 'punish' members of SERPLAN for taking that decision; calls on Ministers to abandon their attempts to impose overall figures for new housebuilding on regions of the country; deplores the Government's failure even to meet its own targets for new development on brownfield sites; regrets the continuing decline of towns and cities and, on almost the first anniversary of the Rogers Report, the Government's failure to address the vital issues of urban regeneration, or growing internal migration and the drift from towns and cities to the countryside, or homelessness; and calls upon the Government to halt the decline of the cities, bring forward measures to protect greenfield sites and the Green Belt, and take steps to return more power to local communities to decide planning and housebuilding priorities.
Several of my colleagues may believe that the timing of this debate is not ideal but, from the point of view of the residents and councillors in the south-east, it is apposite as the Serplan period of consultation has just concluded. As a result, our debate on an issue that has caused people in the south-east great anxiety and tension will give the Minister for Housing and Planning an opportunity to discard all his speeches in previous Opposition day debates on the matter and put to one side the well-thumbed copies of statements of denial and all the talk of moving away from predict and provide. It will enable him, for the first time, to come clean on how he plans to answer the clear response that the councillors and residents of the south-east have given as part of the Serplan process that he created.
Mr. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Norman: No, I want to make progress.
The issue is a formative one for people in this country, not just in the countryside or the south-east, but in the inner cities, the north and the south-west. Conservative Members believe that the Government's policy on house building is a national folly. As my distinguished predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) put it, it is like
- taking a carpet knife to an old master.--[Official Report, 2 November 1999; Vol. 337, c. 103.]
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): Does my hon. Friend accept that not only is that happening in the
south-east, but people in the west midlands are equally disturbed about the use of the green belt? Does he not think it an outrage that some 5,000 new homes will be built in south Staffordshire, while brownfield sites in the centre of Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and other towns remain undeveloped?
Mr. Norman: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct and, as ever, is a potent voice for the west midlands.
Against the background of a perpetuating cycle of declining inner cities and the concreting over of the countryside, the Government claim, as the Minister has done in previous debates, that they have decentralised the process; that an extra 200,000 houses can be built in the south-east with no additional use of greenfield sites; that, incredibly, there is no such thing as north-south migration, and that the new housing in the south-east is needed for the sons and daughters of the existing population. Those claims fly in the face of all the facts.
Mr. Martin Salter (Reading, West): What would the hon. Gentleman say to people in the Thames valley who are looking forward to the extra 200 police officers that are to be provided and to the Police Federation, which is saying that the price of housing is so high that those police officers will not be able to afford to stay in the Thames valley? Does he accept that his party's policy is a recipe for running down our public services, and that we need to provide affordable housing for key public service workers, such as police officers, firefighters and health workers?
Mr. Norman: I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that it is for his constituents to decide how many houses are built in the area. We have the confidence to allow local people to make such decisions because we know that they will be right. I do not know whether he has the same confidence.
The Government have erected a facade of deception, are juggling the numbers and are responsible for overbearing centralisation. Most bizarre of all is their claim to have decentralised and to have moved away from predict and provide. They claim to have moved to a five-year planning horizon, when the local plan for every council in the south-east is worked out on a 10-year basis and we all know that major infrastructure and development projects need a more distant time horizon.
The real process is one of protracted negotiation, and of the Government predicting more houses and pressurising councils to offer up the maximum, as they pressurised Serplan to do. They issue diktats when local councils do not meet central needs. Nowhere is that better illustrated than in the Minister's petulant response to the Serplan consultation and the absurd claims that he made only last week in environment questions that Conservative Members have made this a party political issue. We all know, as he should, that the councillors and residents of the south-east have made this an issue because they deeply resent his overbearing approach.
Some councils made their position clear long before the Serplan process took place. Jane Pitman of Hertfordshire county council said:
- Anything above what Serplan recommended is unacceptable.
-
Richard Payne of Bedfordshire county council said:
In Bedfordshire we have taken heed of Government advice and consulted every district council, parish council and stakeholder with an 80 per cent. response. Almost all of these were totally opposed to the type of increase that the Government is proposing.
All we are saying is that local residents and councillors of the south-east should be listened to first, and if the Minister is at all sincere about moving away from predict and provide, he will respond by telling us that he will take their views into account.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Mr. Nick Raynsford): The hon. Gentleman referred to councillors in Bedfordshire who expressed concerns about additional housing requirements some time ago. Can he tell the House whether they objected in 1996, when the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), the then Secretary of State for the Environment, required Bedfordshire county council to provide 2,100 extra dwellings?
Mr. Norman: It has been an astonishing feature of the Minister's response, every time that the House has debated this matter, that he refers to past issues. He is now responsible for planning; he devised the Serplan process, and he, not we, said that the Government had moved away from predict and provide. He has come up with the shallow pretence of decentralisation. I could go on quoting local councils for a long time, if he wishes, but he is answerable, and it is for him to tell us whether he will listen to the views of local people and councils. He will have an opportunity to do so in a moment.
Is not the truth that the process has been a charade, and the idea that we have moved to a five-year process of review and monitor is complete nonsense? Councils now preparing their local plan are working on a 10-year basis. The Minister is interested in consultation only as long as the answer is yes, and he is interested in decentralisation only as long as councillors will do what they are told.
I know that the Minister has said that he was misreported but, for the record, will he clearly retract his comments in The Sunday Telegraph and in radio interviews to the effect that Serplan's views would be ignored and that councillors who had objected to his proposals would be punished? Will he apologise to the residents and councillors of the south-east?
Mr. Raynsford: I will not retract those comments because I never made them. I remind the hon. Gentleman that I assured him in the House last week that I was grossly misrepresented in The Sunday Telegraph. I have always said that we will listen to the views of Serplan and others, and I am only sorry that he did not, in the normal custom of the House, accept that assurance and that he has carried on peddling this nonsense.
Mr. Norman: Of course we accept what the Minister has to say, although it is not what The Sunday Telegraph had to say. That is a matter for the Minister and The Sunday Telegraph. However, he has a chance to respond today and to say not only that he was misreported but what he is going to do about this issue. The consultation process is closed. He has a chance to say that
he will take all views into account and that he will cease his bullying tactics. He can then demonstrate that he is sincere about decentralisation.
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