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We heard that 11,000 units are needed, which is not an awful lot, and it should not be beyond the wit of people in rural communities to provide that. We have heard today of water companies, the Ministry of Defence and a number of public corporations that have sites in rural areas that could be adjusted and used. The local solution is the best solution and some sensible ideas have come up today. I understand the strong passions and emotions about the second home argument, but I do not think that it is the key. The key argument is to provide suitable sites for land so that our villages can grow more organically.
Design is terribly important. Sometimes, the best way of getting the design that one wants is to control the land, which Prince Charles has often done, particularly with his developments in places such as Poundbury in Dorset. His control of the land allowed him to do rather more with the development. We must consider giving local planning committees more flexibility on design. I am not sure that we want all housing to look the same, whether it is in Warrington, Basingstoke or Plymouth. Local materials and the local look not only adds diversity but can make our country look more attractive.
12.20 pm
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Yvette Cooper): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing the debate, and on raising the issue of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission report, which is widely agreed to be extremely important and weighty. The Government added to that report. We set up the commission precisely because we were concerned about affordability pressures in rural areas. Such areas face all sorts of additional challenges and wider issues to do with affordability. We are looking to develop some of the recommendations and to take forward the commission’s work. I shall try to give hon. Members a flavour of some of the work now under way.
However, we
recognise that there is a wider problem of affordability that affects
both rural and urban areas; my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood is
right
about that. Housing supply is simply not keeping up with housing demand.
More than 200,000 new households are formed each year, but only about
160,000 new homes are built a year. The level of house building is
significantly lower than it was, say, 30 years ago. As long as there is
that gap between new household formation and the number of homes built,
there will be growing pressures on affordability across the country in
future. Our assessment and research suggests that if we simply carry on
at the current rate of house building, over the next 20 years the
proportion of 30-year-old couples able to afford their own home is
likely to drop from more than 50 per cent. to nearer 30 per
cent. That is simply unsustainable, given the aspirations of first-time
buyers and the next generation.
My hon. Friend is right that rural areas face particular problems, and hon. Members raised a series of issues. Problems can include restrictions on areas in which homes can be built, the planning system, and the quite proper need to protect the countryside in rural areas. It is important to recognise that there can be different levels of wages in rural areas; in particular, agricultural wages can be much lower. We also have to recognise that there are wide variations between rural communities. Small coalfield villages that face regeneration challenges are different to affluent commuter villages, which are different again to coastal villages. Rural areas will face very different challenges, and we should not make the mistake of assuming that there is a single answer for all rural areas.
Equally, we need to recognise the challenges set out in the Affordable Rural Housing Commission’s report. The commission challenged the approach to sustainability that was built into the planning system some time ago. Often, the well- intentioned responseto the need to protect brownfield development and to ensure sustainable development in terms of transport, including public transport, has been to focus the vast majority of new development around big cities and towns. However, as the commission makes clear, the consequence is that some of the wider issues around sustainability that affect rural areas have not been considered.
Hon. Members have pointed out the challenges that result when young people cannot afford to buy homes in the villages and rural areas where they grew up. They move out, and local schools can become unsustainable as a result. Just as there is an ageing population, there can be ageing villages, as young people often cannot stay in the area because there are no homes for them to move into. The approach taken by the commission is right; we need to consider the idea of the living, working, and changing countryside, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood said. That is why we have stated that we need to reform the approach through planning policy guidance, and through our new draft policy on planning for housing, planning policy statement 3. The commission welcomes our approach to PPS3, and says that it builds in the kind of flexibility that we need when approaching the subject of rural areas. We need to allow them to grow where necessary, and to respond to local demands.
The hon. and
learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox) mentioned a case
in his constituency. He will be aware that I cannot comment on
individual
planning cases. I was not involved in the decision, and although I am
aware of the case, he will know that I cannot comment on its details.
However, I would like to address some of the broader issues linked to
it. He asked a question that was really about whether there should be
more flexibility for small sites in rural areas where needed housing
could be developed. I agree that there should be, and that is exactly
why PPS3 tries to incorporate that approach for the
future.
The hon. and learned Gentleman asked, effectively, whether it should be easier to adapt to housing need and not to be bound by out-of-date local plans. I think that it should be easier to update local plans, and that is why we are changing the approach to planning to encourage local development frameworks. Aspects of such frameworks can be updated much more easily. Also, the change will mean that decision makers need not simply respond to decisions that may have been made years ago about the housing needed in a particular area, but could instead consider current need and market demand, and so could be more responsive to market approaches. That is our new approach as part of PPS3 and as part of the response to the Barker inquiry.
There are two ways for hon. Members who face such problems in their area to deal with the issue. First, they can think about what can be done in their area to update local plans more rapidly and to take advantage of the changes that we have made to the broader planning system; secondly, they can consider how applications measure up against the new approach in PPS3. We hope to publish the final version of the planning policy statement later in the year; we have already published the draft for consultation. It is useful to compare planning applications that are currently coming through with the approach in the new guidance.
Hon. Members mentioned the need for shared ownership and social housing, which is an important subject. Predominantly rural districts account for about 23 per cent. of the population, and get about 21 per cent. of the social housing budget. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood mentioned smaller local areas. Some 19 per cent. of the population live in settlements of fewer than 10,000 people, and just 10 per cent. of the programme budget is spent on them. That suggests that, although a proportionate share of resources goes to predominantly rural districts as a whole, my hon. Friend is right that social housing is being built predominantly in market towns and larger communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) asked what we would do to support social housing, and asked whether we could use community land trusts. I agree with him that we have an important opportunity to support more social housing and shared ownership in smaller communities.
There are
particular opportunities for the use of section 106 of the Town and
Country Planning Act 1990, which the hon. Member for North
Cornwall (Mr. Rogerson) mentioned. Nationally, 140,000 new
homes were built in 2004. Of those, 100,000 were built with no
developer contribution at all to either affordable housing or
infrastructure. That is not fair. As a result, rural areas in
particular can end up not getting their fair share of shared ownership
and social housing. Our assessment was that if all rural
communities could do as well as the best rural communities in getting
resources out of section 106 and the planning gain system, there would
be substantially more affordable homes being built in rural areas, and
we particularly support that.
The hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) raised the issue of second homes. The Financial Times asked me about the national approach, and we were talking about the national economy. The fact is that second homes account for about 1 per cent. of overall housing stock. There are plenty of rural and urban areas in which second homes account for less than 0.5 per cent. of housing stock. The reality is that the national housing market and the national affordability problem is driven by lack of housing supply, not by issues to do with second homes.
However, I recognise that in some areas second homes create particular pressures. Some communities do face particular pressures; we have always recognised that. We asked the Affordable Rural Housing Commission to look into that because we thought it such an important issue. However, the challenge faced by the commission is one that hon. Members have long debated in this House: it is the issue of what workable measures can be used to address the problem. That is difficult, but we have to recognise that there are broader issues, including the amount of affordable housing and new supply. We have to do something to challenge that problem across the country.
Charitable and Community Events
12.30 pm
Mr. Anthony Steen (Totnes) (Con): Mr. Hood, it is delightful to see you in the Chamber in a different context.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter that concerns a great number of people. I should like to bring to the attention of the House the way in which local police authorities invoke section 25(1) of the Police Act 1996 to charge charitable community events considerable sums for police cover. It puts scores of events at risk by making them financially unviable. In Devon and Cornwall alone, some 80 annual charitable community events, which are a vital and cherished part of community life, may disappear.
Section 25 of the 1996 Act states:
“The chief officer of police of a police force may provide, at the request of any person, special police services at any premises or in any locality in the police area for which the force is maintained, subject to the payment to the police authority of charges on such scales as may be determined by that authority.”
That provision replaced an earlier, identical section, section 15(1) of the Police Act 1964, which itself was based on common law established by Glasbrook Brothers Ltd v. Glamorgan county council in 1925.
Why am I concerning myself with a well established and historical police power? Until recently, the police did not exercise the power in relation to charitable and community events, but the varying attitudes of police authorities throughout the country have created an unequal and unfair playing field. Community events flourish in areas where police choose not to charge, while in others, community life grinds to a standstill as police price events out of existence.
The House needs no convincing about the benefits of such charitable and community events. They bring together communities, foster social cohesion, maintain precious traditions and enhance our cultural life through the hard work and dedication of altruistic volunteers who give up their time for the benefit of the community. However, the current legislation draws no distinction between charging for the charitable community event and the commercial profit-making event. It also provides no clarification of what constitutes “special police services” above and beyond what the police are obliged to provide as part of their regular service. It devolves the entire responsibility for setting the scale of charges to individual police authorities. Yet again, we see a postcode lottery. As in the health service, it is true of the police service.
The Notting
Hill carnival escapes any charge whatever for a considerable policing
cost that runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds, because the
Metropolitan police do not charge for such community events; but the
organisers of the Dart music festival in Dartmouth, which is minuscule
in comparison, were whacked with an initial bill of £16,095.15.
As a result of negotiations, the bill was reduced to £5,875, and
finally, after further negotiations, to £2,742.35. I am not sure
whether the role of the constabulary in Devon and Cornwall is not more
like that of a car salesman. One haggles with the individual police
inspector over
how much one should pay for policing. It is not the way that I see
policing, and the public do not want to see it continue
either.
One would have thought that throughout the land, constabularies would wish to promote good deeds and community enterprise. At least the Metropolitan Police Commissioner recognises that each year the Notting Hill carnival has helped to cement good race relations and bolster good community spirit. In spite of massive police presence, he refuses to make any charge whatever to the organisers in London. What is wrong with the Devon and Cornwall constabulary? Why cannot it recognise the benefits to the community of events such as the Dart community festival, and soon the Dart regatta?
Mr. Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con): My hon. Friend’s excellent speech gives rise to two thoughts. First, does he agree that when one challenges police officers—local divisional inspectors in particular—about a charitable event such as the Hatherleigh carnival in my constituency, which was fixed with a bill last year, they are embarrassed about it? They find themselves in a terrible position—
Mr. Jimmy Hood (in the Chair): Order. Interventions have to be much shorter.
Mr. Steen: I am most grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for attending the debate. If he catches your eye, Mr. Hood, I feel sure that he will be able to develop that point. The whole House would welcome hearing from him, as it always does. He highlights no more than an anxiety throughout Devon and Cornwall. The police have suddenly discovered that they have the powers, which are nothing new, as they have been available since 1925, to squeeze more money out of a hard-pressed community that already pays taxes, and pays council taxes to the police. Communities will be charged even more if they do anything socially useful.
The question may well be asked, will the police charge for antisocial behaviour? When they catch a group of young people, will they send them a charge, too? Besides a criminal charge, will there be a civil charge for the police time spent apprehending them? That would be the natural result of such thinking.
The assistant chief constable in charge of operations support in Devon and Cornwall constabulary said in a letter of 3 May to the Western Morning News:
“Every force in the country is obliged under the provisions of the Police Act 1996 to charge organisers of events for all additional services provided outside core policing. This is a national policy, and one that the force cannot opt out of.”
I am sure that the Minister has taken note of that last point. The Minister knows, as I do, that that is just not true. Section 25 of the 1996 Act simply enables the police to levy charges; it by no means requires them to. It is not mandatory; it is discretionary.
As the then Home Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), subsequently Home Secretary, said in a written answer on 29 November 2000:
“The
decision whether to charge for costs of policing at local events is a
matter for the local police authority and the Chief
Constable... Special police services are not defined in the 1996
Act or elsewhere. I would expect them to be services that meet some or
all of the following criteria:
They are not part of the general duty of the police to keep the peace and protect life and property;
The service to be provided is on private land; and,
The service to be provided is for a commercially organised event.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2000; Vol. 357, c. 683W.]
Is it right that decisions affecting the future of at least 80 annual community events in Devon and Cornwall alone should be decided at the discretion of an unelected police authority? There have been a few important judicial decisions about the legality of charging for special police services. In May, two months ago, the Court of Appeal found against the West Yorkshire police authority, because there was no written contract prior to the services provided to Reading festival, which is a large profit-making event.
My concern is related to the operation of section 25 Act not in respect of large commercial events such as music festivals—Glastonbury, for example, has a £17 million turnover; it is a commercial event—or football matches, but in respect of the small, charitable, local, peaceful events that are an established and cherished part of the west country way of life. By their very definition, they do not have the resources to fight expensive legal battles that often hinge on obscure legal points. They are the quiet martyrs of the legislation. It threatens to wipe them out without recourse to appeal and without too much fuss.
I would like to believe that the relatively modest nature of such events is the reason why the Government have failed to notice the reprehensible approach to police charging which is creeping in throughout many parts of the country. We would certainly hear about it if the Met landed the Notting Hill carnival with a bill for hundreds of thousands of pounds. But small events such as the Dart music festival, or Widdecombe fair, which has been going for hundreds of years, can slip easily under the radar of the public, the media and the Government. This is in no way a reflection of their importance to the local communities and how beneficial they are to our culture.
I pay tribute to the Western Morning News, the regional organ of our area, which has taken up the cause wholeheartedly and exposed the number of shows, festivals and carnivals that face new charges for policing. Its excellent leader on 30 May pointed out that public support for the police is essential to help them uphold the law, and concluded that
“the force could do itself a great favour and win a great deal of public backing by announcing there will be no policing charges for such popular local events”.
I fear that the police are hitting at softer targets—events with limited resources but huge social, community and cultural benefits—to help pay for policing the real problems elsewhere. That is not the way to foster good community relations and is not a practice that should be allowed to continue on an ad hoc, incoherent and inconsistent basis.
I certainly do not wish to see
every decision of the local police authority prescribed by central
Government. I believe that it is absolutely right to keep decisions as
close to the people as possible, and I am for creating real and genuine
local accountability.
However, I fear that local police authorities are proving far from
accountable. I have still received no substantive reply to the three
letters that I wrote to the chief constable of the Devon and Cornwall
constabulary about the matter in April. That is not good news and does
not foster good relations between Members of Parliament and the
constabulary.
As a result of the tremendous impact that police charges are having and will have on charitable community events in the west country and the geographical disparity in applying the legislation, combined with the opaque decision-making procedures through which charges are applied and levied, I ask the Government to bring forward clear and fair national guidelines that will ensure that charitable community events across the country are not wiped out by surreptitious police charges.
12.42 pm
Mr. Gary Streeter (South-West Devon) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) on securing the debate, and thank him for allowing me to have two or three minutes to underpin his remarks and to raise one specific case, which is that of Yealmpton show, a show with which my hon. Friend will be extremely familiar as he used to represent the part of my constituency that comprises Yealmpton. It has been going on for well over 100 years and is a prime example of what my hon. Friend is talking about.
Yealmpton show is the biggest show by far in my constituency and on a good day, when the weather is right, it can attract up to 10,000 people, 20 per cent. of whom are children. It is run by a registered charity and all the work is done by hard-working volunteers. It is not profit-making and any surplus is given away to charity. Ironically, recently it gave some money to the constabulary widows’ and orphans’ fund, not knowing that it would receive a bill for this year’s performance.
Last year, the show made a loss because of bad weather. That is the sort of organisation that we are talking about. It is a day when people from the countryside and Plymouth come together and have a day of tremendous fun, which is exactly the kind of things we should be encouraging. However, this year the police have come to the organisers out of the blue and asked for payment to cover half of the cost of police engagement in the show. What does that engagement entail? It is not like Notting Hill carnival, where there have been riots and difficulties in the past. It is not about public order, but about a constable or two diverting traffic from the public highway into Yealmpton show field and carrying out ordinary police activities, which are obviously increased by the number of people using the field on a particular day. The show has been asked to pay nearly £2,000, which is money it can ill afford as a marginal activity.
At
a time when the Devon and Cornwall constabulary should be seeking to
make friends rather than enemies in our part of the world, there will
be a huge public reaction, because the Yealmpton show is so popular,
when the demand for payment is realised by my constituents. People in
South-West Devon are entitled to ask what on earth they are paying
their taxes
for. If something like policing the show is subject to an additional
charge, what are we paying for generally through our taxes for the
police? I hope that the Devon and Cornwall constabulary will think
again. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes, I have written to the
chief constable and still not received a reply. I hope that the
constabulary will think again but, if not, I hope that the Minister
will listen seriously to the case and take action that will cause the
Devon and Cornwall constabulary to think
again.
12.44 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con): I shall raise two points. Hatherleigh carnival is an event that has been held for many years. It has a particular attraction as it is one of the few carnivals to have flaming tar barrels, which are wheeled down the high street in Hatherleigh. When I first heard about the flaming tar barrels, and when I went to see them, it caused me a degree of discomfort, but it is only when one goes to see them and inquire into how they are handled that one realises that at every stage the barrels are under the close and tight control of people who know exactly what they are doing and that there is no danger. The fire service is consulted every year, and there have been no accidents or injuries.
Last year, Hatherleigh carnival, which usually raises about £1,500 to £2,000 for charity, was suddenly fixed with a bill of about £1,500 to £2,000. That meant that my constituents would have nothing left to give to charity after they had paid the police force. The point that was made to me by my constituents and the organisers of the carnival was that that would deter people from participating in such important community events. They usually get involved because they know that the proceeds will go to charity. The chances of Hatherleigh carnival happening the following year were remote.
I am fortunate because there are an excellent number of local divisional inspectors and officers who, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) earlier, were embarrassed by their position. They found themselves caught between the community that they were trying, often with great care and diligence, to police and the ridiculous order that meant that they were required to charge a small, charitable event that encouraged the charitable activities of the community. With a degree of good will and negotiation, we managed to get that charge extinguished. Of course, the carnival now lives from year to year with the threat that that charge might reappear.
My constituents said to me, “How often do we use the resources of the police through a normal year? We barely see a policeman in our village communities.” Insult has been added to injury because not only are our rural beat officers and our neighbourhood beat managers fairly infrequently seen in rural areas, but they are now being withdrawn to be replaced by police community support officers. The rural communities in which such charitable events are, as has been said, at the very heart of community activity and feeling, are being deterred, disappointed and depressed, not only by the absence of police but by the fact that when they put on an event that takes a great deal of initiative and hard work, they find themselves charged for it.
12.48 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Vernon Coaker): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) on securing an important debate, not only for his constituents but throughout the country. I will mention some of the points that he raised about his locality, but to cover the terms of the debate I shall need to draw widely and broadly on issues across the country and raise a number of issues that might not be specifically relevant to his part of the world.
I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the way in which he conducted the debate and the measured tones in which he put forward his case. In addition, I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox) and the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) on putting forward their points of view in support of their hon. Friend.
I understand the importance of the issue, because only recently I met the Showmen’s Guild. My hon. Friends the Members for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) and for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) raised issues about travelling fairs and so on similar to those that the hon. Member for Totnes raised about the Dart music festival. It is an issue across the country, and we are seeking to address it and to work with the police in dealing with it.
Mr. Steen: One must distinguish between commercial events, such as fairs, and charitable, social and community events. That is an important distinction.
Mr. Coaker: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. To a degree, I accept what he says. I was illustrating the fact that there is much debate about the matter in respect of commercial and community or charitable events.
Section 25 of the Police Act 1996 replaced a similar provision in section 15(1) of the Police Act 1964. Prior to those statutory provisions, the practice of lending constables has been recognised since the 19th century. There are three key elements to section 25. First, anyone may ask the chief constable of a police force to provide special services. Secondly, it is for the chief constable to decide whether or not to provide those services. In reaching a decision whether to provide services, the chief constable is likely to take into account the overall resources available and the impact of providing the special services on the policing that would otherwise be provided to the community. The third key element is that it is for the police authority to determine the scale of charges. In practice, most day-to-day decisions are likely to be delegated to the chief officer of the force.
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