Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
JOHN PRESCOTT
MP AND MR
RICHARD MCCARTHY
7 FEBRUARY 2006
Q20 Martin Horwood: So you are saying
that the brownfield sequential test will stay under the current
proposal?
Mr Prescott: It certainly is going
to, but I do recognise there are some places that do not have
brownfield sites, for a lot of reasons, and I cannot just assume
they have got old industrial sites. I hear the argument going
on now for example about whether building houses in the back yards
of large houses can be considered brownfield. That is a controversy,
I hear about it, and no doubt we will always take that into account.
Q21 Sir Paul Beresford: I have a
slight initial disagreement that as the Minister who brought in
the throttle on the out-of-town shopping centres I was a little
bit aggrieved on your point, but I will set that to one side.
Where I do agree with you—
Mr Prescott: When I looked at
the policies I inherited—and I think you were the Minister
up to 1997 on housing and John Gummer was the Secretary of State—I
think the Department was beginning to change towards the end,
quite frankly, but it did not do it; I did it.
Q22 Sir Paul Beresford: I actually
announced the sequential test but it is not worth squabbling over.
Mr Prescott: Okay, we did follow
on some of those. I do not want to deny that but I think were
also recommending congestion charges although I am not sure whether
you are a supporter of it still.
Q23 Sir Paul Beresford: I very much
doubt it from my own personal position!
Mr Prescott: It was in the Green
Paper.
Q24 Sir Paul Beresford: I have only
got one car but in any case—
Mr Prescott: So have I, just for
the record! Do not believe what you read in the press.
Q25 Sir Paul Beresford: Regrettably,
mine is a Vauxhall. The movement back into the inner cities started
certainly in our time and you have continued it, and I think it
is a very good idea, and it is saving many of the inner cities.
The problem of course is that one of the biggest inner cities
is London and it is starting now to spread outside London. There
is a high demand in the South East and the housing numbers for
the South East, particularly Surrey and so forth, are getting
so huge, and the difficulty we have got there is lack of infrastructure.
This was highlighted the other day when there was a report from
the Environment Agency on lack of water. There had already been
a previous warning from Thames Water on exactly the same issue.
How are you going to respond to that and are you going to respond
to it before we have the houses or after we have the houses? There
are stories from the Environment Agency that people will only
be able to have one bath a week and so forth.
Mr Prescott: That is nonsense,
they have never said that, unless you read it in the press but
you are asking me about what the Environment Agency says. Look,
you had exactly the same problems of expansion and growth in that
report about water, it is always a real problem, but we have to
work with the Environment Agency, and we have made it clear that
all these decisions on infrastructure will be consistent with
water demands in the area as well as other infrastructure demands.
I think when you were questioning my Minister here they talked
about the amounts of money going into infrastructure in these
different areas. It is a real problem where you have got the growth,
particularly down in London, but we are building more schools,
we are building more hospitals, we have put far more than anybody
has ever put in any government, however you want to make the comparison,
and I am sure you would agree with me, and those infrastructure
demands will be met. If you look at the scale of the housing,
which again you were questioning my Minister about, that is not
going to come all in year one, is it, it will have to be done
with a steady progress and investment, and that is what we intend
to do with infrastructure. We have set up a special fund for that.
We are now looking at planning gain, which you are talking about
and I think you are now going to do an inquiry, Chair, just as
we are talking to the Treasury. We do have to find more resources
and we are looking for more resources to do it. We recognise this
is a problem but every government has had exactly this same problem.
Q26 Sir Paul Beresford: I accept
that so therefore we can say to the local authorities in the South
East that the numbers will not be imposed upon them until the
infrastructure is there?
Mr Prescott: When you were in
government you imposed it on them.
Q27 Sir Paul Beresford: I am not
talking about when I was in government.
Mr Prescott: I know but I am just
saying it is the difficulties of government. It is a luxury sitting
there in the Opposition, I recognise, but it was true when you
were a Minister and now I am a Minister I have to find the balance,
and the balance is to give the proper infrastructure alongside
housing. What I am not prepared to accept is people who argue
they cannot build houses. I do not see why people down in the
South East, the sons and daughters of families, cannot live in
the South East. They should be able to and we should meet that
demand. They should not necessarily be told to go up to London,
which seems to be implication of those people who want to cut
back on housing.
Mr McCarthy: Could I clarify the
position on water specifically. In the announcements made on 5
December last year in response to the Barker Report, the Government
said that it would be further increasing water regulations both
through building regulations to make our new homes more efficient
in terms of usage of water and also action is being taken by Defra
in terms of products being used to ensure more efficient use of
water.
Q28 Anne Main: You have talked about
the infrastructure and the houses. What plans have you got for
real upgrades to transport infrastructure, for example in the
Thames Gateway which is your prime example, such as a major upgrade
on the Sadlers Farm interchange?
Mr Prescott: I do not know exactly
what it is, I can write back and give you the evidence on that
individual—
Q29 Anne Main: It is on the—
Mr Prescott: Wait a second. Are
you just asking that or is there something else you wanted to
ask?
Q30 Anne Main: I wanted to know what
real upgrades for transport infrastructure are planned and I gave
you that as an example which I believe it is sitting on your desk
at the moment.
Mr Prescott: It is a planning
decision, is it?
Q31 Anne Main: Do you have any assessment
of the relative demand for flats versus houses because we have
had some concerns presented to us that the densities that are
being looked at mean that we are getting wrong skew in terms of
housing. So I would like to know about real upgrades on infrastructure
and your housing assessment.
Mr Prescott: What is a wrong skew
in housing?
Q32 Anne Main: Well, if you are providing—
Mr Prescott: —Too many ordinary
houses?
Q33 Anne Main: No, having communities
that have got lots of flats but which do not provide family homes
for people to be able to stay within that community and upgrade
to a bigger home. The densities are driving developers to put
up large numbers of flats.
Mr Prescott: You mean there is
a tendency to just take the single flat under the proposals rather
than the four-bedroomed? I think there is something in that argument,
yes, and it is a matter that causes us some concern, as does the
balance of affordable housing and social housing. It is true,
I have opened one or two single-bedroomed housing developments
where it is a step on the ladder where people have taken it in
order to get a house to begin with, to get onto the property market,
and that is the affordable context we are trying to do. However,
we need a balance also for the social housing that comes with
three and four-bedroomed homes. We are trying to get a balance
but in all these areas, particularly in the South, it is very
difficult to satisfy the complete demand.
Q34 Anne Main: Do you feel you have
got the assessment of the balance correct? Back to the transport
infrastructure upgrades, do you believe there will be real transport
infrastructure upgrades?
Mr Prescott: We have already done
a lot of real transport infrastructure. One of my first decisions
when I came in was the Channel Tunnel Rail Link which had collapsed
and I reinstituted it. That is a major investment in rail transport
in the South and we also have to balance these things with North
and South investment considerations. There has been a modernisation
of a great deal of the infrastructure but the growth of the motor
car quite frankly, as I said in 1997, has been far greater than
was envisaged because of the successful economy and it has added
to our congestion. I have to find a proper balance between the
transport infrastructure and the provision of houses. Do you want
to say something?
Mr McCarthy: Can I just add that
we are hoping to make an announcement very shortly on the next
round of allocations from the Community Infrastructure Fund which
will include further investment in transport in the Thames Gateway
specifically to facilitate the housing growth that is needed with
the infrastructure that is required for it, building on the back
of the major investment that you see through the Channel Tunnel
Rail Link, the widening of the M2/A2, the investment in fast-track
bus services and so on.
Chair: Lyn?
Q35 Lyn Brown: We are back onto the
agenda, thank you, Chair.
Mr Prescott: That is their agenda!
Q36 Lyn Brown: No, we agreed one
beforehand. As you know, Deputy Prime Minister, the Bristol Accord
included a set of eight characteristics, one of which was about
safe, inclusive and active sustainable communities. I was wondering
if you could give this Committee some idea about what infrastructure
you think is necessary within major developments that provides
for that?
Mr Prescott: Well, I think it
is very important particularly in the new developments in the
growth areas to make sure you get that proper level of infrastructure.
I think in Milton Keynes, if I take one of the first examples,
many people there did not mind the expansion, so they say (if
you divorce it from what people do not really want but are prepared
to go along with) and now infrastructure has become part of that
argument. All of a sudden everybody has found it is infrastructure
and that is the reason why they do not want houses. What they
mean is they do not want any houses in a NIMBY sense, but I have
to work out what is right about that. If you look at Milton Keynes,
their real concern was a hospital and if you are going to decide
where the hospital is going to be, the Chair will know this better
than I, you need to then decide what the road programme is because
often they want to be either in the centre or near good communications.
That is the same with fire and police authorities. We are now
trying to develop a master plan that allows those people to make
sure that other departments are putting the investment in. If
you look at schools, there is a schools expansion programme that
is going on. If I look in my own area at secondary schools at
the moment, there is £160 million investment and I think
that is happening in most areas. We need to make sure that that
investment actually coincides with where the houses are going
to be and where the developments are going to be and whether it
is in housing or industry we need to do it in a sustainable way.
I just give that one example. There are many more running right
through where people do want to make sure that education is going
to be there, the hospitals are going to be there, there is going
to be a proper road structure and transport infrastructure to
back it up. Those are questions which we are faced with constantly.
I think we are helped by many local authorities who co-operate
with this and the regional development agencies who play a part
in this.
Q37 Lyn Brown: Can I just press you
a bit further. Does the Department envisage a blueprint for instance
for major scale investment that might include other things that
would create healthy, active and inclusive communities, for instance,
libraries, sports centres, parks?
Mr Prescott: What is the master
plan that we have just done and the new one that is being developed
by Northampton?
Mr McCarthy: Upton.
Mr Prescott: The Upton one is
a case where we have tried to bring in master planning now so
that all these things that you are talking about—clean,
green and safer and communities with everything done in a sustainable
way—should develop within the plan itself, so if you are
buying a house there you should know all those facilities are
likely to come rather than, as happened in the past, you build
the housing and you do not know whether it will come and they
have come later. We have built that into the planning system we
have at the moment as well as design requirements, and I think
that is a major step forward.
Mr McCarthy: There are two other
illustrations. For example, you may be aware in the Thames Gateway
we have a strategy called "Greening the Gateway" which
is about the provision of open and much better quality green space
than exists at the moment. Also, if you go down to the Millennium
Village on the Greenwich Peninsular you will see a park there
which sits on what was previously brownfield land. In other cases
you will see some of our growth area money has gone into help,
but not completely fund, support facilities that add more leisure
opportunities and learning opportunities to a community, which
itself then feeds the opportunity for growth.
Mr Prescott: And we have a special
fund agreed with the Treasury announced at the last Budget called
the Transport Fund which allows us to agree between ourselves
and the Department of Transport the priorities of that transport
and we very much connect it to the development. They obviously
have a lot of transport requirements but we make sure in the negotiations
we get it connected to our sustainable communities objective.
Q38 Mr Betts: I want to explore one
or two of these points with you, Deputy Prime Minister. First
of all, just to follow up the point made about the sequential
test, I have to say, without giving you too much praise, I think
of all the good things the Government has done the sequential
test in housing ranks up amongst the best. Indeed, I think it
was a colleague of mine and next door neighbour Richard Caborn
who was Planning Minister at the time when it was brought in.
Mr Prescott: He made the statement,
yes.
Q39 Mr Betts: It certainly changed
the approach in Sheffield to house building, and houses are now
being built in the inner city and on industrial land. Can we have
an assurance that with the changes suggested which are being consulted
on for PPS3 and the greater flexibility there might be with the
sequential test in areas like Sheffield, where it is working,
that there will not be any move back away from the sequential
test and we will be able to follow it through just as rigorously
in the future?
Mr Prescott: Yes, it was a question
asked of my previous Minister when she came on on housing whether
they would continue sequential testing or let the developers think
there was a slackening of it then they can go elsewhere. We give
the assurance that that kind of sequential test is absolutely
critical here. We are going to maintain that policy. It will have
differing and varying effects in each city but, as you say, in
Sheffield it has worked pretty well. I do not know where it has
not and I think the developers have come to accept that it is
an important way of having a more co-ordinated development and
has brought many of the sites in our cities into economic activity
when they just were bare sites, and I think we would want to keep
that. It is an essential part of the growth and success that is
occurring in the growth of our cities at present.
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