Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-08
Topic: Housing
Christopher Stephen Grayling (Conservative, Centre-right): I greatly welcome the change of tone from the Minister and Secretary of State in recent weeks; they have taken a step in the right direction, but I still want the Bill to address a number of points as it progresses I represent a constituency that is largely urbanised and the land that is not urbanised is green belt or parkland; it is simply not possible to meet the targets that were set out based on the 2014 census. So my first point to the Minister is that we must move away from that as being the basis for a calculation of housing numbers. We also need to move away from the inspectorate being able to simply impose national targets on a local authority; local authorities must have serious input into what the real housing needs are My second point is that in my area the housing needs assessments have been based on the salaries of people who work in the constituency, but in commuting areas such as mine a lot of those people do not live in the constituency; in fact many, many of my constituents work in central London and earn more. That is also a flaw in the methodology that needs to be changed I think there is general acceptance across these Benches that we need to set some pretty tight parameters for the inspectorate. There are too many cases of the inspectorate doing its own thing; Ministers have been pretty clear in saying, "This is what our national policy is" on, for instance, the green belt, but all too often the inspectors simply do something different. They are there to implement policy, not to run the policy. I hope the Bill will include clear measures to make sure the inspectorate has strict parameters to work within in the future I would also like the Minister to take up two points in terms of the environmental sections of the Bill, one of which he is aware of. I think we have all experienced situations where somebody looking to apply for planning consent just clears a site—they rip the whole thing apart before applying for planning consent, with no thought for the ecology of the site or, frankly, the surrounding area. In doing so, they pay no attention to whether there are any vulnerable species on that site or implications for the local ecology. That must change, and I will be pushing as the Bill progresses for a provision that requires developers to do a holistic survey of the ecology and wildlife of a site and, if they identify vulnerable species, to have a plan to relocate those species. That must be an essential part of the planning application; developers simply must not be able to clear a site before going for planning consent, and they must have duties to look after the wildlife, plants and animals on that site if they are going to develop it. The Minister knows I will be pushing for that, and I hope he and the Government will take it up and introduce such a provision themselves We rightly focused a lot last year on better environmental practices generally and requiring each area to have nature recovery networks as we must reverse the decline of so many of our species in this country, but that must not happen in isolation from the local planning process; there must be a link between the two. Local authorities shaping a local plan must also be mindful of their plan for a nature recovery network—what needs to be done to restore the wildlife in that area and reverse the loss of species. I ask the Minister to look carefully as the Bill progresses through Committee and Report at how we can create that link in this legislation so the obligation is clear and it is put in the local plan. Local authorities are planning for housing need and there is indeed a housing need; my constituency and others around the country need more homes and all of us have a duty to work to try to ensure that those homes are delivered in the best way possible, but we must not do that at the expense of the natural world with no reference at all to what we have all been debating over the past couple of years, namely having better conservation in the UK. I ask the Minister to make that a part of the Bill as well.