Ebbsfleet — House of Commons, 2015-03-03
Topic: Housing
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his statement, and for giving me advance sight of it. As he said, there is cross-party support for the development at Ebbsfleet, and Labour Members support it strongly. I agree with him that Ebbsfleet has huge potential to deliver a substantial number of homes and an outstanding new community Having been to Ebbsfleet, I have seen with my own eyes not just the opportunities that it offers but its terrain, which presents significant challenges. We want to see a new generation of garden cities and new towns, and we believe that Ebbsfleet could make an important contribution to such a programme. That is why, as the Minister said, we have sought to work with the Government constructively and on a cross-party basis to deliver the UDC. As the Minister also said, my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) participated actively in the discussions with the Government, and is strongly committed to the delivery of a new generation of garden cities. She has spoken about the subject eloquently, in the House and elsewhere We naturally welcome the forming of an urban development corporation to drive this development forward, but we are concerned about the use of UDCs to deliver a full programme of garden cities. As the Minister knows, they are not set up to deliver garden city principles, which is why we pressed for the inclusion of a sunset clause. I am pleased that agreement was reached on that Although I welcome the Government’s initiative in establishing the UDC over the past five years, it would be remiss of me not to mention the number of mixed messages that we have received in regard to both Ebbsfleet and garden cities more broadly. In 2011 the then Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), spoke of rebooting garden cities, and in 2012 the Prime Minister announced that he would publish a consultation on garden cities by the end of the year. Six months later, the Deputy Prime Minister said that some lively debate was taking place within the Government, but promised incentives that would deliver projects that were "big and bold". In December 2012, the Government announced that Ebbsfleet would be the site for a large-scale development of 20,000 new homes Subsequently, however, rather than seeing the "big and bold" projects that had been promised, we saw reports in the newspapers that the Prime Minister was suppressing a document and had gone cold on the idea. Later that year, the Housing Minister said that he was not aware of a report that was supposed to have been published, but the Deputy Prime Minister said that there was a prospectus, and that the Government should be honest about their intentions. The Secretary of State then contradicted his own Housing Minister, saying that his Department had told him that there was a report, but not a report from the Department for Communities and Local Government. We were a little bemused by all that. However, a prospectus for garden cities was finally published, and in last year’s Budget statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that there would be a new garden city at Ebbsfleet containing 15,000 homes—5,000 fewer than had been promised in 2012 Given the scale of the housing crisis and the evident cross-party support for garden cities, I should like to know what is behind the Government’s stops and starts on the Ebbsfleet initiative and on garden cities more generally. I should also like to know where the additional 5,000 new homes have gone. That seems to be something of a mystery I welcomed what the Minister said about infrastructure. The Government said last year that, once established, the Ebbsfleet UDC would be expected to identify sources of additional funding, further to the funding for basic infrastructure that had already been announced. Will the Minister tell us how much additional funding he and his Department think might be necessary to get the Ebbsfleet project moving, and whether its source in either the private or the public sector has been identified The garden city movement, which was founded by Ebenezer Howard, has a long and proud history of promoting and providing outstanding places for people to live in. Although I support what the Minister has said today, I am anxious for the founding principles of the movement to be respected, albeit in a modern setting. Perhaps the Minister will explain why he did not mention affordable housing, and why his predecessor told my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham in a written parliamentary answer that "The Government do not impose a particular level of affordable housing for housing schemes."—[Official Report, 9 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 239W.] Can the Minister reassure us that the master plan will include a commitment to a significant proportion of affordable homes? If it does not, I fear that there will not be much garden to the garden city. The Government’s garden city prospectus invited communities to come up with proposals, or "big and bold" projects, as the Deputy Prime Minister called them. Will the Minister tell us how many bids have been submitted so far Let me end by echoing what the Minister said about securing the Ebbsfleet development. This is a long-term project that presents significant challenges but also has huge potential, and, as such, it requires a long-term approach from Members in all parts of the House. On that basis, I welcome the fact that we have reached cross-party agreement.