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National Planning Policy Framework

I believe in contention. I think it is a good thing. Politics results from it. I think that the noble Lord Rooker is not unfamiliar with contention either. Deregulating planning does not deliver the kind of economic growth that the Government think it does. We have only to look at Spain, Ireland or the American states of Arizona or Nevada to realise that a strategy of ex-urban sprawl does not deliver such growth. As the Minister should know, business park vacancies currently stand at 17% and 1.6 million square feet of commercial space is free for letting. In a recent letter to the Financial Times, the planning adviser Paul Hackett revealed that when he was asked to investigate Treasury claims that the planning system was a barrier to growth, he"““failed to find any convincing evidence, other than planning controls holding back speculative development by developers and out of town supermarkets and hoteliers””," that the previous system had undermined sustainable economic growth. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) said, both her and I are privileged to represent a city facing challenges of growth, structural economic change and structural unemployment. We do not think that ending the ““brownfield first”” and the ““town centre first”” strategies will provide the kind of development, housing and businesses that we want in Stoke-on-Trent, not least because, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) suggested, we have 750,000 homes sitting empty and existing planning permission for 330,000 unbuilt houses. The problem for development in many situations, particularly for housing, is as much about the financial and mortgage systems as it is about the planning system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North said, we want a proper definition of sustainable development, a return of the ““brownfield first”” policy—we welcome the Minister's elongated U-turn on that—the dropping of the default ““yes”” when a plan is out of date or silent, a recognition of the intrinsic value of the unprotected countryside, not just green belt, that covers so much of England, and a return to the ““town centre first”” policy and, with it, the sequential policy. All those decisions would benefit our constituents, who want not only urban regeneration in Stoke-on-Trent but the protection of the Staffordshire moorlands and the towns and villages surrounding it. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, next year marks the centenary of the death of Octavia Hill, the founder of the National Trust—perhaps she was a left-wing nihilist, although I doubt it. Instead, she believed in good housing, vibrant cities and a natural environment"““for the enjoyment, refreshment, and rest of those who have no country house, but who need, from time to time, this outlook over the fair land which is their inheritance as Englishmen””." I hope that we now have a Government who believe the same.