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National Planning Policy Framework

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to today's debate, which holds great significance for my constituents. I want to explain why I support the Government's general approach in the draft NPPF and point to areas where I think it could be honed and improved. If the Government take on those suggestions, it might allay some of my constituents' current concerns. To do that, we need to assess where we are coming from, with regard to the current planning system, and to consider where the proposals will lead our communities and how our communities will engage in the planning process in future. The current system—the previous Government's approach—was quite simple: there were top-down targets, with the Government deciding numbers, and local people could decide where to impose the Government's will. It was a classic ““Government knows best”” approach. I applaud the current Government on their approach of freeing up local communities to set their own course and allowing them to set a local vision. It gives local people a real say in planning that vision and more control over their own destiny, which I think is incumbent on a Government led by the Conservative party. It will be a day of liberation when the Localism Bill receives Royal Assent and the ghastly regional spatial strategies, which many of my constituents have feared for years, disappear. However, I fear that before we get planning liberation several of the local communities I represent might be caught with unwanted developments as a result of a lack of coherence in the planning strategy of the Labour-controlled Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council, where contradictory assessments of housing need have already lead to one unwanted development being imposed by the Planning Inspectorate. We must also recognise that although locally based planning is vital, for consistency of approach we also need a strong national framework. I am encouraged by the draft NPPF that the Government have put before us and by their intention to balance the important concept of local planning with the fact that we are all living longer, more of us want to live apart than together and that we all need those homes for our children for the future, which is a major concern in many constituencies. The draft NPPF cuts the current guidance down to size and puts it into a format that can be understood not only by planners in town halls, but by the communities we all serve. It is clear that if people put their local plans in place and get all their ducks in a row, based on clear evidence, their communities will be protected from speculative developers and the will of the Planning Inspectorate. It is clear that the local plan will hold primacy. However, I have some suggestions for the Government. First, the NPPF contains a carrot-and-stick approach; the presumption in favour of sustainable development being the stick, and the fact that the presumption will not be effective if an evidenced-based plan is in place being the carrot. The Government must honour that principle, because some planning authorities are more advanced in putting together their local plans than others. We cannot have an indefinite and open-ended situation in which local authorities decide not to put local plans in place, but I think that we should give them the opportunity to put their local plans in place as quickly as possible by allowing a transitional period in which they can do that. I welcome the comments that the Minister made on that this afternoon.