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National Planning Policy Framework

In the spirit of the debate, may I refer hon. Members to the register and declare my membership of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Gloucestershire wildlife trust, Friends of Leckhampton Hill and Charlton Kings Common, and the Leckhampton Green Land Action Group? May I pay tribute, too, to the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has responded constructively and openly to this debate, and to the wider debate? He has certainly spent a lot of time with me and with other Back Benchers who have expressed concern about the national planning policy framework, which is very much appreciated. I share the emerging consensus across the House that the general principles of the framework may be good, and that the idea of simplification is welcome—certainly to anyone who has tried to trawl through volumes of planning guidance. There are, however, serious concerns about the way in which the first draft has come out. I agree, in particular, with many of the comments about the six-year supply rule and the large loophole regarding the ability of developers and others to challenge not just local plans but individual policies and evidence on the basis that they are out of date, absent, silent or indeterminate. Points have been well made on those, and I will not repeat them. This should have been a trouble-free area of coalition policy. The precedents were very good, and I was shocked at how good the Conservative policy on planning was in ““Open Source Planning”” when it was published. It was very, very impressive; we were rather startled and felt the need to catch up. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has obviously been involved in developing even more robust policies. There was an emphatic statement in ““Open Source Planning”” which I thought was very good:"““Our emphasis on local control will allow local planning authorities to determine exactly how much development they want, of what kind and where.””" It balanced that with incentives, so there was not a temptation to say no to everything, but that emphatic statement was rather good, and if it can be repeated in the framework, that will be helpful. Some Liberal Democrat policies on the natural environment, including the one that I helped to co-author on natural heritage, which was adopted by the party, made some complementary statements on the protection of the natural environment. We said:"““Too often we have parcelled off a small number of sites or areas for special protection by experts and left the rest to the mercy of market forces where different values often prevail and valuable natural resources are lost.””" That document originated the policy of local green spaces, which is in the framework, and which I very much welcome. It is designed to help to protect green spaces, not for their biodiversity or outstanding beauty, but simply because they are important to local people and have been proven to be so. Those themes have been reinforced in government, in the Localism Bill, in the natural environment White Paper, with its very strong emphasis on the valuing of natural capital, and, indeed, in the statement last November by the Prime Minister, who said that"““we will start measuring our progress as a country not just by how our economy is growing, but by how our lives are improving, not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life.””" That is important. There are tensions in this debate, and it is important to consider the need for housing, including the very real need for affordable housing, and the need to tackle the affordability crisis, but it is a mistake to think that growth will be a panacea for those problems, for a number of reasons. First, as a country we need to learn to live within our environmental limits. Green space is a finite resource, and certainly on a crowded island with limited suitable areas for recreation and enjoyment, as well as for building, we cannot simply build and build and grow and grow. That is fundamentally unsustainable in the end. Secondly, there are about 1 million more homes in this country than there are households, according to answers given to me by the Minister's own Department. The problem, of course, is that they are not in the right places for jobs and work and where people want to live. It is local patterns of supply and demand that are the really big factors. In some areas, such as my constituency and others that have been mentioned, the demand is simply insatiable. Cheltenham has grown by 60% over recent decades, but we still have relatively high house prices and a housing waiting list. We can build on enormous amounts of countryside and those things will still apply because we will still have—I hope—really good jobs, good schools and a good built and natural environment. It is those kinds of things that drive this. It comes as a bit of a shock, therefore, to find ourselves accused of producing a developer's charter. The reason for that, I think, is in the wording of this document and the imbalance in it. There are very definite statements that"““local planning authorities should plan positively for new development””" and that planning"““must operate to encourage growth””," The statements on the environment, however, are much more measured and often qualified. Even the one that states:"““Plans should allocate land with the least environmental or amenity value””" is immediately qualified:"““where practical, having regard to other policies in the Framework including the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Plans should be prepared on the basis that objectively assessed development needs should be met””." Even where we are trying to use language that is more environmentally friendly and values social and environmental factors, it is heavily qualified. That needs to be rebalanced, because this language matters. It is listened to by local planners and the officers who drive local policies.