Housing Infrastructure: Essex

Thus far, no housing scheme has produced anything close to the funding needed to pay for such schemes. I know that the Government are reviewing section 106 and the CIL process, and I would welcome an update from the Minister on that. We need to unlock all of that to get investment in our roads, in my case for the A12 and A120. For my constituency of Witham, those are the two major trunk roads with upgrade plans, but they have already faced delays. The A12 scheme has faced delays and is now progressing through a development consent order process, which is very controversial, I should say. Villages in particular are being impacted.

The A120 dualling scheme has been delayed. Under the road investment strategy, it has gone from RIS2 to RIS3. The scheme is necessary. The A120 was once one of the most dangerous roads in the country. I think it would be useful to hear from the Minister how the planning system and her work is integrating with transport. Linked to that, of course, is healthcare and education. Those are key aspects. The all-party parliamentary group for the east of England highlighted in its levelling up report some of the real deficiencies across the east of England, including Essex, showing that funding formulas used to calculate contributions for key services—health and education in particular—are simply inadequate. Patient-GP ratios in Essex are among the highest in the country. We are struggling, yet we have more people living in our constituencies with no access to health facilities. I would welcome an update from the Minister on that area.

I would like to touch on a very particular point about planning and raise the issue of class Q regulations for urgent development on Crown land. It would be very useful to know how the phrase “urgent development” is defined by central Government. I raise this because the Home Office is using this measure to develop a large asylum accommodation in Wethersfield, in the Braintree district, which my constituency neighbours. The wider impacts for Essex are absolutely enormous. I should just add, for the record, that my part of Essex already houses the largest number of refugees in the whole county.

I would like to pay tribute to everyone who does amazing work locally. It is the local councils that are doing incredible work, but I am afraid that they are not getting the support they need from the Home Office. I appreciate that it is not the Minister’s Department, though obviously she is familiar with the Home Office, but I would like to know specifically what the class Q regulations mean when it comes to taking over a site, in this case Wethersfield, and how the approach may differ from previous sites that the Government have looked at or worked on in the past. Linton-on-Ouse in Yorkshire was one of them.

In particular, I would like to know how there can be such an exceptional planning process that bypasses all concerns and considerations of local councils, local authorities and local residents. I should just add though that Wethersfield is a village. Residents are concerned about clause 103 in the most recent version of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, currently being considered in the House of Lords, which concerns urgent Crown development. The clause gives the Government the power to determine urgent applications on Crown land, which basically bypasses local decision making. I am not sure if local authorities across the country understand what the power will do. It will bypass local democracy, and I think that is a major issue. I would be grateful if the Minister could give an insight on that today. If she cannot, then she is very welcome to write to me on the specifics of this. I would not expect her to have the full details today.

Some of the detail on the use of class Q regulations and clause 103 will cross into our former Department—the Home Office. In particular, I am looking for assurances on how local communities can hold the Government to account, because currently their voices are being silenced. They are simply not having a say.

Democracy reigns in our country, and long may it reign, but within our local communities elected councillors need to be able to engage local residents in a strong way. There are many other planning and development issues that I could raise. I think that I have given the Minister an insight into the Witham constituency, if nothing else. I really look forward to not just hearing from her but working with her. I think she is one of the most capable Ministers in Government, and I have had the privilege of working with her. She has an important role in Government in terms of working across other Departments on these areas of planning, and delivering something that sometimes the Government do not do enough: integrating national policies across the board, so that we can demonstrate that the Government work on behalf of, and deliver for, the British public.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham talked in huge detail about all the knotty issues connected to the planning system, and I fear that I will detain the House for too long if I elaborate at great length, so I will pick out a few key points. I will, however, happily respond to her invitation and meet with her, and with some of the groups that she mentioned, such as the all-party parliamentary group for the east of England, to discuss the matter in more detail. She is right in her central observation that we cannot do this in our Department alone; we have to bring together all the different levers of Government—Government funding, the Treasury, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and transport, as she specifically mentioned.

My right hon. Friend expressed the frustration of her constituents when they see development that is not in line with the local plan. That is why we are working to strengthen the role of local plans in the system through all the measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. That is absolutely right, because residents feel frustration when local plans are not in place, or cannot be enacted. Speculative development then comes in, leaving local communities feeling ignored. Communities in Witham are very fortunate to have such an effective champion, so their concerns are being heard here. That is why we are making changes to the planning system through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, including to strengthen the role played by neighbourhood plans, which are a valuable means for communities to shape their surroundings.

The national planning policy framework includes important protections for neighbourhood plans where speculative applications have been submitted and conflict with the plan. For instance, if a local planning authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of housing sites, which is currently required, a neighbourhood plan may benefit from protections. We are consulting on proposed changes to the paragraph 14 protections in the framework, which, as my right hon. Friend will know, will extend the time period that qualifying neighbourhood plans are afforded under paragraph 14 from two to five years, in recognition of the time it takes to produce a neighbourhood plan. We propose removing the requirement that a local planning authority has at least a three-year supply of deliverable housing sites and that its housing delivery is at least 45% of what was required over the previous three years. That will enable more neighbourhood plans to benefit from those protections, and I hope her residents will find that change reassuring.

The changes will empower local communities and place them at the heart of the planning system, and will remove barriers to building more homes. I will make a few remarks on the five-year land supply because, again, my right hon. Friend has effectively said how controversial that can be and how it can lead to developments coming forward in a way that does not come under the support of local areas. We propose removing the requirement for local planning authorities to maintain a five-year housing supply when they have an up-to-date local plan. We intend to make changes to simplify the policy as well as to clarify the use of historical over-supply in five-year housing land supply calculations. We will come forward with the outcome of our consultation analysis. That will provide yet more incentives for local authorities to work closely with their communities to agree local plans.

It is sometimes reported that we have dropped house building targets. That is not the case. I assure colleagues that we are absolutely committed to building the homes this country needs—the 300,000 homes that we need to be building. We are delivering them through a plan-led system with the consent of local communities that commands the support of Parliament, our colleagues and local democracy, which is at the heart of what we are doing.