Contributions
1,066 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting)For the Opposition, support for the recovery of nature and the natural environment is a high priority. Amendment 77 and the arguments we will advance later are about ensuring that…14 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting)For the edification of the Committee, they are also known as featherbed bogs.14 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting)I am grateful for the Minister’s response. There is a combination of indexation, which is always the relevant consideration. For example, we have been through the recent…14 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. The Opposition broadly understand the direction of travel that the Minister has set out and the principles…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)The Minister’s response has been excellent. Clearly, there will be a number of different arrangements at a local level. That should encourage us, as a Committee considering the…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)rose —13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley wants to raise some points, but I want to ask a couple of slightly technical questions. The first relates to clause 44(6),…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)I will start where the hon. Member for Barking finished. We know that the planning system has delivered consents for 1.5 million new homes in England, where the development sector…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)Actually, the answer is both. We will all know of people’s experience with local authorities: they meet a planning officer to discuss a delegated planning decision and they…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)If we look at the statistics from the ONS on new household formation and the balance between that and the delivery of new homes, we see that they are reasonably in balance at the…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)I am struck by the Minister’s point about the need for consistency. We will all be conscious of the level of inconsistency in delegated planning decisions, which make up around…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)Just to pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister—again, at the risk of placing officials in need of writing a letter—we can consider London, where we have…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)My great-grandfather spent his entire working life at the pit in Cwmcarn, which is now a forestry commission site. There is evidence of the coal that was dug for centuries on that…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)I want to press the Minister on the point raised by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington. On a visit to the London Fire Brigade I learnt that there is a particular set of…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)rose—13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)May I press the Minister a little further? That is a really helpful answer in illuminating the Government’s thinking, but could he explain to the Committee how that will interact…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)I am just reflecting on my experience as a councillor in local government. There are often disputes. For example, the creation or designation of a red route clearway as a trunk…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)I gently say to the Minister, who I look up to in many ways, that it is a challenge for the Committee to rely upon, on the one hand, an argument that this is not a big deal…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)Throughout proceedings on the Bill, we have flagged up the important point that is highlighted by subsection (3), namely the lack of retrospective application. I would like the…13 May 2025HANSARDPlanning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)The Minister has served on a planning Committee, and he will be aware of the challenges that arise where, for example, a historical permission is secured on which a developer…13 May 2025