Contributions
2,441 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformOn mandatory training, we are considering a wide range of implementation options. We are keen to work with all stakeholders. I encourage my hon. Friend in his capacity as…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI refute entirely the hon. Gentleman’s claim that the changes represent a loss of control. I encourage him to read the paper, which is about ensuring that decisions are taken by…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I absolutely agree with him. We have a local-plan-led planning system, in which fewer than a third of areas have an up-to-date local…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformWe have not outlined any proposals in the working paper that relate to call-ins or the takeover of local plans from the centre. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, though,…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformMy hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are good examples of training across the country. Hon. Members seemed to indicate earlier that they thought that mandatory training…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI hope the hon. Gentleman is aware that in those areas—he highlights very real problems about the unavailability of data to shape local targets across areas where there are such…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformMy hon. Friend raises a really important point. At the moment, the system incentivises allowing speculative development to come forward and go to the Planning Inspectorate on…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI say to the hon. Gentleman that 96% of planning application decisions are already made by planning officers. What we are saying is that there is a way to streamline the system…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformMy hon. Friend is right. These are sensible, proportionate changes to streamline the delivery of housing across the country—housing that we desperately need. If the Conservatives…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI encourage the hon. Gentleman to engage with the proposals set out in the working paper. Nothing is definite, nothing is finite; these are our initial views, which we want to…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformThe 300 planning officers that we are working to bring through the system with apprenticeships and training are just one part of the solution to address the real capacity and…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI think I am owed a visit to Ebbsfleet at some point, so I will happily take that up with my hon. Friend outside the Chamber. I am glad that he mentions strategic planning…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI do not know what the hon. Gentleman’s definition of “panic” is, but these are proposals that we set out in the King’s Speech and said we would bring forward—that was in July. I…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformIt is progress, Madam Deputy Speaker. We do need to speed up the process of local plan development. In a way that the previous Government never did, we are going to adhere to the…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformIt is not either/or. We have to have more permissions going into the system and more timely planning decisions made in accordance with material planning considerations and in a…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI thank my hon. Friend for that important question. To return to an earlier question, there are a small number of people out there who are out-and-out nimbys—as we might put…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformCan I say that I always welcome a question from the hon. Member, not least because it signals the end of an urgent question? I would say to the hon. Member that my ministerial…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformAs the House will be aware, in our first King’s Speech in July the Government announced their intention to introduce a planning and infrastructure Bill, designed to streamline the…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. We have to take steps to fix the ailing planning system that we have inherited. It is failing on a number of fronts, and trust…09 Dec 2024HANSARDPlanning Committees: ReformI have to say, it is quite rich hearing the hon. Gentleman crow about planning permissions in the system. We are experiencing the lowest number of planning permissions and…09 Dec 2024