Gideon Amos MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Committee will be delighted to hear that I will be extremely brief on this topic. Simply put, there is no provision for how often a spatial development strategy should be reviewed, and our amendment proposes that it be done annually. It may be that annually is not be the appropriate timeframe, but there should be regular reviews. That is the spirit of the amendment, although I will not seek a vote, to enable the Committee to make progress.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I appreciate that the Minister is hoping that spatial development strategies will make provision for that, but does he accept that the wording in the Bill is that they will provide for either mitigation or adaptation? That is the wording on the face of the Bill, is it not?

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 124, in clause 47, page 74, line 10, leave out “from time to time” and insert “annually”.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  So when do we vote on amendments 75 and 82 and new clause—

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  We have always accepted and we support that allocation of funding to social housing, but a theme in Government thinking seems to be that the delivery of more homes through the private sector will bring prices down. If the Minister wishes to correct me, he should feel free to do so. That was my central point: we cannot rely on private housing to do that. The delivery of social homes needs to be done by Government. I was pleased with the Minister’s passion for delivering social homes, which he expressed clearly, and I therefore expect him to accept the amendment. It would simply increase the targets to deliver social homes to a reasonable level of 150,000 per year. The delivery of social homes is a priority. We need to fund that to make it happen. If we really want to deliver more homes in this country, however, there are two big blockers, and they are not people, wildlife or the communities who will lose their voice in planning committees. The blockers are the funding for social housing and for infrastructure. If those two things were brought forward, I suggest that we would be able to build almost unlimited numbers of new homes. For all those reasons we moved our amendment, which would simply take the Government’s rightful ambitions and laudable objectives of delivering social homes a little further and faster, and would set a target for the first time for the delivery of social homes. We do not have such a target, but one is desperately needed if we are to address the housing crisis, as organisations across the board have attested we should, including the National Housing Federation, Shelter and so many others. On that basis, I have moved this amendment. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned. —(Gen Kitchen.)

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Amendment 29 would give effect to the Liberal Democrat target of building 150,000 new social homes per year by introducing such a requirement into spatial development strategies. It is a commitment set out in our manifesto, alongside a funding commitment of £6 billion per annum of capital investment—above current levels of affordable housing programme spending—to get to that level of provision over the course of a Parliament. In contrast, the Government’s commitment of £2 billion in affordable housing programme funding for 2026-27, for up to 18,000 homes, is welcome but, in our view, does not go far enough. For too many people, a decent home has crept out of reach. The National Housing Federation and Shelter both make it clear that at least 90,000 new social homes are needed per year, given the loss of 20,500 social homes in 2023-24. According to the New Economics Foundation, 2 million council and social rent homes have been lost to right to buy since the 1980s, but only 4% of those have been replaced—a massive sell-off, leaving far too many people out in the cold when it comes to their housing aspirations. A bath cannot be filled if the plug has been taken out. We need to end the current system of right to buy and allow councils the power to do so. As the University of Glasgow has shown, the building of private homes—even at the rates the Government advocate—will not mean any significant reduction in house prices. We should not rely on the private sector to build those low-rent and social rent homes we need. Private sector homes are built for profit. We need private market housing, and we have consented to thousands of new homes in my Taunton and Wellington constituency. However, those homes will never be released on to the market at a rate that will diminish prices or bring rents down to the levels that most people can afford. For all those reasons, we need to build 150,000 social rent homes per year, and that is the target that this amendment seeks to install into spatial environment strategies.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 21, in clause 47, page 62, leave out from line 32 to line 2 on page 63. This relates to amendment 22. This amendment would remove the requirement for unitary authorities to prepare spatial development strategies.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to new clause 104, which relates to green belt protection. We recognise that the Government’s proposals are set out in the national planning policy framework. We do not support the way in which the standard method is being imposed on local authorities, nor do we support the way in which green belt release will be forced on local authorities through the requirement that they review and effectively release land for green belt. However, among the rules that the Government have put forward, we sympathise with the strictures they have come up with for the release of green-belt land where local authorities decide to do that, which should support higher levels of social housing. Our new clause would require a quid pro quo for the release of green-belt land, which clearly will happen—it must happen, because it has been required and dictated in an NPPF. Local areas want to see proper protection for their green-belt land. Indeed, many areas would like to have a green belt, but it is extremely difficult for areas that have not historically had green belt to introduce it, such that there are hardly any areas where that has ever happened. There is therefore an inequity in terms of protecting land. Greenfield land can be just as valuable and important in Taunton, where we have green wedges stretching into the centre of town, as it is in and around London, where there is official green belt protection. Our new clause would provide for local authorities to carry out a review of the green belt and then to protect that land from development for 20 years. That semi-permanent protection would be a quid pro quo for the loss of green-belt land that many authorities will see under the NPPF. It gives people a real sense of the planning system’s failures when they have believed for years and years that a piece of land near them is protected green belt, but then they attend the planning committee or some meeting, and a planner—possibly like myself in the past—comes up and says, “Oh, no, no. It’s not actually protected any more. It’s not got long-term protection; that protection didn’t mean anything,” and it is wafted away. Communities want to know how their most precious areas of green land will be protected. Our amendment seeks to provide them with a mechanism to establish green belt protection for at least 20 years.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Dr Huq. I echo the comments of other members of the Committee. We have so far followed the groupings on the selection list, and within each group we have voted on each amendment that has been pushed to a vote. New clauses may be a different matter, but that is what has happened in the Committee to date.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for Basingstoke invited me to go down memory lane to what was happening in 2009, 2010 and so on. I am happy to do so. The Liberal Democrats went into coalition at that point. They were 9% of the Members of Parliament, but prevented a great deal of the worst excesses of the Conservative Government over that time, and continue to stand by that achievement. In fact, there was a 25% increase in affordable housing starts based on £15 billion of additional funding on affordable social housing under the coalition. In contrast, in 2009, a Labour Chancellor proposed cuts in the pre-Budget papers that he called “deeper and tougher” than anything Margaret Thatcher did in the 1980s, and began a £22 billion cut in capital expenditure, which was greater than the—

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Dr Huq, I do not know whether I get the opportunity to sum up, so I have jumped in with an intervention. Could the Minister clarify the circumstances in which an individual unitary authority—perhaps a unitary county such as Somerset, or Oxfordshire, if it becomes a unitary county—would be required to, on its own, prepare a spatial development strategy? Will all unitary authorities be required to prepare spatial development strategies on top of, and in parallel with, preparing local plans? I think that that clarification would be helpful.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise simply to confirm that we will press new clause 104 to a vote.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 29, in clause 47, page 65, line 36, at end insert— “(2A) A spatial development strategy must have regard to the need to provide 150,000 new social homes nationally a year.” This amendment would require spatial development strategy to have regard to the need to provide 150,000 social homes nationally a year.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will not give way. I need to get back to the present day, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. It is important to dwell not on the proposed cuts of £22 billion to capital expenditure from 2009-10 onwards that the outgoing Labour Government were proposing, but on the reality of the situation that faces people who need social homes today. That is what amendment 29 is all about. The hon. Member for Basingstoke suggested that the amount required per social home is £183,000. Figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research suggest that that is actually £131,000 a home. I do not doubt his sincerity in looking at the costs of each social home, but those are our figures. Against that, our proposed investment of £6 billion would be on top of the existing affordable homes programme of £2.3 billion. In passing, as I pointed out in my opening remarks, we recognise and respect the £2 billion investment that the Government have put into the affordable housing programme for up to 18,000 affordable homes. It is worthwhile. Our amendment simply asks the Government to go further and faster. Our commitment of £6 billion per year in our suggested budget—funded by the taxation proposals we set out there—added to the £2.3 billion of the existing affordable homes programme, would be sufficient to get us to a delivery level of 150,000 social homes per year in the course of a Parliament, according to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Our proposals are therefore founded on some consideration of the financial costs involved and of the priority that the Government need to give to the delivery of social homes. I reiterate simply that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage pointed out, relying on the private sector to provide low-cost social housing or even to bring down the price of housing has not worked to date and is extremely unlikely, to say the least, to happen in future.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq—although I was not sure how much of a pleasure until you introduced the sitting in the way that you did. Amendments 21 and 22 would remove the requirement on unitary authorities to prepare spatial development strategies, simply based on the resources that unitary authorities have and the stretch under which they have been placed. My own authority is working hard to stave off financial challenges after being left with a massive deficit to manage—£2 of every £3 of the council’s funding is spent on care for children and adults, but it also has to prepare a new local plan. It has permission for 11,000 homes that are not yet built, but the new plan will require a 41% increase in housing allocations in Somerset, which is a massive task that will cost millions of pounds. For an individual unitary authority, having to not only establish a unitary local plan but, at the same time, prepare a spatial development strategy seems over the top. That should be reserved for mayoral authorities, where a strategic authority is established. We do not oppose the concept of spatial development strategies; for strategic-level authorities, they could be a sensible addition to the planning system to reintroduce the strategic level of planning that was taken away. However, we are concerned about the significant additional burden on unitary authorities in also being required to prepare spatial development strategies that are meant to be more strategic in nature and have more than a single unitary authority area. With that in mind, I commend amendments 21 and 22 to the Committee.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  indicated assent.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification, and he has my respect for bringing strategic planning back into the system. I know he has worked on that for a number of years; some of us have also worked on regional planning for a number of years and can remember the regional spatial strategy processes—in fact, took part in them. However, the question of individual unitary authorities preparing SDSs remains quite a challenge. Perhaps the Minister, in summing up, could say something about the timescale. I can see that the Government are moving towards universal coverage of mayoral—well, strategic—authorities, as well as SDSs, which makes sense, but the timescale will be crucial here. If an individual authority becomes something of an orphan, or it needs time to ally itself with others and agree its strategic authority area—for example, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire put forward their proposal but were knocked back, so they cannot establish that strategic authority—it would seem unfair for those authorities to be required to prepare three SDSs for those three counties on top of three local plans. That is a massive amount of work. We must not underestimate the weight of work that goes into a local plan. For a huge area such as Somerset, it will costs tens of millions of pounds and it will take several years. For those three authorities also to be required to prepare an SDS at the same time would be unfortunate. If the timing could work such that—this may be the Government’s intention—those authorities have sufficient time to establish their mayoral strategic authorities first, and then develop an SDS, that would appear to be a much better way. I am interested in the Minister’s comments on that. We do not intend to press the amendment to a vote.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to support the thrust of clause 44. For a very long time, we Liberal Democrats have called for local authorities to be free to set their own fees for planning applications, so we welcome the approach. I seek a couple of clarifications from the Minister. Does clause 44 refer to planning applications and not to listed building consent? I think we all share a desire to keep listed building applications free of charge, so will the Minister let us know about that in due course? Local authorities are struggling for funding. In my own Somerset council, £2 out of every £3 of council funding is spent on care for adults and children, leaving £1 out of every £3 provided by council tax for everything else, including planning, housing, enforcement and environment, so funding is crucially needed. Somerset council has asked for the freedom and flexibility to set its own planning fees. One challenge it faces, in common with other planning authorities and planning departments, is the market rate paid to professional town planners, who frequently find that the level of remuneration in councils is worse. Will the Minister confirm that local authorities will be free to set salaries above the market rate to attract planning officers in circumstances when the market conditions make that necessary? The Minister may not wish to answer all my questions now, but I hope that he can address them at some point.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Another time, I would be interested to discuss what level of oversupply will actually work, because we have huge oversupply permissions already. My point is in relation to reserved matters. The last reserved matters application I dealt with was for a waste site that had 770 objections. I think local residents would have been incredulous to be told that their local planning committee was not allowed to decide that application. There were more objections to that than to any other application in the council area for years. The Bill does not say that this relates to just reserved matters, but even if the Government did bring forward a proposal to say that, does the Minister not see how controversial and significant even reserved matters applications can be?

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention, but guidance and policy are guidance and policy. We are talking about giving him and all future Ministers, of whatever party, the power to write the delegation arrangements for each local council in the country and tell them what they may or may not be allowed to decide. The difference is that national infrastructure projects are huge projects that have a national justification and are decided by an elected Secretary of State, but the Bill will forcibly delegate to an employee of a council decisions that will quite often be completely disagreed with by every single member of a council but will stand as a decision of that council. It cannot be logical.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak either against the clause or in favour of amendment 7, which is in my name. I am not sure which, but I am sure you can advise me, Ms Jardine. We have significant concerns about the clause, and I will spend a few minutes on them as it is, perhaps, more serious than it first appears. The clause would disapply the need for listed building consent, conservation area consent, scheduled ancient monument consent and notices for works on land of archaeological importance from Transport and Works Act projects. Our heritage has benefitted from protection under criminal law since Lord Avebury in the Liberal Government brought in the Ancient Monuments Protection Act in 1882. The Act provides that anyone who damages a monument commits an offence punishable by imprisonment “with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding one month”. That protection, and much of the wording in that Act, has survived, and the relevant wording remains in the main and principle Acts for listed buildings: the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. My suggestion is that this is not the time to remove such strong statutory protection and criminal sanction from measures to protect ancient monuments and listed buildings. I appreciate that the Government, in their memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, say that the approach is similar, but not as wide as the Planning Act 2008 approach, which the Minister has mentioned, and I fully understand the single consenting regime objective. It would be narrower in some ways because, in the proposed Transport and Works Act approach, it could be possible to be more selective about which measures are disapplied. However, the Planning Act 2008 approach is very different, because regulations made under it enshrine those same legal tests that go back decades—and, in some cases, centuries—so that they remain on the statute book and applicants under that Act still must comply with them. If our country’s heritage is worthy of protection under criminal law, as the Liberal Democrats believe that it is, the same tests should surely be applied under the Transport and Works Act as under other legislation. Those are long-standing tests. In relation to listed buildings, the wording that many in the sector will know is that we must have “special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting or any features of special architectural or historic interest”. Those words ring down the years. For scheduled ancient monuments, the requirement was to have regard to the “desirability of preserving” the scheduled monument or its setting and, in conservation areas, “to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance of that area.” Those are familiar words that, as I say, ring through legislation over many years. They should not be removed from the Transport and Works Act process altogether, which this clause would do. These are central principles of heritage protection that have lasted decades, if not centuries. The Government may point out that, as they say in the explanatory notes, section 12(3A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 remains in place, which provides: “An application for listed building consent shall, without any direction by the Secretary of State, be referred to the Secretary of State instead of being dealt with by the local planning authority in any case where the consent is required”. Although that section is referred to, it does not apply here, because consent is not required. All the requirements for consent are disapplied by the clause in this Bill, so there would be no recourse to consent under that route. Our recommendation is that the important statutory tests be repeated in the legislation for Transport and Works Act projects, just as they are for all other projects, including in regulations made under the Planning Act 2008. Many heritage organisations share our concerns. The National Trust says: “We have serious concerns regarding the scope of Clause 37 of the Bill which seeks to disapply existing heritage regimes. This clause enables Transport and Works Act 1992 orders to disapply authorisation” for listed buildings, and so on. It continues, “we have strong concerns about the possible disapplication of heritage regimes for transport infrastructure developments. There is a risk that this could enable harm to heritage assets without proper scrutiny and go further than the stated ambition of the Bill.” The Heritage Alliance has stated: “Until greater clarity and detail is forthcoming from government, we continue to have significant concerns regarding its potential to cause…unintended harm to heritage assets.” Even the Government’s own agency, Historic England has said: “Whilst the clause provides discretionary powers for the Secretary of State on whether to disapply the legislative provisions relating to heritage, as drafted there is a lack of clarity as to how and when this discretion would be applied. This risks resulting in uncertainty and inconsistency, which would undermine the policy intention…In addition, the disapplication of the legislative provisions for heritage does not provide any equivalent safeguards for the protection of heritage in relation to the authorisation and enforcement provisions for listed buildings and scheduled monuments, as exists at present” in legislation. It goes on: “The clause, as currently proposed, would therefore result in a weakening of heritage protection.” It concludes that “the current wording of Clause 37 may not actually deliver the policy intention of streamlining planning decisions, whilst having the unintended consequence of reducing heritage protection.” In short, we are very concerned about the removal of such long-standing legal protections for our heritage. In our view, they must be put back on the statute book in one way or another.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We support the delivery of 1.5 million homes, but a confrontational approach, whereby elected representatives are longer allowed to take decisions on behalf of local people, will alienate people from the planning system, create more conflict and make it harder to deliver the homes that we need. Taking powers away from local elected representatives is taking powers away from local people. So much of planning is already predetermined by national guidance and policy. Only last Friday, I had two parish councillors at my surgery. They came to ask why Government guidance on highway planning overrides everything that they, local people and their own transport planning expert know about highway safety in their village. Those objectors wanted to support the housing scheme in Cheddon Fitzpaine, but they were asking for a previous commitment to secondary access to be honoured. The councillors were told that there would be costs of £400,000 if they did not follow Government transport planning guidance, and they had no choice but to accept the application without the road. Not for the first time, after that meeting some of my councillors came to me and said, “What is the point of being a councillor if local resources are so constrained that there is no money to provide local services?” Even on planning committee, the Government are taking away decision-making powers from local people. It is totally unacceptable.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I invite the Minister to go slightly further. Will he say today that the regulations will include the requirement for both accessibility and heritage training?

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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