Paul Holmes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I come from the school of thought that local authorities generally and genuinely try to do the right things for their local residents and start with trying to deliver change. Looking at the Minister’s new clause 44— “Applications for development consent: removal of certain pre-application requirements”— could you each, within the remits that you have, outline your concerns around removing some of the pre-application requirements, and what the impact might be on your workforce, which is trying to determine what is and is not right for your areas? Do you accept the premise of removing certain pre-application requirements to speed up planning processes? Councillor Hug: Are you referring to new clause 44, not clause 44?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We were just in the middle of a response from you, Victoria, on your proposal to bring in a chief planning officer. Because we were voting, would you like to finish the point that you were making, or are you content with what you said before we went? Victoria Hills: Thank you very much. I was making the point that, if you want to mobilise delivery quickly, and if you have gone to the effort of producing a new Bill and getting all the bits and pieces in place that you need to deliver the growth that we know the Government have committed to deliver, it makes sense to have someone with the appropriate level of seniority, experience and competency within local government who can drive forward that delivery. There are a number of changes proposed in the Bill to do planning slightly differently, and within that context, you absolutely need a statutory chief planning officer working with the local politicians to deliver what the communities want to see locally. There is a golden opportunity in the Bill to ensure that we put that role in place in statute so that communities can be assured that, as these changes go through, they have the right level of seniority and competency working with the elected politicians to deliver the changes that they would like to see locally. We support much of what is in the Bill, but we feel that it would be a missed opportunity not to introduce a provision for a statutory chief planning officer. You mentioned that these people exist, but they exist at different levels in different shades in different authorities. Very much along the lines of the conformity that I believe the Bill is trying to bring in for planning committees, if you are going to bring in a new national scheme of delegation for planning committees, you really need a statutory chief planning officer who can deliver that scheme locally, working hand in hand with the politicians to do so.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Just one quick question, which I imagine will be more relevant to Mr Stevens than Mrs Henderson—hello Kate; I do not mean anything bad by that. It has been a long-term feature of this Bill—and has been the case ever since this Government were elected—that we disagree with some of the elements of the Government’s housing target regime, particularly the algorithms and focus of where those housing targets lie within the United Kingdom. It should come as no surprise that I want to ask about new towns. Mr Stevens, the Minister and the Secretary of State have been less than forthcoming about whether they think that new towns should be included within the housing targets across the UK. No answers have come forward. Do you think that new towns should be included, and should they contribute to local authorities’ housing targets? James Stevens: I think that the Government are still thinking through the best way to deal with that. There are provisions in the Bill related to the definition of development management companies and such. As I said, I think the Government are still working it through. On the work of the new towns commission and the identification of new towns, it is the HBF’s view that they should probably not contribute to local authority targets, but be treated as a contingency—a pool to ensure that the housing requirements under the mandatory standard method, which is a major step forward, can be achieved in the event that you get under-bounded cities unable to meet their needs in full. Even if the provisions relating to spatial development strategies come forward, it is still possible that some of them might not be successful in meeting the entirety of the standard method. I think it is probably realistic and would be sensible, as the new Labour Administration did with eco-towns, that they should contribute to filling a national shortfall rather than contributing to local authority targets. That would be my recommendation. We have asked the Government, but as far as I understand, they have not reached a view on that yet.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I think the Minister is being slightly disingenuous about the reforms being proposed by the Government to compulsory purchase orders. At no point did you state that you are simply uncomfortable with the concept of CPO. Could you outline some of your concerns about where the Government are amending the rates at which tenant farmers and landowning farmers are being compensated? What impact will that have on your members, particularly when the rate at which some people are being compensated under future legislation is due to reduce? Rachel Hallos: I am a tenant farmer; my landlord can do as they wish. In reality, I have few rights, so I understand what it is like to be a tenant farmer. If this will change the relationship between a landlord and a tenant, you have a very difficult situation. Of course, the tenant will have only a certain pool of money to take with them elsewhere to go and rent another farm. As we all know, there is not a lot of them there—that will be the difference. It is the practical differences that I am looking at here. I am putting my farmer hat on, which says, “If that happened to us on our farm, where would we go and what would we go with?” We would be in a competitive market trying to get that farm to continue what we do, which is produce food. As many of you may know, not all farms are the same. That is the farmer answer for you, putting myself in those shoes.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you for being more concise in your answer than I was in my question—apologies. Very briefly, what interaction and engagement have you had with the Treasury in your representations? Have you made representations to the Treasury? What has it said to your request for more resourcing, and have you had any early indication of the Treasury’s thoughts on the spending review and the need for Natural England to have increased funding? Matthew Pennycook: I fully appreciate and have no issue with you trying, shadow Minister, but I am not going to make any comment on the ongoing spending review negotiations.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is your fault then. Councillor Wright: I have lived in hope that we get clarity on purpose and policy. At the moment, we have far too many policies all coming through at the same time. For instance, the conflict between LGR spatial development plans—it is chicken and egg, and seems to have come at the wrong time. I have spent the last few months explaining to residents that, because of the huge conflagration of policies at the moment, we have policies that we do not think will achieve what they should. For instance, I refer to the 1.5 million permissions that will be put in place because there is not a single tool in anything we have seen so far that will compel builders to build. We have that on one side, and now we are having to explain to people that, alongside that, they will no longer have a voice in the planning system if some of these policies go through. This has all been swallowed up. Perhaps the attention of some people in the local authority could rightly be on local government reform and devolution when, really, we need to see this in the round. There are so many policies coming through—conflicting policies and policies that we think are only part-finished. Some of them could achieve a lot of what we want to see and do, and what our residents want to see, but at the moment it is such a hodgepodge that it is very difficult to follow and to see where the concentration needs to be. Councillor Clewer: From the county’s point of view, I think you are raising some valid points. Having been through unitarisation, it is extremely disruptive. You are placing an awful lot on districts and counties that are going through that and creating new authorities to then make them look at planning reform of this level of significance. Planning was one of the hardest areas to get into the new unitaries. We still struggle with it 16 years on. It has proved really challenging because of the local, granular impact that planning has. If you then want to look at the issue around the spatial plans, when some of us do not have mayors, or even mayoral geographies, I have no idea how we are meant to be talking with equal voices to create spatial delivery plans when we have that hodgepodge. At the very least, we have to know our mayoral geographies to be able to make any headway in coming up with a meaningful plan. Honestly, without the mayors, and the authority, funding and the voice to central Government that comes with them, it will put everyone else at risk. That really concerns me. It creates the ability for mayors, perhaps in metropolitan areas, to push development into more rural areas when the rural areas do not have the voice and the same ability to express their challenges and concerns. You need the granularity to understand the impact of planning on the local level.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Councillors, for being here. I put on record that many Committee members are former or still serving councillors.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Welcome to the Committee, Mr Airey and Mr Richards. Thank you for your time and sorry to keep you waiting; I hope the questions are worth it. As you know, the Opposition were consistently concerned throughout the Second Reading debate—we asked previous witnesses questions on this—about the perceived democratic deficit in the future planning system should some of the measures go through, particularly those on national schemes of delegation and on statutory consultees and changes to the consultation process. Mr Airey, do you think this legislation will remove local people’s right to make representations and make an impact, to the extent that they currently can, on local planning decisions? Jack Airey: First, we start from a very low base of democratic engagement in the planning system. Very few people engage in planning applications or the planning process, and often the people who do are not representative of their local area. The No. 1 thing we could do is to increase that participation and get a much wider range of people involved in having a say in planning. That is my primary concern. On a national scheme of delegation, it all depends on the detail that the Government provide later and how it is implemented through regulations. In the context that I set out, I am not too worried about a perceived loss of democratic oversight, because I feel like it is so low. It would be remiss of me not to note that councillors who are on planning committees are often elected with very small mandates, given the very low turnouts in local elections, so in my view we start from a very low position in respect of people having the right say in what they should be doing. It would be no bad thing if the intent of the reform that comes forward is to reduce the number of schemes that planning committees reject for nakedly political reasons. It is no way to regulate a major part of our economy—the construction industry. It creates lots of uncertainty for developers and for communities, and ultimately it means fewer things get built and much less growth happens than should. Often, councils lose millions of pounds having to fight appeals that a developer is bound to win because it has put forward a scheme that is compliant with a local plan but has been rejected for reasons that are, in my view, quite odd a lot of the time. If the reform that the Government eventually bring forward begins to deal with that, it will be very worth while, but the threshold for delegation will have to be set in a way that removes as much ambiguity as possible so that planning officers do not always feel the need to direct every single application to a committee, because every application will be controversial to someone.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you, Catherine. The Minister and I have regularly been on Committees in the House where we—the Conservative party—agree with the Government’s proposals over planning fees. We have been on many Committees together where we have not contested those. Could you elaborate on how helpful you think the Government’s proposals on ring-fencing and planning fees are, how prescriptive you find them and whether they could be improved? Could you also outline how you think the proposal could help the speediness of planning applications, but also have a greater impact on local government’s workforce challenges in recruiting and holding on to planning experts? Do you think the legislation will allow local authorities to have enough funding to keep town planners in local authority town halls and not going off to private companies? Catherine Howard: The way the legislation is drafted, it looks to me like it is highly prescriptive and will be very effective at ringfencing. It talks about the need to secure that the income from the fees or charges is applied towards the carrying out of the functions that are listed. Those are functions such as dealing with planning applications, certificates of lawfulness, tree applications and listed buildings. There are things it does not deal with—that is presumably deliberate—such as general enforcement and plan making. It seems to me that, the way it is drafted, you could not use the money from all of those developer application fees and just apply it to plan making and those kind of functions. If that is the intention, that is what it appears to achieve. Regarding recruitment, I know that fee recovery has been put into law in a number of different planning regimes. I am more of a specialist in the national infrastructure regime, where those provisions have been added quite liberally. It will be interesting to see how effective a pay-as-you-go system is. My concern still, in terms of how effective that will be at recruitment and retention, is that I do not know how much flexibility statutory authorities will have to set public pay scales. I would have thought—I am not an expert in this area—that if you want to attract and keep people who are otherwise tempted to go off to the private sector where pay seems to be higher, particularly with supply and demand the way that it is, you will need to make the applicable pay scales higher. I am not sure that the fees that are attracted by a developer can just be used to give people bonuses or higher salaries within the private sector. That is my concern. If the fees can somehow be used to recruit and retain more people within planning authorities, that must be a good thing. It seems to me that there has been more of a drain of talent out of the local authorities and all of the public sector authorities and regulators post Covid in particular, now that people can work from home. Some of the benefits of working with slightly more flexibility, which the public sector was always better at than the private sector, have slightly gone. I imagine there is more of an inducement for people to move across if they are being offered more money, so I recognise the problem.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Despite some of our earlier witnesses’ words about the democratic mandate of councillors, I respect what you do, so thank you very much. I will ask two mainstream questions: first, around some of the Government’s wider reforms, which in some cases the Opposition welcome, particularly around local government reform and the advent of new mayoralties—combined authority mayoralties. Do you think that undertaking a huge amount of work in terms of planning reform should come before we have seen the advancement of the reforms under local government reorganisation and mayoralties? In any area in the legislation, are you concerned that some of the intended consequences of the planning reforms will not be able to be delivered as they should, because we do not have the reforms to local government, which will fundamentally impact outcomes in the longer term? Councillor Hug: Obviously, the Government are trying to do multiple things at once—that is the case for all Governments at all times on all things; the world does not stand still. The challenge for this piece of legislation, and everything else, is to try to build in the scope to evolve once the overall picture of local government reform is complete. There is quite some way to go on that in different parts of the country. I am speaking from a part of the country that is not currently in that round of discussions yet. At the heart of it, the local plan has an important role, which we want to make sure is there in any new strategic set-up that is created, and that local councillors have a say. We want to make sure that, whatever core tier there is of local government, it has the ability to work with the new strategic mayoral authority in a collaborative and productive way so that both tiers are working in a partnership, which clearly recognises that the new role has been brought in by the Government and the importance of local councillors and local communities, which understand how to meet some of those strategic objectives in an effective way at a local level. It is about making sure that we are looking to build a partnership approach through any local government reform, and looking at how that then impacts on the planning agenda.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Welcome to the Committee, and thank you for your time this afternoon. I only have one question—I mean no detriment to you guys, but we have recycled some of the themes and I know that Back-Bench Members want to ask questions, too, so I will be quick. We have had a lot of conversation and heard a lot of evidence about the nature restoration fund element of the legislation, as well as some concerns—for example, in my constituency from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and other organisations—about the nature restoration fund, and about other elements such as EDPs and Natural England’s ability to manage them. Are you confident that, under the Bill as drafted, nowhere in the country that is affected by the NRF or an EDP will see a reduction in environmental standards? Will this Bill in fact do what it attempts to outline, which is to increase environmental standards across the United Kingdom? Richard Benwell: Thank you for having me. Quickly, to deal first with the question of whether nature is a blocker—that has come up a lot today—it is an absurd notion to suggest that it is the fault of nature or environmental regulations that we are not getting the infrastructure development that the Government want or the renewables infrastructure development that we want. It is worth noting that Natural England reckons that 99% of the housing applications that it is consulted on go through perfectly properly; only 1% receive objections on the basis of environmental concerns. It is also worth noting that what you heard earlier—that the vast majority of major infrastructure projects are JR-ed because of environmental concerns—is both misrepresentation and factually inaccurate. There has been a recent spike, yes, but the long-term trend is that only 10% of major infrastructure projects are challenged. Lots of them go through the paper permission stage and have been found to have merits. It is important not to get drawn into that sense that nature and development are at odds; they can proceed perfectly well together. The question is how to do that. We think that the Government are genuinely on to something—that there are ways to speed up development and allow developers to meet their environmental obligations more quickly and more simply, at the same time as helping to restore nature. We know that the planning system needs to do more to restore nature, so that aspiration for a win-win is a good one. To return to your question, however, we think that at the moment, as the Bill is drafted, that is not what will be on the page of the law—what is here now would represent a regression in the strength of environmental law. The situation at the moment is a high degree of certainty about the environmental results that are supposed to result from environmental law. That is being swapped, frankly, for a lot of wishful thinking in the way that the Bill is framed. The Bill would allow developers to pay a levy to discharge their environmental responsibilities, and then, through legislative sleight of hand and some magical legal jiggery-pokery, that would be replaced with a lot of subjective opinion in how results are judged. The mitigation hierarchy would be lost, so the expectation to avoid harm would be short-circuited. We would be in a situation where damage could happen now in return for promises of future environmental improvements that are very loosely measured under the Bill. At the moment, developers are expected to pay fully for environmental results, but the Bill sets out a situation where developers may pay only part of the costs of remediation, and that is subject to a viability test. In the Bill, the Government are putting a lot of reliance on the idea of an overall improvement test, whereby the Secretary of State is allowed to bring in an environmental delivery plan if it is likely to lead to measures that will outweigh the harm to nature. That “likely to” test is a much lower legal bar of certainty than the one we have at the moment, where you need a high degree of scientific certainty that the environmental measures will actually lead to results. It is worth emphasising that I understand why a lot of people want to immediately pause part 3 of the Bill. We are in an ecological crisis, with 19% of species abundance lost since 1970 in the UK—32% in England—and one in six species at risk of extinction. To mess with our most important nature laws is a really risky thing to do. What I would much rather see is the law being amended in Committee and through this process, so that the win-win the Government have rightly identified—that, actually, we can better spend some of the developer money to lead to bigger, better projects for nature restoration, at the same time as speeding up development—can be achieved. We have some proposals for how the Bill could be amended in some quite simple but important ways to bring that mitigation hierarchy back in, to achieve surety of results and to make sure that polluters really do pay for harm. I would love to talk through those with the Committee.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q The Opposition absolutely agree with you on that, and we appreciate your frankness in your written representations to this Committee. Continuing with this line of questioning on local planning authorities and their powers with democratic oversight, one of your interesting proposals, Victoria, is an amendment that would allow for a statutory chief planning officer per local planning authority. I find that particularly interesting because I can see the argument that you would have increased legitimacy with one planning officer per local planning authority, despite the fact that we already have those, as there would be one person within each authority who is vested with the power to make those decisions. Can you outline how you see that working with the political structures that are in place in local authorities, bearing in mind what we would argue are the legislative aims of the Bill in removing some of those powers from locally elected councillors and politicians? Victoria Hills: You are absolutely right; one of our core asks, which we believe would be a pillar of the quite systemic change being introduced by the Bill, is to have a statutory chief planning officer in every local authority. If you want to drive innovation, change, and the delivery of a new planning system, with the Bill setting an ambitious drumbeat for how planning will be done going forward, then to mobilise that delivery, you need to ensure that you have the appropriate seniority, experience and professional competency of a senior executive leader, rather than an elected leader. They can work with the elected politicians locally to drive forward delivery of the planning reform that is before this Committee. We feel that many of the changes proposed in the Bill, some of which are quite structural about the way that planning will be done differently in the future, require not only strong elected leadership but strong executive leadership. [Interruption.]

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  By the way, don’t apologise. You are perfectly entitled, as every other witness is, to give your view on this piece of legislation. I would say, however, that the Minister is absolutely correct that there were some hope value reforms under the last Government, and I was not here— Rachel Hallos: I accept that.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is very clear—thank you very much.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I didn’t think you would. Thank you.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you, Councillor Hug—I know that, as leader of Westminster, you have been through your reform many years ago, in terms of the accountability reforms with the advance of the Greater London Authority. I am particularly interested in the views of the district councils and county councils on where we are now in potentially going through some reform in LGR. Are you worried about some of the outcomes of the legislation while we have not got the reforms through yet in LGR? Councillor Wright: Yes, completely. You always live in hope. I have sat on planning for 18 years, before any Committee members want to have a go at planning.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will come back again, although I know you are under the cosh at the moment. Rachel Hallos: It’s fine; that is why I am here.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  We are removing statutory consultees. Councillor Clewer: There is significant concern about that removal. That process is how you identify some of the specific issues on the ground that need significant further investigation. I do not think you will save any time by removing that, because the investigation will turn up at the planning stage. You will just delay planning, because these will be areas around statutory consultees. What it will do is give the public the impression that things are just being rubber stamped and railroaded through. That will be catastrophic. NSIPs are such contested spaces already. We have to give people the chance to raise concerns to identify issues on the ground at local level that need further work and further attention. If we do not do that, people will lose all faith in that process, and they are already sceptical enough. Councillor Wright: I have the same concerns. NSIPs are decided by the Secretary of State. I have five in my district at the moment, including battery farms, solar farms and a reservoir. It is not about objection—consultation can bring forth some really good ideas, some solutions and some changes. It is massively important. For instance, even if there will be an impact on your community, the community benefit could be discussed right at the start. All sorts of improvements could be put in place through consultation before it gets to the formal stage. It is also about the appearance of removing that consultation. At a time when LGR devolution is meant to be bringing decentralisation, to just say that this is all going to be decided centrally is not a good picture.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State is right to outline the legislation he is bringing forward, but on the ground there is still frustration about pollution in rivers, such as in Botley in my constituency. We are still seeing overflows—not from sewage but from development pollutants going into the river—and parish councils are identifying them quickly and coming to me, but the accountability structures behind water companies such as Southern Water will not answer to elected Members like me. We are still not seeing the improvement that the Secretary of State is advocating at the Dispatch Box. Will he agree to meet me and my parish council to hear our concerns? Can he outline briefly how the sewage legislation that he has just brought forward will add to that accountability for parish councils and local residents?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Armed Forces Covenant · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to correct the record. When I asked my question, I did not refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which indicates that I am a trustee of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I apologise for not doing so.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Armed Forces Covenant · Hansard source

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  I welcome the report and congratulate all members of the Committee and the witnesses who played their part in the inquiry. Overall, may I extend the Opposition’s best wishes to our veterans, to our armed services, and to our serving men and women, who deserve our respect and utmost gratitude every day? I thank the hon. Gentleman for outlining the contents of his report. As he will know, we sat on the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill Committee together. What role does he think the Armed Forces Commissioner could play in upholding the armed forces covenant? Could they have an independent role in assessing how Government Departments do? If that is not the right mechanism, do he or his Committee have a view on some independent scrutiny to assess whether the Government and all Departments are adhering to the covenant? Have they looked at how that could be upheld?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor is right to focus on increasing economic growth, so will she please explain why my office is still waiting for a response on behalf of a small business to a letter that I sent on 12 December, asking her to look into the impacts of her national insurance rise on small businesses? We asked for an update on 11 February, I raised a point of order on 10 March, and I still have not had a response. Will she please get a response to me as soon as possible?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Homelessness and Rough Sleeping · Hansard source

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  Quite rightly, the Government said in their manifesto that they wanted to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping, but instead there has been a 20% increase in rough sleeping—at its highest in London but rapidly climbing in other parts of England, such as by 67% in Derbyshire. Homeless Link states that the Budget removed £50 million to £60 million from the sector due to national insurance increases and has called for a reset on homelessness funding. Where is the Minister’s long-term plan for reducing homelessness? Will she commit to seeing a fall in homelessness in the next year?

• 7 Apr 2025 · New Homes: Sustainability · Hansard source

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  The Government’s much-lauded policy of building 1.5 million new sustainable homes has been doomed from the start of this Parliament, and we now have that confirmed, with the Chancellor saying last week that only 1.3 million homes will be delivered by the end of this Parliament. But it is worse than that. Office for Budget Responsibility figures show that only 1.06 million homes will be built in England, which is 500,000 fewer than the Government’s target, and around 200,000 fewer than the last Conservative Government built in the past five years. Will the Minister confirm that the goalposts have moved, and that Labour will not meet its target for housing in this country?