House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee Planning, housing and growth Oral and written evidence Monday 15 October 2012 Mr Mark Prisk MP, Minister for Housing and Nick Boles MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Planning Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 15 October 2012 HC 626-i Published on 20 December 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £14.50 The Communities and Local Government Committee The Communities and Local Government Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for Communities and Local Government. Current membership Mr Clive Betts MP (Labour, Sheffield South-East) (Chair) Heidi Alexander MP (Labour, Lewisham East) Bob Blackman MP (Conservative, Harrow East) Simon Danczuk MP Rochdale (Labour, Rochdale) Bill Esterson MP (Labour, Sefton Central) Stephen Gilbert MP (Liberal Democrat, St Austell and Newquay) David Heyes MP (Labour, Ashton under Lyne) James Morris MP (Conservative, Halesowen and Rowley Regis) Mark Pawsey MP (Conservative, Rugby) John Stevenson MP (Conservative, Carlisle) Heather Wheeler MP (Conservative, South Derbyshire) George Hollingbery MP (Conservative, Meon Valley) was a member of the Committee during this inquiry. Powers The committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the internet at www.parliament.uk/parliament.uk/clg. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some or all written evidence are available in a printed volume. Additional written evidence may be published on the internet only. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Glenn McKee (Clerk), Sarah Heath (Second Clerk), Stephen Habberley (Inquiry Manager), Kevin Maddison (Committee Specialist), Emily Gregory (Senior Committee Assistant), Mandy Sullivan (Committee Assistant), Stewart McIlvenna, (Committee Support Assistant) and Hannah Pearce (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Communities and Local Government Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 1234; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] List of witnesses Monday 15 October 2012 Page Mr Mark Prisk MP, Minister for Housing and Nick Boles MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government Ev 1 List of written evidence 1 Department for Communities and Local Government Ev 23 2 Local Government Association Ev 24 3 Charles Robinson Ev 32 4 Residential Landlords Association Ev 33 5 Ian O’Reilly Ev 34 6 Marina Lewycka Ev 35 7 Highfield Residents Association Ev 35 8 Residents Action Ev 36 9 Monks Orchard Residents Association Ev 36 10 Stewart Morris Ev 39 11 London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies (London Forum) Ev 39:Ev 42 12 Tower Gardens Neighbourhood Watch Area Residents Association Ev 42 13 North Southampton Community Forum Ev 43 14 Loughton Residents Association Ev 45 15 National Housing Federation Ev 47 16 London Borough of Redbridge Ev 49 17 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Ev 51 18 Planning Officers Society Ev 54 19 National Organisation of Residents Associations Ev 55 20 Joseph Rowntree Foundation Ev 58 21 Nottingham Action Group on HMOs Ev 61 22 Royal Town Planning Institute Ev 62 23 Simon Hill Ev 65 24 Campaign to Protect Rural England Ev 66 25 Federation of Master Builders Ev 70 26 BCSC Ev 71 27 Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) Ev 74 28 Council of Mortgage Lenders Ev 77 29 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Ev 78 30 British Property Federation Ev 81 31 Westminster City Council Ev 84 32 RenewableUK Ev 86 33 Shelter Ev 88 34 Home Builders Federation Ev 91 35 UK-GBC Ev 93 36 J Shergold Ev 94 37 Friends of the Earth Ev 94 38 Jesmond Residents Association Ev 96 39 Leamington Society Ev 99 40 Loose Anti Opencast Network Ev 101 41 City of London Corporation Ev 105 cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [19-12-2012 17:24] Job: 024174 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/024174/024174_o001_db_121015 HC 626-i corrected transcript.xml Communities and Local Government Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the Communities and Local Government Committee on Monday 15 October 2012 Members present: Mr Clive Betts (Chair) Heidi Alexander David Heyes Bob Blackman James Morris Simon Danczuk Mark Pawsey Bill Esterson Heather Wheeler ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr Mark Prisk MP, Minister for Housing, and Nick Boles MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Planning, Department for Communities and Local Government, gave evidence. Q1 Chair: We welcome both new Ministers in the it be rented or owner occupied. We very much Department to our session today on planning and welcome this chance to engage with you. I may be housing. I wonder whether, just for our records, you less sanguine about it in an hour and a half’s time, but could say who you are and your particular that is certainly my view at the moment. departmental responsibilities. That would be helpful. Nick Boles: I am Nick Boles, Parliamentary Under Q3 Chair: That is a challenge to us. To begin with Secretary of State for Planning and Development. Nick, only a few months ago we went through a very Mr Prisk: I am Mark Prisk, Minister of State with long and rigorous consultation on the NPPF in which responsibility for housing and local growth. Greg Clark, the then Minister, very appropriately involved the Select Committee. We made our response Q2 Chair: You are both welcome, and and he took account of that in the final version of the congratulations on your appointment. I have spoken NPPF, which generally commanded fairly widespread personally to both Grant Shapps and Greg Clark and support. It is therefore slightly surprising, is it not, congratulated them on their movement upwards. I that only a few months later, before the NPPF has have thanked them in their personal capacity. I think hardly bedded in and started to influence local it would be appropriate if I put on the record my planning decisions, we are back with another thanks to Bob Neill. I have already thanked Andrew significant package of reforms? Stunell at a debate in Westminster Hall, but Bob was Nick Boles: Thank you, Chairman. It is great to be particularly assiduous in his dealings with the Select here for my first ever appearance before a Select Committee and me personally. He came regularly to Committee. I am suitably nervous. I am sorry if I the Committee and always gave us good evidence. We splutter slightly, but I am suffering a bit from a cold. did not always necessarily agree with what he said, of If I may put it like this, maybe appropriately you course; we do not have to. Nevertheless, he was could talk about the grand architecture of a policy and always very helpful, particularly, as I remember, on then the finer building details. The NPPF was a huge issues to do with the fire control centres. He allowed reform and a huge exercise in conceiving it a good deal of confidential briefing to be given, and intellectually, designing it, consulting on it, taking it the way he treated the matter before the Select through Parliament and it being amended in various Committee was important. He involved me and ways. That having been put in place, it is a huge members of the Committee in what was a difficult and achievement and one that, certainly in the last four or complicated subject, but it was typical of the way he five weeks I have been in the job, everybody seems behaved as a Minister. I would like to put on record to think is a good idea and is beginning to work. Local thanks to him for that. government, the construction industry, house-builders, Mr Prisk: Thank you very much for those remarks. developers and also some of the environmental and He will read the record, but we will also pass those other lobbyists, who have a lot of concerns about how on. We certainly felt he was a very effective colleague. we make use of land and how we develop, have very Can I also say that we welcome this early opportunity positive about it. There is general consent, which I to engage with the Committee as Ministers new to certainly share, that the NPPF is absolutely the right the subject? We very much feel that, whether it is on architecture for our national approach to planning investment, planning reform or access to finance, there policy. are some important opportunities for discussions That does not mean, however, that every single detail between the Committee and the Government, and also of how the planning system operates is perfect. for how we can deliver what we all recognise has been Having got the broad architecture right, we are now a long-standing issue, regardless of who is in going through a process of identifying various other government. We recognise that there are short-term tweaks and tightening-ups that can be done that would challenges, but also a longer-term issue, as to how we then improve the operation of the planning system.