Category: Environment

James Sunderland – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The speech made by James Sunderland, the Conservative MP for Bracknell, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate and welcome the Minister to her place. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for all the work that has been done to progress the housing agenda in the right way—in particular through new clause 21, of which I am a huge fan. I also thank everyone for their speeches today; I agree with most of what has been said.

Ultimately, we are talking about the balance between brownfield land and the green belt; it is important that we focus redevelopment on brownfield, not the green belt. We have an acute housing crisis in the UK—we need more housing—because the population is getting older, people are separating, and immigration is on the increase. We have to ensure that we have enough houses for people to live in, so there is no question but that we must build more housing. The issue is where and how we build it.

I am a fan of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. In effect, I am speaking in support of it. It will drive local growth and empower local leaders to regenerate their areas. It will regenerate the high street in town centres and give new powers for rental auctions and permanent pavement licensing. It will introduce compulsory design codes to ensure redevelopment reflects community preferences. We are giving powers back to the community, and that is really important. It will also introduce a new infrastructure levy to fund affordable housing.

On housing targets, I was never a fan of the terrible Lichfield formula, so I give the Government full credit for listening and overturning it. We now have advisory targets, which are the right thing to do. I am dead against mandatory targets, but if anything, I want to see the end of advisory targets too, because councils are best placed to decide what housing they need locally.

I commend the Government on their brownfield development programme. Some £1.8 billion was allocated in the 2021 spending review, including £300 million of locally led grant funding to unlock smaller brownfield sites and £1.5 billion to regenerate underused land, which is expected to unlock up to 160,000 homes. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith), who spoke about permissions. We could build 1.2 million houses right now if there was the will to do so. Again, there is no need to go anywhere near the green belt.

Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)

That 1.2 million figure keeps being thrown around, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that that represents the total existing capacity? It is not an annual figure. The Government’s target remains, I think, 300,000 new homes each and every year.

James Sunderland

My understanding is that 1.2 million is the overall figure. It is important to say that. That is what Government sources have told me, so I am inclined to believe it.

Bracknell is pioneering the nationwide move to use brownfield sites. Some £2.3 million has been allocated to Bracknell Forest Council to assist with three major projects: £1.6 million will go to redeveloping Market Street; £570,000 will go to redeveloping the depot site off Old Bracknell Lane West—importantly, 25% and 35% of those sites are for affordable homes—and £119,000 of public money will go to creating an access road to unlock a piece of tarmacked land that will be redeveloped into four single-person homes and two wheelchair-accessible homes. So Bracknell Forest Council is doing its bit, in line with the national agenda.

In Bracknell Forest in 2019 and 2020, a total of 1,688 homes were added, of which 1,200 were built. That is a 128% increase on the previous year, so I commend Bracknell Forest Council and Wokingham Borough Council for meeting their local plans. Those Conservative-run councils have a proud record of meeting local plans and delivering homes.

I will make a slightly negative point about residual land, however, which is important because my constituency area is deemed to be 41% built up—it is mainly an urban, built-up area. Surrey Heath, next door, is 31% built up, Wokingham is 23%, Windsor is 23% and Maidenhead is 18%, so Bracknell is already one of the most built-up areas in the south of England. That is important because we have to ensure that we are giving due consideration to the quality of life of the people who already live there. My loyalty as an MP is to those who live in the constituency, not necessarily to those who want to move into it. It is really important that we preserve constituents’ quality of life.

My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham said—this is important—that we should not be building on farming or agricultural land, golf courses, school playing fields or any other leisure areas. The people we represent have to have access to those open spaces.

Far from encouraging building on farming land, we should be holding developers and councils to account, and issuing them punitive fines if they are doing so. We have to protect what we have; we have to feed our population. I also want to see recognition of the residual land formula in the Bill. If a constituency has only a small amount of land left, let us value that land; let us look after it and make sure that we do not build on it, even if councils quite clearly have targets to meet—thankfully, now advisory—and as we know, section 106 money is quite attractive.

I will conclude to give my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills time at the end. My point is that building is fine in the right areas. Yes, we need more housing, but we must not build on agricultural or green-belt land. Our green and pleasant lands are very important; we must not cover them with dark satanic mills. Once they are gone, they are gone.

February 14, 2023
Jim Shannon – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The speech made by Jim Shannon, the DUP MP for Strangford, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I thank you for calling me, Ms Fovargue, and I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for setting the scene. I supported her request to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate. We are discussing English planning rules, so I cannot share any knowledge from that perspective, but I wish to sow a Northern Ireland perspective into the debate, as I always do, because what we have in Northern Ireland is mirrored in England. I will also reflect on the contributions of right hon. and hon. Members.

I congratulate the Minister on her new role. I know that she will put her energy and commitment into her position, and I look forward both to her response and to her contributions in her role in the future.

The NPPF states:

“Planning policies and decisions should promote an effective use of land…in a way that makes as much use as possible of previously-developed or ‘brownfield’ land.”

It goes on to instruct local planning authorities to

“give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land…and support appropriate opportunities to remediate despoiled, degraded, derelict, contaminated or unstable land”.

That is the thrust of where I am coming from, because my constituency has utilised brownfield opportunities over the years, but there is still opportunity there. It took a long process to convince the planning authorities— I understand that the planning system in Northern Ireland is different from that on the mainland.

I represent an area that has a lot of land that is not under permitted development. Although our planning system is different, the problems are the same. It is incredibly costly for a developer to develop a brownfield site, with remedial costs on top of the cost to build, which is more expensive in Northern Ireland due to the Northern Ireland protocol. My goodness, I have to mention the Northern Ireland protocol in every debate I attend, because it affects us. It affects us in planning and in everything in life—it affects the very air I breathe—so its impact cannot be ignored.

New housing developments have to do a number of things. There is a delicate balance to strike between meeting the need for houses and protecting our natural environment, and I am not sure that the balance is being struck; what hon. Members have said today indicates that it is not. As the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, new housing developments must deliver affordable housing for people to buy and they must develop infrastructure, whether that be for storm water, sewerage, roads, footpaths or street lighting. In Northern Ireland, a great deal of that development is not put in the hands of the Departments but in the hands, and indeed the moneys, of the developer.

I have lived in the Ards area and peninsula for all but four years of my life. I am pleased that the Minister—and, I think, her husband—came over to my constituency last summer. I was pleased to have her come and see what she told me was the beauty of my constituency, including Strangford lough. I know that the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for some time, also had an opportunity to go there on regular occasions, including to Mount Stewart and down the Ards peninsula where I live. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty and of special scientific interest, so there are broad controls over what can happen there. Over the years, we have been able to develop brownfield sites down the Ards peninsula. Whether it be Ballyhalbert, Portavogie or Carrowdore, where there was land available, or Ards town—the main town—Comber, Ballynahinch or Saintfield, all that brownfield land has probably been taken.

It is important to have the infrastructure. For 26 years, I was a councillor for Ards and North Down Borough Council, and I had a particular interest in planning. I recognised early on that there was an opportunity to move towards brownfield sites, and we moved that way and relaxed planning rules to ensure that brownfield sites could be used. Let us be honest: factories—in the linen sector, for example—had closed down, and they were never coming back, so that land was going to lie there for ages. It seemed logical to move in that way, so we did over time, but it took the planning laws to change.

The Library briefing succinctly sums up the issue when it says that:

“CPRE (formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England) has argued there is sufficient brownfield land to meet England’s housing needs, noting that ‘there is space for at least one million homes on suitable brownfield land’.”

It continues:

“The planning consultancy Lichfields has argued that brownfield land ‘can only be a part of the solution to the housing crisis’”,

which we have to recognise. It then says that Lichfields

“noted that suitable brownfield land is often not available in places where there is more need for new homes.”

For example, in Belfast, some of the land along the River Lagan lay derelict for ages, but all of a sudden, it is a lovely housing development. A lot of work was done around the River Lagan, so the properties on that land became very attractive, as they did in Belfast harbour and across other parts. Land may look derelict and as though nothing can be done with it, but we have to recognise that it can be.

I will conclude, because I understand that the timescale for speeches is about seven minutes, Ms Fovargue. We have to make sure that the community is always involved and that we bring people with us. What I want to say is: “You don’t go agin them—if you go agin them, you get nowhere.” That is important and it is what we try to do back home. I do have concerns and issues about planning in my area, so I urge the Government and the Minister to continue the process that they have started and to ascertain the best way forward to ensure that we make use of brownfield sites, yet do not leave that as the only financially possible solution.

February 13, 2023
Greg Smith – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The speech made by Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing an incredibly important debate, as the other place continues its deliberations over the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. I worked alongside my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on many amendments. We will start to see some big wins in protecting the countryside from development on green belt, open countryside and greenfield sites, which will push the Government much more towards their stated aim of brownfield development.

I will start by trying to define what we are talking about. It is not just the green belt. That is a technical term. The green belt is vital to many constituencies, but in mine, we have very little technical green belt. What we have is 335 square miles of open countryside. Ninety per cent of the land in the constituency that I am fortunate enough to represent in this place is agricultural.

I echo the points made by the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet when I say that it is important to remember when we debate these matters that there is a point to the countryside. It is not just there to be pretty and beautiful, although it is both of those things. It is not just there for people to enjoy for leisure: to walk, camp and do all of the things we enjoy the countryside for. It has specific purposes. First, obviously, to produce the food and drink that we all enjoy eating and drinking. It is part of the vital backbone to our national economy. It is also important to things such as water management, allowing drainage to run, rivers to flow and chalk streams to be vibrant and active. The more we build over open countryside, green belt and agricultural land, the greater the risk there is to those things.

I will give a couple of examples from my own constituency. When the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was in Committee, I used the village of Ickford as an example when speaking to some of the amendments on flooding. The village is small and close to the Oxfordshire border with Buckinghamshire. Deanfield Homes has almost finished building nearly 90 homes on a site there —a site that has always been known to flood. It is on the flood plain of the River Thame.

Throughout the planning process, every excuse under the sun was accepted. Every clever scheme that was introduced for clever drainage solutions, or whatever it might be, was proposed and ultimately accepted by the Planning Inspectorate. Of course there are no surprises in the fact that that land continues to flood to this day, to the extent that the developers have even raised the level at which they are building the houses, with the fancy graphics used on the marketing materials even showing enormous slopes in the back gardens to allow water to run off, which of course goes into the existing and older properties in that village.

Only this week, I heard from a concerned constituent in the village of Haddenham, which has seen considerable development over recent decades, who reported a development at the back of their house on The Clays, off Churchway. The drainage pond that was put in as the developers started to dig foundations has been way above its natural level for some time. The amount of concrete that is going into those foundations is forcing the water towards their cul-de-sac, which is surrounded by walls made out of a cob unique to Buckinghamshire called wychert that, if it gets wet, quickly falls down.

We therefore have to ensure that we encourage the development of the houses and commercial properties that we need on brownfield and regeneration sites; I very much appreciate the soundbite that my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills came up with, namely “the regeneration generation”. It is important that we are cautious about the impact that development on the countryside has on flooding.

The big issue, of course, is food security. The more we build over our countryside—our farmland and prime agricultural land—the lower our self-sufficiency in food will drop. We are already down to about 60%. Of course we will never hit 100%, because there are lots of things that we like to eat and drink that cannot be grown in this country. Nevertheless, the more we build over our agricultural land, the more reliance we will have on imports, which is crazy.

I was pleased when, off the back of an amendment that I tabled to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the Government and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities agreed to put into the consultation on the new NPPF a reference that food production can be “considered” in the planning process for the first time. That is important and I urge the Minister to ensure that that change makes it through to the final NPPF. More than that, however, I urge her to ensure that planning authorities up and down the land are given a clear instruction that that is now available to them and they can use it.

A big flaw in the current NPPF—the previous NPPF, if we can call it that—is that the best and most versatile agricultural land was often walked all over and ignored by planning authorities and indeed the Planning Inspectorate. It would therefore be much appreciated by my constituents if the Minister could give some assurances in her response about the pressure that the Government will apply to planning authorities and the Planning Inspectorate on the provisions that will hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, be in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act and the new NPPF.

My last point is about consistency within the Planning Inspectorate, because if we are to achieve the ambition of the homes, commercial properties and solar panels that we need being on brownfield sites, or on rooftops in the latter case, rather than across our fields, we will need consistency in the planning process. I have a perverse case that has come to light regarding land—open countryside —that was always believed to be protected as a buffer zone next to the town of Princes Risborough in my constituency. Despite two previous decisions by the Planning Inspectorate saying that the land should be protected, a third planning inspector has now granted retrospective permission to a number of plots that have been developed on the site, so the residents of the hamlet of Ascot and the nearby hamlet of Meadle are up in arms. We need consistency from the Planning Inspectorate when it considers such matters and—if it can be achieved through the Minister’s good offices—we need that clarity to be pushed down, not only to planning authorities but to the Planning Inspectorate.

The facts speak for themselves. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) and others have mentioned, the plots are out there on brownfield land. The CPRE’s data is pretty clear: there is space for 1.2 million homes. The Government’s manifesto talked of an ambition to build 300,000 houses, whereas brownfield development can deliver 1.2 million without touching a blade of grass on the green belt—precious agricultural land, open countryside, nature reserves and so much more. I urge the Government to be bold in their ambition to move towards brownfield development.

Margaret Greenwood

The hon. Member has made the case very clearly. Does he agree that we need a much more positive way to talk about brownfield development? Wirral Council’s plans for the Wirral, which is a peninsula, involve the development of the east side of the borough, which has brownfield sites with fantastic views of the Liverpool city skyline. Brownfield sites can be incredibly exciting urban developments that people will want to live in, but we need the political drive to make sure that they happen. The design of many brownfield sites can be very attractive for people.

Greg Smith

I fundamentally agree with that proposition. Lots of brownfield sites offer spectacular views—whether of a skyline or out towards the countryside. The big challenge is political ambition, but we also need recognition within the tax system through the infrastructure levy to ensure that prospective developers do not look at a brownfield site and a comparator in the green belt or open countryside and say, “It is far cheaper for us to develop the countryside.” If we had a sliding scale to make it cost-neutral to the developer, so that they paid far less in the infrastructure levy or another form of taxation to develop a brownfield site, that would be a quick political win to get us to the brownfield development that I think all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in the debate want to see.

February 13, 2023
Margaret Greenwood – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The speech made by Margaret Greenwood, the Labour MP for Wirral West, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing this important debate.

It is vital that we protect the green belt because it brings huge benefits to people’s health and wellbeing, and has a major role in supporting wildlife habitats, allowing nature to flourish and mitigating the effects of climate change. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) in pointing out that that is important for everybody, regardless of how much wealth they enjoy.

It is vital that we build the houses that people so desperately need on brownfield sites. We need to build truly affordable homes on brownfield sites that have high insulation values, and heat pumps and solar panels as standard, so that people can enjoy the benefits of moving into a high-quality home that is cheap to heat. Who would not want to do that?

The last “State of brownfield” report by CPRE, the countryside charity, published in November last year, found that the number of new homes that could be built on brownfield land has reached record levels, with more than half a million homes with planning permission waiting to be built. It revealed that

“over 1.2 million homes could be built on 23,000 sites covering more than 27,000 hectares of previously developed land.”

However, it also highlighted that despite that,

“development of the highest quality farmland has soared 1,000-fold in 10 years”.

As Tom Fyans, the interim chief executive of CPRE, said:

“You know the system is broken when hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and families are on social housing waiting lists, many in rural areas. Meanwhile, across the country, tens of thousands of hectares of prime brownfield sites are sitting there waiting to be redeveloped.”

There is work to be done to ensure that the development that can take place on brownfield sites does indeed take place there.

The Secretary of State has said that as part of a “brownfield first” approach, Homes England, the Government’s housing and delivery arm, is spending millions on acquiring sites in urban areas to regenerate new housing, but it is no good acquiring the land if it then sits unused. It has been noted that there are often barriers to developing brownfield sites, one of which is the need for remediating works. Will the Minister outline whether she thinks the Government are doing enough to help local authorities to ensure that brownfield sites in their areas are viable for homes to be built on? Have the Government made any assessment of the amount of brownfield sites in the country that could be suitable for housing, but where significant remediation is necessary before development can take place?

Another CPRE report from 2021 pointed out that 793 applications were submitted for building on green belt land between 2009-10 and 2019-20, of which 337—just over 42%—were approved. That resulted in the building of more than 50,000 housing units on the green belt in that time, so for all the Government’s talk about protecting the green belt, it is clear much stronger protections are needed. The Government know that people care passionately about this. We need action now to make it easier for development to take place on brownfield sites and we need much stronger protection for the green belt. Without that, developers will simply carry on pushing to build on green belt sites.

With the absence of such protections, it is perhaps no wonder that developers feel emboldened when it comes to submitting applications for housing on green belt land. In my constituency, Wirral West, 61.9% of the land is green belt. It is a very beautiful part of the world and is clearly attractive to developers, given that in recent months we have seen four planning applications from Leverhulme Estates for homes on land in Barnston, Irby and Pensby. All were refused by Wirral Council last autumn, following a determined campaign against the proposals by local residents. I attended and addressed two public meetings—one at Greasby Community Centre and one outdoors in the village—in support of the many people in my constituency who oppose the destruction of the green belt. People will not forgive politicians who destroy the things that they love.

People in Wirral West value the green belt extremely highly, and they have made it very clear that they do not want to see it built on. I fully support them in this. Leverhulme Estates has appealed against Wirral Council’s decision to refuse these applications, and the appeals are now in progress. There is to be a public inquiry, which is distressing for local people, who want the local green belt to be preserved. A further application from Leverhulme Estates, for up to 240 homes in Greasby, is due to be decided by Wirral Council this evening, and the officer recommendation is to refuse that application as well. It was reported in the Wirral Globe last week that 6,000 people have signed petitions against the application, further demonstrating the strength of feeling in Wirral West, and wider Wirral, against development on the green belt. I have previously called on Leverhulme Estates to abandon its plans to build homes on the green belt in Wirral West, and I do so again.

Wirral’s local plan is currently going through its inspection process, but the plan, which was submitted to the Secretary of State in October last year, states:

“Sufficient brownfield land and opportunities exist within the urban areas of the Borough to ensure that objectively assessed housing and employment needs can be met over the plan period. The Council has therefore concluded that the exceptional circumstances to justify alterations to the Green Belt boundaries…do not exist in Wirral.”

Local people are extremely concerned about the actions of Leverhulme Estates and a series of other developers that are actively challenging that position.

Jon Trickett

Has my hon. Friend had a similar experience to ours, where the houses built on the green belt are often not accessible financially to local people? It adds insult to the injury of losing green belt land when their children or grandchildren cannot afford to live in the houses that are being built.

Margaret Greenwood

My hon. Friend points to a serious problem that we see in constituencies up and down the country. Developers want to build homes on Wirral West’s precious green belt, while local residents want to preserve it for the benefits its brings to health and wellbeing, as well as for environmental reasons. I stand with local residents in their fight to protect the green belt.

Brownfield land is not a static resource. Over time, some brownfield land leaves local authority registers as it is reused and new brownfield land enters the register as it becomes available. It continues to be a renewable resource, and every effort should be made to ensure that it is used to the greatest possible effect.

The Government should bring forward much stronger protection for the green belt as a matter of urgency. We need to see policy that drives the development of brownfield sites to build the truly affordable, zero-carbon homes the country so desperately needs.

February 13, 2023
Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate. It is an honour to follow the powerful speech from the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett).

I am delighted to be taking part in this debate as the Member of Parliament for a constituency that contains substantial amounts of green belt land. I know how hugely my Chipping Barnet constituents value the breathing space that green belt gives them. It has kept urban sprawl at bay for more than 70 years, but excessive housebuilding targets have been making it harder and harder for councils to turn down bad development proposals. In a number of areas, that is leading to loss of greenfield and green belt land around the country, and to increasing pressure to urbanise the suburbs.

I was very struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Hemsworth on the progressive blurring of the gaps between different communities and communities being merged together, and the crucial importance of giving people access to the countryside on their doorstop. For all those reasons, green belt protections are crucial.

Even where councils refuse planning applications, there is a risk that a planning inspector will overturn the decision on the basis that the development is needed to meet the centrally set, top-down housebuilding target. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, that is why I tabled new clause 21 to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which was signed by 60 Members of the House. In response, the Secretary of State brought forward significant concessions to rebalance the planning system to give local communities greater control over what is built in their neighbourhood. That is very welcome. It is being taken forward in the consultation now under way on the new national planning policy framework, but the battle is by no means over because the extent to which the compromise delivers real change depends on how it is implemented. It depends on that consultation.

Let me give an example. I very much welcome the new NPPF footnote 30, which promises that brownfield development will be prioritised over greenfield, but even on brownfield sites, it is crucial to respect factors like local character and density. “Brownfield first” must not mean brownfield free-for-all. We need more detail on how the “brownfield first” approach will be delivered in practice, including how the new developer levy will be used to promote it.

I very much welcome the proposal that councils will no longer be required to review green belt boundaries, even where doing so would be the only way to meet the centrally determined target. I also welcome the crucial concession that if meeting a top-down target would involve building at densities significantly out of character with the area, a lower target can be set in the local plan. Wording needs to be added to the new NPPF to make it clear that a substantial proportion of councils are likely to be able to benefit from that new flexibility and to depart from the target determined by the standard method. We also need additional wording in the NPPF to give more strength and clarity to what will be considered sufficiently “significantly out of character” to justify lowering the target, and how councils will be able to satisfy the test for establishing it.

As the Better Planning Coalition says, the whole target- setting process should focus on housing need, rather than housing demand. They are not the same things, and should be properly distinguished. The consultation also proposes removing the test that local plans have to be “justified”, which would be a welcome way to reduce the evidential burden councils face in establishing the exceptional circumstances that justify reducing their target. However, if that measure is to deliver the outcome promised by the Secretary of State, firm and clear instructions must be given to the Planning Inspectorate to accept local plans from councils that are based on reasonable evidence.

Scrapping the duty to co-operate was a key part of the compromise, too. The duty has created great pressure to build on green belt and greenfield areas outside our major towns and cities. Although the consultation proposes abolition, which is welcome, it envisages that the duty will be replaced by what is called an alignment policy. It would be good to hear from the Minister about this, as we need to know what that policy is if we are to be confident that the duty to co-operate is being scrapped and not simply relabelled.

Giving councils new powers to set design codes is also welcome, but design standards need to be additional to, not a substitute for, existing planning protections on matters such as green belt and greenfield density, height and character. A project that is an overdevelopment cannot be cured with high-quality design.

I would also highlight continuing concerns over national development management policies. Local development management policies provide a bulwark of defence against bad development, protecting greenfield sites and open space, constraining height or preventing loss of family homes to blocks of flats. Central control over all those policies could be deeply problematic and undermine the primacy of the local plan. Ministers say that that is not intended and that the NPPF consultation delivers on the Secretary of State’s promise to consult on NDMPs and their scope, which is welcome. However, NDMPs could still be used to rewrite the entire planning system and significantly restrict local decision making. I therefore urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to look again at this issue in debates in the other place and consider amendments that restore the primacy of the local plan in the event of a conflict with an NDMP.

Finally, I want to say a brief word about London. I welcome the indication by Ministers that the new flexibilities contained in the compromise proposals in the consultation will apply in London, but there is still an urgent need to curb the power of the Mayor of London to impose targets on the boroughs. We are the party that promised to scrap regional targets, yet they are alive and kicking in our capital city. The Mayor has used the London plan to try to load additional housing delivery obligations on to the suburbs, especially boroughs such as Barnet, which have already delivered thousands of new homes in recent years.

Crucial progress has been made as a result of the discussions between Ministers and Back Benchers on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and my new clause 21, but my long-running battle to safeguard the local environment of Chipping Barnet, which it is my honour to represent, must continue. Know this: I will fight with diligence, determination and perhaps even a little obstinacy.

February 13, 2023
Jon Trickett – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The speech made by Jon Trickett, the Labour MP for Hemsworth, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I think it is the second time this week that you have guided us through a Westminster Hall debate that I have attended, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate and on her comments, which resonated with some of the problems we face in my area.

Obviously the country has a housing problem as our population increases and household size falls, but it seems to me that, as the right hon. Lady just said, a large amount of brownfield land in the country remains undeveloped. There are also large numbers of planning consents in land banks held by developers that are sitting on their assets and allowing them to grow while seeking further planning consents, on which they will probably sit as well.

It is time to think carefully about our green belt. I represent a rural community of 23 separate villages. It is important for Members who represent urban communities to understand the importance of the independence of a local community, its local identity and local culture. Ribbon development, which gradually takes one field, then another and then another, results in the bringing together of communities that historically were often rivals, or certainly have different identities that they want to retain.

Take the village that I live in, which is a Quaker village in a mining community. We are now two fields away from Pontefract. If we go back far enough—back to the civil war—we stood for Parliament and Pontefract stood for the Crown. That is some time in the past now, but we get the point. I can look from the top of our village down into Pontefract; it is creeping closer and closer, and there are plans to develop more of those fields. The village I live in is a rural community, with its own identity. We do not want to be part of Pontefract, and the same applies to all the other 22 villages that I represent.

At the present time, we have three developments, all in the green belt and all for housing. I want to say two things about that: first, it is lazy for planners to simply draw lines on maps that look tidy without first having thought about the social, economic and environmental consequences. Secondly, to some extent, it is greedy of developers to want green-belt land, which is often easier to develop than brownfield land, particularly in a mining community such as mine where much of the brownfield land has been polluted and needs to be cleaned up. There are three sites in my constituency, all in the green belt; a lot of people want to speak, so I am not going to go into detail, but Springvale Rise, Highfield Road and Huntwick Grange are all under threat of development at the moment.

The first thing to say about my constituency is that these villages were mining communities. The coal was taken out by rail, so roads that would carry large amounts of traffic were never built, because people lived in the village where they worked, and they went to the local pub, club, football club or whatever social activity, and to the local school. Our roads are not built to carry the amount of traffic that is being generated by increasing numbers of vehicles, particularly now that there is no work in our communities either, but the highways engineers seem prepared to approve almost anything as long as it is going to deliver housing targets that have been imposed from above.

I was so pleased to hear our leader, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), say that he is going to bring back control for local communities, and I think some rhetoric about the same principle has been heard from the Government as well. If we are going to develop villages that need development, that should be done from the bottom up, not from the top down—that is my central point. Green-belt incursions should be a last resort, not the easy resort. I am asking for a presumption against green-belt land and in favour of brownfield land, and I think the Government have said that there will be one.

Does the Minister have time to reply, or else to write to us, about the following point? The Government, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have made statements about preferring brownfield development, and a “Dear colleague” letter has come from the Secretary of State that indicates—it uses the present tense, rather than the future tense—that he has issued orders about preferring to move away from green-belt development. Now, an inspector is looking at our local authority’s plans, and I have spoken at those hearings. That inspector started her inspection prior to the new legislation that the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills has referred to, and prior to the issuing of that “Dear colleague” letter and, apparently, some changes to the way in which the planning frameworks operate. She is unclear whether she will be applying the new rules as they come into place, or whether she is now obliged to work according to rules that are no longer extant, or will no longer be very shortly. Some guidance on that question would be helpful.

The green belt is very important. I want to focus on one single aspect of it, or maybe two, because other Members will develop other arguments in favour of it. First, I represent many old miners. If a person lives in poverty and perhaps has a bad chest, as many of those old men do, they should not be deprived of access to the countryside, but the more we build up, the fewer amenities will be available. That is what is happening throughout all the villages I represent, every one of which was a mining village. The loss of amenities matters a lot: they should be not for just the middle classes, but for everybody, and yet we are seeing incursions that I think are a disgrace.

The main point that I want to finish on—it will take me one or two seconds—is that there is no obligation on planners, developers, councils or anybody else to do an analysis of the ecological impact of a development before it has been approved. In my view, that is completely wrong.

We have one development that could be 4,000 or 5,000 houses, if they get away with it. I commissioned, because nobody else did, an ecological survey by the reputable West Yorkshire Ecological Service. That survey discovered on the site to be developed 26 or 28 separate species of birds, mammals or other forms of life that are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, or birds that are on the Red List. Nobody had done that work, yet all of these species are protected, as far as I can see. There ought to be no development that destroys their habitats, yet that is what is being threatened.

It is a curious situation, because there is legal protection, but no attempt was made to identify which species were threatened by the development. It seems to me that the Minister could helpfully go away to the Department and discuss that point. Every time we build on green belt, rare species of flora and fauna are threatened. The land in our case has never been developed; it is ancient woodland that has never been touched, ever, but is is now under threat from the development at Huntwick Grange in Featherstone. Will the Minister reflect on the ecological impact?

Only a couple of weeks ago, when the United Nations discussed biodiversity, the Secretary-General, in a very striking phase, said that humanity is in danger of becoming

“a weapon of mass extinction.”

What are we doing? We are building on sites where there are species that are under threat, and that may well become extinct in due course. Some species now have a very fragile hold on existence. Can we really say that our planning policies should just ignore threats to our biodiversity? I think not.

February 12, 2023
Wendy Morton – 2023 Statement on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

The statement made by Wendy Morton, the Conservative MP for Aldridge-Brownhills, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of brownfield development and protecting the green belt.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members, from both sides of the House, for being here today to support my debate. I appreciate that this is a Thursday afternoon just before a recess, and by-elections are going on across the country. I am sure that Members have many pressing commitments in their diary, so I am impressed by the number of colleagues here to support me today. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on her recent appointment to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; I am pretty certain that she knows a little bit about the topic that I will be speaking to today.

It gives me great pleasure to open this debate on our green belt. The national planning policy framework states:

“The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts.”

I very much hope that that is the case. The recent new clause 21 to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—so ably put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who is with us today in Westminster Hall, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), who is unable to be with us today, to strengthen the green belt’s protection against speculative development—would certainly help the Government with that stated objective.

However, CPRE, the countryside charity, rightly identifies that

“the Green Belt has never before faced such serious threat as large sections of land disappear under new developments.”

It is worth remembering the purpose of the green belt in our communities. It serves five purposes: to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; to prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another; to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. Despite the fact that we have those protections in place, however, they too often count for very little with developers who seek to drive a coach and horses through planning policies to take what is the easy answer for them but the unpalatable option for so many of our constituents.

In my own constituency in the west midlands, we were previously part of a consortium with three neighbouring local authorities to produce our local plan, known as the “Black Country Plan”. It proposed, across the borough of Walsall, a staggering 7,100 homes, of which 5,500 were proposed for my constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills, primarily on green-belt sites. Nearly every one of the proposed sites broke the central link of one of the five purposes of our green belt—that is, to prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another. Indeed, one of the central themes throughout the consultation process, which came up time and again from my constituents, was their objection to having our community subsumed to become a suburb of a Greater Birmingham. After the first round of consultation on the proposed plan, which more than 7,000 households from my constituency opposed, the answer, at stage 2 of the process, was not to take on board the comments of constituents such as mine in Aldridge-Brownhills; it was to come back with more proposals for yet more housing on even more green-belt sites.

However, now that the Black Country consortium has been dissolved, new clause 21 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill would help Walsall Council and the leadership, under Conservative Councillor Mike Bird, to forge a new local plan, which I believe could have a primary focus on “brownfield first”—brownfield development being prioritised over green-belt development.

I emphasise that those of us who argue for greater protection of our precious green belt are not and should not be simply labelled as nimbys. We are not. Nor is it the case that somehow I simply want to push the proposed housing into someone else’s constituency. I do not. What I want is for us to be ambitious and to be a regeneration generation.

We all recognise that we desperately need to see more homes come on stream faster and in larger numbers, but what types of homes do we as a nation need? I argue that they must include starter homes to allow younger people the same opportunity that my husband and I had in our 20s—I remember the joy of getting the keys to our first home. All too often, however, those are not the homes that developers want to build, particularly in proposals for the green belt. Indeed, speculative developer plans in a development brief for one green-belt site in Aldridge-Brownhills proposed to build four and five-bedroom houses in a location where average house prices are between 51% and 110% higher than the national average spend of a first-time buyer, which stands at just over £200,000.

The race to ensure that the next generation have the same opportunities will not be solved by concreting over Britain’s green and pleasant land. If we simply accept the argument that supply shortage is the principal reason for advocating green-belt development, we will walk into the developers’ trap. Building on inappropriate sites, with no infrastructure plan to support development in areas where there is all too often a shortage of school places and GP provision already, does not add to the existing community cohesion; in fact, it risks creating greater community tensions.

Given that we now have the capacity to build 1.2 million new homes on brownfield sites in England, surely they should be the first port of call for any house building programme. The Government are to be congratulated on continued initiatives such as the brownfield land release fund, which will help us to introduce a realistic house building programme on brownfield sites. The fund has allowed regions such as mine, under the stewardship of Mayor Andy Street, to ensure that we are remediating brownfield sites and operating a “brownfield first” approach across the west midlands and the Black Country. I place on record my thanks to the Minister’s predecessor in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for successfully overseeing a further round of that important funding, and I now look to the Minister to pick up the baton and lobby the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ahead of the Budget on 15 March, for further resources to advance the opportunities for more local authorities to apply for, and take advantage of, the scheme. She knows the west midlands very well, so she knows that we can and do deliver, and we want to do more.

However, in addition to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and initiatives such as the brownfield land release fund, the imminent changes to the national planning policy framework need to be used as an opportunity to strengthen protections for our green belt. I hope that we will institute the prioritisation of brownfield land over greenfield land in the changes that are due to be brought forward to the NPPF. Like CPRE, I hope that they will include a firm presumption against giving planning permission for development on additional greenfield sites, compared with those already in the plan. Greenfield sites should be allocated in local plans only where sites are primarily affordable homes for local needs, or where it can be shown that as much as possible is already being made of brownfield land, particularly by providing more housing in towns and city centres.

The NPPF also needs to change to require that all developments have diverse housing tenures and types. As I mentioned previously, a proposed development in my constituency has exclusively focused on large four and five-bedroom properties, offering no hope or opportunity to young families and young people. The infrastructure levy should be subject to change, too, to reflect the high cost of greenfield development to local communities and its impact on them, although brownfield redevelopment should still be required to make a contribution to affordable housing targets. We also need to provide local communities with stronger mechanisms to bring forward brownfield land as a source of land supply, such as increased compulsory purchase powers.

There will always be naysayers who tell us that brownfield land will not provide sufficient land to meet housing need and that the loss of brownfield sites for housing purposes will lead to the loss of land that could be used for employment purposes. However, we need to recognise that areas such as the Black Country and the west midlands—land on which heavy industry once stood—are unlikely to be returned to widespread employment use. If we are to be the regeneration generation, we need developers and our wider construction professionals to pioneer new communities that will offer a mix of employment and housing. In fact, a large part of any revival of our town centres and high streets surely can be achieved only if we accept the need for more designated housing in them to provide new and in-built footfall.

There is no doubt that when the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill went to the other place, it did so in a far better state. However, I fear that the concessions that were won through the acceptance of new clause 21 can be easily undermined if powers under the NPPF are not strengthened. We need to see an end to the five-year land supply obligation and an end to the scandal of land banking. We need further Government support with the cost of land remediation through the brownfield fund and the brownfield land release fund, and that needs to be adequately resourced.

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will agree that the best developments are those that work with, not against, local communities. The right type of planning regulation that unlocks the power of local communities and economic growth should not be seen as incompatible with protecting our environment and precious green belt. In the same way, our whole debate about the green belt should not be seen through the lens of “green belt good” and “house building bad” —or vice versa.

To conclude, we need to draw on our resources to solve the failure of house building. That means seeking to use our resources to build 1.2 million homes on brownfield sites first. “Brownfield first” should be our development watchwords. Get this wrong, and our green belt will be lost forever, which would be a travesty for future generations, but get this right, and we can truly be the regeneration generation.

February 12, 2023

Rebecca Pow – 2023 Statement on Air Pollution and Funding for Local Authorities

The statement made by Rebecca Pow, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 9 February 2023.

Today we announced our award of £10.7 million in funding to local authorities in England to help them tackle air pollution in their areas.

Across 44 different projects, we are helping local authorities to improve air quality in their local communities to benefit schools, businesses and residential areas and reduce the impact of air pollution on public health.

The air quality grants have been running since 1997 and since 2010, we have awarded nearly £53 million in funding.

This year’s grant has prioritised three areas:

Projects which reduce air pollutant exceedances especially in those areas that are projected to remain in exceedance of the UK’s legal targets;

Projects to improve knowledge and information about air quality and steps individuals can take to reduce their exposure to air pollution and minimise health risk;

Measures that reduce levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO²), including support for low-emission transport.

Schemes across England being funded include air quality education programmes for healthcare workers; traffic management schemes to reduce congestion and emissions; the funding of an e-cargo bike scheme for businesses to reduce their reliance on more polluting vehicles; and the implementation of a river freight scheme in London.

The air quality grant scheme will reopen for new applications in summer 2023.

Authority	Value funded (£)
Bedford Borough Council	36,332
Bedford Borough Council	113,071
Blaby District Council	573,701
Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole Council	120,309
Buckinghamshire Council	120,000
City of York	101,375
Colchester Borough Council	310,770
Cornwall Council	62,160
Derbyshire County Council	278,347
East Herts Council	126,408
Exeter City Council	367,428
Lancaster City Council Air Quality	454,576
Lincolnshire County Council (In partnership with councils for City of Lincoln, South Kesteven District, North Kesteven District, Boston Borough, East Lindsey District, West Lindsey District, and South Holland District).	58,180
London Borough of Brent	470,546
London Borough of Camden	170,645
London Borough of Enfield	223,500
London Borough of Havering	65,127
London Borough of Havering	35,139
London Borough of Islington	282,680
London Borough of Lewisham	248,021
London Borough of Redbridge	323,774
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham	277,950
Maldon District Council	129,000
Medway Council—Environmental Protection Team	279,533
Norfolk County Council	171,545
Oxford City Council	192,993
Reading Borough Council	327,000
South Ribble Borough Council	53,244
South Tyneside Council	201,005
Southampton City Council	248,198
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council	256,285
St Helens Borough Council (in partnership with Warrington Borough Council)	405,227
Surrey Heath Borough Council	12,280
Swindon Borough Council	148,902
Telford and Wrekin Council	147,615
Tunbridge Wells Council (in partnership with councils for Ashford Borough, Canterbury City, Dartford Borough, Dover District, Folkestone & Hythe District, Gravesham Borough, Kent County, Maidstone Borough, Medway, Sevenoaks District, Swale Borough Council, Thanet District, Tonbridge and Mailing Borough)	175,675
West Midlands Combined Authority (in partnership with councils for Birmingham City, Coventry City, Dudley Metropolitan Borough, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough, Solihull Metropolitan Borough, Walsall Metropolitan Borough and the City of Wolverhampton)	918,531
West Northamptonshire Council	292,378
West Yorkshire Combined Authority (in partnership with councils for Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds City, and Wakefield)	220,457
Westminster City Council	72,521
Westminster City Council (delivered through Cross River Partnership, in partnership with City of London Corporation, London Boroughs of Ealing, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Richmond, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea)	1,000,000
Wirral Borough Council	171,200
Wokingham Borough Council	213,332
Worcestershire Regulatory Services (on behalf of councils for Worcester City, Wyre Forest District, Wychavon District, Malvern Hills District, Bromsgrove District, and Redditch Borough)	248,400

February 12, 2023

Alan Brown – 2023 Speech on the Independent Review of Net Zero

The speech made by Alan Brown, the SNP MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I commend the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for the work he has done, and for securing the debate. I thank the hon. Members who have taken part. As always, I tend to disagree with the contribution from the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), but I certainly agreed with most of the others.

There is certainly much to like in the report, with stuff to debate and, of course, some stuff to disagree on. Given that the review was commissioned by the previous Prime Minister, after her ill-informed leadership campaign in which she pledged to remove levies from bills and alluded to net zero as a costly commitment, I welcome the fact that the report was undertaken purely independently and did not go down that rabbit hole. The key thing now is what the Government do with the recommendations, especially in the short term, given that implementation for 25 of them is recommended before 2025. That is critical because existing carbon budgets are off track. We need re-alignment if we are to hit net zero by 2050.

I note that the term “Scottish Government” is not used once in the main body of the report. Although I accept that there is engagement, and that some good practice from Scotland is mentioned in the report, I would have expected more references to and understanding of where the Scottish Government are taking a lead, including on the roll-out for electric vehicle chargers, interest-free loans for EVs, the embracing of onshore wind, peatland restoration, woodland planting, the just transition commission, the £500 million low-carbon fund for the north-east, energy efficiency measures and the roll-out of zero-emissions buses. There is a lot of good practice in Scotland that the rest of the UK could learn from. More consideration is required of devolved Governments’ inability to deliver because of funding constraints and, in the case of the Scottish Government, strict borrowing powers. That also needs to be debated.

What is abundantly clear in the report is the need for stable and consistent long-term policy to be matched by funding. The Treasury cannot be a blocker. As the right hon. Member for Kingswood said, other countries are now taking the lead in investment. The Inflation Reduction Act in the United States is making it a more attractive place for investment in renewables.

The folly of previous chopping and changing, and the cutting of solar and onshore wind from the contracts for difference auctions as part of David Cameron’s “cutting the green crap” agenda, has meant eight years of investment lost overnight from one policy decision. That has stopped the deployment of the cheapest forms of renewable energy. At least I can say that I am glad that we in Scotland continue to embrace onshore wind. We have made it integral to the decarbonisation of the power sector. The fact is that Scotland generates the equivalent of 100% of gross electricity consumption from renewables. That should be held up as a fantastic achievement and an example for the UK Government to follow south of the border.

At least the deployment rate of solar is now recovering and will soon stand at 1 GW installed per year. That means that, in a period of just three years, the solar equivalent of a Hinkley Point C will come online. Solar is quicker, cheaper and can be deployed where required, providing greater grid stability. I agree with the recommendation for a plan to get a road map for 70 GW of deployment by 2035.

I also agree with the right hon. Member for Kingswood about the need for a re-envisaged road map for carbon capture, utilisation and storage to be delivered this year. The report rightly points out that the investment landscape for CCUS and hydrogen is currently unclear, and that needs to be remedied as soon as possible.

Additionally, the track-2 clusters need to be expedited. It is outrageous that the Scottish cluster remains a reserve when it is probably the most advanced of the CCS clusters and is likely to be delivered quickest. Acorn represents the worst example of the UK Government chopping and changing policy and withdrawing funding. The reality is that the Scottish cluster needs to commence for Scotland to meet the 2030 target of a 75% reduction in emissions.

The new Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), obviously knows how important the Scottish cluster is as part of the just transition, and how important it is for jobs in the north- east of Scotland. I hope to hear a more positive response, rather than holding with the mantra of, “It is okay, Acorn is the reserve.” Being the reserve is not good enough, and it needs to commence sooner rather than later.

For the record, I agree with the detail on pages 67-68 that we will still rely on North sea oil and gas as we transition towards net zero. Where I fundamentally disagree with the report is in its continued blinkered approach about new nuclear. New nuclear does not form a great deal or a big part of the report, and there is not much evidence, yet it still comes out as a key recommendation and one of the suggested 10 missions. I disagree with applying the phrase “no-regrets option” to the concept of new nuclear.

The report rightly identifies that four of the five remaining nuclear plants will go offline in the next few years, before Hinkley Point C will come on stream. If the UK grid can cope with that scenario, fundamentally we do not need new nuclear as this mythical baseload. It proves we can cope without nuclear. Nuclear is not flexible enough and is relatively incompatible with intermittent renewables. There are still the issues and costs associated with radioactive waste. If we look at long-term performance, we see that nuclear is not necessarily there when the wind does not blow. Over a 10-year period, each nuclear reactor is shown to be offline for roughly a quarter of the year, so it cannot be depended on to be there when it is needed. The reality is that we need to invest in other technologies, particularly storage, to balance intermittent renewables.

The reality is that the nuclear market has failed, because it is too expensive and too risky. There is not a successful operational EPR plant in the world, yet despite that and the ongoing performance issues at Hinkley Point C, the Government seem hellbent on signing up for Sizewell C and using a regulated asset base model that will transfer risk to bill payers. Some £700 million of taxpayers’ money has already been thrown at the development of Sizewell C. That money could be better spent elsewhere. Capital costs for Sizewell C will be at least £30 billion. Think what that money could do if invested in other technologies and in particular in energy efficiency. I welcome the recommendations about aggressive energy efficiency targets going forward. Not only will that make bills cheaper, but it means healthier homes, healthier lifestyles and demand reduction.

Finally on nuclear, the report highlights elsewhere the issue of rising sea levels. It is madness to propose building a new nuclear power station in an area subject to coastal erosion and at risk of rising sea levels. Also, the report demonstrates that nuclear energy has never got cheaper cost-wise, whereas all other technologies, including battery storage and power-to-X fuels, are now cheaper than nuclear. Figures 1 and 2 from the report make the case that we do not need new nuclear and should be investing in other technologies.

Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that the Conservatives embrace so wholeheartedly dirty, outdated technologies, such as nuclear energy, and refuse to fully embrace tidal energy, which has so much potential for our renewables industry, certainly in Scotland, but right across the United Kingdom?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)

Before you respond, Mr Brown, just remember the timings that were agreed.

Alan Brown

I will aim to be brief. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, and I would like to see the Government set a 1 GW target for tidal stream. We need to follow through on the recommendation of the report and set a clear plan for investing long-term in CCUS, hydrogen production and pumped storage hydro, for supporting a carbon floor mechanism and for replacing the EU funding for the European Marine Energy Centre. I hope the Minister will work with us on planning consents for major infrastructure projects. Section 33 of the Electricity Act 1989 is reserved to Westminster, and there is a sign-off process for Scottish Ministers. If we are going to speed up the consent process, we need to work with the UK Government to do that. Hopefully the Minister will work with us on that with the Energy Bill going forward. There is so much to welcome in the report. I wish we had more time to debate it further, but I commend the right hon. Member for Kingswood on it.

February 12, 2023
Matt Western – 2023 Speech on the Independent Review of Net Zero

The speech made by Matt Western, the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

I appreciate being given the opportunity to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on compiling this review—an impressive feat in such a short period of time since it was first requested of him. The focus on this issue is long overdue. This place and this country need far more urgency and purpose in trying to achieve our net zero ambitions. I absolutely respect him; he is a decent individual and, while I have not read the entire review, I am sure that all 129 recommendations are sensible and well-founded.

For me, net zero is not just the right thing to do, something that is critical for our society, our future and our civilisation, but economically important. That is why I am so struck by the failure in recent years to grab that opportunity. I wish the right hon. Gentleman well in the internal discussions on this review; certainly I fear that the Government perhaps have not engaged as much with Lord Deben and the Climate Change Committee in recent years, which is a real shame.

I think back to the signals we have had for many years now, going back to 2006 and Lord Stern’s report and the international work of people such as Al Gore, speaking about the inconvenient truth that we face and the lack of urgency in recent years. That was in 2006. We are approaching almost 20 years since then. Funnily enough, it was in the same year, 2006, that I approached my local district council, wanting to convert a building into a low-carbon property. Sadly, I was refused permission—to be fair, it was a minor change of use from a storage building, although it had been used as a house in times past—so I went to the Planning Inspectorate and appealed. The planning inspector found in my favour and I was given permission to convert that building. I wanted to prove what could be done in terms of developing a low-carbon building.

I appreciate that in the last 24 hours the Government are now refocusing on the importance of net zero with the restructuring of the departmental teams, but we are only really going back to where we were in 2010, when we had the Department of Energy and Climate Change, in recognition of the work of Lord Stern, Al Gore and so many others. That recognition led to the world-first Climate Change Act 2008, passed by Labour in government, which I think was a fantastic piece of work. Even though I was nowhere near this place at the time, I had a huge amount of respect for the work being done.

Sadly, in the intervening 12 to 13 years, we have seen massive retrograde actions by first the coalition Government and then successive Conservative Governments, when there was an enormous economic opportunity for us. I will come back to some of those opportunities later, but the decision to do away with the zero-carbon homes legislation was one of the most retrograde acts that they could have committed. We are now seeing why building new homes with gas dependency was such a wrong decision, first because of increasing demand for gas, but secondly because it was not the right thing to do to combat climate change.

As I am sure other colleagues across the House do, I visited a new housing estate a couple of weeks ago. There were 130 properties on the estate I visited, and of those none had EV charging points, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal or heat pumps. Those are brand-new houses that have not yet been completed. When I asked why those things were not being done, the builders said, “Well, it didn’t need to be done, to be fair, and the owners can always retrofit them.” Trust me—having been through building a house, I can tell hon. Members it can be quite challenging, but if a house is being built from scratch, it is much cheaper to install those things there and then. The fact that we are not installing such basic things, or even making provision for energy storage units in those properties, is a massive failure of the system. That should have been going on all this time; it would have happened under Labour had the party been returned to power in 2010.

The issue of existing homes has also been discussed and mentioned by a couple of hon. Members. I appreciate that we have a much older housing stock, but we could have been taking action over many years to change properties through secondary glazing, triple glazing and so on. When I visited properties built in the late 1950s in Germany, which had had double glazing and underfloor heating installed back then, I was struck by just how far in advance of us other nations have been on this.

There is an economic opportunity on insulation schemes, where we can not only reduce households’ dependency on fossil fuels, but also significantly reduce their energy bills. To the naysayers who say there really is very little advantage for an individual or a household, the gas consumption in my property in the last 13 years has been 130 cubic metres. When hon. Members next look at their gas meters and see how much they have used in the last year or the last quarter, they will realise how staggeringly low that figure is.

On power generation, I am afraid I do not share the views of the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who has sadly just departed the Chamber. I believe there is an exciting opportunity in the field of power generation to introduce much more onshore wind, and offshore wind as well. Those of us who have the apps on our phones will have seen that for many months now, offshore wind-generated power has typically produced 40% to 50% of UK electricity energy. That is a fantastic result and just shows what can be achieved. Domestic solar is also a good and important thing that should be installed as a matter of course, not just in new build, but retrospectively, and then of course there is the opportunity for localised modular reactors to supplement power generation across the UK.

Power distribution is another important part of the equation, as the right hon. Member for Kingswood was saying. National Grid, which is headquartered in Warwick in my constituency, is central to that. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was up in the Wansbeck constituency, where there is a National Grid site with two cables coming ashore from a plant in Norway. Those are the interconnectors about which hon. Members may have heard, whereby hydroelectric power is generated and comes into the UK as renewable energy.

To visualise that, at that diameter, those two cables provide 3% of UK electricity. That is just how extraordinary those connections can be. Of course, more are planned, not just from Norway, say, but from Denmark and France. Those cables work both ways: we can bring power from Norway, but we can also supply power to Norway from the excess generated in the UK. That is why they present such a great opportunity. I appreciate that there is an issue on the planning side of distribution. We have to be much more joined up in the way that we approach it. Without localised power distribution, we will not be able to supply much-needed electric power to households and businesses.

One of last areas that I will cover is transport, on which we are really behind the curve. The EV industry is frustrated by where the Government are on this. It is easy to set targets, but we need to give the industries and sectors frameworks and structures against which they can deliver those targets. They recognise that those targets are challenging, and they want to achieve them, but they need more than just the setting of a target. Currently, we do not have an EV gigafactory at scale in the UK other than Envision up in Sunderland, which is very small. We need to get many more built in the UK. Other nations, including France, Germany, the US, Japan and China, are already manufacturing, while we do not even have a spade in the ground. Unless we do that, we will miss out big time on the economic opportunity.

Linked to that is the charging network. I mentioned the distribution of power; what we do not have is an overall strategy for the delivery of charging points across the UK. Again, we are way behind our international partners. The other point to mention on transport is the importance of the insistence on transport hubs across our towns and cities to encourage active travel.

The report that the right hon. Member for Kingswood has put together gives hope. Every time I visit a school, there are one or two issues on the minds of the young people there, and climate change is absolutely the foremost. They do not expect us just to talk about it; they demand that we act and deliver for their futures.

There is, as I say, an economic opportunity, and not just with gigafactories. I remember that the solar thermal unit I bought was manufactured in Scotland. I do not even know if that plant still exists, but I would be surprised if it does after the changes in 2010 and the green whatever- it-was that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) referred to. That change in legislation meant that we lost a lot of good businesses and manufacturers in the UK that could have been supplying to this economic opportunity. Even Alternative Energy Technology, a small business based in Atherstone in Warwickshire, which installed all the kit in my property, fell by the wayside because of those changes.

I commend the right hon. Member for Kingswood for this substantive report. He spoke of challenges and opportunities, and he is absolutely right. I see huge opportunities, and we need to minimise the challenges. I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) about how planning needs to be addressed across Departments if we are to speed it up. It is so, so slow. I hear his point about “not zero”. If we do not do this, we will miss a huge economic—as well as critical—point in our history. Many people talk about this stuff, but I think the right hon. Member for Kingswood is absolutely sincere, and I welcome his report, for which I thank him.

February 12, 2023