Contribution
My Lords, I am delighted that we have reached Committee, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on having tabled the first amendment for debate. I echo many of her comments and those of my noble friend Lady Scott. I greatly enjoyed the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt; it is great to see him in his new position. We very much enjoyed working with him when he was on the Front Bench, and we look forward to working with him in his new place.
My concern is not that I do not want to see the critical infrastructure and housing that we need—particularly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, in rural areas. In fact, I would propose to add a little “subsection (e)” to her existing Amendment 1, to protect the countryside from overdevelopment, as well as to protect and promote food security; those issues should be at the heart of the Bill.
I was delighted to hear on “Farming Today” this morning—I obviously had an early start—the CPRE mention the protection it would like to see for affordable homes. It mentioned in its briefing that the current definition of affordable homes is not accurate and should be revisited. Can the Minister—with whom I look forward to collaborating through the passage of the Bill—say whether the Government are minded to do that? The plea from the CPRE—which I believe is appropriate to Amendment 1, and particularly to a hypothetical “subsection (e)”, which I may bring forward on Report if the amendment is brought back—is that, to protect the countryside, it would like a commitment from the Government to use brownfield land first. I wonder whether the Minister would agree to that. In the CPRE’s view:
“England has space for 1.2 million homes on previously developed land”.
The benefit of building in this type of area is:
“These homes would: be close to jobs, schools, and transport connections; regenerate town centres and urban communities; protect green spaces and farmland from development”.
My concern is that, without an amendment such as a hypothetical little “subsection (e)” to protect the countryside and food security, we risk trampling over the countryside and greenfield in a mad dash to build houses at pace.
The CPRE also says, quite rightly, that there is a role for planning. As a one-time Member of the other place, if there were a development in my constituency that looked as though it was going to be wildly unpopular with a village or rural community, I would always urge the developers to meet at the earliest opportunity with parish councils before the development got into the public domain. I believe that there should be—this view is also shared by the CPRE—a clear role for local planning committees in the context of the Bill and that the role of parish councils should be cherished and strengthened. Without that, we would remove grass-roots democracy.
I very much enjoyed the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on the environmental recovery programme, which is often at some distance from the damage being done. If Part 3 is to remain, I hope that it will cover the issues that were addressed successfully in the pilot project in rural North Yorkshire—the Slowing the Flow at Pickering flood scheme—where we have effectively protected the development downstream by having not a major reservoir but a small reservoir. The construction of bunds, alongside other projects such as chopping down trees and growing trees in appropriate places, has allowed us to slow the flow. It is that type of imaginative nature solution—working with nature by, for example, planting trees in appropriate places—that can achieve flood resilience and flood defences, while also not contributing to flooding going forward. I hope that the Government might be mindful of protecting the countryside and farmland for the food security that is urgently needed, while also strengthening grass-roots democracy in the way I have suggested.