Contribution
My hon. Friend could not be more right. Part of why we set up the cross-party Representative Planning Group was to create an opportunity to bring forward legislation that ensures that all voices are heard in the housing debate, not just the loudest and angriest and those with lots of spare time on their hands.
I am surprised by the position taken by the Conservatives. I was fortunate to sit on the Committee for the devolution Bill. I recognise that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), is an absolute expert on local government, and he made some amazing contributions in Committee. As I am sure many Members did, I listened to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech at the Conservative party conference. She spoke about cutting bureaucracy, making things easier and cutting down on Government waste, but many of the amendments the shadow Minister spoke to do just the opposite. Lords amendment 3 adds layers of process to how planning will work, increasing the risk of judicial review. Lords amendment 33, which the Minister picked up on in his opening remarks, adds more parliamentary processes to trying to fix our housing crisis. I hope when he sums up that the shadow Minister will reflect on whether his position on this Bill reflects the position of his party’s leader and her call to cut regulation and get us building.
A big point here is trust. Unfortunately, the debate on this Bill has focused on trust—trust in Government, trust in those who build our homes and trust in our planning system as well. If Members turn their mind back to May 2024, they will remember a soggy former Prime Minister standing with music playing behind him. I was at the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum to discuss housing and how we get Britain building. I listened to a whole industry that is completely fed up with the Conservatives. One of my engagements over the past couple of days was a discussion on trust in the housing sector. I cannot remember the specific numbers, but I am thinking of figures from a couple of years ago: less than 20% of people had trust in developers, and less than 20% of people had trust in our planning process. It is clear that the whole process is broken, and that is why we are working really hard through this Bill to try to fix it.
We have talked about the big amendments, but I want to turn to EDPs. If any Member wants to come in on that, I am very happy to discuss it. There are other great measures in the Bill that will get lost. Lords amendment 34 seeks to improve how heritage sites are dealt with. That is fantastic for somewhere like Northamptonshire, which has one of the largest volumes of country houses, manors and stately homes in the country. Lords amendment 39 addresses brownfield sites, and Lords amendment 31 addresses the provision of EV charging, which came up a couple of weeks ago when I was on “Politics East” alongside the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) and we were asked for our views.
I am pleased that the Bill is returning to a focus on planning. Some of the amendments show that the Government have listened to those who build and those who want to see homes built across our country, and we are taking positive steps. EDPs have been the topic of a number of speeches. It is a contentious point both for my hon. Friends and Opposition Members. I have worked in the industry for 20 years, starting out fixing houses that were filling with sewage, and ending my career working on mega and giga projects around the world. I have experience of planning, approvals and consenting processes—in the most developed countries and in some developing countries as well—and I can tell Members that our process is so complicated.
I referenced the Corry review in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan). The review, commissioned by DEFRA, found that we have some of the most inefficient, inconsistent and difficult-to-navigate nature legislation in the world, and it is not fit for purpose to drive nature recovery. Those who argue against change argue for the status quo, which has led to our country being one of the most nature-depleted in the world. That is what those who argue against this Bill argue for. They argue for more of the same, more nature destruction and a process that does not deliver homes.