Dame Harriett Baldwin
MP for West Worcestershire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Chancellor to his new role. I paid close attention yesterday to the long speech he made to reset the narrative and drive growth Britain. In paying tribute to his predecessor, will he recognise that she left the highest tax burden on record? Instead of postponing the words he could utter to my hon.”
“I welcome the new Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box. I note that in his statement he referred to the biggest issues facing the country as being “the economy and the cost of living crisis”. Will he accept that one of the things that has damaged our economy and caused prices to be higher is the tax-and-spend Budget in November 2024?”
“Could the Leader of the House make a commitment that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will come to the House on the first day we are back from recess?”
“With a stroke of his Whitehall pen, the Secretary of State has just abolished Malvern Hills district council, Worcester city council, wonderful Wychavon district council and Worcestershire county council. He said in his statement that this is about making “real improvements to people’s lives and…communities”.”
“In recent weeks in West Worcestershire, I have met local police and the police and crime commissioner; the police and crime commissioner is being abolished, and the police are being reorganised. I have met the local health commissioners; they are being reorganised, and Healthwatch is being abolished.”
“Will the Leader of the House confirm that, given that the other place is sitting next week, there is nothing to stop him tabling a business statement to enable this House to sit next week? Given the enormity of the events happening in the Government next week, does he not think that would be a good idea?”
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“Because the plan has not been agreed, developers are submitting speculative planning applications in areas that are not in the plan, and applications are being determined simply on a first come, first served basis, despite the potential of other, more favourable sites to meet local housing need. That leads not to the house building that we want to see, but to a long series of legal disputes between developers and the council. When such appeals occur, it appears to be for each planning inspector to decide how much weight should be given to the emerging plan and how much to the old—we thought defunct—regional spatial strategy.”
“On Monday this week, I learned that the three south Worcestershire councils have published a timetable for the additional technical work requested, which will take until the end of January 2014. The inspector has decided “in the interests of natural justice”, as he puts it, that further hearing sessions will be required and that the earliest that they could start would be the week commencing March 10 2014. Only once the inspector has reached his conclusions on stage 1 will he be able to give details of the time scales for stage 2. It sounds as though the process might easily run until the end of 2014. Frankly, world war two took less time than getting through the bureaucracy and red tape that surrounds the local plan. To make matters worse, all that bureaucracy and red tape is strangling housing growth in the area.”
“The inspector highlights the difficulties of economic forecasting, particularly beyond 2021. He makes a range of helpful technical points about past under-supply, affordable housing provision, windfall provision, non-delivery allowances, phasing and buffers. He discusses bringing empty housing back into use and whether C2 extra care provision should count towards a council’s housing supply. On that point, the provision of extra care to include C2 accommodation is a key priority in our area, and we are keen to attract such development. If the housing allocation in the plan were x thousand, and y% of the units were for C2 extra care, will the Minister confirm that that would meet housing need and would not be considered as double counting?”
“We do not possess perfect foresight; if we did, we would all be able to retire as billionaires tomorrow, because we would know exactly what tomorrow’s closing stock prices would be. Particularly when there is opportunity for a revision during the plan period, can we agree that in a time of constrained resources it is inequitable to place such a high evidential and process bar on councils, and that to do so is a disproportionate use of resources? The plan-making system does not appear to recognise efficiency of process to minimise the impact on the taxpayer. Can the Minister issue clear guidance on the methodology that should be used to calculate housing needs, so that other councils do not suffer the same delay and costs as the south Worcestershire authorities have?”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about the importance of localism and local democracy, and I completely agree with him. The plan has been locally agreed, not set down from on high. He also makes the point that the protracted appeal period is slowing down growth and construction in our constituencies and that much-needed housing is not being built as a result. The inspector has effectively rejected all seven of the econometric methodologies presented to him, which surely demonstrates a significant flaw in the process. Across the country, there are disagreements over the amount of development required to meet needs, and such differences of opinion concerning circumstances many years in the future are wasting very scarce resources. The test should be that the plans and projections are competent, not that they are perfect.”
“It is an excellent way to give power to local people, to bring back an organic approach to planning and to reduce the need for vast swathes of land to be swallowed up by urban extensions.”
“My hon. Friend speaks passionately of our desire to see home building start according to our democratically agreed local plan, which provides a sound basis for the next few years’ growth and the development of the south Worcestershire area. Clearly, some minor tweaks need to be made—in particular, to the forecasts affecting housing numbers between 2020 and 2030—but our local councils are keen to enable local growth without unnecessary delay. Why can we not proceed on the basis of the emerging plan, while simultaneously making tweaks to distant years, especially as the councils are planning to review progress in 2019? Turning now to neighbourhood planning, may I ask the Minister for his thoughts on how we as MPs can best support emerging neighbourhood plans? I love neighbourhood planning.”
“In balancing the interests of tomorrow’s population with the interests of today’s home owners and home builders, we are strangling growth in south Worcestershire, preventing house building and stalling construction in my constituency and elsewhere. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about his and the Secretary of State’s plans to unblock the Byzantine process.”
“Will individuals be able to get planning permission to build a single home on land that they own in the countryside? That is how our beautiful villages originally developed. Can a parish put that in their neighbourhood plan? To conclude, I have come to the view that the planning process still remains extraordinarily baroque and subject to the whim of distant bureaucrats with no stake in the locality. Planning lawyers surely rub their hands in glee at all the legal fees involved. One local parish, Powick, raised £10,000 for its own lawyer. How is that a good use of family budgets? How does it help the economy?”
“Will he elaborate on the remarks made to The Sunday Times this weekend by his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford, who said that he will make the process of neighbourhood planning easier for villages and other neighbourhoods? What can the Minister say to the octogenarian farmer in my local area who lives in a draughty five-bedroom home, owns land nearby and wants nothing more than to build a bungalow in the field next door for the final years of his life? Under today’s rules, such building is prohibited in open countryside. If a neighbourhood plan permits such single homes inside settlement boundaries, will my farmer have any hope that he can build his bungalow?”
“Provided that my hon. Friend’s constituents are consistent with the overall parameters of the local plan and the plan still provides the housing that we need, a neighbourhood plan is an excellent way for local people to have some control over how their villages develop. Villages such as Lower Broadheath in my constituency have been put off by the complication and complexity and the possible powerlessness that they interpret in the current rules. Will the Minister reassure villagers in Lower Broadheath and other parishes that, once they have agreed their neighbourhood plan and won a vote on it in a referendum, it will take precedence over the local plan, even if that local plan has been adopted?”
“I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. I would like to press a particular question. He alluded to the quasi-judicial role of the Secretary of State. I would hate to allege that he is hiding behind that to any extent, but he and the Secretary of State can issue guidance and influence the overall weight given to emerging plans. Will he elaborate on what power the Secretary of State has to try to speed up the delivery of homes, which he has rightly pointed out are needed in our area?”
“I appreciate the enthusiasm that the Minister shares with me on neighbourhood planning. What would he say to the parishes in my constituency that are in the process of developing neighbourhood plans and are concerned about the timetable and other obstacles in their way? Will we be hearing in the guidance soon about how the process will—”
“Is shortly longer than soon? I can never remember. Will we be hearing in the guidance about how the process will be made simpler, easier, quicker and less complex for smaller villages to develop their plans?”
“It was even more unhelpful than that, as my employer offered the child care voucher scheme, but because it was so tightly regulated, even though I was spending a fortune on child care, I was not able to use it.”
“The hon. Gentleman is forgetting the fact that if the couple are married, they will be able to transfer some of their tax allowance from one to the other. [ Interruption .]”
“I am sure my hon. Friend will support this Government’s extension of the right to request to all employees, so that, for example, the grandparents the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) referred to are able to take time off, perhaps for child care responsibilities.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making some powerful points about poverty. Does he accept that work is one of the best ways out of poverty? Does he also welcome the fact that, when universal credit is rolled out in his constituency, child care will be supported for the first hour of work for the individual whom he so eloquently described?”
“My hon. Friend will appreciate, as a Treasury Minister, that the fact that more women are in work than ever before will also help the Exchequer’s revenues. In the last full tax year, men paid more than £90 billion in income tax whereas women paid only £36 billion, so she can see how helping more women work up the income scale really helps the revenues.”
“The mandate to keep inflation at 2% has meant some predictability and stability from the inflationary ravages that we all remember from the Labour Governments of the 1970s. It is essential that the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is able to unwind the current additional monetary stimulus that has been needed since the crash of 2008 without allowing any major deviation from that 2% target. Sound money will mean that the pound stays strong. Given the UK’s dependence on imported goods and fuel, a strong pound keeps our cost of living down. The Government also need to play a part. The Chancellor has taken the tough and necessary steps to bring the public finances back into structural balance.”
“The first ingredient is obviously a strong central bank maintaining sound monetary policy and a prudent Chancellor who maintains sound public finances. That is the framework that provides the environment in which businesses can invest, grow, export and create jobs. It is not politicians who create that wealth and those jobs, but we can damage the cost of living and the growth of businesses with bad monetary policies, high taxes, irresponsible borrowing, excessive regulation and the high interest rates that we saw under the previous Government. The decision to make the Bank of England independent in 1997 was just about the only decision made by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) with which I agreed.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), a former colleague on the Work and Pensions Committee, who is one of the most diligent attendees in the Chamber. However, I shall disagree vehemently with her and demolish a number of the arguments that are inherent in today’s motion. I urge all hon. Members to vote against it at 7 o’clock. I shall start with some of the macroeconomic arguments and make the case that the way to destroy a country’s wealth, and to plunge people into many years of poverty, is to do what the previous Government did to the economy—create the largest recession for 60 years and the most significant banking crisis ever. I shall also outline the course of policy to follow for economic prosperity. The secret of economic prosperity is not hard to find, but it is hard to achieve.”
“Some Opposition Members think that the Chancellor has tightened too fast, but others might argue that he could have tightened faster. I say that he has been a Goldilocks Chancellor, and this has been a tightening at the pace at which job creation has been allowed to flourish. I also want to put on record that there has been no recession in this country since 2009. At all points in this fiscal responsibility, the Chancellor has looked for measures that have helped hard-working families keep their cost of living under control. He has helped councils freeze their council tax, he has raised the tax-free threshold for working people and he has avoided the 13p fuel duty increase that Labour had planned—”
“I have met many women in my constituency who have said, “I have been offered more hours, but it does not make economic sense for me to take them.””
“The third point I would like to demolish is that it is a problem for more women than ever before to be in work. I welcome it. One reason this has been a successful area of welfare reform is that the number of lone parents out of work—I accept that the number of lone parents out of work declined under the previous Government—has declined sharply since 2010, falling by 26% to just under 500,000. I agree that that is still too high and we have more to do, but we are doing an enormous amount—providing free child care and helping lone parents into work—to help them to lift their own families out of poverty. There are other positive aspects of welfare reform for women in the workplace. Although well intentioned, a terrible consequence of Labour’s approach to welfare is that it trapped many women in 16-hour-a-week jobs.”
“I refute the argument inherent in the motion that we have had a particularly serious impact on the cost of living for women. I would also like to demolish the claim in the motion that the Chancellor has made “women pay three times more than men to bring down the deficit”. I have taken the trouble to look at the Full Fact website, which I recommend to Opposition Members. It makes a line-by-line demolition of their claims. For example, women such as me, who earn more than £60,000, no longer receive child benefit. That is counted as a negative, but I would argue that that is a sensible way to reallocate scarce resources. The Opposition count it as a negative that the income tax cut does not help women as much as men, whereas I think it is a good thing that women are given a tax break.”
“The previous Government, as we heard from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, thought it was appropriate to tax people earning only £6,500 per year, and to give them their own money back in the form of tax credits. I believe it is more important that we do not take that money in the first place. I want to demolish what the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) said on disposable incomes. Since the start of the economic downturn, the average equivalised household income has fallen by about £1,200 since 2007-08. The Opposition talked about the average fall, but the richest fifth of households have seen largest fall. In contrast, after accounting for inflation and household composition, the average income for the poorest fifth of households has grown in the same period by 6.9%—a statistic from the Office for National Statistics.”
“I do not have enough time, I am afraid. In fact, we were paying a lot of women to maintain 16-hour-a-week jobs. That may be ideal for some people’s family situation, but it sends a poor message, through the welfare system, that we need to tackle. We need to allow women to progress up the income scale in the same way as men so that—I do not often argue for higher taxes—men and women pay the same amount of income tax. At the moment, women pay approximately 60% less income tax and I would like to see progress on that. The motion is full of holes. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to vote against it.”
“Does the hon. Lady therefore disagree with the Office for National Statistics when it says that the equivalised, after-tax income for the poorest fifth of households has risen under this Government, and that that income has fallen the most for the richest fifth?”
“The Prime Minister rightly highlighted the extensive work done by the Foreign Secretary to end the abhorrent practice of sexual violence in conflict. Given the evidence of that having occurred in Sri Lanka, what can our Government do to assist the victims?”
“The Justice Secretary has been to Hanley Swan post office and met my constituents, Alan and Ros Davies, whose lives were devastated by a cruel attack from a prisoner on early release. Can he assure them, and other victims, that their voices and support needs will always be considered ahead of those of violent criminals?”
“T8. What steps is the Department taking to tackle reoffending among female prisoners? Has the Minister come across the excellent social enterprise called Working Chance?”
“On that point, did not the Leader of the Opposition admit the day after the announcement of his policy that he could not guarantee that prices could be frozen if world energy prices rise?”
“I, too, welcome the Minister to her post. She will know that one of the energy bills that my rural constituents have to struggle with is for petrol. Will she tell us whether the Office for Budget Responsibility has done an assessment of how much families are saving by our avoidance of the 13p fuel hike planned by the Labour party?”
“I am handing in a petition in the same terms for 128 signatories from the beautiful town of Pershore and the villages around Bredon Hill in my constituency. The Petition of the r esidents of West Worcestershire. [P001268]”
“With 8,000 people in Worcestershire—the glorious county that gave birth to Edward Elgar—working in the tourism industry, will the Minister welcome the 13.5% increase in long-haul flights into Birmingham airport? Will she also welcome the news that, in 2014, the runway will be lengthened and even more markets will be able to access tourism in Worcestershire?”
“May we have a debate on the cold weather payment? It starts tomorrow, and will allow many of our constituents who are receiving certain benefits to receive £25 if the temperature falls below zero for seven consecutive days. Such a debate would also allow us to publicise the fact that it is this Government who have made the payment permanent, and the last Government who had budgeted to cut it.”
“Farmers in my constituency offer temporary housing to the seasonal agricultural workers who pick the delicious crops we grow in West Worcestershire. Will it be the farmers or the gangmasters who are required to verify their immigration status?”
“I note that the EU Council agenda now includes the social dimensions of economic and monetary union. Will the Prime Minister confirm that welfare systems continue to be a national competence and that he will fight any attempt by the Commission to interfere with the UK’s important welfare reforms?”
“Once again, I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on securing the debate, and I thank you, Mr Brady, for allowing me to pass on the concerns of my constituents in the glorious area of West Worcestershire.”
“I love neighbourhood planning, which is an excellent way of giving power to local people and bringing back an organic approach to planning, reducing the need for vast swathes of land to be swallowed up by urban extensions. Thirdly, can we reassure villages that, once they have agreed their neighbourhood plan and won a vote on it in a referendum, it will take precedence over the local plan, even if that has been adopted? Finally, what can the Minister say to the octogenarian farmer in my local area who lives in a draughty five-bedroom home and who wants nothing more than to build a bungalow in the field next door for the final years of his life? Under today’s rules, such building is prohibited in open countryside. If there is a neighbourhood plan, will my farmer have any hope that he can build his bungalow?”
“First, as he finalises his latest national planning practice guidance, which will set out the exceptional circumstances in which a refusal may be justified on the grounds of prematurity, will he try to ensure that the democratically agreed plans that have emerged will get almost full weight in any decision making, allowing the fresh evidence base and the numbers in the plan to be used, unless the inspector sees actual errors of fact, rather than just a divergence of opinion? Surely the future of the area should be entrusted to south Worcestershire councillors, rather than shaped by contesting opinions—they will only be opinions—from Birmingham and elsewhere? Secondly, may I ask the Minister for his thoughts on how we as MPs can best support emerging neighbourhood plans?”
“I want this period of uncertainty to be over, so that we can move forward with the construction, growth and jobs embodied in the plan. A delay of 18 months to two years is too long, and it undermines the local democracy of the vote in December. As the Minister knows, I and the leader of the council in my area have written to him. I have also written to the local planning inspector urging him to respect the local plan unless there are actual factual inaccuracies in it. The inspector has written a helpful reply, assuring me that he will seek to complete his inspection as soon as possible, subject to the legal requirements on him. The Minister has also responded constructively. Here is my wish list of four things I would like to ask the Minister for.”
“The south Worcestershire development plan has much more up-to-date and adequate five-year land supply numbers and such ambitious plans for employment land that we are getting complaints from Birmingham councils. When I say the plan was democratically agreed last December, people complain that a bit of whipping was involved. Well, I hate to tell my local councillors this, but Whips are often involved in democracy here in Westminster. However, despite the vote last December, it took a further five months to send the plan to the inspector for the examination in public and another few months for him to decide on his inspection plan and timetable. The inspection has just got under way, and I would not be surprised if it took the inspector well into 2014 before he recommends adoption.”
“In south Worcestershire, we may be a bit further ahead on our local plan than other colleagues are on theirs. Our three local councils—Worcester City, Malvern Hills and Wychavon, which my hon. Friend the Minister visited recently—have been working in partnership for many years to develop an ambitious and sound local plan. After the 2010 election, they presciently commissioned expert projections of population growth and perhaps got a head start on some other council areas. Their evidence base is now more up to date and fresher than those in some other parts of the country. All three local councils democratically agreed the plan last December. I can assure hon. Members that that was not without a great deal of controversy, but one factor that encouraged councillors to vote in favour of the plan was that it would allow them to be in control.”
“Their growth tended to be more organic and more bottom up; people built their own homes on their own land, which they had bought for that purpose. When the Victorians became concerned that Great Malvern was encroaching far too much on the Malvern hills, they established the world’s first conservation area by Act of Parliament in 1884. Since then, the hills have been owned for the common good by the Malvern Hills Conservators charity. That organic approach has worked well for this country for the thousands of years there have been settlements in Worcestershire and elsewhere. That is why I am so supportive of the recent changes to the planning system, which move us back in the direction of the village and the neighbourhood, while embodying the countryside protections pioneered by the Malvern Hills Conservators.”
“Shifting local planning decisions to councils, which makes so much democratic sense, has raised a range of issues. I particularly welcome the Government’s introduction of neighbourhood planning. In the Malvern Hills district, the parishes of Kempsey, Clifton upon Teme, Leigh and Bransford, Alfrick and Lulsley, Martley, and Knightwick and Doddenham have all had their neighbourhood areas approved. When we discuss planning, however, one thing that strikes me is that the beautiful villages we all love—in my area, I have the villages around Bredon Hill, the town of Pershore and the towns and villages of the Malvern Hills district—all grew up without our current planning regulations. Ironically, however, we would not be able to build those communities under today’s planning rules.”
“I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and my hon. Friends the Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing the debate. The issue of planning also fills my postbag. I represent the thriving, beautiful constituency of West Worcestershire, which has one of the highest ratios in the west midlands of house prices to average earnings. It is also the birthplace of Elgar, and its countryside inspired much of his music. Despite all the valid concerns colleagues have raised, I think we are in a much better place on planning than we were under the Stalinist diktats of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), and I agree with colleagues who have welcomed the abolition of the regional spatial strategy.”
“What, in the Minister’s view, is the appropriate time between a council democratically agreeing a local plan and the plan finally becoming set in stone, as there is a very protracted period of inspection by a scarce national supply of inspectors?”
“Does the Secretary of State agree that when children are charged with a crime, it is essential that they appear before magistrates as soon as possible? Will he ensure that the youth magistracy computer system puts a strong emphasis on speed, particularly in Worcester?”