Laura Trott
MP for Sevenoaks · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Well, that is a load of rubbish. The Secretary of State says that she is proud of the action that the Government are taking on pay. May I suggest that one of the reasons teachers are angry is that they still do not know their pay?”
“The resignation of the Prime Minister this morning was a damning indictment of the record of this Government over the last two years. Part of the Prime Minister’s legacy will be teacher morale at an all-time low.”
“We have moved so far, and things have only changed because of the unity of those on the Opposition Benches, because of Lord Nash’s brilliant campaign and because of the coalition behind Raise the Age.”
“On Friday, after Labour MPs had repeatedly blocked a social media ban for under-16s, we had a new proposal from the Government. It was not a serious response to the issue we are facing. It gave the Government three years to take unspecified action on social media, which was nowhere near good enough. Today, that has changed.”
“My right hon. Friend is always correct to be worried, but he will know that in Lord Nash’s amendment a 12-month delay was written in. I think it is reasonable to give the Government some time to bring the measure forward.”
“I welcome the Government’s constructive engagement on this issue, and we see a new proposal today that has a much more acceptable timeframe, albeit not as short as I would like. Every month of delay just leaves children more exposed to the harms of social media online.”
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“I want to make three points to Ministers about the Bill. First, I back up what my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) said: it is not right to force district councils into combined county authorities. The Secretary of State was spot on when he said that one size does not fit all in local government. I have an unbelievably good local district council and I want it to remain; I would be very grateful if the Minister summing up confirmed that no powers will be taken away from my district council without its consent. Secondly, the Secretary of State talked in his opening remarks about not having dormitory towns, but I have the opposite problem from that faced by many of my colleagues in that we have a thriving local high street yet shops are too often being turned into houses because of huge local demand.”
“There was no ability for the Secretary of State to do anything about it at the time, so the changes in the Bill are really positive and will make a big difference to local authorities. I echo the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and others about planning inspectors. These people are unelected and unaccountable and we need to do something about them. At the moment, the powers do not rest with local authorities as they should do; they rest with the planning inspectors. I think all of us here will have examples of planning inspectors going against the national planning policy framework, with no ability for recourse whatsoever. That has to change. In many ways, the new power of the Secretary of State to intervene will restore democratic accountability that is not there at the moment.”
“I am grateful to be given the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. I want to focus particularly on planning and local government. There is much in the Bill to welcome, around enforcement, around the strengthening of local plans and particularly around getting rid of the pernicious duty to co-operate, which is what complete scuppered our local plan in Sevenoaks, for reasons that were completely inexplicable. The local authority took a local plan to the planning inspector that would have tripled our housing targets, yet despite being surrounded by local authorities that have similar green belt constrictions to our own, it was chucked out by the planning inspector.”