Lewis Cocking
MP for Broxbourne · Conservative · United Kingdom
“What would the Secretary of State say to my constituents in Broxbourne, who never asked for this reorganisation and are concerned that it is just a waste of time and money that will leave them with higher council tax bills and less say over local planning decisions?”
“Businesses such as hotels, ice cream parlours and fisheries have been hit hard by the increase the employer national insurance and by burdensome regulations. Business rates have increased—in some cases massively and seemingly arbitrarily.”
“They include poor or sometimes non-existent transport links, unemployment and changes to a once-reliable and profitable seasonal trade, a lack of housing supply, and large disparities in income, which mean that many people cannot afford to live in the places where they grew up.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. It is a huge privilege to wind up the debate on behalf of the official Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this very important debate.”
“I fondly remember trips to places such as Clacton, Bournemouth, Great Yarmouth and Southend. From my visits to many of our seaside towns, and from hearing hon. Members’ testimonies, it is apparent that those places face unique challenges. Unfortunately, many of them have experienced decline in recent decades.”
“Ultimately, our coastal communities and the whole United Kingdom deserve better. We need a Government who cut rather than increase taxes, reward rather than punish aspiration and success, prioritise quality housing for local people rather than HMOs for illegal asylum seekers, and put the interests of ordinary British people first, not lea…”
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Every one of 545 lines we hold for Lewis Cocking, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 11.
“Does the hon. Member not agree that, in most local plans—if not all local plans that come forward; I took one through for Broxbourne when I was leader of the council—we do have targets for affordable and social homes? The reason lots of those do not get built out is because of the issues that we discussed earlier around viability. Just having a target does not necessarily deliver what she and I want to deliver: more social homes. We can have that target, but it is about the viability and the costs that developers try to get out of. That is why they do not get built.”
“Local plans are done over a 15-year period, so they are over multiple Parliaments. When the Government set the housing targets for local councils—if what the Minister has just said is the Government’s position on new towns—should the situation not be the same as for local plans? Broxbourne has a local plan over 15 years, which is three Parliaments, so all the housing targets given to local authorities will not be done in one Parliament.”
“To clarify, if lots of environmental delivery plans are amended, who checks that Natural England and the responsible bodies in this process recommend the right things in the first place? I assume that we do not expect loads to be amended, but if plans consistently need amending because they are not producing the environmental benefits and the protection of nature they set out to, who will look overall at how many are amended in totality?”
“On a point of clarity, if the nature recovery strategy includes land or a scheme that is not next to or near the development where the developer has paid into creating that nature recovery strategy, who does the Minister intend to consult when these plans are changed? The people where the proposed nature site is, the residents of the development that contributed to it or both?”
“Does the Minister share my concerns? When developments are proposed, there are obviously negotiations under section 106. Although I agree with the principle of the levy, I do not want developers to move money from other 106 obligations —healthcare, roads and education—into it. Has he given any thought to how we can prevent that from happening? This levy should be additional, rather than cutting the pie in a different way.”
“As Broxbourne’s emblem is a badger, I would like the Minister to write to me so I can have some more reassurance that these powers will not be used unnecessarily.”
“Could the Minister outline what would happen if a unitary council created a spatial development strategy and then became part of a larger, bigger authority under the devolution? What would happen to their specific strategy, and would that new authority, as a bigger authority, have to create a new SDS across the whole area?”
“Does the hon. Member agree that nothing in this Bill makes developers build the social infrastructure that he is describing, which many communities desperately need, first—or at all?”
“Someone else will come along and say, “I want to develop on this piece of green-belt land,” and when that goes to appeal, the Planning Inspectorate will say to the council, “You haven’t got a five-year land supply, and you’re not meeting your build-out rate targets.” It is the community and the council that get punished for developers not building what they have been given approval to build.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I rise in support of amendments 72, 75 and 82. I await with anticipation what the Minister will say, because surely we can all agree that green belt should be protected and that we should do brownfield first. Sometimes, under the current planning system, green-belt land gets developed on through the back door. Even if a council has an up-to-date local plan, there can be issues if it does not meet its five-year land supply or housing targets in terms of its build-out rates, which the council has very little control over. The council has control over the speed and determination of planning applications. However, it can approve all the applications it wants—it could approve thousands—but if the developer or developers are not building them, the council then gets punished.”
“It may be appropriate for a field to be developed for a specific farming purpose, but if there is lots of development in farming areas in a specific location and the planning committee does not take into account the cumulative impact, there can be negative consequences—for example, where a floodplain is built on and that creates issues for the field next door. The Government need to grapple with this wider issue of the cumulative impact of lots of development. At the moment, planning committees judge the planning application in front of them and do not necessarily look at the cumulative impact. I hope the Government will support our amendments, in particular amendment 82, which tries to rectify some of those cumulative impacts in order to protect our agricultural land, which is very important for our food security.”
“My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, and I completely agree. We should do anything we can to strengthen councils’ hands in protecting green belt. I suspect there is broad support for brownfield-first and protecting the green belt. I turn to amendment 82, tabled by the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). A wider failure of the planning system is that it does not account for the cumulative impact of lots of planning decisions. This amendment goes some way to protecting farmland.”
“The Minister has just said that he wants a default yes on brownfield sites. Is he concerned that if we give carte blanche to developers and say, “You can build whatever you want on brownfield sites,” some of that development on brownfield sites will not be of the quality that I am sure we both want?”
“The shadow Minister is making some eloquent points. Does he agree that if the Government are intent on bringing in a national scheme of delegation, and changing the role of the planning committee and how councillors interact with the planning process, even more consultation should be done at the stages he is describing so that we can ensure that residents still get their say over development in their area?”
“What work are the Government doing with all the different companies and operators in this space? We do not want to see consumers turning up to different charge points that all have different connectors. We need to make this as easy as possible for the consumer, no matter what car they drive. I reiterate that we cannot just dig up roads willy-nilly. What discussions are the Government having with the companies in this space to make it as easy as possible for consumers to access charge points?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I support giving consumers choice and making it easier to install electric car charging points. This will be a massive help for people in flats—if they want to make the switch to an EV and cannot charge their vehicle at home, the more public charging points there are, the better—but we need to think about it carefully. My constituents are fed up with multiple utility companies digging up the roads willy-nilly—sometimes, the same stretch of road. There does not seem to be any logic behind where roadworks will be, and multiple roadworks happen at the same time. We need to issue guidance. If utility companies, councils and other authorities are going to install loads of charging points, it needs to be done in a logical way.”
“I have a question to gain clarity for local authorities. Will the Minister request local authorities to submit how much they spend on planning currently? If the increase in fees is to go into additional planning service, I would not want to see local authorities moving money out of their planning services now, and then charging additional fees so that the services still had the same budget. I hope I have explained that point sufficiently. Will he ask local authorities to submit how much they spend on planning now, to ensure that the additional fees that they will be able to charge go into additional service?”
“Obviously the training has to be timely, because there are always changes to the national planning policy framework and local plans, but not too exhaustive, so that councils can still make planning decisions. The Minister speaks about speeding up planning decisions. I would not want councils to fall into the trap of not having enough people with the right certificate, and the right training at the right time, to carry on their quasi-judicial function of planning. I should be grateful for the Minister’s comments.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I have a few questions for the Minister. I am pleased to see this clause. When I was leader of Broxbourne council, we changed the council constitution to do exactly what the Government are trying to do here. I want to know how many local authorities will be affected, because I know that many of them already have mandatory training for planning committees in their constitution. What I have not seen in the Bill is how often council officers will be required to carry out the training—will it be once per term of office, which means once every four years, or annually? I cannot seem to find any detail on when elected councillors will be required to do the training. I would like the Minister to comment on what he envisages as a workable interval.”
“Does the Minister recognise the other side of that coin? There are examples, and I can give him some from my local authority, of where officers recommend a planning application for approval, the committee turns it down, it goes to appeal and the planning inspector has agreed with the committee. It is not one size fits all; there are two sides to the argument and there will be examples of both. This measure puts a lot of trust in, and gives even more power to, planning officers.”
“In the current scenario, local planning authorities can go through their own scheme of delegation, and if there are lots of objections or a significant public interest, they can determine that instead of doing it through the scheme of delegation, they can bring it to the planning committee, which they will not be able to do under the national scheme of delegation.”
“It will set out areas for development. It may set out some principles, such as wanting a school or a community centre on a site, but it will not go into detail on design, or the look and feel of the community. The idea that councillors have had their say on the local plan and now everything will be approved and can go through is nonsense. I have made the point in the House that we really need to think about the communities we want to make. We can approve as many house building targets or applications as we want, but we have to give some thought to the communities.”
“Speak to one planning officer, and they will say that something is a brilliant idea that fits the national planning policy framework; speak to another, and they will take a completely different view. There is a lack of accountability in what the Government are doing. Let me make a broader point: I do not know what councils have done to offend the Government. They want to abolish lots of them, create super-councils and take away their planning powers. When we adopted our local plan in Broxbourne, I think it was the second local plan in history to be adopted virtually; because of the covid regulations, we had to meet online. I gently push back on the arguments that councillors at full council—I know that they have to vote on a local plan at full council—have had their say on a development. A local plan is not that specific.”
“I fully support the decision it has made.” I am really concerned about the lack of accountability because, at the end of the day, whether council tax goes up because of planning decisions made by the council that it then needs to defend at appeal, or bad planning decisions are made, the electorate can have their say at the May local elections. They can say, “Do you know what? We don’t agree with any of the decisions that this council is making, and we can vote for someone else at the ballot box.” A national scheme of delegation removes councils’ ability to be flexible. This should not be one size fits all. There is also no accountability. We work with some brilliant planning officers, but we also work with some who are not as good in their opinions on planning applications. I have many examples within my own local authority.”
“I am beginning to get fond of the Minister, but we do disagree about clause 46 specifically. It is an attack on democracy. I have already made the point that, within my local authority of Broxbourne, we have a scheme of delegation that delegates some decisions to officers, but there is an ability to change that: if lots of residents are particularly concerned about a development, or even about a dropped kerb, that can go to committee. I have served on a planning committee and overturned officers’ recommendations, both for approval and for refusal. On one planning committee, after we overturned an officer’s recommendation for approval, the issue went to the planning inspector, who wrote back, saying, “I uphold every reason that the planning committee has given for refusal.”
“Both of mine have a local plan. A number of authorities do not have one; it is a long and arduous process, and I welcome discussions about how we can streamline it. As I said, if a local plan has been approved, a site may have been allocated for development, but the minutiae or detail regarding the design of that development will not have been gone into. I have always maintained that the reason developers struggle to get through the planning system is because they try to build absolute rubbish. If they came forward with lots of really good schemes, councillors would not give them as hard a time as they do.”
“The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I have sat on a planning committee and seen developers come forward and make planning applications in line with local plan allocation on outline, which means that we are just discussing the principle of development, or potentially the numbers or the access, with all the detailed designs left to the full planning application. It is set out in gold. We get everything we want. We get a good 106 negotiation. There will be a new doctors surgery and a new school. Lo and behold, when that same developer comes back with a full planning application, it is completely different, but because the principle of development has been established it is very difficult to then turn down. Developers are taking some councils for a ride, and we need to be careful of that.”
“I am really concerned about the attack on democracy and the lack of accountability. When the Minister sums up, can he comment on how we will hold planning officers to account if they make the wrong or bad decisions? This is not just a policy where someone has stood for election because they want their bins collected on a Monday and not a Tuesday. Once planning permission has been granted and the application has been built out, the result is there for decades. It is very difficult to retrospectively change that if mistakes are made. Ultimately, the public have their say at the ballot box, but with unaccountable officers, they do not. How will the Government hold planning officers to account under this national scheme of delegation?”
“I would welcome more guidance so that local authorities can use them more effectively—I think lots of local authorities would agree with that—but design is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. Lots of planning officers do not live within the local planning authority in which they work. Local councillors who stand in a local authority area have to, by law, either live or work there. They are part of the community. I am really concerned about removing the power of planning committees and local councillors to determine planning applications in their area. This works both ways. As I have said, I have voted to overturn where officers have recommended a refusal. Councillors have to be brave sometimes on planning decisions, as the hon. Lady well knows, and as I well know from being on a planning committee.”
“I have a lot of time for the hon. Lady; we worked closely together as leaders of neighbouring authorities. I would push back slightly. The point has been made before. I do not necessarily think that the hold-up is the planning system. There are lots of unbuilt planning applications out there—I can reference loads of applications in my constituency from when I sat on the planning committee nearly two years ago where a single house is yet to be built. The Government have an ambition to build 1.5 million homes. If they want to achieve that ambition, they should be going after all the planning applications that are yet to be built out. The hon. Lady makes some valid points on design codes.”
“The Minister has been generous with his time. Could he comment on how we will hold planning officers to account? At the moment, we can call in planning applications democratically. How are we going to hold planning officers to account under a national scheme of delegation?”
“I have some constituents who live near large housing developments. There is a lot of disruption during the construction phase, so I want more detail about what the Government intend to set out. As I have said, a House of Commons Library paper said that the Government were minded to go to £2,500 a year. The Government should therefore have no issue supporting the amendment because it does not go as far as that. It sets out reasonable benefits that everyone should expect across the country, leaving less to ambiguity and putting power into the hands of this Parliament scrutinising this legislation rather than developers and electricity providers because, as I said, they will want to get away with paying as little as possible.”
“We still need a belt-and-braces consultation, and I want to hear some clear words from the Minister to say that this will not replace that—residents will still be able to have their say, and there will still be a full and proper consultation when new energy infrastructure comes forward. I am disappointed to see in the legislation hardly any detail about what the community benefit scheme will be. I have said before that if we leave too much ambiguity, electricity providers and developers will want to get away with paying nothing at all or as little as possible. We should not allow that to happen. We should allow people—our constituents—who live near energy infra-structure projects to get the best deal possible, considering that they will have to put up with a lot of disruption.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I rise in support of amendment 83, in which the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland sets out a fair and reasonable system as to what benefits people living near new energy infrastructure should be able to get. It is important to note that the House of Commons Library says that the Government are minded to set aside £2,500 a year for 10 years. The Government should be able to find it within themselves to support our amendment, considering we do not even go as far as the provision that they suggested, according to the House of Commons Library. This amendment should be an easy step to get to where the Government want to go. I do have some concerns. It has been raised in Committee before that this provision cannot be a simple solution to not doing any consultation.”
“I appreciate the Minister’s correction of what I said—the Government are less generous than I interpreted, in terms of the £2,500 over 10 years. But can he give us some warm words about this not replacing any consultation and say that it is on top of all of the consultation and residents being allowed to have their say, and that we will not allow electricity companies just to pay some money and then get away without doing any consultation at all? Can he give us some reassurances on that?”
“I would like to hear the Minister’s response to those comments, but I wholeheartedly support what the Government are trying to do in this specific case.”
“Some authorities still have section 106 agreements, and I am concerned that developers will just move money from those section 106 agreements—money that is to be put into education or healthcare, for example—by saying in a viability assessment that they now have to pay these fees to the local authorities, particularly around highways. How can we stop it being the same money, just moved around? These fees should be additional to the money from section 106 agreements that the council was already getting, as they are going directly into capacity issues within planning departments. I am worried that developers will try to play games by just moving the same money around the system or cutting the same pie in a different way, which will not help local authorities.”
“I have a few comments, although I support the principle of this provision. There is not enough capacity in some planning departments, so I agree that fee cost recovery and some of the additional fees, particularly those relating to highways matters, are really important for local authorities, but I have a few questions. When will the money be paid? Will it be paid before the development has started, so there is capacity in the system? People sometimes make planning applications and get planning permissions but do not actually build out the development, so will the fees still need to be paid in those cases? I have some concerns that I would like the Minister to comment on.”
“I completely understand where the Minister is coming from on specific applications just for roads. I suppose my comments were related to new towns or garden villages, where there will be lots of facets to those applications—house building, new roads and what have you. I therefore welcome the Minister’s comments on the fact that he will look at those issues that I have raised.”
“How is the Minister working with the Department for Education to ensure that when young people leave education, they have the skills they need to thrive in the world of work?”
“My constituency of Broxbourne has a hotel that is used to house illegal asylum seekers. This has placed huge pressure on local GP surgeries and schools, which are already overstretched, and my constituents and I have had enough. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss this issue, and can she tell me when the hotel housing illegal asylum seekers in my constituency of Broxbourne will close?”
“In my previous role as the local county councillor, I was able to respond immediately by putting in place practical double yellow lines to ensure that that could never happen again, while ensuring that parking was still available.”
“It is incredibly frustrating for pedestrians to find their path blocked by inconsiderate cars; for those with disabilities or young children in prams, it can mean the choice between a dangerous detour and not continuing their journey at all. My sister has used a wheelchair to get around Hoddesdon and sadly has been forced into busy roads too many times. At its most serious, inconsiderate parking can be a matter of life and death. I am sad to say that in my Broxbourne constituency there was a case in which an ambulance was unable to reach a person experiencing a 999 medical emergency, with paramedics having to run down the road because cars were parked too closely on both sides of it.”
“Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), said in February that options were being explored with the parking industry to deliver that platform, so let me ask today’s Minister: how are those discussions going, and when will we see action on that matter? Can he confirm whether the funding for the pilot version of the national parking platform ceased on 31 March? While making parking easier for drivers, there is a balance to be struck between making simpler regulations and protecting pedestrians and local residents. At the last election, we promised to give councils the power to ban pavement parking if they so wish, provided that they engage with businesses and residents first to ensure that they are not adversely affected.”
“I would like to make a number of practical points to the Minister and I look forward to the Government taking constructive steps to make things easier and better as soon as possible. Although Labour’s manifesto failed to mention parking—its priorities clearly lying elsewhere—the Conservatives pledged to roll out the national parking platform fully, ending the ludicrous situation of someone needing one app on their phone to park in one car park, another app to park in the car park down the road and so on. A single payment system would make paying easier, especially for older people. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon.”
“It would not be a debate in this Chamber without him in attendance. I noted down many comments from Members across the Chamber, but I will not go through them; I will just say that I heard nothing that I disagreed with about these cowboy parking companies. I think everyone has agreed with everything that everyone else has said and that action needs to be taken on rogue parking companies. Parking is a crucial part of everyday life, but too often it is overlooked because it is not a glamorous political issue. When parking is too hard to find, too expensive or just too complicated, it can have a ripple effect on the local economy and the basic quality of life of all our constituents.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Members for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this important debate. As we have heard from across the Chamber, there are many examples of rogue parking companies. Before I begin, I will just note that this is my first opportunity to reply to a debate on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition—not bad for a boy from Broxbourne—so please go easy on me. Luckily, both I and my constituents have plenty of experience of dealing with parking problems—as do many Members across the Chamber, as we have heard, with passionate contributions from Members on both sides of the Chamber, including the right hon. Member—sorry, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); he should be a right hon. Member.”
“Will that include the power for local authorities, if they so wish, to ban pavement parking? When it comes to parking, local people also need a say from a planning perspective. In my constituency, a new development has been proposed with just 17 spare spaces for 80 flats. If only half those flats contain two people—a couple who both drive—spaces will run out very quickly indeed, forcing more cars on to already full neighbouring roads.”
“We did try to implement some of the recommendations from the consultation; the courts and the private companies that threatened legal action were the reason why we could not do that. I hope this Government will answer those questions and reply to that consultation, as the hon. Member rightly says; I would not go near a primary or secondary school in my constituency during school pick-up and drop-off time. Sadly, it is often parents taking their children to school who are parking dangerously, and that affects other children going to the same school. We must do something about that. I firmly believe that councils and councillors, who understand their local areas, should have the power to tackle inconsiderate parking. The Minister speaks about devolving more responsibility to local authorities.”
“Constituents have also been in contact to tell me stories of dreadful treatment by the handful of rogue parking companies, as we have heard from Members from across the Chamber today. Outrageously, Parkingeye has repeatedly sent threatening letters to one of my constituents, demanding money, without even providing an explanation of why they had received the fine in the first place. Across the country, 14.5 million parking tickets will be issued to drivers this year. Too often, parking firms deliberately work to fleece motorists for as much money as they can, with misleading and confusing signage, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees. That must stop. The Government must get a grip on these cowboy operators, stop this war on motorists and deal with the other parking issues that our constituents are always contacting us about.”