Chris Hinchliff
MP for North East Hertfordshire · Labour · United Kingdom
“Today, I am not joining this debate to raise a series of detailed concerns about the latest redrafting of the NPPF—although I do still have such concerns, especially in relation to possible changes to the sequential test on surface water flooding and limits being imposed on local authorities to pursue more ambitious policies on climate an…”
“When Lewis Silkin created the planning system that rebuilt this country from the ashes of world war two, he described the distinctly Labour vision for a policy that would meet “actual needs, democratically expressed.” Yet what the NPPF has achieved for years—I am afraid the latest iteration will be little different—is almost the precise o…”
“The section 106 mechanism they rely on is not only obscure, but demonstrably incapable of securing the investment in the infrastructure—GPs, schools, sports grounds and public transport—necessary to keep pace with population growth, when hundreds of new houses are bolted on to towns that have already seen almost all their facilities close…”
“And thus we have a national system in which the notion of affordable housing is a running joke, and in which the environment that politicians so often protest their love for is repeatedly trashed as a secondary matter compared to the unequally distributed benefits of growth.”
“Now is the time to consign the NPPF to the dustbin of history where it belongs and start afresh instead of making further amendments. The one positive note I can strike is that it is not difficult to imagine something far, far better.”
“There can be no plan-led system when national policy introduces the overwhelming likelihood of caveats to local plans through an ever stronger and equally inaccurately named presumption in favour of sustainable development, which in reality functions as a passport to permission for all but the very worst speculative schemes.”
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“I completely agree. The Government need to deliver a coherent vision for development in this country that matches the clarity and boldness of Labour’s 1947 vision, putting democratic control and social justice back at the heart of the planning system. First, we must contend with the fact that more than 1.2 million homes that were granted planning permission since 2015 have not been built. Rather than waiting for developers to drip feed land into the system at their convenience, keeping prices high and profits maximised, we must introduce firm financial penalties for land banking to spur on construction and dampen price inflation.”
“Will Ministers consider exercising the community electricity right within the Infrastructure Act 2015 to require commercial renewable energy developers to offer communities the opportunity to part-own schemes developed in their area?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the implicit argument of Ministers in this debate—that they would rather spend the money on other issues—is producing an incredibly slippery slope when it comes to delivering justice for Government maladministration? Does she agree that it gives the impression that we might be moving towards a situation where we means test justice?”
“I have also been contacted by concerned and impacted farmers in North East Hertfordshire. Will the Minister assure me that, for the remainder of this Parliament, the revamped SFI that he alluded to will allow farmers to plan seasons ahead, as they need to?”
“Research has found that the cost of presenteeism to the private sector in mental ill health alone is £24 billion a year. Does my hon. Friend agree that shows that reforming our statutory sick pay is the most pro-prosperity, pro-productivity policy that we can pursue?”
“School staff in North East Hertfordshire work tirelessly in dilapidated facilities to support students with special educational needs while parents face absurdly long journeys to reach specialist schools, and in the meantime the old Roysia school site in Royston lies vacant. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the school estate in my constituency, and how we can use the Roysia site to meet local special educational needs?”
“Trust in politics will return only when we make our position unimpeachable, and the future of development in our towns, villages and countryside is too important even to appear to have been subverted on behalf of private interests. If we want the public to believe that the planning guidelines that we set nationally and locally will be fairly adhered to, it is my contention that we must ban all political donations from developers, those who work for them and the lobbyists they employ.”
“Our constituents will never have faith that our planning system will deliver fair outcomes that put nature, community life and genuinely affordable homes before developer greed for as long as those same developers—and the lobbyists they employ—are pouring vast sums of money into the bank accounts of political parties. Given the constant clamour for planning deregulation and the already enormous profits that these developers are making, it is hard to escape the conclusion that those sums of money have been a very wise investment on their part. The Labour Government have inherited the Conservative party’s housing crisis; we must not inherit the same issues of influence that plagued the previous Administration.”
“I intend to make a short contribution on one particular aspect of political funding that I believe is especially corrosive to faith in democracy in our country. Across North East Hertfordshire, from Buntingford to Thundridge, local communities have worked hard to create local neighbourhood plans that are pragmatic but full of hope for the future. However, time and again, those plans are overruled, and residents get development that could hardly be further from what they have sought to secure—poorly designed, palpably unsustainable, and outrageously overpriced. So often, the reason for this is the enormous financial and political pressure that big developers are able to bring to bear on the debates around the future of our towns and villages in their relentless pursuit of profit maximisation.”
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to work with Hertfordshire County Council to ensure that a proportion of the £1.6bn in increased funding for pothole repairs is used to repair and maintain Whitebarns Lane and, to ensure that social housing tenants are never again placed in a situation whereby they have no substantive access to the main highway, to urge the Government to take action to ensure that the development in Furneux Pelham and all future developments have such access as standard. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003047]”
“The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to work with Hertfordshire County Council to ensure that a proportion of the £1.6bn in increased funding for pothole repairs is used to repair and maintain Whitebarns Lane.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the village of Furneux Pelham, North East Hertfordshire, Declares that Whitebarns Lane is the sole pedestrian and vehicle access for residents in social housing in Furneux Pelham; however, it is unfit for purpose and has been in a near constant state of dangerous disrepair for many years as a result of Hertfordshire County Council’s refusal to maintain the route as a road; further declares that this refusal to carry out repairs after many years of lobbying has led to vulnerable residents of Whitebarns, including the disabled and elderly, suffering from falls and other injuries; and furthermore expresses dismay at the ongoing neglect and mis-treatment of social housing tenants in rural communities.”
“I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Furneux Pelham in my constituency, where Whitebarns Lane has been left in a state of disrepair for years, despite being the only access road for many social housing tenants and others in the village. Hertfordshire county council has refused to adequately maintain this road, forcing residents, including schoolchildren, the elderly and the disabled, to endure unsafe conditions.”
“Just this morning, commuters in Ashwell in North East Hertfordshire, which is also served by Thameslink, wrote to me about the challenges that they are experiencing because of a lack of reliability and expensive fares on the line, and how those challenges are increasingly cutting them off from work and education opportunities. Could my hon. Friend the Minister address what steps the Government will take to improve fares and reliability on those routes as they bring Thameslink into public ownership?”
“I share my hon. Friend’s concern that far too many children in our part of the world miss out on years of education as a result of this crisis. In setting out many of the reforms we need to see, will he join me in urging the Minister to bring forward those reforms as swiftly as possible and to provide a clear timeline so that parents in our constituencies can look forward to them?”
“Does the Minister agree that the most important policies that we can look at in planning reform to deliver genuinely affordable homes in rural communities are a bold approach to land reform, the abolition of hope value and the reform of compulsory purchase orders to allow our local planning authorities to assemble the land that we need in our rural communities?”
“We have heard quite a few suggestions already of ways in which this policy could be tweaked or amended. Will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Minister to get Treasury officials to at least model some of those changes, to help to advance the debate in the coming months?”
“I make a brief declaration of interest: my former employer, CPRE, supports the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that the rate of climate change that she is describing in her constituency poses an existential threat to our most loved landscapes, our iconic wildlife species, the pattern of our seasons and some of our most valuable farmland, and that a rapid and just transition is therefore essential for rural communities so that we can hand over our countryside to future generations in some recognisable form?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the appalling situations faced by migrant labour in the social care system, as highlighted by UNISON, emphasise the need for urgent structural reform of the system, to create a national care service that resolves workforce insecurity, alongside the many other problems arising from our social care crisis?”
“At the same time, we face many challenging decisions locally to balance the need for renewable energy with the protection of our high-quality farmland, while also preserving and enhancing space for nature. It is therefore unsurprising that residents in North East Hertfordshire can see the common sense in making the best possible use of our finite land by putting the solar panels we need on rooftops. Our approach to delivering the renewable energy we undoubtedly and desperately need has been far too laissez-faire.”
“I begin by making a declaration of interest: my former employer, CPRE, the countryside charity, is a supporter of the Bill. Many of my constituents are also passionate supporters of the proposal for mandatory rooftop solar on new buildings; it is one of the issues on which I have had the most correspondence in recent months. In North East Hertfordshire, the towns of Royston and Buntingford have seen rapid development in recent years, as have smaller villages such as Barkway, Puckeridge and Standon. In the near future, a new estate will be built on the edge of Letchworth Garden City and the town of Baldock is due to roughly double in size.”
“I wholeheartedly agree. As I was saying, we could suffer from the potentially profound impacts of competing demands for space for the homes we require, our commitment to protect 30% of our land for nature by 2030, and our fragile food security. Government figures show that with an industry average of 5 acres per megawatt, the proposed ground-mounted solar schemes put forward to date would, if they all went ahead, require a total land area roughly equivalent to Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle and Leeds combined. Yet at the same time, academic analysis indicates that between suitable existing buildings and new construction, there is potential space for 117 GW of rooftop solar in England by 2050.”
“I find myself, once again, in wholehearted agreement. Ensuring that solar panels are installed on the rooftops of new buildings specifically could deliver a generating capacity over six times greater than that of Sizewell C. Clearly, if we start applying a strategic approach beginning with the provisions in the Bill, we can host the vast majority of the solar panels we need on our rooftops. Other nations are already proving that this can be done, with similar regulatory measures currently in place in Germany, China and Japan. Better yet, enacting this legislation would not only accelerate our progress toward meeting our climate targets, reducing the industrialisation of our countryside and protecting rural communities; it also offers the most effective way to ensure that the net zero transition lowers electricity bills for consumers.”
“Claims that the regulations would hinder innovation are clearly spurious, especially in view of the provisions for exemptions where other forms of renewable energy generation are installed. It is high time that our country had common-sense standards for rooftop solar on new builds, and I hope that the whole House will support the Bill.”
“I agree that speed is of the essence in multiple ways, and I encourage the Government to move as quickly as possible. Empowering households to generate the electricity that they use will help families to lower their bills far more rapidly than commercial schemes that feed into wholesale energy markets influenced by international commodity prices. This strikes me as a well-drafted Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) on its clarity and flexibility. The only thing that I might suggest is a widening of the provisions to cover commercial buildings as well, given the vast opportunities provided by warehousing space. It is estimated that we currently use only about 5% of warehouse rooftops for solar generation.”
“May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks? In 2021, Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, who live in my constituency of North East Hertfordshire and are in the Gallery today, tragically lost their son, Hugh, at the age of just six to a rare form of cancer. Now they are courageously campaigning to ensure that every parent who must leave work to look after a sick child in hospital gets the financial support they need from day one. Will the Prime Minister meet them and me to discuss implementing Hugh’s law, and giving their son a legacy that improves the lives of families at the most difficult time imaginable?”
“Residents in towns and villages across my constituency want an efficient and accountable planning system. Could the Minister set out in more detail how he sees these plans interacting with processes around master planning and the negotiation of planning conditions?”
“Many of my constituents will be impacted by this deeply worrying announcement, so can the Secretary of State confirm what discussions he is having with trade unions on this specific subject and what plans he has to mitigate the job losses for residents of North East Hertfordshire?”
“Ministers have made an important start with policies to refocus house building on delivering new social homes, by paving the way for re-regulation of bus services, by delivering the largest ever budget for sustainable food production, and with a clear commitment to community energy. Today, I urge them to press on further as swiftly as possible by restoring services to our towns and villages and retaining their rurality; by recognising at last that, depleted as it is, the natural capital of our countryside is the better part of the wealth of our nation; and by redirecting investment, leaning into the growth of distributed technologies and remote working, and delivering a new revolution in cottage industries to once again spread economic opportunities across places such as those I represent.”
“All that points to economic policy that has consistently failed to recognise the intrinsic value that my constituents place on the rurality of their communities. For too long, economic orthodoxy that is obsessed with agglomeration and utilitarian accounting has proven incapable of recognising the social value of investing in less densely populated areas. To conclude, given the vast change in political representation of rural areas at the recent election, the Government clearly have a unique opportunity and obligation to deliver systemic change that creates a future in which our towns, villages and hamlets thrive as communities in their own right.”
“I am afraid it is of little consolation that the big developers, which the Tories allowed to force through applications on appeal, have been enjoying supernormal profits as a result. The systemic failures are not unique to rural housing. Our public transport system is next to non-existent in many villages—cutting off young adults from opportunities for work and education, and stranding older residents in loneliness and isolation—because the only bus services that ran under the Tories were those that made profits for shareholders. We expect farmers to steward our land for future generations, but they have—between the monopsonistic power of the major supermarkets and the pressure of global commodity markets—been pushed into the absurd position whereby it is increasingly impossible to make a fair living out of feeding the nation.”
“Rural areas must deal again and again with totally unsustainable speculative developments dominated by houses designed to maximise profit, on a scale completely unrelated to local needs for organic growth. At the same time, house prices have continued to rise—almost always far beyond the reach of those who have grown up locally—rural homelessness has risen by 40% and local facilities have declined. In one of my local towns, Buntingford, hundreds of new houses have been built, yet it has lost its youth centre, the bank, the community swimming pool, a GP surgery, a daycare centre and the local waste disposal site—those facilities are all gone. The volume of new housing is putting such strain on the infrastructure that residents are repeatedly flooded by raw sewage.”
“I thank the Government for so guilelessly bringing forward such a broad debate allowing those of us with rural constituencies to make wide-ranging demands on behalf of the towns and villages that we represent. I look forward to further inundating Ministers’ in-trays with legions of letters about agriculture in Anstey, school buildings in Baldock and potholes in Furneux Pelham. However, before I am accused of being excessively parochial, I will address the wider systemic issues that undermine rural life in this country. Fundamentally, the problem facing towns and villages such as those across North East Hertfordshire is that for decades almost every aspect of national life has been increasingly geared towards putting profit maximisation before the needs of our communities. Nowhere is that more evident than in our housing sector.”
“T10. Many towns and villages across my constituency have experienced rapid population growth in recent years, but education opportunities have not kept pace, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the specific investment needed to expand school places for my constituency’s growing population?”
“The chalk streams in North East Hertfordshire and across England are of international significance, but too often these waterways are not just polluted, but running dry. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the commission will look at the regulation needed to bring an end to not only sewage spills, but the over-abstraction of aquifers and chalk streams?”
“On new entrants, it is well known that the average age of farmers is too high, yet when it was in power the Conservative party’s austerity measures led to the closure of 15,000 acres of county farms estate, which is crucial for getting younger people into a farming career and contributing to national food security.”
“For 14 years, they allowed that situation to develop unchecked, and it will be this Labour Government who deliver the land use strategy that we need to provide a framework to ensure that we are making the best possible use of our finite land. On other challenges, it is estimated that one third of UK soils are degraded, yet the previous Government ditched the planned soil health action plan for England. On biodiversity, the previous Conservative Government authorised the use of harmful pesticides, despite knowing that that would have a devastating impact on pollinators.”
“I do not doubt the motivation of Opposition Members, but the inescapable fact is that the Conservative party is ideologically incapable of putting forward real solutions to bolster our national food security. I share some of the concerns about the use of high-quality farmland for ground-mounted solar schemes, which is an ongoing issue in North East Hertfordshire, and we need a land use framework to give strategic direction to where we generate the solar energy that we need, instead of allowing a chaotic proliferation of profit-driven schemes wherever grid capacity, which the Conservative party failed to sort out, allows. Under the previous Government, just 5% of houses had installed rooftop solar, and neither did they take any of the obvious steps to mandate solar panels on new build houses or car parks.”
“Whether it is profit-led developments, the cancellation of bus routes, or the closure of banks and village schools, the fundamental experience of towns and villages like those in North East Hertfordshire has too often been one of being done to and expected to endure, rather than one of being looked after, worked with and empowered to contribute. It is this, above all, that I hope to chip away at in my contributions in this place. I thank the House for listening patiently to my first attempt, and my constituents for giving me the opportunity to do so.”
“Despite the concerns he raised at the time, no one was ever held to account for these actions, and he urged me passionately to raise the dangers associated with the rushed and unsafe demolition of agricultural buildings containing asbestos at the earliest opportunity if I was elected as his MP. I am sorry to inform the House that when I returned a few weeks later to speak to him about honouring his request and including this story in my maiden speech, I was told by his widow that he had recently passed away. The chance for any meaningful justice for this family has now gone with him. Meanwhile, developers have no doubt pocketed a return on investment that much fatter for having fatally cut corners at the expense of local residents.”
“Between painful coughing and laboured breathing, he explained to me how in the construction of new housing in the meadow beyond his street, agricultural sheds containing asbestos were demolished with almost incomprehensible recklessness in a single afternoon by workers who were themselves equipped with virtually none of the necessary protective equipment. Rather than the asbestos being carefully removed, it was smashed up on site, creating large clouds of hazardous dust right next to the existing homes. The gentleman I was speaking to had, tragically, subsequently contracted asbestosis, which had ruined his health and left him barely able to travel from his front door to his car.”
“I have been asked to keep the following story anonymous by the family in question, but I believe it illustrates powerfully how the communities outside our urban centres are too often treated. During the general election, as I reached the last road canvassing in a particularly idyllic village in my constituency, I came to knock on the final door in a quiet row of terraces. After initially waiting without answer, I was about to leave when I was called over by a voice from the passenger seat of a nearby car. The gentleman sat there was not old and was keen to speak, but was clearly very ill.”
“In Letchworth, we have the world’s first garden city, built on the principles of the common ownership of land, which to this day offers a radical example of how to better design and build the communities of the future. Surrounding it all, we have some of the best agricultural land in the country, with local farmers such as those near Groundswell in Weston and Finches farm in Benington spearheading the ecological innovation we need to grow fantastic food in harmony with nature. Yet in my experience of speaking to residents right across North East Hertfordshire, the recurring theme is of communities dispirited and frustrated at having their needs put aside in the interests of what others have called progress, so I will close by mentioning one debt of honour that I want to bring to hon. Members’ attention at this time.”
“The late, great, trailblazing Shirley Williams, when she was first elected as a Labour MP, represented many of the areas that make up my constituency. Despite the intervening 60 years, I found reading her maiden speech from 1964 very helpful in preparing for this moment, for, as she said then, the constituency I represent is in “many ways…a microcosm” of much of our country. North East Hertfordshire from Hinxworth to Bayford contains many small rural communities full of important history and culture—from the home of George Orwell in Wallington to the stained-glass windows designed by William Morris and pre-Raphaelite artists in Waterford. In Baldock, Buntingford and Royston, we have quintessentially English market towns, home to fantastic independent businesses as well as nationally significant companies such as Johnson Matthey.”
“The clear proof of the diligence with which he carried out his duties and the respect he earned from his constituents was plainly obvious from the feedback on the doorstep throughout the general election. I especially want to thank my predecessor for the work he did to support the campaign for Hugh’s law to secure better financial support for parents caring for seriously ill children, and also for his work fighting for the restoration of the several internationally significant chalk streams that flow through North East Hertfordshire. I look forward to doing what I can to further both of those important projects during my time in this place. Although the many years of my predecessor’s incumbency have all but erased it from our memory, I am not in fact the first Member of my party to represent communities in North East Hertfordshire.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to give my maiden speech in this important debate. The ongoing transition of our energy system is having a profound and, sadly, often harmful impact on many of the communities in my constituency, so I am very hopeful that the provisions in the Bill will begin at last to put the future of renewable energy in the service of those I represent. I warmly commend to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench the proposals, of which I am sure they will be aware, for Great British Energy to be given a duty to deliver nature recovery alongside its other objectives. I begin this speech by paying tribute to my predecessor, who served our constituency and this House faithfully for many years.”