Speeches by Cocking.

“rose—”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 21 May.”

“I thank the Minister for giving way. He is talking about changes in viability. What does he say to councils that are in the position of having granted planning permission, had a viability assessment and agreed a 106, and the developer comes back a year or two later and says that they cannot do it and will have to put i…”

“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 aroun…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I support this clause on development corporations and transport. NHS and healthcare services in the new development corporations are also vital, so why did the Government not include a clause that would make local NHS trusts behave in the way that the Minister wants transport authorities to behave, so that development …”

“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 year…”

“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.”

“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 pre…”

“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 r…”

“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 enviro…”

“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 a…”

“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. …”

“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…”

“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-bel…”

“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?”

“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?”

“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 …”

“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 ap…”