Clause 1
Sustainable Communities Bill
10:00 am
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
I am more than happy to take my hon. Friend up on his offer, as long as he accepts the restrictions that come with it.
I congratulate sincerely the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood for taking the Bill through the House with substantial support on both sides and in the country for what it is trying to achieve. I have tabled the amendment to facilitate the debate and to give the Government the opportunity the put forward their view on clause 1. It is not a wrecking amendment, but an opportunity for us to respond to the Bill. I am particularly grateful to him for conducting himself during the proceedings on the Bill with a good deal of sense and courtesy. I thank him for that and hope that it is reciprocated. I am sure that he has many years as a parliamentarian ahead of him and I wish him well in whatever might happen during his time in the House.
Mr. O’Hara, you would not expect any Government to subscribe to a Bill or campaign that describes the country as a ghost town. That phrase resonates with me because of the 1980s pop single by The Specials. I am probably showing my age because some Members are looking puzzled, either because they are at the older or the younger end of that generation. [Interruption.] I assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras that The Specials were from the early 1980s. The serious point is that the message about a ghost town resonated then with my generation in a different context.
I agree strongly with part of the thrust of the Bill: in some communities, small businesses have been put out of business by competition. I think that the local works campaign refers to cloning and homogenous communities and argues that some towns have lost some character and that villages in parts of the country have suffered, sometimes as a result of increasing numbers of second homes, which is, of course, a problem of success and prosperity, although not, I suspect, for residents in such a village who are unable to find a school for their child. However, other parts of the country might have suffered for different reasons.
The Bill addresses, as do the Government, policies such as planning and asks the question, “Are such policies making this process more difficult to handle?” The Bill, therefore, asks the same question as the Government are asking: “What can public policy do to help to ensure that our communities are sustainable?” The Government claim authorship of the phrase “sustainable community”. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister made it the logo for his Department. In a debate about eight years ago, I remember being chided by Opposition Members for using what was claimed by one Member in particular to be a “meaningless load of waffle”. I took the point; I knew what he meant. It is difficult to define “sustainable community”, but over the years, I believe an understanding has grown of what that simple phrase has come to mean.