Clause 14
Housing and Regeneration Bill
4:00 pm
Grant Shapps (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Welwyn Hatfield, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention gives me an opportunity to say that I am absolutely, slavishly loyal to the desires of local people, but that simultaneously I want more houses to be built. An easy way of squaring the circle is to say that local communities must have the power in their own hands—they must have the ability—so that they are incentivised and know that the services are going to follow where the houses are to be built. In particular, as is the case in my constituency, they must be reassured that their local facilities, such as hospitals, are not going to be closed down when the Government are insisting that thousands of homes are built in the local area. It is pretty much common sense to say that if the Government were to frame legislation that incentivised local communities, rather than bash them over the head when they suspect them of being nimbies, they would find that much more housing was built. The problem with the entire direction of the Bill—the clause in particular is a good way of highlighting it—is that the temptation is to think that everything has to be run from Whitehall. It does not; it can be run from local communities.