Town Planning

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 6:14 pm on 26 May 2004.

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Photo of Kelvin Hopkins Kelvin Hopkins Labour, Luton North 6:14, 26 May 2004

First, may I pay a compliment to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning? Unfortunately, I was unable to be present for the first part of his speech, which I shall read with great interest in tomorrow's Hansard, but the latter part I entirely agreed with. He has a great grasp of the important issues we are discussing today.

I heard all the speeches from the other Front-Bench spokespersons, and I take issue particularly with the Liberal Democrat, Matthew Green, who, on the one hand, said that planning should not be too centralised and, on the other, that people do not want to live in silos. Unfortunately, local authorities, to some extent, are silos. They can deal only with matters within their boundaries. Central Government must have a role—