Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Part of Business of the House – in the House of Commons at 5:01 pm on 5 November 2012.

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Photo of Nick Herbert Nick Herbert Conservative, Arundel and South Downs 5:01, 5 November 2012

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s remarks. She expressed herself in the same way as I have sought to express myself—by seeking reassurance that these provisions will not damage the landscape. The whole purpose of these high landscape designations, whether they be areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks, is that they ensure a level of protection that cannot be overridden. That is their very purpose, so we need to be careful before legislating for any provision that might then set a precedent for further erosion of such protection in future. I simply say that we need to be careful and that I need to be persuaded of the benefits of these measures.

My final point is about the role of the planning system in relation to growth. There is a simple fact here—that we have had high levels of growth with the existing planning system in this country under Governments of both persuasions over the course of the last few decades. The planning system is not in itself necessarily an impediment to growth, and the lack of growth cannot be laid at the door of the planning system. Nevertheless, in an increasingly competitive world—despite the fact that we can observe Britain’s projected growth as being higher than that of our European partners and approaching that of the United States—we need to compete with the best. That means that any blockage on the speed of planning decisions needs to be removed. I welcome Lord Heseltine’s review to that effect. He said that it was not about undermining the principles of the planning system; it was about ensuring that it works more speedily. That is what I suggest we need to focus on—policy clarity and speeding up decisions, not undermining the process in its entirety.