My contribution to the levelling up and planning debate

In Wokingham, there are thousands of permissions outstanding to build new homes, and thousands of new homes have been built in recent years. We do not need or want Government inspectors determining in favour of yet more homes on greenfield sites that are outside our local plan area.

I am pleased with the anger among Conservative Members about the disgrace that is the abuse of the planning system by some large development companies and rich landowners, who manage to game the system to get extra permissions and make money out of the granting of the permission while houses go unbuilt under the legitimate permissions that have been granted. I understand that the Government agree with us, so where is the new direction to the planning inspectors to say that the Government will no longer put up with that? If a statutory instrument is needed to make that clear in law, where is the statutory instrument? As the Government have now brought forward a Bill about planning law in general, can we have a clause in the Bill that nails the issue? I do not know anyone who defends the gaming of the system in that way by rich development companies—I do not think the Labour party defends it. The Government should nail it, so please let us see the draft clause.

The Secretary of State did not answer my polite inquiry—perhaps it was too polite—about what will be done to ensure that local communities have more say and influence over how we define and calculate housing need and over the housing numbers that we think are appropriate and feasible for our area. Surely they have a right to a say in that and may have something useful to contribute to the discussion.

Infrastructure is crucial in this argument. In places such as Wokingham and West Berkshire, where I have the privilege to represent many of the people, we have seen a huge increase in development—some granted on appeal against our wishes—but no proper extra provision for infrastructure. Planners must understand that we cannot suddenly conjure up new broadband, sufficient water supply, enough cable to take the extra electricity that is required, the extra road space needed for all the extra cars, or the extra primary schools and surgeries that will be needed to cater for people.

In an area that has been subject to very fast development, as mine has, there is no excess capacity in the private sector services or the public services that are crucial to a good quality of life. It is embarrassing if planning inspectors grant permissions to build more homes and there then has to be a scramble to put in a cable big enough to take the extra power and to find private companies to organise some broadband, and of course there are the usual family arguments in the NHS and the education system to get the quite lumpy investments that are needed. All those things need to happen before the houses are opened up for people; we should not invite people into new homes that they have bought in good faith only for them to discover those pitfalls and difficulties in the provision of services.

My final point about the Bill is that I am proud to belong to a party that opposed unelected and elected regional government, and we won the argument about elected regional government in England. I would like Ministers to talk more about England, because a number of Cabinet Ministers and senior Ministers are basically England-only Ministers in practically all they do. I trust them to make some of the big calls, as long as they listen to me and my local community. We do not need regional government interjected between us and the Ministers who actually have the power and the money. Let them talk England and forget regional.

165 Comments

  1. Mark B
    June 9, 2022

    Good morning.

    In Wokingham, there are thousands of permissions outstanding to build new homes, and thousands of new homes have been built in recent years.

    May I ask a question, Sir John ?

    With all these new homes, in your constituency, how many hospital’s, schools, police and fire stations have been built to support the increase in population ? Developers are not responsible for this, government is.

    NB This is not a dig at you by the way.

    I do not know anyone who defends the gaming of the system in that way by rich development companies

    Supply and demand. If there was little demand then these so called rich developers would have little incentive to ’game the system’. If you want to pull the rug from under them then I suggest you tell the government to stop inviting the all the world and his dog to come and live here. Simple.

    I sense a great deal of frustration in your post, Sir John. Having so many ‘new people’, some of which would not vote Tory in a million years cannot be easy for you and, having a central government machine that not only is acting against the interest of the UK but also its very own MP’s must be infuriating ?

    And believe me, we all know how you feel.

    😉

    PS Nice of you to mention England.

    1. Mark B
      June 9, 2022

      PPS

      Jools B

      Are you still there love ?

      😉

      1. Hope
        June 9, 2022

        JR, what is the CIL being used for by your local council? It charges per square meter for each new house. Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) should be used for infrastructure. Why has your govt not enforced this to happen?

        NHB is also charged for each new house that becomes occupied – govt match fund community charge by council to make up for grant shortfall.

        Please tell the whole storey. Boles introduced these funding streams under Cameron when community secretary.

        1. Mark B
          June 10, 2022

          Assuming that this levy has been paid to the Local Authority one must ask where has all the money gone and what, if any, has it been spent on ?

          https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/wokingham-cil-charging-schedule-approved-by-examiner

    2. alan jutson
      June 9, 2022

      Mark, as a local Wokingham resident for over 40 years the answer is very simple, not enough.

      We have had a few new schools built, but not a single new hospital, not a single new Police station, in fact the local Wokingham Town Police station has been closed, the local Town Fire station was replaced with a new one (on the same site) about 10 years ago, but a local Ambulance centre at Winnersh (a couple of miles out of the Town) was closed, a couple of surgeries merged into a larger new building in the Town Centre which has 14 Doctors registered, but most appear to work part time given the almost impossibility of getting an appointment.
      Dentists lists for NHS patients are full, so any new patients can only be registered for private treatment.
      Yes we have a few new and modified roads, but they are simply not enough to counter the growth and volume of traffic caused by the 30,000 new houses built in the last few decades.
      The new so called relief roads which are single lane each way, that have been 4 years so far in construction and about 10 years in planning, meander through the new housing estates, are not yet complete, and are not suitable for large lorries.
      We do now have a part new and redeveloped Town Centre that certainly is attractive, but the original roads still carry the same volume of traffic as none of them were widened etc.

      Reply I have helped secure a new secondary school, 3 new primaries, bypasses for Arborfield, Shinfield and Winnersh, two station renewals and an extra station, new library,swimming pool, Shinfield surgery, extra capacity at Royal Berks. We were also given a large police centre at Earley.

      1. Richard II
        June 10, 2022

        Reply to reply: The GP to patient ration in the Shinfield surgery is already the worst in the borough, and the Conservative council was planning to dump yet more housing in the area. The GPs there are shared with South Reading.

      2. alan jutson
        June 10, 2022

        Reply to reply

        Agreed John, that has happened but over the last 40 years, the new swimming pool is not yet open, the second open air one (privately owned) was gifted to the Council for the enjoyment of the residents, the Council sold it for housing after a few years
        Elms Field (privately owned grassed open space) just off the Town centre was also gifted to the Town for the enjoyment of the public, this has also now has had more than 50% of it been taken over by a new shopping centre and sold off for housing.
        The newer library is certainly better than the old one as a building, but has any more books etc.
        Royal Berks hospital in Reading has had its capacity increased, but the Reading Battle hospital was closed so the number of hospital beds available remained the same, a point I made to the then Chief executive more than 25 years ago.
        Certainly agree the new Wokingham Station is a great improvement on the old one.
        Likewise the now much modified Cantley sports centre.
        The large police centre in Earley was built in the 1980’s, but the town centre police station was closed to be replaced with a small police office (modified shop) but that has now also closed .
        Yes of course there have been improvements to the town over the past 40 years, but not enough has been done with the surrounding infrastructure to cope with the huge influx of new housing and people.

      3. graham1946
        June 10, 2022

        How is Boris’s plan for 40 new hospitals being built this parliament going? Presumably as he keeps going on to other subjects and gimmicks, not very well. Haven’t heard much about it since the election. Is this plan in the bin with the Tory manifesto?

  2. Peter
    June 9, 2022

    Residential building is a tricky one.

    Suppose there was a time limit on planning permission. The land holders might start work just before it expires to retain rights but the buildings might be shoddy ones not intended for the long term.

    You also have a situation in many councils where the local councillors are in cahoots with the developers and – in my own council – were in the same industry.

    As for coordinating services that should be considered at the planning stage but is often overlooked.

    Haussmann did great work in the huge rebuilding Paris in the 19th century but he was given great scope, it cost an absolute fortune and took a long time to complete.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 9, 2022

      There is a time limit on planning usually 3 years before you have to reapply. Often this is not sufficient if there are access, finance, difficult planning requirements or legal issues – so once again it can push up the cost of new houses. Yet another tax on buyers in fact like the social housing rules.

    2. Mike Wilson
      June 9, 2022

      Suppose there was a time limit on planning permission.

      There is a time limit on planning permission.

      1. Peter
        June 9, 2022

        ‘There is a time limit on planning permission.’

        Not once it is granted. Land can remain undeveloped for decades.

        1. alan jutson
          June 9, 2022

          Peter.

          Certainly land can remain undeveloped for years, but planning permission does have a time limit, failure to start development within 3 years of approval, and that permission is then void.
          Certainly a new application can be made if and when the original permission gained runs out, but it is not on an automatic renewal or continuation process, you pay for another application and it is judged on its merits at the time.

      2. Hope
        June 9, 2022

        There is a mass immigration crisis overwhelming our public services and house demand. Brought to you secretly, dishonesty by the Tory party!

        JR ought to question why is his govt allowing mass immigration without provision or planning for proper requisite infrastructure to meet demand without extra cost to the taxpayer or further reduction in quality of services to the taxpayer. All routes lead back to Johnson.

        1. Mitchel
          June 10, 2022

          Johnson is only a conduit-for the people in the shadows who real decide things.

  3. BW
    June 9, 2022

    Far to late. Our once pleasant market town has already been utterly destroyed with over development, which continues and cannot be undone.

    1. Mickey Taking
      June 9, 2022

      A very good criticism of the planning fiasco that has blighted English towns, and indeed rural farming communities for as long as I can remember. Having lived close to Wokingham town for 53 years and prior to Sir John representing us, we have witnessed a gradual fall from quintessential ‘country living – no street lights’ to an urban sprawl -roundabout driving, haphazard housing estates of only 4 bed Des Res and now cluttered rabbit warrens with zero appeal to anyone over 40ish !
      All far too late…

      1. graham1946
        June 10, 2022

        And I have no doubt those ‘4 bed des res’ houses are actually 3 bed shells with extra room crammed in and no garden to speak of. Don’t know your area but that is what is happening here in the thousands.

  4. formula57
    June 9, 2022

    “I understand that the Government agree with us, so where is the new direction to the planning inspectors to say that the Government will no longer put up with that?” – languishing along with everything else, awaiting a closer vote than 211 – 148 perhaps?

  5. formula57
    June 9, 2022

    An effective Leader of the Opposition could do not better than use a whole PMQ session to say: –

    “I have received a communication about the Government’s egregious neglect in relation to planning matters. It is from John and he is in Wokingham. He wants to know…”

  6. Nigl
    June 9, 2022

    The Secretary of State does not reply because the Government believed massive increases in house building is a political winner and I presume people want to buy in your area rather than, say in the North.

    It demonstrates that Levelling up is an empty slogan.

    Just like reducing numbers in the Civil Service. I see Truss hasn’t got the message, no doubt she will get them for her ‘support’ of Boris and now reforming the NHS. What’s the guess that it will be even more puff?

    1. Shirley M
      June 9, 2022

      I think you’ll find the North is suffering massive housebuilding, especially in our area but they are mostly the tiny box jobs with a postage stamp for a garden and a wheelie bin width between properties, because you can pack far more properties into the same acreage. All our surrounding arable land has disappeared under housing. Much more and we’ll be merging with the towns a few miles away. We’re half way there already!

    2. Mike Wilson
      June 9, 2022

      because the Government believed massive increases in house building is a political winner

      Really? I think not. It’s no more a winner than mass immigration. But, when you come to vote, all the parties want our land covered in people and houses – with a few wild flowers.

  7. No Longer Anonymous
    June 9, 2022

    Housing benefit towards mortgages eh ?

    Bunch of commies !

    1. BOF
      June 9, 2022

      Exactly, NLA. I was shocked when I heard that on the radio this morning.

    2. Timaction
      June 9, 2022

      Quite. I heard this and looked at the massive tax bill my wife and I had to pay this year on top of already exorbitant income and indirect taxes. A dishonest Capital Gains tax con on already taxed money. Why should we be subsidising people who are on the dole and then pay their mortgage as well? Socialism on steroids. Oh for a right of centre conservative party.

    3. Mark B
      June 10, 2022

      NLA

      Tut, tut !

      It’s called bribing voters with other peoples money.

  8. Everhopeful
    June 9, 2022

    I could not have been more shocked than when I learned that local councillors were suddenly allowed to take bungs for planning support ( whereas I don’t think it was always the case).
    This to the point of an application being turned down and then a councillor approaching to offer resubmission help.
    The entire subject of housing is historically riddled with government filth.
    But then, when keeping captive animals and moving them ceaselessly around to suit there is always the unfortunate necessity of finding/making shelter for them.

  9. Roy Grainger
    June 9, 2022

    Summary: NIMBY

    No one living in an area wants more houses built in their area, why would they ?, so the National housing need is blocked by people who already have houses and the people who would benefit have no say.

    1. Bill B.
      June 9, 2022

      If you think more housing is being ‘blocked’, Roy, come and look at all the building sites in Wokingham. Enough is enough.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      June 9, 2022

      Roy. Yes that may be true but we need to only bring in the same number of immigrants that leave the country and not be adding nearly a million a year many of whom are unskilled and with no means to support themselves. I don’t know about you but I’m not impressed having to wait 7 months for much needed physiotherapy, 8 months for my husbands endoscopy and only one dental check up a year now. There is only so much increase in population any nation can tolerate and when the fundamentals of life start to be eroded then I’ve had enough.

    3. Dave Andrews
      June 9, 2022

      In our area, there is insufficient health services for the people already here, the schools can’t recruit enough teachers for the children already here, the water company is considering costly desalination because there isn’t enough fresh water for the people already here and discharge raw sewage into the sea because the systems can’t cope with the volume, and the country we live in already doesn’t produce enough food for the population. So no, we don’t want to take more agricultural land out of use to build houses.
      And aren’t we supposed to be saving the planet? So we shouldn’t be burning fossil fuels to manufacture bricks and cement required for housing, and once built all those houses need the burning of fossil fuels for winter warmth. Less is better.

    4. Mike Wilson
      June 9, 2022

      the National housing need is blocked by people who already have houses and the people who would benefit have no say.

      You won’t find anyone in Wokingham who wanted the thousands of houses built between the Town Centre and the A329M going East and the M4 going North. But the people are ignore. The fact that ‘No one living in an area wants more houses built in their area’ is ignored by all politicians.

  10. Lifelogic
    June 9, 2022

    Indeed but in the end you need more houses or fewer people. The government seems to have little intention of attempting to control illegal or legal immigration in any serious way – beyond waffle & hot air.

    1. oldwulf
      June 9, 2022

      @Lifelogic

      It seems the plan of the current Government is to lead the UK into economic decline so as to increase emigration (and reduce immigration ?)

      Problem solved.

      1. Shirley M
        June 9, 2022

        I wondered if we were being pushed towards a low wage economy. The more people we have, the more competition for jobs, resulting in lower wages. That’s one of the reasons we wanted out of the EU. What good is a low wage economy? Very few taxes collected, lots of benefits to top up wages from few taxes or benefits scrapped and people left poor and deprived. Everything that makes this country good would cease, and the people would be treated like those in China and living 3 generations to each abode. Everyone would be totally and utterly under government control! It may be fantasy, it may not, but 1 million immigrants a year into an already overcrowded country needs an explanation. A darn good explanation as to why promises were made to reduce it and then allow record immigration, even more than Blair!

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      June 9, 2022

      Agree L/L. Immigration is out of control. Where are we controlling our borders? I don’t see it. The latest lot being sent to Rwanda will most probably be taken off the plane before it takes off thanks to the lefty wets and our stupid laws plus being under the thumb of the ECHR. If the law isn’t working then change it. It didn’t take Mrs May long to get net zero made law did it?

    3. Peter
      June 9, 2022

      Lifelogic,

      In the absence of any comments so far today regarding PPE, I note your recent post :-

      ‘She did a levels in Maths. F Maths, economics & politics but then wasted it all reading the dire PPE.’

      Your research now extends to A levels ! Presumably your PPE enquiries are now complete.

      I eagerly await further progress, swimming certificates maybe ?

      1. Mickey Taking
        June 9, 2022

        Cycling Proficiency Scheme – passed?

      2. margaret
        June 10, 2022

        Well i did my 25 yds cert in 1961 … but now actually try and keep the load off the health sector by swimming 60 lengths a few times a week , whilst the self said clever ones are free to weigh their heads and bodies down with arrogance and unwarranted belief in historical concepts .

    4. Your comment is awaiting moderation
      June 9, 2022

      +1

  11. DOM
    June 9, 2022

    It’s time for your constituents to have their noses rubbed in diversity using mass immigration. Northerners have had to suffer this type of politically induced social change for decades

    To hear a Tory politician pleading that immigrants should be funnelled away from their own constituencies is rank hypocrisy.

    1. MWB
      June 9, 2022

      +1

    2. hefner
      June 9, 2022

      Lower Earley (part of Sir John’s constituency) was by mid-80s the largest private housing development in the UK. It particularly includes a large number of one- and two-bedroom ‘terrace’ properties often the starting properties for immigrants who actually have a job.
      Contrary to what some might think it is a place with a lot of diversity, as can be seen looking at the students going to or coming back from the schools in the area, taking a stroll in the Asda supermarket, going to the leisure centre, and to other shops around. To think that Wokingham as a whole does not know about diversity is simply ridiculous, as are so often DOM’s apocalyptic pronouncements.
      When people from the constituency want a reduction of the number and the size of new developments, it is because they have been confronted by the ‘inconveniences’ that adding 700 houses/year in the last twenty years bring to the area, and are rather unhappy at the idea that the present Government now tries to have 1,600 houses/year built in the constituency and this till the mid-30s.

      1. Mickey Taking
        June 9, 2022

        well said – and more importantly absolutely correct.

    3. Mark B
      June 9, 2022

      Dom

      My post this morning alluded to this. It is still in moderation.

      1. Sharon
        June 9, 2022

        Mine is too, from about 8am!

        I shan’t take it personally.

    4. The Prangwizard
      June 9, 2022

      Exactly Dom,
      Some towns as you know in the north of England bear little relation to England and Englishness. This and previous governments and the corrupt elites like the idea of bringing in other parts of the world to agree with their politics, but make a point of living somewhere else themselves, the Cotswold is a favourite. Just look at the cinema protest, straight out of the culture of Iraq.

    5. Mickey Taking
      June 9, 2022

      we have our share – but then you wouldn’t know that, would you?

    6. dixie
      June 10, 2022

      I have lived in John Redwood’s constituency for 40 years. My immediate neighbours in Lower Earley are from India, China, HK, Singapore, Lebanon, Africa and Scotland, so quite diverse. And a kilometer or so from Asda a hotel has been turned into an immigration/asylum reception centre. Lower Earley is a couple of kilometers from Reading which has been “diverse” for a long time so we are already very familiar with “diversity” and have been for many years.
      The problem we have is the rapid growth in residential dormitories, vast estates with no town centre or real core and insufficient infrastructure. Now Wokingham Council is now intent on adding yet another vast, souless estate while they splurge funds on prettying up Wokingham town centre.

      From my experience of living and working here and in London and other cities in the South, East and South West and working throughout the country it is clear you know nothing whatsoever of these areas.

      But please Dom, carry on displaying such admirable qualities of egotism, spite and victimhood, you could partner with Lifelogic and campaign for political office, see how far you get.

  12. Lifelogic
    June 9, 2022

    A Heath today:- “Boris is deluded if he thinks firing Sunak can save him from oblivion
    The PM will be punished for his Government’s unbelievable profligacy and economic illiteracy”

    Plus the insane expensive, net zero, unreliable energy agenda in top. So where is the realistic, old, pre Carrie small government, climate realist Conservatie Boris?

    1. Lifelogic
      June 9, 2022

      Allister Heath also correctly points out:- “Has a Tory government ever been so blasĂ©, so uninterested in the economy, in how to generate more output, jobs and wealth? Britain’s economic policies since at least 2016 have been catastrophically poor. To his credit, Johnson delivered a clean Brexit, but virtually every decision he has taken since 2019 has conspired to undermine this historic achievement.”

      Though even the Brexit is not really that “clean” given NI, fishing and the many other constraints. Plus the economic policies have been poor since Chancellor John Major idiotically joined the ERM in 1990 so at least 32 years of economic incompetence from Tories, Labour and the Cameron Libdim Coalition.

    2. miami.mode
      June 9, 2022

      LL, I don’t think there is an old and new Boris, more a real and fake Boris i.e. look at what he says and what he does. Ironic that at yesterday’s PMQs when Esther McVey questioned him on HS2 he defended it on the day that the RMT threatened rail chaos with a number of damaging strikes.

      1. Jim Whitehead
        June 9, 2022

        m.m. +1, I never did see a Boris with enough authenticity to be worth my vote. There’s been no change, so please, everybody, stop this pretence that there was some real deal Boris and now a hollowed out version. He’s always been a blustering plummy dissembler but it was funny when it didn’t really matter.

    3. Lifelogic
      June 9, 2022

      Heath also notes that Sunak has raised taxes on income from labour and capital, to cover Johnson’s unbelievable profligacy, billions for the NHS and almost every other government department, his subsidies, energy handouts & half-baked social care takeover. Boris also halted airport expansions, poured billions into the absurd HS2 and signed off on an avalanche of deluded environmental regulations as well as extra red tape for landlords, employers and supermarkets.

      Then they wonder about high inflation, lack of inward investment and low productivity.

    4. Mike Wilson
      June 9, 2022

      Plus the insane expensive, net zero, unreliable energy agenda in top.

      You do realise most people have fallen for the climate nonsense and, therefore, support it. Your notion that everyone is railing against the lunacy is wrong.

      1. Shirley M
        June 9, 2022

        They’ll be railing too when they start to suffer the consequences and see other countries thrive at our expense.

  13. Ian Wragg
    June 9, 2022

    John, your Importing almost a million bodies annually so of course there’s a housing shortage.
    Same as there’s a school place shortage and shortages in every other government departments.

    Your failure to stem immigration is going to lose you the elections, partygate is just a sideshow.

    1. Ian Wragg
      June 9, 2022

      So the first flight to Rwanda may not go because of an unholy alliance of the snivelling service, unions and charities launching a legal challenge.
      Surely it’s not beyond the wit of even our dumb politicians to prevent these spurious challenges.
      Maybe they like it this way.

      1. glen cullen
        June 9, 2022

        No one is ever going to Rwanda…it was always a stunt ….well a stunt or a con

      2. oldwulf
        June 9, 2022

        @Ian Wragg

        I understand that the tax advantages given to charities currently cost the Exchequer around ÂŁ5bn per annum. Maybe we should remove the advantages and use the money to build a few more houses ?

      3. Lifelogic
        June 9, 2022

        It seems they do like it this way.

      4. Mark B
        June 9, 2022

        Which is just as well. Read Section 5.

        For every illegal Rwanda accepts, we will have to take one of theirs in return but ! And this is the clever bit. The one from Rwanda will have ‘special needs’ which place a burden on the NHS and local authority services.

        It is a government website, Sir John and you have allowed in in the past

        https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-mou-between-the-uk-and-rwanda/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-government-of-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-the-government-of-the-republic-of-r#part-1–transfer-arrangments

        1. glen cullen
          June 9, 2022

          WHAT !!!

        2. alan jutson
          June 9, 2022

          Mark B

          Yup great bit of negotiating eh ! and we pay them ÂŁmillions as well, difficult to make it up really, only in UK politics would this happen !

      5. margaret brandreth-jones
        June 9, 2022

        I am sorry Ian to admit I am losing patience . It is very simple; say NO to immigrants , go to France , go to Germany , go elsewhere where there is less people per square mile.

      6. beresford
        June 9, 2022

        Of course they ‘like it this way’. The whole Rwanda business is a dog and pony show intended to head off opposition to spiralling immigration figures, both legal and illegal.

      7. Mike Wilson
        June 9, 2022

        Half the MPs are lawyers. It’s all work for them or their companies.

    2. glen cullen
      June 9, 2022

      Nigel was spot on, on GB news last night….why didn’t any MP link the thousands of illegal immigrant and millions of legal immigrants not mentioned….they contribute to the housing shortage and costs to the taxpayer

    3. Javelin
      June 9, 2022

      spot on.

    4. Timaction
      June 9, 2022

      Plus 1.

  14. Everhopeful
    June 9, 2022

    The govt has in recent years been very free with statutory instruments, in some cases to overturn long made promises and to change things that we thought were set in stone.
    But only ever as a method of getting its own way rather anti democratically.
    When the govt. drags its feet it is because it does not want to do something.
    Look at mass immigration and the Rwanda fiasco.

    1. Timaction
      June 9, 2022

      ……………..Look at mass immigration and the Rwanda fiasco…………. and then think about the Northern Ireland protocol. When you read some of the content it begs the question whether this con Government actually wants a united Ireland!

      1. Everhopeful
        June 9, 2022

        +1
        Goodness knows what this govt. wants.
        Total mystery.
        Mind you I believe that Boris is being corralled by the ERG over NIP.
        Fingers crossed!

    2. Everhopeful
      June 9, 2022

      Couldn’t they make a statutory instrument to withdraw from the UN’s Refugee Convention of 1951?

      1. glen cullen
        June 9, 2022

        Yes Yes Yes

        1. Everhopeful
          June 9, 2022

          +đŸ€—

  15. Narrow Shoulders
    June 9, 2022

    I bet the England only bit fell on deaf ears?

    It’s all gone a bit quiet on EVEL and the devolved nations keep getting more money.

    When will Barnett become part of the levelling up debate?

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      June 9, 2022

      Hear, hear NS.

  16. Everhopeful
    June 9, 2022

    From “Death” a poem by John Clare who was driven mad by the destruction of the English countryside during the first Industrial Revolution.

    “The tyrants that do act the God in clay
    And for earth’s glories throw the heavens away,
    Whose breath in power did like to thunder sear,
    When anger hurried on the heels of fear,
    Whose rage planned hosts of murders at a breath–
    Here in sound silence sheath their rage in death.”

  17. Nigl
    June 9, 2022

    Sir John complains about the lack of local consultation yet it is his government through the Electronic Communications Act and amended through Town and Country planning act that allows huge unsightly poles to be erected from which it is expected people will want a vast birds nest of wires to their houses to facilitate superfast broadband.

    Going back to the telegraph poles of the last century. Cue local outrage. I suspect your ‘consultation process’ would be selective?

  18. Sarah
    June 9, 2022

    Why does the UK need so many new homes?

    Because of the policies of every UK administration since 1997.

    Who was behind those policies?

    Here’s a clue..

    “We leverage policy, legislation and political influence and build strong relationships with officials, politicians, NGOs and other actors”.

    Sarah

    1. Julian Flood
      June 9, 2022

      More people, more development, more houses, less farmland, less food.

      We can’t go on like this.

      JF

      1. Mickey Taking
        June 9, 2022

        the word obesity will be forgotten.

  19. Shirley M
    June 9, 2022

    I imagine your comments regarding thousands of new homes with no extra infrastructure applies to pretty much every region in the UK. When you allow over one million immigrants within 12 months then it is pretty much a foregone conclusion! The house buyers pay the builders., but who pays for the infrastructure? Plus, we are paying for thousands of hotel rooms which saps money which could be used to improve infrastructure! Cart before horse, as usual.

    The UK isn’t British now, and it will only become less British with this mass immigration. We have members of a minority religion dictating what films we may view, enforced by violent threats against staff, and we all know school teachers that have been subjected to violent threats and have had to abandon their jobs and homes. Our Christian trait of turning the other cheek just gets us another slap in the face. Being pacifist and tolerant only works if everyone is tolerant and pacifist, but when faced with an intolerant and violent religion then there can only be one winner.

  20. DOM
    June 9, 2022

    I now understand what the political agenda is regarding the deceit of this plan some name ‘Levelling up’. It is about funnelling immigrants away from Tory heartlands into old Labour seats located in the North. I always felt there was something fishy and suspicious about such grand political projects.

    Utterly abhorrent that human beings should be treated in this manner by those elected to act on their behalf….

    Labour’s social change agenda is ripping the UK apart and the Tories cannot stop it so they’ve given in to it

    1. glen cullen
      June 9, 2022

      The problem is Dom – you’re the only person in the UK that understands the govt policy….the cabinet is all soundbites, straplines and a wing & a prayer
      Watch yourself Dom someone in govt might take up your suggestion

    2. miami.mode
      June 9, 2022

      Couldn’t agree more Dom.

    3. SecretPeople
      June 12, 2022

      I’m just not sure the North can take any more. I wish a few cabinet ministers would visit the newly nominated ‘City of Culture’ and see what they have done. And maybe try to predict what the future holds.

  21. SM
    June 9, 2022

    You are getting more and more fed up, Sir John, and it’s showing – good!

    1. glen cullen
      June 9, 2022

      Agreed
      I’d be frustrated if my boss suggested giving mortgages to people on benefits
whats next; giving the vote to illegal immigrants, allowing all the UK to rejoin the EU single market or even allowing petrol to go to £2 per litre (£10 per gallon)

    2. Timaction
      June 9, 2022

      I think many of the 141 are thinking the same as the game is up and Boris is a useless lefty liberal eco loon intent on bankrupting the country and impoverishing its citizens on his alter!

  22. alan jutson
    June 9, 2022

    Thank you for stating the obvious to those who control the rules, but who do not seem to understand the consequences of their actions.
    I see Boris now thinks he has a solution to the housing crisis, to allow applicants to include taxpayer funded benefits in so called affordability calculations for a mortgage, does this mean he expects those on benefits to have that income for 25-30 years, if so no wonder the government says it needs more and more taxation income.
    Those in charge of housing policy have “lost the plot” so to speak, unfortunately like so many other Ministerial Departments.
    On another subject I see the taxpayer funded lawyers are again circling to stop exit flights for the illegals, what a bloody fiasco this still is, why is the taxpayer funding lawyers for illegals who have funded people traffickers.

  23. Lifelogic
    June 9, 2022

    So Boris (and the housing minister I assume) is to enable benefit claimants to buy homes off social landlords using their benefits! Great plan Boris – so people who cannot afford to buy or even rent their own homes in the privatecsector will be paying extra taxes to enable benefit claimants to buy their homes. Great plan Boris! Yet more economic illiteracy from his tax, borrow and piss down the drain socialist government.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 9, 2022

      LONG interview with Robert Coleville on Talk Radio just now on this mad plan. Are these people remotely sentient or numerate?

      1. glen cullen
        June 9, 2022

        Its not just Boris, I fear the whole cabinet has gone mad with power …now that they have 60% support of tory MPs

        1. Clough
          June 9, 2022

          It’s headline news management. This government rarely looks further than the 24 hour news cycle. Their political survival is what counts.

          The real policies – Green reset, mass inoculation, mass migration, inciting and arming Ukraine – are set by others, while Johnson and co. spend their time on headline-grabbing gimmicks.

        2. Mickey Taking
          June 9, 2022

          They take a post in the Cabinet BECAUSE they have gone mad with power.

      2. Julian Flood
        June 9, 2022

        Well, we’ve got Ministers running our industrial and energy policies who are unacquainted with the laws of thermodynamics, the discipline of engineering or even the Gods of the Copybook Headings. So… no and no.

        JF

    2. Donna
      June 9, 2022

      Sounds like they’re going to ramp up the dodgy mortgage market again using people who receive housing benefit because they can’t afford one …… ready for the next “banking crisis.” Sub-prime mortgages strike again.

    3. oldwulf
      June 9, 2022

      @Lifelogic

      At the very least, I would expect the Government to take a second charge over the property purchased and to receive a % of the profit on sale. The size of the % would depend on a number of factors.

    4. Beecee
      June 9, 2022

      It is clear from an interview Mr Gove gave today that the ‘policy’ has not been thought through.
      He has no idea that to be on benefits, people are most unlikely to have the savings for a deposit, neither has he, nor anybody in Government, tried to calculate how many of the millions on benefit were likely to gain from or use the policy.

      He said, being pressed for a number, even an estimate, was a ‘silly question’.
      That is OK then – now we know to keep our mouths shut!

  24. Old Albion
    June 9, 2022

    You forget that as far as politicians are concerned there is only N.Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Britain. England is the land that shall not be mentioned. A direct consequence of lop-sided Devolution introduced by Blair and supported ever since by Labour and Conservative.

  25. Sharon
    June 9, 2022

    I’m pleased to hear about this new bill, let’s hope it has the desired affect.

    Developers have no conscience when building
 just a desire to make profit and move on. Build as many dwellings on as small a piece of land as possible seems the motto of some developers, though not all!

    As a surveyor, my husband says that with so many EU building regs, some areas, where properties cost less to buy, it’s not as cost effective to build there.

    As an example, we had a downstairs cloakroom built in the back of our garage. I insisted we have a window put in. But – I still had to have an electric fan installed and a draught thingy as part of the framework of the window, plus the cord on the window blind had to be fixed to the wall. All very minor things, but if other larger things are necessary
 you can see why it’s easier not to build in less affluent areas.

  26. Michelle
    June 9, 2022

    I was pleased to see in your last paragraph mention of England. It is a question I was going to put to you as an aside. I don’t think I imagined that your Diary used to have ‘speaking for England’ as a header, which now seems to have disappeared. I wondered if you’d given her up for dead and thrown your lot in with the ‘Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland and Britain’ usual reference.

    With regards to the main body of your article, I should imagine any sort of planning for homes and infrastructure is a mammoth task given the huge numbers being given permission to come and go if and when they please.
    It seems that the planning of infrastructure to match is something many in Government and their chums in big business feel they can take a chance on. Just ‘pack ’em and stack’em’ and worry about the rest later, seems the order of the day.

    1. Timaction
      June 9, 2022

      A million extra people were given visas by this Government last year. That deliberate policy means longer Doctors appointments, dentists, bigger queue’s everywhere, no school places for local people and increased class sizes. A housing crisis. No a mass immigration crisis.

  27. Dave Andrews
    June 9, 2022

    In answer to your questions – there’s only one show in town – save Big Dog.

  28. Donna
    June 9, 2022

    I’d like to thank Sir John for daring to mention the country which must not be named – England – and for pointing out one aspect of the democratic deficit which Blair’s flawed devolution settlement has created. Many Government Ministers really only make policy in England, whilst pretending they are Minister for the whole of the UK, and the English are second-class citizens in this pretend-democracy but first-class taxpayers since they subsidise Scotland, Wales and NI.

    However, whilst pointing out the fact that development has not been matched by infrastructure provision or public services such as GPs, schools etc, Sir John omitted to mention that the demand for housing is being driven by the highest level of mass immigration in our history.

    Last year 1 million visas were issued …. that’s 1 million people needing accommodation, and in addition we had 30,000 illegal migrants who are being accommodated at vast public expense in hotels with more arriving every day.

    THAT is the reason why southern England is being concreted over with more and more tacky little boxes imposed on communities which don’t want them.

    We voted to leave the EU because we wanted to be able to control immigration. We did not vote for a Conservative Government to effectively impose no controls whatsoever by making the qualifying criteria so low that virtually anyone with the equivalent of an A level can come to the UK along with their extended family.

    1. BOF
      June 9, 2022

      I agree Donna.

    2. Shirley M
      June 9, 2022

      + many Donna – not just southern England though. My area in West Yorks is losing all of its good quality arable land to housing. Less food production for an ever increasing population! Madness!

  29. Mike Wilson
    June 9, 2022

    Sorry, MR. Redwood, it’s a bit late for you to find your voice on this. Wokingham has been drowned in new housing in the last few years. You should have made an issue of this years ago. You should have been on the evening news laying down in front of the diggers. You should have embarrassed the government and stopped them carpeting the South East with housing.

    Mind you, if you INVITE 300,000 people to move to this country every year, they have to live somewhere. And most of them settle where the money and jobs are.

    reply I have been an advocate of less development for many years

    1. margaret brandreth-jones
      June 9, 2022

      Perhaps if less houses are built and people already in the UK or born in the UK have priority , then we may discourage large amounts of people coming into the country.

    2. beresford
      June 9, 2022

      Reply to reply: But have you been an advocate of ending mass immigration? Because otherwise you are just advocating that the ‘development’ goes elsewhere. Just watched Boris (the TV on while I was having my lunch) announcing that he was going to remove obstacles to more house building in response to an increase in population which naturally has nothing to do with the Government.

    3. Mike Wilson
      June 9, 2022

      reply I have been an advocate of less development for many years

      But that’s not been enough, has it? You are the local Tory MP for heaven’s sake. You should have made your government’s mad planning proposals a national issue and got it stopped. You should have raised an action group in Wokingham to protest against and prevent the massive over-development that has taken place in the last 10 years.

      1. Mickey Taking
        June 9, 2022

        the electorate who are adversely affected by all this made their opinions known. Result? Ignored of course.

    4. Timaction
      June 9, 2022

      Sorry Sir John, it hasn’t worked and they are not listening to you or the 141!

  30. The PrangWizard of England
    June 9, 2022

    All very nice but are you still a Tory Sir John? Of course you are.

    The whole country is falling apart thanks to your leader, your party and your government. Loss of sovereignty, insolvency, corruption and inefficiency everywhere, and no action, no punishment, no naming of any guilty. A subversion of our freedoms, authoritarianism, a state which grows and grows through tax increases and controls and adhesion to world orders. Above all lies, and more lies and deceits.

    But Sir John, you remain loyal, pretending it can all be fixed by fiddling around the edges, and no risky challenges. Of course you were too polite, it really is fear of serious challenge, but most of all by being loyal to your party no matter how extreme it is. We, we the ordinary people, are allowed to be deliberately and constantly fooled and deceived, and you become part of the problem because you stay with it.

    And as for England, you dropped campaigning for England and its identity. Your claim of success was years ago. What has happened since – nothing. England is hardly ever mentioned, because the UK is more important than England. Anyone who watches parliamentary coverage, Scotland and Wales in particular get mentioned, and time and consideration, endlessly. England never, and no-one complains. Too risky. Why is England not considered worthy of a true parliament? Why does England not have named and entitled ministers? Because it is considered better as invisible.

    I recall your saying you did not want to leave the party because you did not wish to be lonely. Does that still hold?

    1. Mickey Taking
      June 9, 2022

      ‘are you still a Tory Sir John? Of course you are.’
      Last man standing.

  31. Richard II
    June 9, 2022

    SJR, was the unnamed Secretary of State who did not reply to you Michael Gove? He’s been busy recently taking high-level orders at the Bilderberg meeting, I gather. Far too busy to bother about Wokingham and West Berks. Or was it Stuart Andrew, who has been opening garden communities recently, in other parts of England that need housing more than Berkshire? If so, I would have thought you would have had a more positive response.

    Reply Mr Gove. Stuart is not a Sec of State

    1. Lifelogic
      June 9, 2022

      Gove today blamed inflation on the Ukraine war and Covid. Well to a degree but the real causes are the pointless extended Covid lockdown, the vast wast of tax payers money (on HS2, test and trace, eat out to help out and all the rest of the waste, the huge and still increasing red tape, the vast money printing scam, the vast inflationary tax increases and perhaps above all May’s moronic & totally misguided net zero religion,

  32. Ralph Corderoy
    June 9, 2022

    I cannot build a house in a field and demand the council lay a road to connect it to the network. Instead, I have to build the road to a sufficient quality that the council agree to take on its upkeep. It’s a lot harder for me to sell the house without a road. Could this not be extended to other functions and, importantly, that there be no requirement for the body to provide the service, e.g. there’s simply no more school places.

    The new build would have no right to see its children educated, pensioners GP’d, or gadgets given Internet. The developer could pay money to obtain certificates that these facilities are available now rather than bung the council an envelope to get the promise of a new primary school sometime ‘soon’. Selling a half-useful house would be difficult, perhaps it wouldn’t be legal to let it. A small developer adding a pair of semi-detached to a street would have a much easier time gaining certification than the land-banker erecting 400 new little boxes in a field.

    In the areas where there are excess services, the certification would be easy to obtain.

    It’s not my preference, but there would seem to be alternatives to the current system to debate.

  33. Martin
    June 9, 2022

    Are the real problems – lack of demand elsewhere in the country and empty flats, especially in London.

    Sort those out, and the excess demand in the Thames Valley decreases.

  34. turboterrier
    June 9, 2022

    O/T but relevant.
    All these charities fund the legal action to prevent the dingy invaders being sent to Rwanda should have all their tax allowances removed.
    Better still send them to the South Alantic last time I checked the Falkand Islands were part of the UK.

    1. oldwulf
      June 9, 2022

      @Turboterrier

      I have already posted elsewhere “I understand that the tax advantages given to charities currently cost the Exchequer around ÂŁ5bn per annum. Maybe we should remove the advantages and use the money to build a few more houses.”

    2. Original Richard
      June 9, 2022

      turboterrier :

      It’s even worse :

      The Taxpayers’ Alliance wrote in a recently issued report :

      “26 organisations which lobby for change in public policy received £49,011,318 from 192 public sector bodies between 2018-19 and 2020-21.

      Six Government Departments provided Migrant Help, Stonewall, Refugee Action, Hope Not Hate and Instalaw with ÂŁ7,694,408 in grants from 2018-19 to 2020-21. Four of these organisations recently signed an open letter criticising the new Rwanda plan for [illegal] asylum seekers. The fifth, Instalaw, issued judicial review proceedings in April 2022 challenging the legality of the Rwanda immigration deal.

      Two of the six Government departments was the Cabinet Office and the Home Office.

    3. forthurst
      June 9, 2022

      Don’t think the Falkland islanders would appreciate the sudden shrinkage of their flocks of sheep.

  35. XY
    June 9, 2022

    Jaundiced as it may be, I suspect you’ll find the answer in looking at the “lobbying” activities by these rich companies and in their donations to political causes.

    As you say, it would be simple to make planning severely permission time-limited (for completion, not for starting a project). At present, people can bank planning permission for decades – they then claim to have laid a single brick and when no-one can produce evidence to refute that (how could they?), the project can go ahead.

    I know of at least one such case where planning permission granted in 1963 was only acted on in 2015.

    1. XY
      June 9, 2022

      The second sentence shoul. of course, have read:

      “As you say, it would be simple to make planning permission severely time-limited”

  36. Nottingham Lad Himself
    June 9, 2022

    Looks like Sir John is advocating further laws as to what owners of private property and operators of private development companies may do to me.

    I have no problem with that, but what do self-proclaimed libertarians have to say, and can such an advocate claim to be one?

    Reply I am not a self proclaimed libertarian. I do think we are over regulated and often side against more law or retention of some existing laws.

    1. Lifelogic
      June 9, 2022

      Vastly over regulated!

    2. Mickey Taking
      June 9, 2022

      where are these self-proclaimed libertarians you often mention and who are they?
      Seem to be as rare as Conservatives.

  37. Bloke
    June 9, 2022

    The UK is crammed with far too many people for comfort and health. Benefit systems stimulate more offspring from indigenous citizens who may generate results without forethought of self-support. Migrants add still further to numbers, often hampering refuge of others in desperate need. Benefits should exist for those temporarily needy, not accepted as permanent or normal, unless they are irreversibly affected by their condition.

    In 1981, Margaret Thatcher said that Britain was more densely populated than India. 40 years later numbers have changed. Irrespective of space, folk tend to squash together. For all its openness, Australia has traffic jams. However, if increasing folk need unused space, Canada has plenty for responsible citizens wanting to build quality homes. Russia is an alternative destination (or perhaps not!).

    Formerly-beautiful Wokingham is an inappropriate target for such concrete chaos. We need a planning system that reverses careless developers’ ugly excesses.

  38. Peter Parsons
    June 9, 2022

    One simple solution is Land Value Tax. Land with planning permission has a higher value than land without, so, once planning permission is granted, the developers start paying LVT at a higher rate until such time as the properties are built and sold on. The quicker they build and sell, the less LVT they will pay.

    There have been papers written which show how, on a cost neutral basis at the local level, LVT could replace Council Tax, Stamp Duty, Business Rates (thereby removing the disincentive for businesses to invest in their premises), Section 106 payments, the Community Infrastructure Levy and the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings.

    6 taxes scrapped and replaced with just 1 that isn’t avoidable (land can’t be moved to an offshore trust in the Cayman Islands). LVT has been and is in use in a number of other countries, so we have examples of how to do it and what works. What’s not to like?

  39. BOF
    June 9, 2022

    I wish Conservative MP’s would get angry about the real cause of the massive amount of building everywhere. Perhaps they should direct that anger to.the real cause, out of control immgration, both legal and illegal, on going for the whole of this century do far and now escalating under Mr Johnson.

    There is no hope of ever building enough houses and I really don’t think MP’s care one jot for the indigenous people of this once great country.

  40. Derek Henry
    June 9, 2022

    “Infrastructure is crucial in this argument. In places such as Wokingham and West Berkshire, where I have the privilege to represent many of the people, we have seen a huge increase in development—some granted on appeal against our wishes—but no proper extra provision for infrastructure. Planners must understand that we cannot suddenly conjure up new broadband, sufficient water supply, enough cable to take the extra electricity that is required, the extra road space needed for all the extra cars, or the extra primary schools and surgeries that will be needed to cater for people.”

    Brilliant John ! Excellent !

    Why is that not so obvious to them ?

    By the way that’s how jobs should be analysed as skills don’t magically appear out of the pavement either.

    Planning laws are a tool that are used to move both skills and real resources around the economy. Similar to what taxes do. From public sector to the private sector and vice versa. It is the real stuff we can run out of not blips on a double entry balance sheet.

    Should never be determined by the size of a budget deficit, the size of the public debt or a central bank increasing their interest rate. As if we are still tied to EU fiscal and monetary rules.

    I don’t find the OBR’s debt projections useful as a point of reference for thinking about fiscal sustainability. I fully understand the government budget constraint as an ex post accounting identity, not an ex ante “budget constraint.” I see the purpose of bond sales as an ex post method of providing interest rate support, not an ex ante “borrowing” operation. And I reject the notion that so-called “money-financed” deficits are more inflationary than so-called “bond-financed” deficits. Further, with the abandonment of the gold standard and the shift to paying interest on reserves, I see no compelling reason for the continued matching of government deficits with new bond sales.

    Planning laws are local issues that should be decided by the local community. When both skills and real resources are in short supply. what do we build a new Casino or a new school and way to often it is a new casino.

    Are we finally going to get rid of these ” Euro” constraints and start levelling up because we use the ÂŁ ?

    Get out of the European Union.

  41. KB
    June 9, 2022

    There is about 1/4 million net immigration per year. Year on year.
    People have to live where the jobs are.
    This is the result.
    This is what you wanted.

  42. Nigl
    June 9, 2022

    My goodness you are in trouble Sir JR. A panicked announcement about Right to Buy spinning that people on benefits can acquire a home.

    So my taxes go to people who can’t/won’t contribute to end up with a potential large amount of equity.

    Why didn’t I sit back and kept the State buy a house for. Sacrifices. Obviously not in this hand out society.

    And as ever when there is nothing behind the announcement, Gove thought he could spin using the word ‘substantial’

    Julia Hartley Brewer skewered him to the extent he called her questions silly. So now asking about the substance of HMG policy is silly. What is silly is expecting an answer.

  43. glen cullen
    June 9, 2022

    Rather then sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda, couldn’t we just ask our closest and dearest neighbour to accept ‘their’ own immigrants back
has anybody in government actually asked the French if they’d accept them back ?

  44. margaret brandreth-jones
    June 9, 2022

    No more immigration , Save the NHS from useless un needed GP appointments. We have chemist shops with qualified pharmacists for minor ailments . Stop blocking the system for really ill people . A patch of dry skin , a verrucae , thrush , cuts, bruises , colds , styes , aches and pains ;_ to the chemist please with the qualified Pharmacist .We do not need more highly qualified GP’s either Nurses or Doctors to reduce the waiting list . Stop pandering ..

  45. Original Richard
    June 9, 2022

    When are the Government going to implement their manifesto pledges to reduce our massive levels of immigration, the real cause of our housing, economic, healthcare, infrastructure and social problems?

  46. The Prangwizard
    June 9, 2022

    Here’s another OT frustrating for you having to receive. Fertliser factory in Cheshire closing because of high gas costs.

    Another example of gov incompetence – talk talk talk – action NIL. The country decends further into industrial and agricultural poverty.

    1. Philip P.
      June 9, 2022

      It’s even worse than that, Prangwizard. The government did take action, and unfortunately the action it took – sanctions against Russia – has now boomeranged back and hit us. Businesses like the one you mention need to be able to plan for energy costs, including affordable contracts with energy suppliers, and for materials costs, which are now skyrocketing, not least thanks to huge rises in transport costs, especially diesel. Johnson did not limit himself to talk, talk, talk, I’m afraid. I wish he had.
      We have a government that in 2020-21 failed to foresee the economic consequences of lockdowns, and now has failed to foresee the consequences of its sanctions policy.
      Until not so long ago the Conservatives were the party you could trust on the economy. I wonder where that went.

  47. Martyn G
    June 9, 2022

    My Oxfordshire village has ongoing development which will ultimately aim out doubt the number of houses. A few months back our once excellent surgery closed its list to new patients, seemingly for two reasons – firstly the rapidly increasing number of new houses here and then a sudden and unforeseen number of applicants from our nearby town (also being further developed) applying to join our village practice because theirs had suddenly closed their lists unable to cope with the growing numbers of people.
    Where all the additional people moving into new housing in village and town are to go for medical assistance is neither known nor, apparently, cared about by anyone in authority. Why do the authorities agree to additional housing without ensuring the infrastructure needed to cope with it all? Can it be because they just do not care about that, or are their hands tied by government?

  48. a-tracy
    June 9, 2022

    Who has been given council/housing association homes in the last ten years, all the people that I know on the waiting lists for lower-cost social homes are still there more than seven years later in very expensive private rentals? The single mums do ok because they get their housing benefit to pay the private rentals but couples can’t escape.

    I have always disagreed with Right To Buy, giving people the homes they have paid for with housing benefits is abhorrent to all those struggling to pay their mortgages. The people chosen to be given social housing is skewed to benefit immigrants too especially in London.

    Someone said the only people benefitting from housing benefits lately are the private landlords who get their mortgages paid off by benefit claimants. 40% of ex-social housing is said to be re-let out on buy to lets at much higher prices than they were with the council. Pretty soon with all the proposals of Universal Benefit, free houses if you don’t work or do a minimum of 16 hours and claim instead, there will be no incentive to get up and go to work full-time will there!

    There was an ex-housing association house nearby that recently went up for auction with a guide price of ÂŁ70,000 and I thought why didn’t the housing association buy it back. They promised extra housing but they actually have 1,000 less, their only beneficiaries are the people that work there and those at the top of that particular organisation who haven’t been in the office for over two years. I suggest Boris puts this as one of his key proposals for his next re-election rather than this one and let’s see where it gets him votes wise!

  49. Freeborn John
    June 9, 2022

    If the reports are true about Boris Johnson watering down and delaying legislation on the Northern Ireland Protocol then he has to go. Indeed his only salvation is to push ahead with it and use a 3-line Whip to make Tobias Elwood and Co. back it or be expelled like the Gaukeward Squad in the last parliament. The ERG needs to visit No. 10 and tell him his days are numbered if legislation to repeal the NIP is not progressed as the top priority of government.

    1. Jason
      June 9, 2022

      So now where have we got to look to for the leadership in this country? is it the PM in No. 10 or is it the ERG? Just wondering as it’s all getting a little confusing

  50. Lester_Cynic
    June 9, 2022

    Off topic

    Sir John I’ve just been reading through the list of how MP’s voted in the confidence vote and your name doesn’t appear, neither does my MP’s

    Don’t the voters have the right to know how their representative voted?

    1. SM
      June 9, 2022

      It was a secret ballot – only those who wished to have their view known would have given their names to the media.

    2. hefner
      June 9, 2022

      It’s a vote internal to the CUP, not a HoC vote.

  51. a-tracy
    June 9, 2022

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/746101/completion-of-new-dwellings-uk/

    1949 to 2019 interesting 80% of housing private housing but nothing like the numbers built in the 1960’s or 1988. There is plenty of half derelict housing and land before you need to build on fields. There are projects in London to take small properties and use the land to build up and better. There are projects to go back to Victorian values in community home building around garden squares three-story to maximise the footprint and parking for 2 cars but in charming architecture instead of these ugly small-windowed commie style blocks you see from the roadside in places like Ellesmere Port.

  52. Everhopeful
    June 9, 2022

    “Benefits to Bricks”
    The latest wicked/evil policy.
    Talk about levelling up.
    People renting with no state help whatsoever will help fund the house purchase of those already enjoying a subsidised rent.
    Didn’t some similar scheme lead to the sub prime crisis in the US?

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      June 9, 2022

      No, the absence of a US Human Rights Act and the Right To Peaceful Enjoyment Of Possessions – which absence enables Foreclosure, where the lender gets the whole title equity and all – is what caused that.

      1. Everhopeful
        June 9, 2022

        Well let’s see what happens when the banks start taking advantage of poorer people with subprime loans.

      2. miami.mode
        June 10, 2022

        But surely lad, in the US the lender carries the loss whereas here the debt effectively stays with the borrower. Equity in the US was generally in deficit on millions of sub-prime mortgages.

        Everhopeful is correct in the unfairness of the proposed scheme.

    2. glen cullen
      June 9, 2022

      “Benefits to Bricks” is spin, smoke and mirrors……no one today is talking about the Boris confidence vote or NIP, or the cost of living crisis or the cost of petrol or inflation, or partygate etc etc

      1. Everhopeful
        June 9, 2022

        +1
        Yes.
        The arch magician strikes again.
        “Now you see it 
now you don’t
look into my eyes etc.”
        He takes random ideas out of a top hat and throws them up into the air causing stress and confusion.

        1. Mitchel
          June 10, 2022

          Boris as Tommy Cooper …without the laughs.

  53. agricola
    June 9, 2022

    Government is making a grotesque profit out of petrol and diesel costs to the motorist. Estimated at between ÂŁ0.80 to ÂŁ0.90 per litre. This should immediatly be halved to reduce the price of a litre of fuel to around ÂŁ1.58 a litre. Prices can and should be stabilised at this level by manipulation of the gkvernment tax take. Get on with it, a levelling gesture that would extend beyond rhetoric and have immediate effect. It is in governments hands and govefnment alone to act.

  54. glen cullen
    June 9, 2022

    In the old days the whole cabinet would resign if the price of petrol hit £1 a litre
.our ministers today aren’t even concerned

  55. forthurst
    June 9, 2022

    Do not build on agricultural land under any circumstances. Build vertically not horizontally and leave green spaces for recreation. Do not cover the countryside with little boxes. Do some proper planning rather than the piecemeal development which is taking place everywhere now; this should include not only private accommodation but the services that people will need laid out attractively.

    Why do people want to live in Wokingham? Do they commute to Waterloo or to Reading or Slough.
    Reduce the pull factor by blocking commercial development in the area. Move the jobs were there is less pressure on resources.

    1. beresford
      June 9, 2022

      We’ve been through that. There was a revelation that people didn’t really like living in tower blocks with out of order lifts and urine-soaked stairwells, and a number were pulled down and the residents moved to low-rise alternatives. We are not battery hens, why is there this objective of packing as many of us as possible in a small space? The Government are deliberately growing the population in pursuit of an objective set by the UN to more than double it.

      1. forthurst
        June 10, 2022

        Many world cities have high rise apartments which are desirable and prestigious. Ever heard of the Empire State Building? These unlike the high rise council buildings in England which had to be demolished before they collapsed like Ronan Point were not jerry built to the lowest standards. Furthermore most councils have accommodation for the benefit of rogue tenants; they cannot be used as an excuse for concreting over the country.
        No, the matter has not been examined properly.

  56. beresford
    June 9, 2022

    A post NOT about immigration. Apparently two British men have been captured by the Russians and are to be executed as ‘mercenaries’. Our leaders are IMO rather unwisely declaring that the Russians can’t do this to British citizens. They are at least 100 years out of date, as evidenced by the Zaghari-Ratcliffe saga and the death and illnesses resulting from the use of chemical weapons on our soil, and may even be seen as daring the Russians to go ahead with the executions. They would be better off focussing on the international law aspects.

    1. Philip P.
      June 10, 2022

      The two men are mercenaries, not ‘mercenaries’.

      1. Mitchel
        June 10, 2022

        Not only that,they are only “prisoners of war” if the UK is at war with Russia.Someone should tell Blunder Truss,who,as we know,has a tendency to get her words mixed up.Or is there something she has forgotten to tell us.

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