Speeches by Cocking.

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Broxbourne is not known for its farms, but this year’s boundary changes have seen my agricultural land increase. This tax will also affect thousands of my constituents through the supply chain and buying food at supermarkets. However, I want to concentrate on something we keep hearing f…”

“I support continuing with the first-past-the-post system. When our constituents arrived at their polling station on 4 July, they knew what to expect: if their chosen candidate received more votes than any other, that is who would be elected as their MP. There is elegance to this simplicity. In our democracy, the person…”

“The asylum hotel in Cheshunt in my constituency is already putting pressure on strained public services, including local GP surgeries. The Government’s manifesto committed to closing asylum hotels. Can I ask the Secretary of State when she will honour that promise, or will the list of broken promises to the British peo…”

“Antisocial behaviour affects all our constituencies, including my constituency of Broxbourne. Some antisocial behaviour can be very localised—down a specific street, in a block of flats or between neighbours—and some of the levers to solve that antisocial behaviour lie with housing associations. Will the Minister outli…”

“Businesses in my constituency are really worried and putting off investing and creating jobs because of the Labour party’s Budget, and in particular the increase in regulations and the national insurance increase. How does the Secretary of State plan to get everyone who should be in work back to work if no jobs exist o…”

“Thank you very much, Minister. Do you believe in local democracy as a principle?”

“On that, you have not mentioned the action you are going to take against developers land banking. You seem to be attacking councils when lots of councils do lots of approvals. Taking you back to your target, there must be a minimum that you have to deliver each year because there must be a maximum that you think that t…”

“Lewis Cocking, Conservative, Broxbourne.”

“Broxbourne has a local plan in place and so has East Herts. Both my local authorities do.”

“You keep talking about the fact that we have to release more land and get more land into the system, but I am yet to hear any measures that you are going to take against developers that already have permission that are not building.”

“But there are no plans by you or the Department to change any existing local plans that are already in place to make them build more houses until their local plans come to an end. I am talking about councils that already have a local plan.”

“If I could have one more follow-up, there are no plans from this Government to overrule local councils’ local plans, if they already have one in place, to make them build more homes over and above the current local plans that they have adopted?”

“But you do think it is important for local councils to make decisions and have input, and for local residents to have a say on planning applications in their area.”

“So there have been no discussions thus far to change—”

“But have there been any discussions about amending those criteria since you have taken office?”

“And there have been no discussions within the Department to extend the premise of when call-ins can happen.”

“So you do not think call-ins will go up if it looks like—”

“Can I ask, then, whether you think call-ins will go up over the course of this Parliament, if it looks like you are not going to meet your 1.5 million homes target?”

“If you believe in democracy and local councillors are elected to make decisions on planning applications, do you foresee lots of planning applications being called in when they are recommended for refusal before they have even been heard at the local level by local councils?”

“So why is the Department starting to call in planning applications before they have been heard by local councils?”