Speeches by Woodcock.

“Is the idea for that to bring down costs going forward? It clearly cannot deal with inflation and stuff like that, but if you are doing things more proactively, you could be doing less reactively, which means you would shift the resources that way or even remove some of them. Is that the longer-term aspiration?”

“By reactive, I assume you mean someone calling to say that the toilet or a lift is broken and so on.”

“Strategic Estates is the largest area of spend, and it has grown quite significantly. Can you talk to that, and maybe also explain how that budget is managed in terms of mitigating risk?”

“You mentioned that you have 2,900 reactive—”

“I am Labour MP for Banbury.”

“My question is about the buying and selling process. The Government acknowledge that one in three transactions fall through, which costs about £400 million a year, and the time between instructing the conveyancer to completion of purchase has increased by 60% since 2007 to around four months. Is there anything that len…”

“Are there any changes you feel lenders in particular should be leading on in order to speed that up?”

“At the start of the session, it was suggested that the majority of issues with service charges were linked to high-rise blocks in cities. As somebody who represents a town where the number of high-rise blocks is in single figures, I get quite a lot of complaints about service charges. They are linked to what has been t…”

“I thank my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), for securing this urgent question. The River Cherwell runs right through the heart of Banbury, so this issue and the images and footage from the weekend have concerned a number of my residents as well. Can the Minister reassur…”

“Are you prepared to give a timeline on that?”

“On that one you are confident.”

“Secretary of State, you mentioned the default yes to planning applications near railway stations. When the Chancellor announced that, were you made aware of it beforehand?”

“I should declare that part of one of the 12 new towns is in my constituency, Heyford. It is one of the 12 but not one of the three indicated as favourites. My question is on the status of the other nine, particularly as there will be people who may be disappointed not to be one of the three or anxious as to what this m…”

“The last one from me is on the new national development management policies. Will they be on a statutory or non-statutory footing? Have you decided on that yet?”

“If I may, school places and things like that are welcome, but some of the homes that are being demanded of local authorities in rural areas will not come forward without very quick and direct investment in the national grid and how water gets supplied to them. What conversations is your Department having with DESNZ and…”

“On planning, in March Minister Pennycook announced a consultation on statutory consultees that will be coming in the spring, but it has not yet been published. Could you explain?”

“I am Sean Woodcock, Member of Parliament for Banbury.”

“Secretary of State, you mentioned housing targets, the Government bringing them back and changes to the NPPF. As a consequence of that, there has been an uplift in the number of homes that many councils have been required to bring forward through their local plans. As Secretary of State, you will also know that a big c…”

“Solving the court backlogs would at least improve confidence, among other things.”

“We have heard some talk about section 21s, as in no-fault evictions, which have been scrapped by the Bill. We know that, in the last few years, local authorities have had a rush of people put into temporary accommodation because of landlords using section 21s. I just wonder whether part of the reason that landlords hav…”