Labour MP Chris Hinchliff calls on Government to think again about planning

Labour MP Chris Hinchliff has repeated his call for the Government to “listen and think again” about proposed changes to the planning system.

His intervention came as the chair of Parliament’s environmental audit committee, Toby Perkins, introduced its report on the role of ‘natural capital’ in the green economy.

The document is underpinned by a review for the Treasury by Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor emeritus of economics at Cambridge University.

Mr Perkins, the MP for Chesterfield, said: “The committee agrees with the Government that economic and financial decision-making should support the delivery of a nature-positive future and we would like to hear a repetition of that commitment and, indeed, to see it actualised in the forthcoming spending review.

“The committee agrees with the assertion of this Government and the previous Government that in a time of spending restraint, taxpayer money alone is no longer sufficient to deliver the necessary level of environmental restoration, so private finance must play its part.”

He called on the Government to give Parliament a report within 12 months on current and projected levels of private investment in nature recovery in England so MPs can gauge the progress that has been made and the size of the funding gap.

The committee also wanted assurances that the proposed new nature restoration fund is an addition to, rather than a replacement for, Government investment in nature recovery.

“Nature can grow hand in hand with our economy, and money from growth should go back into helping nature thrive,” said Mr Perkins.

“The report provides the Government with a road map to restoring nature by capitalising on our huge national strength as a global financial leader. It cautions the Government not to undermine the progress already made and offers our support for the measures that help nature’s recovery come hand in hand with the economic growth that the Government rightly demand.”

Mr Hinchliff said: “I welcome publication of the report, which reminds us all once again that nature is the true foundation of all wealth in our country and around the globe.

“A wide range of environmental organisations and eminent academics – including Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Cambridge, whose review for the Treasury underpins the Committee’s entire report – have publicly written to warn that proposed plans in the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill are ‘not a tool for ecological recovery’ but ‘a licence to kill nature, with no evidence to suggest this would in any way help our economy’.

Mr Hinchliff, whose North East Herts constituency includes the East Herts villages of Little Hadham, Braughing, Standon and Puckeridge, is a vocal opponent of his party’s plans to cut red tape so 1.5 million new homes can be built by 2029.

He said that when leading economists, former Government advisers and leading conservationists express deep concerns about Government legislation, ministers must listen and think again.