Planning Policy

: The hon. Gentleman clearly knows about the others. Tesco was busy trying to buy the votes of councillors on local planning committees. At the time, we did not realise the damage that that would do to town centres. Similarly, there are builders, including in my constituency Persimmon, a national chain—I would not dare to mention a local chain, of course—which, having secured planning permission for x houses, managed to cram them by bad building, not bad design, to the end of the site so there was room for two or three more left over. Of course, that is just an amendment to a planning application in some cases and does not require advertising, so unless local people go out with a tape measure in the middle of the night they do not know what is happening. The big lobby groups need to be resisted. I am pleased to note the pressure on the authorities of the House to recognise which lobby groups are funding some of the all-party groups, because if those groups are funded behind the scenes by big lobbyists, we should know, just as we and the public should know if our hon. and right hon. Friends in the House are funded behind the scenes. My concern about the supermarkets is not only that they damage trade in the town centres—I recognise that they are popular; of course, they are—but they have a number of unfair competitive advantages. First, their trading practices and purchasing policies are deeply unfair to farmers in this country, so I cannot think what they are doing to farmers in the developing world. Secondly, they have free car parking on site, which they have acquired over a long period. I recognise that in many cases it is the local council's fault that it is not easier for people to park their cars in the town centre, but if supermarkets have free parking on site and there is no scope for new supermarkets to open, they are a local monopoly. Tesco at Westridge in my constituency, the only supermarket in north-east Wight, has a current application to double its sales space. That will undoubtedly damage three of my nine towns, Sandown, Shanklin and Ryde; that is recognised. Some of the planning gain that we would supposedly get from approving this application by Tesco is a tiny amount of money going into Ryde. Supermarkets are local monopolies and should be recognised as such. Thirdly, it should be recognised that supermarkets are vertical monopolies. The hon. Member for Colchester talked of Tesco opening a branch in his shopping street. Having driven many of the businesses out of town centres, it is now taking over some of the few remaining smaller shops and chains and damaging trade in that way. Fourthly, supermarkets are hugely damaging to the environment. The level of packaging should be a planning issue, as should food that is grown in my constituency being taken 100 miles and then brought back to be sold. That is exactly what is happening. Planning considerations should include whether additional haulage is required and whether jobs are protected in the local area through opportunities for people to sell local produce. We can do a great deal to improve the planning system. I am sorry to say that in some cases in the past local authorities have been a bit feeble and, far too frequently, planning officers have said, ““We'll lose on appeal, we'd lose a lot of money”” and the council members feel compelled to vote in favour of an application that they would rather vote against. I suspect that since May last year members of my local authority have rejected more planning applications than were rejected in the preceding four years when the authority was under different control. That is because they are beginning to realise that such decisions are vital to the future prosperity, economy and quality of life of my constituents. I hope that the Minister will give us some hope that those issues can be taken account of in future planning guidance.