Lewis Atkinson

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I will come on to say a little about the national planning policy framework at the moment. When my hon. Friend spoke, he made a good point about local plans. Part of the issue at the moment is that local councils have very different approaches. I wonder whether there is scope for the Government to ensure, or certainly encourage, local authorities to explicitly reference and identify grassroots music venues in their local plans so that when such planning a

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

I fondly remember the vibrant cultural scene during my time in Broadstairs. Too many grassroots music venues risk facing their own “Waterloo” at the moment.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Absolutely. Too many music venues risk becoming old news by being forced to shut, even if they are where the likes of Fleetwood Mac learned their trade. I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The Government recently made a welcome commitment to set out a new high street strategy. The high street is, of course, changing due to changing retail habits, including online shopping. Cultural venues such as music venues are absolutely core to the regeneration and future of the high street, which means tha

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

I thank the Minister for those welcome words, the acknowledgment that there is no policy difference here, and that she will keep statutory guidance under review, should that be necessary. Will she commit, on behalf of the Minister for Housing and Planning, to a meeting before the publication of the final NPPF, at which we could give serious consideration to explicitly mentioning issues such as noise reduction and insulation, when it comes to grassroots music venues?

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Will the Minister elaborate on funding for brownfield sites? In my constituency, we have Riverside Sunderland, the most ambitious city centre regeneration project in the UK. That is only possible because of £30 million of Homes England funding, which will create more than 800 homes. Does she agree that it is somewhat hypocritical for parties that voted against that funding to say that they favour a “brownfield first” or “brownfield only” policy for building?

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

I understand the temptation to distinguish between urban, rural and coastal communities, but does the Minister recognise that urban communities such as mine in Sunderland are also coastal communities? By the limitations of geography, our economic activity is limited by 180°, and there are particular issues regarding transport links, economic geography and so on. Does she agree that it is not a binary distinction between urban, rural and coastal, and that many city council areas such as mine, as

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

I entirely agree. The title of this Bill includes the words “community empowerment” and “devolution”. I want my community in Sunderland to be empowered: to have the powers to ensure that our key cultural venues—such as Pop Recs, Independent and the Bunker—retain protections from further development around them. I turn to the draft national planning policy framework, which the Minister referred to. I understand the Government’s difficulty in breaking what some might say is a precedent by not putt

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

I would like to speak to Lords amendment 94B and 94C on the agent of change principle. My particular concern, as I said last week, relates to grassroots music venues and the impact on them of the current lack of robust application of the agent of change principle through planning guidance. To set a little context, there were 1,150 grassroots music venues a few years ago. The Music Venue Trust now believes that has fallen to 800 venues. Grassroots music venues are important, and not just to local

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

I will speak to Lords amendment 41, regarding putting the agent of change principle on a statutory basis, particularly ensuring that new developments have a noise impact assessment when they are near grassroots music venues. I support the Government’s plans to increase house building, and I recognise that genuine care has to be taken to not increase red tape to the detriment of that goal. However, at the moment, the agent of change regime is preventing elements of house building and residential

Knife Crime

My family sadly knows the devastating consequences of knife crime. As the Government launch their welcome action plan today, I think of my cousin David Charlton, who was killed with a knife in 2012. Reducing knife crime is a moral imperative, so that there are fewer families like David’s or indeed like the family of Connor Brown, whose bereaved parents have done excellent work in tackling knife crime in Sunderland and the north-east and were recently recognised with MBEs for that work. Their app

Disclosure and Safeguarding: At-risk Children

I thank the Minister for his response and the very welcome commitment that he has made to involve the family in the development of the statutory guidance. As he alludes to, family circumstances differ significantly and the person in the family best placed to keep a child safe may or may not have parental responsibility—in some cases, it may be a grandparent, an aunt or so on. Will the Minister ensure that the statutory guidance reflects that in terms of the wider disclosure beyond just parents?

Topical Questions

Can the Minister outline how the new national homelessness strategy will provide additional funds to Sunderland city council to tackle rough sleeping and to support the vital work that organisations such as Oasis Community Housing, the Salvation Army and the Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen do in our city?

Disclosure and Safeguarding: At-risk Children

I thank all Members for contributing to this important and serious debate. As we can tell from the Members present, this issue has a particular north-east focus, because it was our part of the world where Maya lived and was loved, and where she was tragically killed. However, this issue is far from specific to the north-east, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), made clear when he referred to the case of Sara Sharif. The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkl

Disclosure and Safeguarding: At-risk Children

I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 731497 relating to a disclosure and safeguarding mechanism for at-risk children. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to open this important debate as a member of the Petitions Committee. The petition creator, Gemma Chappell, is the great-aunt of Maya Chappell, who was just two years old when she was tragically killed in September 2022 in County Durham. Maya was killed while in the care of her mother’s partner