01/04/2012 Sunday Politics South West

In the South West - the parents in Torbay who hope for more Grammar

Schools and the people who fear for the future of these fields outside

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2173 seconds

Although,, up on the Sunday Politics in the South West. The

parents her would like to see more grammar school places in South

Devon. And for the next 20 minutes I am

joined by Neil Parish, the Conservative MP for Tiverton and

Honiton, and Darren Cowell, Labour MP for Torbay. Welcome to the

programme. This week the Government has faced criticism for introducing

VAT to hot food. Do you think this is a good move?

As low as it is a Devon pasty but are not a Cornish one, because

Devon pasties are much better. It is only tightening up on operation

to make sure everyone pays VAT on hot food, because some pasties are

already being charged, therefore it is only at tidying up. I know it

has captured the imagination of the public, but some pasties already

served hot are charged VAT. We as weekend the Government may be

thinking themselves unpopular and thinking it perhaps maybe not worth

it. -- this weekend. It has been one of those things

that has borne out of control. My imagine the Chancellor will look at

it, but some shops and takeaways are already having to charge VAT

and others are not. Perhaps it is not such a terrible thing, but look

at it in the cold light of day again and see what the reaction is.

There is certainly confusion and muddle around this. What is ambient

temperature? In January it is probably different to August. There

is a huge amount of confusion. What is most important is that any

measures don't impact upon our important food industry. It is not

just pasties, it is sausage rolls, anything that can be served hot or

potentially cold. We cannot damage that trade. Thank you for your

thoughts on that. There were fears that cutting red

tape in planning would lead to developers -- and Development

Charter. The function of sustainable development is no water

down, and the onus is no one councils to decide where to build

thousands of homes in the South West. There are still some who

think the countryside is at risk. With a view like this, Ian Hubbard

says it is hard not to be a proud Truro resident. Where we are

standing we can actually see green fields, and you cannot say that

about many cities in this country. He is a campaigner for sustainable

Development, which has just got the go-ahead for the local council. He

is still worried about the future despite concessions on the use of

brownfield sites first. I liked the bit about the viability

of town centres, I like the bit about out-of-town supermarket being

a last resort, but does it actually mean what it says?

Rejecting top down housing targets, the new guidance puts emphasis on

local plans. Local authorities will decide how many new Houses are

needed and in town and parish councils communities themselves

will prioritise where and when Houses shall be built.

Cornwall council is working towards a target of more than 40,000 new

homes over the next 20 years. It is decisions taken over the next 12

months that could affect fields like these on the outskirts of

Truro. Consultation in Cornwall is still

under way and across the South West: authorities are finalising

plans. In Devon, and need for around 75,000 new homes has been

identified. In Somerset the figure is 47,000. And in Dorset there is a

provisional figure of around 12,500. Councils have one near to get

communities engaged and plans in place or leave themselves exposed.

If we do not identify a land in the core strategy, developers will

cherry-pick parcels of land easier for them to develop and get away

with it. We have unique decisions on where housing will goal, a waste

will goal, and planners will be able to tell any developers this is

where it will goal, you cannot build there.

A countryside campaigners could struggle to meet demand in drawing

up local plants and question the need to build so many homes at all.

A think we have development, but when you think of it, Cornwall is a

pfennig area. Although this national planning policy framework

calls for councils to earmark land, 5% of land for future development,

it will not take many years before Cornwall is used up, and then what

happens? He we with around 23,000 people on Cornwall's housing

register, average prices nine times average wages, and a growing

population, affordable housing campaigners say the new approach is

long overdue. When people see endless,

unattractive housing estates circling historic, beautiful tones

and ruining them, they get I write about it. -- beautiful towns. A

hope the new framework will mean that better schemes can go forward

more easily and more quickly. We will get the homes people need, but

unattractive schemes that destroy open spaces that people care about

are less likely to warhead. There are warnings developers could

rush now to try and exploit the new relaxed rules before local plans

are put in place. Although it is unclear how the new guidance will

be implemented, some campaigners say this could be a lawyer's

charter. To discuss this from our Truro

studio we have Stephen Gilbert, Lib Dem MP for Newquay and some Borstal.

Welcome to the programme. Will thus become a lawyer's charter?

I don't think my concern is that it will become a lawyer's charter, we

now have one year for local authorities like Cornwall to put in

place their core strategies and neighbourhood plans. At that point

local people will have much more control over the planning system

than they have over recent years. Until then, my concern is that

developers will put in speculative applications, appeal for non-

determination where local planning committees either take too long or

come out with a no, that what we will see is the localism principle

that should be embedded in our planning system being overridden by

developers... So sorry to interrupt you, but there are strategies in

place in this new policy to stop this from happening.

Yes, but we have a hiatus for one year, while quote -- local

neighbourhoods gather their core strategies. It is right that this

is an urgent task for local authorities and local people. For

too long we have had a top-down, regionally led, unaccountable

planning system that has dumped development -- developments that

communities have not wanted. Do you think Stephen is right about

having concerns on the implementation of this policy?

In his, I think towns, villages and hamlets must get at their local

plants in place. -- local plans in place. What is important right note

is to stop... The last Government had at 250,000 target on the South

West for homes and that was imposed on Devon and Cornwall and that is

not right. Now we have a villages and towns that can look for

affordable housing sites and put them in the planning process.

Darren, do you think this is a good thing? Do you think it was all top

down under Labour and the Conservatives have got this right?

For Ashley, at last the Government actually listen, the first draft

was a bit of a dog's dinner and badly thought I would. In Torbay we

are very much undergoing the neighbourhood planning process

already. A but will it provide enough homes? Will you get as many

homes needed in Torbay as you would have done with the targets Labour

had in place? I think there were sufficient

numbers of new homes and jobs. Apparently we are looking at half

the number of new homes that were to be introduced under the target

system. But it is providing sufficient

homes for the actual forecast population growth in any given

region. There is no point building on greenfield sites when you can

provide the number of properties you need to House people using

properties that are brought back into use and using brown fields.

Will it end not in my back yard feelings? Surely you're giving that

more power, our review? I go things will, I don't think giving power to

people to the people in the community will do that.

There are many people in Cornwall who are determined to provide

affordable housing for the 20,000 people on the waiting list, or the

entire generation who are priced out of the housing market now in

the South West. What is important is that it goes where local

communities go -- wanted to go, that's not what builders want the

trouble. The his way, councillors in Kent

backed a plan for the first major expansion of a grammar school in

England for 50 years. This will give hope to parents and

the South West to look at the remaining grammar schools today,

more pupils. The concept of expanding grammar-school education

remains controversial. After a long day at school...

Homework beckons for 10-year-old Tom. But it is not just school what

he has to do. On top of that, he is preparing to set his 11-plus

examination, which means extra homework. P does not seem to mind,

as getting a place at Torquay's grammar-school is his main goal.

The facility is our amazing and I just think it will be really good

fun to go there. -- the facilities. And a his mum is

working hard to support him, paying for weekly private tuition. She has

not worries about grammar schools expanding as she thinks they could

potentially cast their nets further. By would not be against it. If they

can share their skills and abilities and more children can

benefit, I don't think there is a problem with that. Neither does

Kent County Council. On Thursday, councillors supported plans for the

creation of a satellite grammar school in Sevenoaks, possibly on

this site. 2,500 parents in the area have already petitioned for

rich trouble ahead. It would be the first major expansion of selective

education for 50 years. But it is controversial. In 1998, Labour

banned the opening of any new grammar school, and the coalition

Government has done nothing to change that law. But it is allowing

good schools to expand. Records published in February give schools

the power to take on more pupils without consultation.

This week, a Liberal Democrat peer, Baroness Wolseley, asked the

Government to clarify its position. The Minister told her there would

be no new grammar schools, but she was not satisfied. A thank my noble

friend the Minister for restating that policy, however I don't see

how that stacks up with the potential for doubling the number

of school places in which a selection operates in certain areas.

Under the School Standards and Framework Act, 1998, no new drama

stills can open. Can my noble friend tell me, what is the

criterion for a new school, and why the planned satellite school in

Sevenoaks can claim to not be a new school but part of a grammar school

many miles away? David Robinson campaigns against

selective education. He is concerned this could set a

precedent in places like Torbay. can not see any need for them to be

expanding. There is no evidence whatsoever

that people from goal to crammers schools do any better. -- that

pupils who go to grammar schools. There is evidence that pupils who

bought two non-selective schools do better. They are perceived as being

better at educating children because they pick of the most

intelligent children from a wide area. -- they pick the most

intelligent. Last year of the national press

were interested that Torquay Boys Grammar School was merging with a

local school. But this was dismissed as unfounded speculation

in the school's newsletter. No one from the school was available for

comment this week. A Tom faces stiff competition to

get into his local grammar school. Perhaps if they expand in Torbay

future pupils will have a better chance.

Neil, new have a grammar school in your constituency, Darren, you have

Torquay's grammar school in your patch. Could this lead to an

expansion in Devon of grammar schools and should it? A year in

favour of grammar schools? The s, at that grammar school is

excellent, and so is our Community School, as well. -- yes, I am. It

gives parents a choice. If you have an area like Kent, where they run a

huge number of children waiting to go to a grammar school, there could

well be an idea of creating a campus of sight. Parents and

children want choice, and I think it is a case of making sure we

invest in grammar schools and academies. It is doing it by the

backdoor, isn't it? If you say it is the same grammar

school but is ten miles away and will have independent teachers, can

you see it as part of the main Ysgol y Berwyn it I will be

controlled by the head teacher and grammar-school itself.

It could be. The distances could well be a problem. Our Grammar

School, for instance, is in a fine spot where it is at the moment, so

there may be an argument of moving the school gradually. Why not just

abolished the 1998 band and say, let's do this up front and have a

new grammar schools? A number of us would say yes to

that. In including yourself? including myself. But that is not

Government policy. Why do think the whole idea of our education policy

to give parents more choice is good and I think grammar-school is part

of that. Darren Cowell, argue in favour of

grammar schools? Nor, I am not, and in Torbay we had

grammar schools in the 1970s, when there was a very strong campaign to

obtain them against the Labour Government's then wishes. You we

like to see the Torquay Grammar has become part of mainstream

schooling? Absolute life. But, sadly, the

direction of travel in education at the moment with the roll-out of

academies and the number of schools that became a cannabis, the

influence of local authorities and councillors on those schools is

rapidly diminishing. One is it you do not like? Is it

right that 11-year-olds should be put under such pressure?

I think there is a lot of pressure throughout the curriculum now, I

don't think the eleven-plus is a problem. What I was going to come

back on is that the whole education policy is to get parents more

choice and governors choice on how to run their schools. If there is

an area, where there is division, I think in the past we did not invest

enough in secondary education but now we're making sure it is there.

That the is a valid point Monk, because in Torbay we had huge

investment in grammar schools at the expense of the secondary

moderns. We now have a situation where we

have a brand new school in Torbay, a community college, and it is

interesting that grammar schools are showing an interest in that

campus. We now have our regular round-up of

The Defence Secretary came to Plymouth to sign a multi-million-

pound contract which will secured 1,300 jobs.

This will be a our sole location for deep maintenance of submarines.

The States of Jersey announced they will plead -- pay compensation to

victims of historical told abyss. They are people in St Denis

discovered the incinerator plant for their doorstep will go ahead

after the Government won its appeal. The campaigners say they have not

given up. A wave will continue to raise however much money we have to

to carry on the fight. -- we will continue. A centre-right

think-tank administers to reconsider plans for a badger cull.

And that the Prime Minister made the case for the pasty tax. A I a r

pasty eater myself, I go to Cornwall on holiday.

What will Cornwall's MPs queued up to defend at the County's signature

dish. -- whilst Cornwall's MPs. There is Stephen Gilbert enjoying

his pasty. Let's talk about badgers. Neil, you

are in favour of culling badgers. Does this move why you?

-- worry you? A well, we had clear support from

the Secretary of State in the House when she talked about pilot calls.

There is disease in cattle and wildlife that we are trying to take

disease out of the cattle whilst we still have the disease in badgers.

We have to control them. It look slightly this may be reconsidered

now. I'd do not think we will. We have

decided to have the pilot calls that has been suggested, and as

soon as that has finished we will go through to that.

Darren Cowell, are you in favour of it? A be like them to consider a

badger cull, I have always been opposed to it, but the fact we have

a potential for these pilot schemes the likelihood is they will proceed.

The evidence will be that further culling will not occur.