John Howell MP: Gay marriage's contribution to a tolerant society is something which all Conservatives should support

John Howell OBE is the Member of Parliament for Henley.

My wife and I have just celebrated our 25^th Wedding Anniversary this summer, so I don’t need convincing that marriage is a good thing. So, I am left perplexed as to why a change in civil marriage such as this which, important though it is, will directly affect only a few, will be noticed in their daily lives by even fewer and will have minimal, if any, direct impact on the general population, is causing so much disquiet, particularly when there are such wider benefits.

In 21^st century Britain, we should not be willing to accept a legal system which effectively casts one group of people in the role of second class citizens on the grounds of their sexual orientation. It is true that gay people will benefit from this change through the greater social and emotional value it will bring them. But it should also benefit us all in helping us become a society more at ease with ourselves and more genuinely focused on equality of opportunity.

This is not some Liberal conspiracy nor is it a war waged on the majority by the minority. It is a thoroughly Conservative aspiration and was echoed on the steps of Downing Street in 1992 with John Major’s assertion that he believed “in a nation at ease with itself, the development of a truly classless society with opportunities for all.” Gay civil marriage fits in to that Conservative vision.

Before saying why I find arguments against same sex marriage deeply unconvincing, let me declare one further interest - as an active member of the Anglican Church.

John Howell MP: Labour always fails when it comes to economic responsibility, as the IMF's 1976 report shows

John Howell OBE is the Member of Parliament for Henley.

The recent IMF scorecard on the British economy, produced two years into this Coalition, prompted me to take a look at the comments the IMF made in 1976, two years into a Labour government. At that time, the then-Chancellor, Denis Healey, had to go cap in hand to the IMF for a stand-by loan of nearly $4 billion. That is the equivalent of £12 billion today. To give a feel for scale, that is about the size of the Home Office and DEFRA budgets combined.

The IMF was substantially underwhelmed with Labour’s economic performance. Its blunt assessment of the causes of the crisis in which the then Labour government found itself was summed up in this phrase: “First among these [causes] has been the failure to establish effective control over financial policies”. This is now a phrase which echoes down the years of successive Labour governments.

Contrast that with the latest IMF report which paid tribute to the "substantial progress" towards a sustainable budget delivered by the Coalition's austerity programme. It went on to describe the deficit reduction as "essential" in the medium term. In a now much-quoted comment, the IMF’s Christine Lagarde said;

"When I think back to May 2010, when the UK deficit was at 11%, and I try to imagine what the situation would be like today if no such fiscal consolidation programme had been decided, I shiver,"

Greg Clark MP and John Howell MP: The Coalition's blueprint for sustainable development

Greg Clark MP is Minister for Decentralisation and Cities and John Howell MP is his PPS and the principal author of Open Source Planning.

Yesterday the Government published the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework following last year’s public consultation.  Taken together with the important changes introduced in the Localism Act, this amounts to a fundamental reform of the planning system.  Our intention to undertake these reforms was clearly set out before the General Election in a Conservative policy paper entitled ‘Open Source Planning’.  In it we set out a clear statement of why we were going to make these changes and who we were making these changes for.  What we said was:

“Rather than have one planning structure determined centrally and then applied unvaryingly across the country, we want to create a planning system where there is a basic national framework of planning priorities and policies, within which local people and their accountable local governments can produce their own distinctive local policies to create communities which are sustainable, attractive and good to live in.”

We recognised that the planning system was vital for a strong economy, for an attractive and sustainable environment and for a successful democracy.  We recognised too that the planning system in England achieved none of these goals.

The changes we have made have been designed to achieve three things:

• First, they have been designed to restore democratic and local control over the planning system.
• Secondly, they have been designed to produce a simpler, quicker, cheaper, less confrontational and less bureaucratic planning system, and
• Thirdly, they have been designed to rebalance the system in favour of sustainable development.

John Howell MP: Proof that Conservative MPs are interested in a wide range of subjects, disproving the old stereotypes

John Howell OBE is MP for Henley and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House, Sir George Young.

If you want an idea of what the concerns of Conservative MPs are there is no better snap-shot than the nature of the questions raised each Thursday in response to the statement by the Leader of the House on what the business in Parliament will be for the next week or so.

On the back of the statement, MPs are able to ask that the business just announced be replaced by a debate or statement on an issue of concern to them.  In justifying these requests, its gives MPs the opportunity to raise a wide range of topics whether international, national or local about which they feel strongly.

The range of issues raised breaks the old stereotypes and shows the level of engagement Conservative MPs have with issues of fairness and social justice.  It is a good example of how Conservative MPs are on the side of aspiration: people who want to get on and who want their families to get ahead.  The spread of questions shows the strong recognition that, in this tough economic climate, help should go to those most in need of it, and that we are on the side of those basic rate tax-payers who struggle to make ends meet.

John Howell MP: The Government's planning framework will promote sustainable growth, protect the environment and hand power back to local people

John Howell is MP for Henley, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Greg Clark, the Minister for Decentralisation and Localism, and is the principal author of Open Source Planning.

There is no necessary contradiction between increased levels of development and protecting and enhancing the environment, as long as development is planned and undertaken responsibly. Providing for the future needs of our communities is, after all, what planning is all about. The planning system must play an active role in guiding development to sustainable solutions. Our approach to planning is based squarely on giving local people a greater say over future development and putting sustainability at the heart of the planning system.

Planning positively for the future and in a way which encourages growth is essential if we are to deal with the economic mess left behind by Labour. At the same time, we need to preserve our heritage and to protect Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and the Green Belt. One of the key ways of doing this is by including within the new National Planning Policy Framework a presumption in favour of sustainable development. So what does the presumption do?

John Howell MP: The Localism Bill will deliver a fairer and simpler planning system which genuinely engages with local residents

John Howell is MP for Henley and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Greg Clark, the Minister for Decentralisation and Localism.

Only a radical approach will produce the planning system we need to take the country forward and today we have the chance in the Localism Bill to deliver a planning system which is fairer, simpler, genuinely engaging of local residents - and more enabling of the growth we need to restore the fortunes of the country, in the face of Labour’s disastrous economic and financial legacy.

It will be a personal pleasure to see this Bill to the statute book. As a very new backbench MP in the last Parliament I was delighted to be asked to pull together a proposal for reform of the planning system following our Green Papers on localism and housing. The result was Open Source Planning in which I proposed a new and radical approach to planning. This was adopted in the Coalition Agreement and forms the basis of the changes set out in the Localism Bill. It has been a wonderful opportunity to have been involved in taking radical ideas from inception through to Second Reading.

The current planning system is broken and has failed to support our economy. It has contributed to the breakdown of our broken society. It has been a recipe for delay and expense. It has become a charter for confrontation.

What it delivered was broken promises, such as the Labour pledge to protect the green belt which the last Government then proved so keen to build on.  It failed to deliver the new housing we need because its only tools were central and regional targets which ignored local residents, and the bullying of local authorities. Its targets not only alienated local opinion they were also a cruel deception to developers trying to plan ahead.

John Howell: The Greens are coming!

Cllr Dr. John M Howell OBE, Cabinet Member of Oxfordshire County Council, warns that the Greens are more of a threat than is realised - to Conservatives and to scientific progress.

Here’s a question for you.What do Berinsfield Ward in Oxfordshire and Forest Row Ward in the depths of Sussex have in common?   

First, they are both in Districts with overwhelming Conservative majorities – the sort of District where you weigh the Conservative votes rather than count them.  Second, they are also in areas where the Green Party has made surprising advances which should send a shiver through the Conservative Party.

Now, of course, we need to retain some perspective on this.  In Berinsfield Ward in the 2007 district elections the Green candidate came a very distant third after two Conservative candidates won by a landslide.  But he did beat Labour and the Liberal-Democrats.  In Forest Row, the District Council now has two Green councillors.