Boris Johnson’s woes over his government’s controversial planning reforms have deepened after they came under fire from his own father.
Stanley Johnson warned the proposals could undermine ministers’ efforts to protect nature.
In a separate development, two Tory MPs rebelled to vote with Labour and against the changes in a non-binding vote in the House of Commons.
On Friday senior Tories warned the prime minister to change course on the plans or face more defeats in southern seats, after the party’s defeat in the Chesham and Amersham by-election.
Two former cabinet Damian Green and David Davis told The Independent the reforms would allow developers to ride roughshod over local communities, as they called for them to be urgently rethought.
Before the vote, Mr Johnson’s father told Times Radio: “I think that we have to be tremendously careful before we push through planning reforms, which themselves may serve to undermine the very basis of our nature protection programmes.”
He added: “We are arguing that the nature protection, bio-diversity, are of extreme importance now. Not only an importance in itself, but an importance as a means of delivering the climate change objectives we’ve all been talking about, which we’re about to sign up to, we hope, in the Glasgow conference. So it is tremendously important these things are given the weight they need to be properly given. And I’m not convinced that telling the Horsham District Council: ‘Yes, you’ve got to build 1,000 house or whatever it is’ , giving them no room of room to manoeuvre, is the way forward.”
Steve Reed, shadow housing secretary, had challenged Tory MPs opposed to the reforms to “put your money where your mouth is”.
In the end two rebelled, Anne Marie Morris, the MP for Newton Abbot, and William Wragg, who represents Hazel Grove, in Greater Manchester. Tory MPs has been expected to abstain.
At the weekend Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, said the plans had been “mischaracterised” and at “no time has this proposal been about suddenly indiscriminately bricking over the countryside”.
In a Commons debate before the vote, Labour claimed the changes were “paying back” Conservative Party donors from the housing sector and “selling out” communities.
In December the government said it remained committed to building 300,000 new homes a year in England.
Mr Reed highlighted concerns over the rights of communities to object to planning applications.
He told MPs: “It’s fair to say the Conservatives’ planning reforms are not popular with voters – and that’s not because voters are Nimbys (‘not in my back yard’) as ministers rather offensively like to brand them – but because residents rightly want and deserve a say over how their own neighbourhoods are developed.”
Housing minister Christopher Pincher said the reforms would bring a cumbersome paper-based system into the digital age.
The current system was “not fast enough, it’s not consistent, nor is it clear, nor is it engaging enough,” he said.
He added that the proposals would not diminish the ability of local communities to take part in the planning process. “On the contrary, they’re designed to give communities more, not less, of a say through better information, easier means to take part and crucially with a clearer voice when it can make a real difference.”
