Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Swire’s application that these things should be buried. I am the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation; that is not relevant to this debate, but it is somewhat relevant to the discussion about renewables.

My noble friend raised a few points about how previous Governments over the last 30 years have been somewhat deficient in managing the grid. The grid was perfectly adequate when we had large, central power stations, whether coal, gas or nuclear. Of course, our nuclear fleet is diminishing and nearly all those stations will be turned off by the end of this decade—probably before any of the new ones are turned on. We have obviously closed down all our coal power stations now, and gas is rather intermittent; it has to be put on stream when renewables fail us, which unfortunately happens more and more regularly. The old system worked when we had centralised, big power stations. The problem now occurs because we have decentralised that.

We could put that right by going down a domestic gas route, which I would recommend to this nation as a means to bridge the gap before nuclear is properly on stream. We could put small modular reactors in the places where old gas and coal stations used to be, because we have the huge grids, supplies and existing pylons that served that old infrastructure, which is now a redundant and dead infrastructure.

We are being asked to despoil our countryside because of the dash to renewables, in trying to link up offshore and onshore wind farms. Each of those produces fairly small amounts of energy, but we need new pylons to get it into the grid. I agree entirely with my noble friend that the required cables should be underground. I have never believed that some behemoth of an aluminium and steel platform to carry cables can be that much cheaper than an underground cable, which does not require such support. I recommend that the Government ask for some independent advice on what these things really cost.

I am very surprised to have had a discussion—started, again, by my noble friend Lady Coffey—about Christmas trees. I will discuss Christmas trees at the appropriate time, because my family was very involved with Christmas trees and, as a young lad, every winter I bore scars all the way up my arms from selling them. I hope to discuss that in the future.

The whole concept of electrification and the problem of serious storms was raised very well by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. I do worry. As I said at the time, if you live in that part of the world—and I think another storm hit Scotland at almost the same time—you rely entirely on electricity cables to run your internet, which runs your telephone, as the old 50-volt copper system is being wound down. You obviously need electricity for the internet generally, and one will need electricity to power one’s car, if the Government have their way and traditional cars are put on the scrap heap. One will also need electricity to heat one’s home. Storms go through parts of this country with some regularity, and I have always made the point that you can lend a neighbour a bucket of logs but you cannot lend them a bucket of electricity.

I agree with the amendment that was put by my noble friend Lord Swire. I request that the Government look at this rather more carefully, rather than say flippantly that “Thou shalt have dirty great pylons”. Norfolk and Suffolk in particular will be hit by this massively. I think my noble friend who is following me will make some similar observations about what will be hitting parts of Kent, including those that I used to represent.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 79A in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire about the presumption in favour of burying cables as the default method. He spoke of insanity, but I did not think I was going mad—I believed and agreed with every word he said. Not only is burying cables less visually intrusive but, storms notwithstanding, as we have seen in the Ukrainian conflict, surface infrastructure is more vulnerable to malign and military disruption. I have not seen any calculation anywhere that takes that national security angle into account. That is an omission that should be corrected, and would be if my noble friend’s amendment is accepted.

I do not stand entirely shoulder to shoulder with those who accept the construction of pylons in any circumstance but I am not the Luddite who is in denial about the difficulties of strengthening and hardening the grid. We all need to be realistic about what it takes for the lights to come on when you flick that switch, with fluctuating renewables on the one hand and new demands from electrical vehicles on the other. But that should not give National Grid a right to be judge and jury in its own court and carte blanche to ride roughshod.

My interest in the amendment has been piqued because I have experienced at first hand the process undertaken by National Grid when it seeks to promote a new pylon power line, in this case from Norwich to Tilbury to transport electricity from the wind farms off the Norfolk coast down to the smoke. At that time, I was leader of the South Norfolk Council, an area to be bisected across its entire height by new HV power lines. What I experienced was institutional arrogance from National Grid and its agents. It thought that a single consultation event, offered at short notice on an afternoon in a remote village hall for an area of 400 square miles, was sufficient. It had a boneheaded refusal to accept that burying was even an option—even just in part across the picturesque Waveney Valley or the Roydon Fen county wildlife reserve.

National Grid exhibited a steadfast refusal to demonstrate or explain why the option of providing a future-proof offshore ring main, connecting the existing infrastructure that used to serve the redundant Bradwell nuclear power station, was even a possibility. The suggestion that offshore was impractical was wholly disproven by the offshore link that is currently proposed from Sizewell to the Richborough marshes—I am stood next to the noble Lord, Lord Mackinlay of Richborough, and I expect him to intervene in a moment to say how wonderful that part of the world is and how it should not be despoiled.

National Grid had unevidenced assertions relating to the unaffordability of burying lines, as opposed to having them overhead, without either explaining or quantifying the quantum of those extra costs for the whole line or just per kilometre. There was a failure to consider parallel running to the existing pylon line to minimize visual impact, with the result that the wonderful and historic market town of Diss is now proposed to be fenced in on all four sides by huge steel pylons to an unacceptable degree. This lack of understanding, further, that the mooted community compensation schemes for overhead lines, but not for buried cables, might undermine the business case for pylons now turns out to be the case because it stands as part of Clause 26 of the Bill. There were other questions to answer, which I will not detain the Committee with.

Now, of course, there may have been good reasons why National Grid might be right on all the points I mentioned, though I struggle to see how, but with friends like these, who needs enemies? National Grid has gone out of its way to pick fights rather than bringing people together. As a council leader, I met officials from National Grid and put the points privately, to try to have a neutral forum where it could make an improved case for the proposals and build consensus. That olive branch was spurned, so it is little wonder that there is now widespread resistance to new pylon routes. Opposition has been carelessly and recklessly whipped up by a ham-fisted approach from the people who need all the friends they can get.

I like this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire because it would set the default expectation that new lines will be buried. Of course, that does not mean that they must be buried, but for the operator to go above ground as the preferred option, he will need to make the evidential case and have it scrutinised, and to build friendships and not enemies. That is a much better approach and balance of power, literally, between the parties than the regrettable and aggravating behaviours that we have seen thus far, where the lazy overhead option is chosen and everybody else be damned.

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill)

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in sport as set out in the register.

I have spoken in Committee and on Report about the damage that retaining Clause 5 will do to the sporting success of many talented young people in the UK who gained admission to independent schools from the state sector through sports bursaries and scholarships. The reason for this was that, in response to parental demand, many independent schools have invested in state-of-the-art sports facilities, top-level coaches, and the sports psychologists, nutritionists, physios and support staff whose presence in many of our independent schools have delivered success at international and national level, while offering those facilities, out of hours and during the holidays, to local communities through their dual-use policies.

The costs imposed by VAT on school fees, increased by higher national insurance contributions and now by business rates, means that to balance the books those schools which survive will have to reduce the many sports scholarships and bursaries currently available to talented young people. Talented young people from a wide range of backgrounds in the maintained sector would otherwise never have access to facilities and coaching expertise of this type.

To demonstrate the scale of the support, I previously drew the Minister’s attention to 14 athletes on Team GB at the Paris Olympic Games who came from Millfield School, 13 of whom came through its means-tested financial support mechanism. Those athletes brought home seven Olympic medals and one Paralympic medal—four gold, three silver and one bronze. The career path for our talented athletes has provided opportunities for thousands of young sports men and women who could not afford to go to independent schools and benefit from their sporting facilities without the bursaries and scholarships on offer. At the Paris Olympics in 2024, 33% of Team GB’s medallists had been given the chance to attend independent schools, many of whom had their fees paid in part or in whole through means-tested bursaries and scholarships.

The statistics prove the point. I would not be worried if facilities in the state sector were a substitute; that they are not is not a party-political point. Sports facilities at local authority level and state school level have been in decline for years. We had a magnificent Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012. The regeneration of the East End of London was a resounding success, but we did not leave a sports legacy to London or to the country. Playing fields continue to be sold; public swimming pools are closed. Even Sport England has this month lost its statutory ability—which has had a great effect in keeping playing fields open—to appeal against the loss of sports facilities removed as part of the proposed planning reforms.

I see no evidence that these arguments were addressed in another place yesterday. By raising them today, I urge colleagues from across the House to vote for this amendment and protect the opportunities afforded to many of our aspiring young Olympians and Paralympians. I ask noble Lords not to deny those young people the same number of bursaries and scholarships that independent schools have been able to make over many years. I hope that every Member of your Lordships’ House will bear these arguments in mind when they consider whether to vote to retain Clause 5 in its current form.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I have not to date spoken on this Bill, but there are couple of matters which need to be aired regarding the history of charity. I am a director of a charity, and my daughter attends a private school—let us get those on the record.

The history of charity in this country goes back a very long way, with a particular flourishing during Elizabethan times. The charities of that era were often health related, certainly education related and often to do with hospice and almshouse care—of course, this Government have decided to raise a jobs tax on hospices, which we have been discussing this week. The concept of charity was founded very much on education.

Through the latter end of my illness, my wife would drive me home at weekends for home visits. We found all manner of routes through south-east London to avoid the worst of some of Mayor Khan’s blockages that have been created through London—it did not stop us from paying the ULEZ, of course. On one of the small roads, I came across a charity called the Portuguese speakers community centre. I thought, “Well, well, well, there is such a thing”. I am sure that it does the most amazing work. On most high streets, we see a variety of charities. Lots are to do with animal support—the PDSA, Cats Protection and all manner of other charities. They all do very good work. However, they were not envisaged as the charities of the day when the big flowering of charities came to pass in Elizabethan times, but education most certainly was.

So, for the first time in the history of this nation, we are deciding to have a two-tier charitable system. Whereas that charity route of old—education—is no longer deemed of charitable-worthy status, the Portuguese community centre, for instance, which I am sure does good work, is. It is a strange day that we pass through with this legislation—it is a very sad day. The amendments in Motion Q1 will at least give the Secretary of State pause for thought and an easy way out in the future. I almost guarantee that those thoughts on raising lots of revenue will never be realised. Schools will close and, because of the VAT increase, children will move to the state sector and be a cost to the state in their education. Let us note this day and heed what is being told to the Government: “You will rue this decision”.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and ask that noble Lords note my register of interests. I have not spoken on the Bill before, but we need to consider the impact on sport.

Over many cycles of Olympic Games, many of our medal-winning athletes have gone through the independent school sector and a significant number will have been supported with scholarships. The access it gives to high-quality coaching and facilities, and balancing education with that pathway, is important.

The Sutton Trust has noted that private schools are overrepresented among the medal-winning athletes that we have. Its data probably does not support the argument that I am about to give. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was right that 33% of Team GB’s medallists at the Paris 2024 Games went through private schools—down from 40% for the Tokyo Games. Yes, that compares with just 7% of the general population. Is it right that it is disproportionate? No, it is not, but the independent sector offers amazing opportunities for athletes to succeed.

The reality is that there is so much work that we need to do in our state schools. They should provide access to good-quality sports facilities and coaching and care about our children’s education, but the reality is that we are still quite a long way from that. We already know that the state sector is struggling to deliver sports such as cricket; the ECB has noted that. We need to think about the consequences in the short term for our medal-winning athletes and our place on the medal table.

I did not think I that I would be in a debate defending independent schools, but it is important that we are able to offer the right support to young people. A lot of young people on scholarships in independent schools will lose out on the chance to represent the UK. That is not right for the foreseeable future of our elite sporting environment.

New Housing Supply

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

Very little has been said about the reason we have such demand for housing and the problems with planning at the moment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) mentioned that the population is 10 million greater than in 1997. In this last year alone, we had net migration of 606,000. If we multiply that for the next 26 years, without population growth of excess births over deaths, that is a population of at least 15 million more over the next 26 years. If the deficit in the number of houses required today is 4.1 million, it will only get worse.

One wonders where the new people coming into the country—the 606,000 just last year and the big number the year before that—are actually living. Students are one issue. They may be in halls of residence, but many people will be joining family in the UK and friends perhaps, and they will not have found their feet yet. We also have to think about the existing population who are trying to leave home for the first time. Where will they live? We managed to accommodate some 170,000 from Ukraine over the last year, but that was almost an example of sofa-surfing. If people stay, they will want to find their feet in their own accommodation, which will not be shared HMO-type high-density accommodation, so we are building up an even bigger problem. No one has even discussed whether we will ever have enough builders and building materials to build out those numbers. My argument is one of supply of people and how we go about solving this issue.

[Andrew Western]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Craig Mackinlay]

I want to make progress; we have very little time this evening.

We need to reduce immigration. We need to take measures to reduce internal relocation, which does happen within the country. That is very much on the levelling-up agenda. No one would be more pleased than I, living in the south-east, if populations relocated up towards Carlisle and elsewhere. I would be absolutely delighted with that. Do we need to encourage families? We live differently these days. In times of old—perhaps I do look to the past—families stayed together. They lived together in multigenerational units, not least looking after each other as they got older. That is quite a norm in European countries. We may have to build prolifically and that is what we have been discussing this evening. Where do we build? We are all nimbys in one way or another and it is not surprising that most people in the country are. The property they own is likely to be either their biggest asset in life, or, more than likely, the biggest liability in terms of what they owe on it, so they do not want what they have purchased and created in their own communities to be at all tainted, and I do not blame people for thinking that way.

If I reflect on some sites across my constituency—we all have such sites—when there is a proposed development, there is always a great deal of opposition. In Preston, a village in my constituency, there was an old transport site. There was huge opposition while it was being built out. In Ash, another village, there was huge opposition when a development called Harfleet Gardens was being built out. But sometimes these smaller villages need extra development to make them credible-size villages, where one can support the shop, the pub, the chemist and everything else. So there is a sweet spot and I think most people recognise that.

I am in favour of brownfield development wherever and whenever it can happen, but a lot of new builds end up looking exactly the same, as described by many Members this evening, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). Instead of solving a problem, they often create one.

I want to concentrate on putting our existing housing stock to best use, by using the tax system. Why do we not consider a downsizing relief for stamp duty? That would liberate some bigger houses that widows and widowers may be living in that are not perfect for them by any standard—expensive to heat, high council tax and all the rest of it. But when they look at the stamp duty cost of downsizing, particularly in higher cost areas, older people know the value of money and will say, “I’m simply not paying that, so I’ll stay where I am”—in the wrong accommodation and in the wrong place as their needs change.

Most importantly, there is an issue of capital gains tax. We are stopping people getting rid of second homes. A number of studies have been carried out of how many second homes there might be in the country. Rather than penalise people with increasing council tax and saying, “We know best. We aren’t going to allow you to have a second home—how dare you?”, I would rather create a tax system in which people are encouraged to get rid of their second home.

I am in practice as a chartered accountant, and I have had a number of cases of a client coming through the door, newly widowed, who has said that they would like to get rid of their second home. It might be in Devon, Kent or anywhere else. They are often smaller properties in the right places, where communities are complaining that they have been hollowed out because there is no settled community. They come to an accountant like me and say, “We’ve had this home since 1980. It cost us £20,000. I’d like to get rid of it.” I have to tell them, “You can’t get rid of that. You’ll face a 28% capital gains tax charge and then, if that cash is in your account and the natural happens in due course and you pass away, you will face an inheritance tax charge on the cash in your account. If you are not in a taxable estate, the value if you keep that property will simply be uplifted for your family, completely free of tax.”

We are binding up hundreds of thousands of second properties in the right places because of the tax trap. That could be hundreds of thousands of houses—perhaps whole years’ worth of the development that we are looking for, in the right places, simply because we are not brave enough. We are frightened of what the Opposition might say. We have talked a lot about cross-House unity. Surely, at times such as this, we should use the tax system to liberate homes and save some green belt or green areas that always cause problems, not least from the Lib Dems at election time. Let us work together and maximise the properties that we have. That would be a sincere step in the right direction.

I am taking a slightly different tack this evening. We have to look at the number of people—that is very much an immigration case—but let us use the properties we have, by using the tax system. That does not need one new build, one new builder or one new development. Let us do that first.

Coastal Communities

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for her excellent speech and for bringing forward this debate. I reiterate her request for a coastal Minister, as the issues we experience around the coast are unifying. As we look to level up this great country under the new Administration, I very much hope that we can move away from the north-south divide and level up around the coast.

The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) did not take my intervention, but I also represent a very beautiful coastal constituency and I have been concerned about water quality this summer. It is very important that we recognise the difference between algal blooms and sewage discharge. My constituency has not had sewage discharge this summer, but we have had significant algal blooms due to the heat.

I do not want to focus on sewage today. I want to use the opportunity of having the levelling-up Minister here to talk about coastal communities and the issues that are particularly prevalent in the Devon and Cornwall peninsula following the pandemic, with the immense shortage of affordable housing that our local residents can move into and purchase.

Our beautiful area has seen a surge in short-term holiday lets and the second homes market. I very much hope that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport consultation on holiday lets registration goes ahead. I also hope that there are opportunities in the Minister’s Department to impose planning restrictions to reduce the number of holiday lets that come to market. When new properties are built, a change of use should be required if they are to become a short-term holiday let. Communities such as mine need homes for people to live and work in. We love our tourists and we would never want to stop them coming, but our housing market has got completely out of balance.

In North Devon, we are not the most productive, unfortunately, and our wages are really very low. Full-time workers in North Devon currently earn £13.29 per hour, while the south-west average is £14.67 and the Great Britain average is £15.65. Our property prices have shot up by over 22%. We are the second fastest growing property price area in the country, but our house building rate has not grown that much and the vast majority of what is being sold is going in the form of second homes or holiday lets. If this continues, we will no longer have coastal communities; we will have winter ghost towns. We need urgent intervention through the levelling-up White Paper to tackle the issue.

Ilfracombe in my constituency is regularly defined, unfortunately, as being home to the poorest wards in the whole of Devon, and among the 5% poorest wards in the entire country. The issues in towns such as Ilfracombe have been documented for decades, yet we seem unable to grasp the fact that these things are happening all the way around our coast. Each coastal MP will have similar stories to mine. Life expectancy for people in Ilfracombe is 10 years less than that for those in the south of the county.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Selaine Saxby]

Unfortunately, I must not—

End of Eviction Moratorium

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

The Government have honoured their promise to landlords and renters. That is why we introduced the most significant package of support in our history for people suffering from the emergency: £35 billion has helped over 9 million people on the furlough scheme. We have introduced the local housing allowance and increased it to the 30th percentile of local market rents, which will increase the annual income of those in receipt of it by some £600. The next steps accommodation programme is providing 3,000 new homes for those who have found themselves homeless, to make sure that they receive long-term help.

The hon. Lady says the Welsh Government have a plan. Well, we would all like to know what it is. They have announced some form of help, but not told us when it starts or what the amount is. We have made the rules in lockdown areas very clear. The Lord Chancellor has written to the association of bailiffs to make the position clear, and further guidance will be issued. We will continue to keep our measures under review, but we will also continue to support landlords and renters alike through this crisis.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

There are 2.5 million landlords in this country. Most have just one property, often indebted, and for retired landlords it can form the backbone of their retirement income. Good landlords repair properties, get them back into use and provide millions of properties that would otherwise fall to the public and quasi sectors. Sadly, however, landlords are too often demonised. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right and fair that we allow courts to exercise due discretion and sensitivity, as they always do, to decide on the correct pathways from now on?

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Landlords in our country provide a valuable and important service to the many people who rent. Demonising landlords, forcing the good ones out of business, will result only in fewer properties available to rent, and it may result in more of those properties being rented out for Airbnb or by less scrupulous landlords, so he is absolutely right. We have tried to be fair to renters and to landlords; the package of measures that we introduced on 29 August is fair to both. It is important that those landlords who need access to justice are able to get it, that those landlords who are facing egregious rent arrears, antisocial behaviour and issues of domestic abuse are able to repossess their properties, while at the same time those people who through no fault of their own have got into difficulties because of the covid-19 epidemic are helped.

Draft Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 General Committees

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I have a little experience of section 106, having been a council member on a unitary authority, where I was the audit chairman. I recommend that the Minister familiarise himself with the reserves of councils, which are the stuff of Merlin-type magic. When I was serving on that council, it had lost track of what was in the section 106 reserve. That money had been accumulated over a number of years and levied against various developments. There has always been a requirement that if allocated money has not been spent for the purpose for which it was raised, it could be returned to the developer. I am pleased to see that schedule 2 to the regulations attempts to give greater clarity on what has come in, what is in the reserve and what has been spent, so that everyone can see—developer and public alike—that the money is so allocated and levied.

I share some of the concerns of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw that it has become a bit of a muddle and a mix over the years. The regulations will give clarity within local government, particularly for council members, and I say that with some experience. It is a very obscure area of council accounts. Is it the Minister’s interpretation that schedule 2 will help give people clarity on what is being raised and spent?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to Members for their detailed consideration of the regulations. I will attempt to address the various points that have been raised on what I admit is a fairly long SI by SI standards, but I am pleased that there seems to be general support for it, notwithstanding one or two of the omissions that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw raised and that I will have to consider.

It is absolutely the case that the regulations are designed to provide certainty and transparency to local people about what has been collected and how it will be deployed. All of us no doubt have experience in our constituencies of an air of mystery about section 106 in particular and where the money may go. I had a particular experience in Andover in my constituency. I along with other local councillors was campaigning for a crossing outside a school where a particular road had become very busy because of development at the end of the road. It became clear after a while that there was a section 106 reserve for exactly that purpose. A little pressure and help from the county council managed to get that released and lo and behold a brand new pelican crossing appeared.

Providing that transparency and certainty is exactly what we are aiming to do with the statements, not least because the lifting of the restriction on pooling requirements may mean that local authorities are able to combine section 106 and CIL in a way that can point towards much larger infrastructure projects that may be some time off. For example, a new school might be needed in three or four years. At the moment, section 106 has to be deployed almost immediately on a new coat of paint for the village hall or whatever it might be. With pooling, it can be put in the piggy bank for bigger things, which will broadly make people happier. There are still some restrictions on section 106. It has to be more directly related to the locality from which it emerges than CIL, but the lifting of the restriction will mean that local authorities can be more ambitious, and there is a clear requirement for them to be more transparent.

Obviously, the report will require some funding in its production. We are not introducing a new bureaucracy tax. It is already the case that local authorities can use 5% of CIL for this purpose. In the regulations, we are saying that they can use a proportionate amount—effectively, they can cover the costs from section 106 and CIL to produce the report. It is not something we are introducing. Critical, we think, to the growing acceptability of large-scale development across the country will be transparency and clarity for local people about what has been collected and deployed. Frankly, they will be able to compare the performance of their local authority with neighbouring authorities. We see differential performance in section 106 negotiations between local authorities.

[Craig Mackinlay]

On the point of the 5% charge, is there any system within what is being proposed whereby an agency—perhaps the external auditors—would check whether the 5% had been properly used? Are we somewhat fearful that every authority will go, “Great. It is 5%. Let us make it fixed and do some internal wooden dollar accounting”—that can feature in some local authorities—“to ensure that we always get our 5%.” That could be a substantial amount of money in areas that are growing rapidly. It might be less in others.

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, there are controls within the local authority environment, such as the section 151 officer and, of course, the district audit function, which make sure that local authorities comply with the rules, particularly where cost recovery is the restriction. We are saying that their use of funds should be proportionate to the output that they produce. However, it is important that we invest money in transparency. If we are going to have credibility in the system, it is important that we take those steps.

The hon. Member for City of Durham asked how things would work in two-tier authorities, and we think we can address that point in guidance rather than through regulations. It will obviously vary from area to area. We have some two-tier authorities and some that are unitary, and we will address that through guidance.

The hon. Lady asked about the strategic infrastructure tariff. I think I am right in saying that, as the strategic infrastructure tariff is not enabled under the same planning Act, it has to come in by separate regulation. When a combined authority requests such, it is our intention to bring forward regulations.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw and the hon. Lady both raised the cap on self-build on what I said in my speech were ordinary people—I hate using that phrase, because I do not think anybody is ordinary. We have seen perverse situations in the media where a delay in the submission of paperwork for a commencement order means that somebody building a home for their own occupation suddenly gets a huge charge, sometimes up to £100,000. The regulations cap that surcharge at £2,500, which is the figure that seemed to be acceptable from the consultation. We are also saying that it is a surcharge rather than a penalty, and we are giving local authorities the discretion to collect it or not. We recognise that for some local authorities the cost of collection may exceed £2,500, and, therefore, whether they collect that will be at their discretion.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse raised section 106 money for London. There is a separate figure. I do not have it with me at the moment, but I will write to him with it.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw asked whether Traveller sites and park homes were exempt. It is essentially up to the local authority to determine its CIL charging policy. It will vary from area to area. Fundamentally, it is for his local councils to decide whether they want to charge it on park homes or Traveller sites or showman sites.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse raised a good point about the likelihood of local authorities combining section 106 and CIL. Obviously, the removal of the restriction will allow them to do that. However, as I said earlier, there are still greater restrictions on section 106—it has to have more of a connection to where it comes from— but we think there is merit in allowing authorities to combine the two for larger infra- structure projects when it is required.

I think that I have broadly covered all the issues that have been raised.