Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The situation to which she refers is slightly different from that of vacant homes, but I would say that we need to balance the economic impact of any measures in that area with the underlying public policy imperative that she has rightly referred to. We have also made changes on holiday homes in the context of council tax and stamp duty. We will keep the point she raises under due consideration and I have also discussed it with the Minister for Local Government.

In addition, our new homes bonus scheme provides a financial reward for councils that bring empty homes back into use, so this involves a carrot as well as a stick. This has generated £7 billion in new homes bonus payments to local authorities since 2011. Since these measures took effect, the number of properties left empty in England for six months or longer has fallen by a third since 2010, from 300,000 to just over 200,000. So these measures can work and they can deliver changes in behaviour.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly support these announcements. Only this weekend, I was talking to some very angry residents who have had to live for decades next door to empty properties owned by one individual who does not wish to bring his houses back on to the market. This is blighting residents’ housing in those neighbourhoods and there are even rats escaping from the abandoned houses. I wholeheartedly support any measure to protect the existing residents.

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point and I suspect that that situation is reflected much more broadly, both regionally and nationally.

Based on our experience as of today, we will go further in the Bill by doubling the premium’s maximum level to 100% and by allowing councils to charge double the rate of council tax on homes standing empty for two years or more. We are trying to strike the right balance between respecting the legitimate interests of those who own property with the overriding imperative in my Ministry to make the best use of existing housing stock, to ensure that we provide the homes that people in this country need.

Of course, given the demand for housing, we cannot just leave properties lying empty for years and the Bill will provide a positive incentive to avoid that. If vacant homes lay empty for too long, not only is that a waste of a much-needed resource, but they can become a blight on the local community, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) said, whether through squatters, vandalism or other forms of antisocial behaviour. Different areas will have different housing needs and different numbers of long-term empty homes, and the legislation will respect the fact that local authorities know their communities and their areas best, which is why we will keep the premium as a discretionary discount, allowing councils to decide whether it is appropriate for their communities and enabling them to set the level of premium that should be charged.

We understand that local authorities will want to reflect carefully on the local housing market in deciding whether to issue a determination when, for example, a homeowner is struggling to rent out or sell a property in a challenging market, which was a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) earlier. For that reason, we published guidance in 2013 to remind local authorities to consider the reasons why a property may lie empty in particular circumstances. The guidance makes it clear that the premium should not be used to penalise owners of homes that are genuinely on the market for rent or sale. I should also say that the Bill will not bring any extra properties within the scope of a premium; it simply applies to those properties that might already have been affected by a higher premium.

In taking these measures to help to secure homes and to lift an unreasonable burden on business, the Government are delivering on our commitments to support the enterprise economy and to build a fairer society, backing small businesses and backing working families who dream of getting on to the housing ladder. I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

Absolutely. In some areas, the housing crisis was a significant factor in why people voted to leave the European Union. People do not feel confident about this country’s future, and housing is a vital part of that. If people do not have the security of a home or a secure tenure, they will rightly be nervous about what the future may bring, so the Government need to do much, much more. However, the idea that they can command and control from Whitehall and expect every community to benefit has been disproven time after time. As my hon. Friend pointed out, we should empower local government to get on. Councils know their areas. They have the local partnerships and know the sites. They have planning departments that need greater support. If they were given the resources, they could do far more, but this must be about giving them independence and freedom, not making them wait for the Government to offer crumbs from the table, which is how many councils feel.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I agree with much of that principle, but that is what local plans are for, and we have cross-party support in my patch of Swindon. This Government are empowering local communities to shape future development if they choose to engage with the opportunities.

[Jim McMahon]

I accept that point, but we also need to accept that local plans are limited in that, by and large—of course they do more than this—they are about land supply to support the number of housing units that will be built. They do not discuss the mixture of tenure or go into detail about the funding plan that will support the proposals. A local authority could identify, based on its population and demographics, that it needs a certain proportion of affordable or social housing, for example, but there will be no funding plan to deliver on that. A local plan could sit on a shelf for 10 years, but if the council’s ability to borrow is curtailed, it cannot lay the bricks to build social housing. Like the hon. Gentleman, I know my local area and the council knows the area too, but it is constantly under the cosh of funding cuts. It does not have the capacity and it needs it to be freed up.

National Planning Policy Framework

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman two things that I think he might find helpful. First, we have given more money to local authorities to deal with the problem of rogue landlords. Secondly, new measures will come into place from April to give local authorities more powers to deal with rogue landlords. Local authorities will be able to keep the funding from the fines they impose and recycle it to help the victims of rogue landlords.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I welcome this ambitious and positive statement. We all have a role to play in allowing the next generation to benefit from the opportunity of home ownership, something my constituency takes very seriously. Does the Secretary of State agree that the developers have to do their bit, too? I am afraid that all too often the quality of new build homes is dreadful, and that puts people off.

[Sajid Javid]

First, I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. I agree with him that there are too many cases of new developments where the quality is simply just not acceptable. I have seen, from hon. Members, too many examples of that. That is why, through the process of looking at house buying, we will be taking a very close interest in that.

Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

We need to balance two things. On the one hand, we need to restore affordability and the dream of home ownership. In this country, house price inflation has been higher than that of any other OECD country over recent decades. Home ownership among young people is collapsing and the proportion of their income that private renters spend on rent is more than three times higher than it was in the 1960s and ’70s, so increasing the supply of new housing is important.

On the other hand, we also want to preserve the important views and green spaces that we treasure. We want to get away from the broken model of speculative, fly-by-night development that we have in our country. In my constituency, people are furious when they spend two years working on a detailed neighbourhood plan only to see a developer swoop in at the last moment and build exactly where they did not want to see building. They are furious when developers, to get their road adopted, instead of spending any money, choose to rip out all the trees they planted when it was built. They are furious when developers tell them no new homes will be built next to the house they are buying, only to find that not only are new homes going to be built, but that the developer wants to drive massive trucks down their cul-de-sac to get there. We are trying to balance two different things, therefore.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) that increasing supply is not the only thing that matters, but it clearly does matter. France has roughly the same population and growth rate as us, but it builds twice as many homes as us and as a result house price inflation is half the rate it is here and half as many people have problematically high rents.

We need to increase housing supply, therefore, but we will never do so unless we address the reasons why people are concerned about development. The main three are as follows: first, we build in the wrong places; secondly, we build without having the economic and social infrastructure new homes need; and, thirdly, there is often no offsetting benefit for nearby residents. To solve these problems, we must not merely tweak the current system, but move to a different sort of planning system. We must get away from our passive, developer-led system and move towards a more active European system, in which the state plays a leading role in assembling land and deciding where new development happens. We must get away from sequential development—where we tack more and more development on to the end of every village, as in my constituency—and move towards an emphasis on new planned settlements where we can properly plan for new infrastructure.

That is the vision, but how do we get there? First, we need to capture more of the gains from planning gain. At present, we capture only about 25% of the massive uplift in land values that happen at the stroke of a planner’s pen when planning permission is granted. If we had more of the gains of development capture, we could pay for better quality development, better landscaping in new development and more social infrastructure and benefits for the community.

I am therefore glad that the Government are looking closely at how we capture more of the gains of development for the community. We need to do that in the way we do it all over the world, and in roughly the same way as we did for the new towns. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) that there must be no question of expropriation or of not paying people the value of their land. However, I agree with the proposals of the excellent homelessness charity Shelter to reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 and compulsory purchase order law, to provide a reasonable price for the landowner and for the community.

I would like us to do what they do in most European countries and in places such as Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, where the Government play the leading role in assembling land. Local and central Government buy land, give themselves planning permission, sell the land and use the profit to pay for quality development for community.

We must capture the gains of development for the community and then directly address the three causes why people oppose new development. We must get away from sequentialism and tacking things on. I notice that, in a number of cases, planning inspectors have struck down really good locally led proposals for new planned garden villages and garden towns, and we have to stop that. One village in my constituency was going to have a nice piece of separation land between it and the new houses, but in the name of sustainability, that has been turned round and we are now going to have new homes right next to existing residents. Nothing could do more to annoy local residents and increase opposition to development.

Secondly, we need more infrastructure. If we think about the great new planned places such as Milton Keynes, we realise that people do not have to live on main roads, because we can plan a sustainable new community and we can plan for the infrastructure that is needed. Thirdly, I would like to see more community benefit for people who live right by developments. As a localist, I do not believe that central Government should impose a particular number or proportion on the affordable housing that should be built in my constituency. That should be a matter of local discretion, and my local councillors and my local community would like to see less of the community benefit being spent on new social housing in the countryside and more being spent on benefits for existing residents, such as new doctors surgery places, new school places, new parking places and new roads, as well as more landscaping. Those are the things that people want to see.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to do more to share best practice on how the new homes bonus money is spent, to ensure that residents are aware of that gain and that they can relate the gain to the cost of having a development on their doorstep?

[Neil O’Brien]

I strongly agree with that. Too often, the different systems—from section 106 to the new homes bonus—do not allow the people who are most negatively affected by a development to see the gains from that development.

We clearly need to reduce the demand for new housing as a speculative investment or an investment asset. Unless we do that as well as increasing supply, we will never solve the housing crisis. We need to increase the supply of new homes, and the way to do that is not by pushing new housing down people’s throats and imposing things on them but by having a system that looks at the reasons that people oppose new development and that addresses the underlying concerns. In that sense, I am pleased to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs and also with my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles).

Space Industry Bill [Lords]

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who has put a very strong case for why her constituency should benefit—

[Mrs Murray]

Cornwall!

[Justin Tomlinson]

She has put a very strong case for why the whole of Cornwall should benefit from this very exciting Bill.

I very much welcome the Bill. It is an interstellar element of our modern industrial strategy setting out how the UK will become a leading player in the commercial space age. This is really exciting. I am delighted to hear all the MPs, right across the House, pitching for why their constituencies should host future spaceports. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) suggests that I am pitching for North Swindon. I am delighted to say that Swindon proudly hosts the UK Space Agency head office. We have the power; we are the strategic decision makers. I can assure hon. Members that all the key bodies at the head office will be listening to this debate eagerly as each MP pitches for their constituency to be at the forefront of this fantastic advancement in our modern industrial strategy.

I was very excited to visit the UK Space Agency again very recently, meeting the chief executive, Graham Turnock. It was one of my favourite visits. He was incredibly passionate, and patient with the 8 million questions that I had, including where we had got to in finding aliens. There are 120 employees at the head office. I was struck by how passionate they were, from the chief executive right down to the apprentices, who had fought for that unique, truly exciting and inspirational opportunity that they wanted to seize and have a career connected with space. It was a really memorable visit. As a constituency MP, I am very proud that we are at the heart of that head office. I was fascinated as they set out how this industry impacts not just on the obvious areas but on the energy sector, the finance sector, the health sector, defence, telecoms and transport. It is cutting edge in terms of climate change and dealing with natural disasters. It is right back on our streets with local authorities, helping with bin collections, planning applications and planning development. It is amazing how diverse the impact can be.

There is huge potential, with 8% growth year on year in the past decade. The Government are rightly committed to getting a 10% share of the global space economy by 2030, worth £40 billion. I suspect that that is why there is so much cross-party support for this very important Bill, which will benefit the UK. The UK’s aerospace supply chain, manufacturers and service providers will benefit from opportunities to participate in the new market for small satellite launch and sub-orbital flight. Local jobs and economies will benefit from the creation of spaceport sites and the businesses needed to support them, such as tourism, hospitality and construction. There will be a real boost to UK science and innovation, with cutting-edge research. North Swindon hosts all the research councils that help determine where research grants should be spent, so yet again my constituency will help to influence this. Young people seeking careers in science, technology, engineering and maths will gain new opportunities, and entrepreneurs will benefit from increased opportunities to build innovative commercial enterprises—no doubt helped by Innovate UK, also hosted by North Swindon. In effect, I am making a pitch for the Minister to visit. It is just one hour away on the train—as he, a Transport Minister, will be very much aware.

Finally, I want to concentrate on a point flagged up by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who spoke of her former role as a physics teacher, and how space inspires young people through their learning, as it genuinely does. It catches their imagination. That is why there are so many films, books and TV shows connected with space. Initially, my knowledge of space was based on that very good, popular TV programme “The Big Bang Theory”, but having had that very exciting and interesting visit to the UK Space Agency, I am now far more knowledgeable.

The focus of young people’s recent inspiration has been on Tim Peake’s six months on the international space station. For example, 600,000 children took part in the seed experiment organised by the UK Space Agency, with Tim Peake’s help, comparing seed growth in space with that back on earth. It is a good job that I did not participate—with my gardening skills, I might have messed up their results. The Tim Peake primary project uses space to increase primary-age children’s engagement with science, numeracy and literacy. When I visit my local schools and talk to teachers about the work that the UK Space Agency does with its school visits and helping to inspire children, they are all really keen to take advantage of those resources. I urge the Minister to talk to his colleagues in the Department for Education to try to use this further, because it is genuinely inspirational. Tim Peake himself sets individual challenges. Young people from Swindon Academy, a secondary school in my constituency, pedalled and ran a combined 400 km, which is the altitude of the international space station as it orbits around the earth. That was a really good way to connect space with a way of learning.

This is a truly exciting Bill. It has huge potential financially for the UK in creating jobs and growth, inspiring the next generation, and uniting all political parties across the House. Together with all colleagues, I look forward to supporting the Bill as it progresses through the House.