Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Lord Greaves
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 102C. With the emphasis on affordable housing, there is a danger that the infrastructure and support to make developments into communities will be sidelined. Many people have talked about what constitutes affordable housing. A £450,000 home after discount in London may be a good buy but you have to be able to afford the deposit and the mortgage payments. Putting aside my concerns about what constitutes affordable housing, this amendment makes the assumption that we can have a building bonanza but we need to ensure—this is my reason for tabling the amendment—that the funds are not diverted from libraries, schools, community culture, public transport and indeed the multiplicity of activities that make a community. This has historically been effected by Section 106 planning gain money, to which many noble Lords have referred, but the position has been further complicated by the new community infrastructure levy, which no one seems to have mentioned. This levy, which has not been welcomed by some local authorities, can be imposed by local authorities on new developments in their area.
The levy is said to be designed to be fairer, faster and more transparent than the well-tried Section 106 system of agreeing planning obligations between local councils and developers—that is what it says. I therefore ask the Minister, when responding to this amendment, to report on how she sees the community infrastructure levy and/or the Section 106 planning gain funds being protected and enhanced. Can she reassure the Committee that the other provisions in this complicated and convoluted Bill will not militate against the local services that maintain housing developments as communities and not purely, as my old favourite Pete Seeger said in 1963, little boxes of different colours which are all made out of ticky-tacky and all look just the same?
Lord Greaves
Does my noble friend agree that Pete Seeger did not say that at all? He sang it.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill
I would be happy to do that, but I have tried to let the Committee off that treat.