Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his announcement of the concession that the Government will bring forward an amendment to address the issues which I raised on Amendment 73. We had a very productive meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe. We made some points, the Government listened and I am very grateful.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, particularly when he is in grateful mode. I will speak only to Amendment 80, which is a probing amendment and links to the other amendments in this group only to the extent that the Bill contains temporary measures suitable for the medical and economic emergency imposed upon us by Covid-19.

As I said at Second Reading, I want to understand the sunsetting provisions in the Bill on which, in principle, I congratulate the Minister. Will all the provisions in the Bill lapse, and when? If not, why not? Why is there a disturbing provision in Clause 25 to,

“make transitional, transitory or saving provision in connection with the expiry of any provision of this Act”?

This seems extremely open-ended for an emergency Bill. How do we ensure that the various measures in the Bill are not extended when they have been subject to a relatively low degree of scrutiny?

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome the eloquence of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in speaking to her amendments. Like my noble friend Lord Kennedy, I welcome the concession that the Minister gave. I will speak briefly to Amendment 61, which intends to ensure that developers do not delay implementing planning consents.

Clause 17 is another example of lack of ambition in the Bill. It proposes extending the time limits for planning permissions where development has not yet started. There is a horrendous shortage of homes for people, the worst since World War II. Yet there are over 400,000 houses waiting to be built in England and Wales where planning consent has been given but not yet implemented. Developers are dragging their feet to manipulate local property markets. They build up land banks—stocks of sites on which planning consent has been given—but go slow when it comes to completing development, expecting land values and property prices to rise in the meantime.

The Government could have explored applying council tax to sites where planning consent has been given but development has not gone ahead. They could even have considered rendering planning consent liable to forfeit if development is not complete within a reasonable time, perhaps five years as this amendment provides. Instead, the Bill sidesteps the scandal of developers with planning consent leaving construction sites idle for years. This amendment seeks to address that and get the millions of affordable houses we desperately need built after this Government’s terrible record of promising great numbers and delivering pathetically low ones. I therefore hope that the Minister will respond positively.