Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Bradley and Dehenna Davison

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her engagement with me and the Secretary of State on that vital issue. Unfortunately, I cannot give her a specific date right now, but I will meet her as soon as we have the result in place, because I realise it is a vital issue that we need to address.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for recent visits to Mansfield and the east midlands to support the many levelling-up projects we have going on in our region, from freeports to development companies, integrated rail plans, investment zones and levelling-up and towns fund projects, including in Mansfield. All that amounts to billions of pounds. What impact does my hon. Friend think that will have on my constituency?

[Dehenna Davison]

My hon. Friend has done a great job of highlighting the incredible level of support going to Mansfield and the wider east midlands. A lot of that is down to great local leadership from him and his colleagues. That will have an enormous impact on the people living in the east midlands and on their opportunities to get on in life, which ultimately is what levelling up is all about.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Fifth sitting)

Debate between Ben Bradley and Dehenna Davison

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I want to give the Committee a change of scenery for five minutes, before I let somebody else speak. I will not develop these points; I will just add a thought that the Minister might wish to take away and consider in further conversations.

The Bill will, I hope, create numerous mechanisms and levers to incentivise local areas to bring forward brownfield sites, not least development corporations, combined authorities and the investment zones that have been the subject of much conversation. I should declare an interest, because I am the leader of a local authority and I am involved in a devolution conversation in the east midlands. At a regional level, we have been given funding to bring forward brownfield sites for development, and we are considering how we might use that funding locally to achieve this goal. Perhaps the Minister might consider whether some of the levers, funds and opportunities that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham has proposed would sit better at a devolved, local level within one of the mechanisms created by the Bill, rather than in the Bill itself.

[Dehenna Davison]

It is a pleasure to speak to this amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. We have done some great work on it together, and I hope we can continue in that spirit. Members will know that the Government strongly encourage the use of brownfield land over greenfield, and in national policy there is an expectation that local planning policies and decisions will give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land to meet our communities’ housing needs and other identified needs.

My hon. Friend was right to highlight the cost differential that developers face. We are investing significant funding to support brownfield development, including in some of the schemes that he has mentioned. I will rattle through them one more time for the Committee’s benefit. There is the £550 million brownfield housing fund and the £180 million brownfield land release fund 2, which builds on the success of the £75 million first brownfield land release fund. In addition, later this year we aim to launch the £1.5 billion brownfield, infrastructure and land fund, which will unlock sites around the country.

We are particularly sympathetic to this cause, which is why we are setting out a range of new measures and powers in the Bill to support brownfield development. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield is right to talk about local empowerment—something that I know he is a real champion of in his other role, at local government level. We are keen that the Bill in its entirety will empower local leaders to regenerate towns and cities through a range of provisions, including new locally led and locally accountable development corporations, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and support for land assembly and regeneration through enhanced compulsory purchase powers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham mentioned the infrastructure levy introduced in the Bill. It provides a framework in which, where increases in land value are higher—as is often the case with greenfield development—higher rates can be set. This mechanism would allow differential charging rates to be set by local planning authorities for different types of development, so that more could be levied on greenfield land as compared with brownfield land to incentivise development on that brownfield land.

We will also continue to work on wider planning proposals that will give the public an opportunity to shape our future national planning policy, and in relation to which the Government have committed to consult the public.

On that basis—because we are already taking such strong steps to encourage brownfield development and have a commitment to review national policy—we do not feel that the new clause is necessary, so I kindly ask my hon. Friend to withdraw it today.