Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Ben Everitt Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I rise to speak to new clauses 20 and 40 and amendment 5, in my name. We all recognise that the UK has a housing crisis, with shortages of social, private rented and affordable housing, leaving many people in an insecure position. One problem is that that need often conflicts with concerns that local residents have about their own stretched public services. Amendment 5 would help to address local concerns by ensuring that the infrastructure levy is paid upfront before the point of occupation. Councils would be able to ensure that a local community could cope with the additional people moving in before they were there taking up school places and nursery places, rather than trying to solve the problem of service provision once it is too late.

The amendment would also enable councils to require financial bonds from developers to complete the basic infrastructure—roads, street lights and drainage—that is meant to be adopted, but often seems to be left undone. North Shropshire is plagued with unfinished road developments, and the amendment would allow those financial bonds to be put in place, which would avoid such situations.

I fear that the Bill misses the opportunity to ensure that, when we build new homes, we protect the environment. The Conservatives have allowed around 1 million new homes to be built since 2015, which are not as efficient as they would have been had the standards put in place under the coalition Government been retained. This is a missed environmental opportunity, and it means that homeowners are paying far more to heat their homes than they might otherwise have done. New clause 20 would bring forward the date of the future homes standard to January, which may be unrealistic in the circumstances, but I hope that the Minister will consider bringing it forward to save homebuyers money and to work towards our climate objectives.

New clause 40 would create a requirement to hold local referendums on fracking applications—to be paid for by the applicant—to protect communities from unwanted fossil fuel extraction. My constituents are unconvinced by the current moratorium given the flip-flopping this summer and the disastrous decision to give the go-ahead to a new coalmine last week.

Finally, I wish to mention the critical importance of the affordability of housing. We know, as many Members have discussed, that it is worse in some parts of the country than in others. The building of executive homes in the countryside will not help us deal with the problem of affordable housing. New clause 20 also enables local authorities to require new housing to be affordable and to define affordability in their area. It would also allow them to provide additional bus services so that people did not become reliant on cars.

In summary, I am worried about the things that are missing in the Bill, which we have discussed today, and I hope that the Minister will consider them. In my final few seconds, I apologise to the House for coughing and spluttering all the way through the debate.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the cougher and splutterer from North Shropshire. She did it very well; I did not notice her coughing and spluttering.

It is my pleasure to speak to amendment 3, which is in my name. The Bill is a landmark piece of legislation, which will go a long way to pushing the Government’s ambition to level up our country.

One area of particular significance to Milton Keynes North is affordable housing. I have long campaigned and advocated for the need to build more affordable homes, as that is the best way to bring down house prices and to help families get on the housing ladder. As of now, developers are incentivised to build the highest-value properties they can when they get the chance, and this only serves to exacerbate the problem, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) illustrated in her speech just now. It is an issue in my constituency. Sprawling estates of executive homes have been built with no intention to meet the needs of my constituents. The housing crisis that we face in this country is unprecedented and requires vital intervention from the Government to address. Too few homes are being built, and the homes that are being built are becoming increasingly unaffordable. As a result, people never get on to the housing ladder. Affordable housing developers can provide beautiful homes for those who want to remain in their communities, and we need to work with them to ensure that they are supported in doing so.

On affordable housing, we could be doing much more right now to ensure that as many new homes are brought forward as possible. If we want to address the housing crisis directly, we must tackle the issue at source. That is why I tabled amendment 3, which would provide an exemption from the infrastructure levy for affordable housing as defined in annex 2 of the NPPF. We want to see more affordable housing built throughout the country, and I see the amendment as a simple, straightforward way of achieving that. It is a massive bit of legislation with a massive amendment paper, yet my amendment is just one and a half lines long, so I implore colleagues to add it to the Bill.

The Bill currently has no automatic exemption for housing from the infrastructure levy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has indicated that such an exemption will apply in the regulations, but I think that it really should be in the Bill. This small tweak to the levy would make a great difference in the short term and pay real dividends in the long term.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I rise to speak to new clause 6, in my name, which seeks to ensure that publicly owned assets can be more easily retained for the public good when sold off. I thank the Minister for her time meeting me before today to discuss this. The new clause has been born out of a local campaign in my constituency but is of relevance to the whole country. Thousands of residents are calling for the former Teddington police station site to be sold to a local housing association and a GP surgery, which have put in a joint bid backed by the local council, The bid, if successful, would prioritise the needs of the local community by providing a much-needed new state-of-the-art facility for Park Road GP surgery and a number of social and affordable homes above it. Sadly, in this highly desirable location they cannot outbid private developers who will deliver yet more unneeded luxury flats with the bare minimum number of affordable units that they can get away with.

Having lobbied the Mayor of London and his deputy for policing and crime, I was told that their hands are tied by statute whereby they have to secure best value, which is defined as the best price available on the open market. The new clause has a simple aim to make the law clear and unequivocal, with a single schedule covering all relevant public bodies, from the NHS to police and fire services on the same terms, granting them permission to sell publicly owned land and buildings for below market value, up to a certain level, to bids that put the environmental, economic or social infrastructure needs of the community first.