Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

Everybody is keen for me to explain things and reassure them, but they have not given me a great amount of time in which to do so. I hope you will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I canter through my remarks pretty quickly.

I am a simple soul and do not have a lot of truck with ideology. I want to build more houses now, and I want the absolute certainty that they will go up, rather than a vague, tenuous hope of even more houses at a possible future date. Our discussions in Committee and this evening have persuaded me even more of the merit of this clause, and I am redoubled in my enthusiasm.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

I am sorry, but I will not give way because many hon. Members have asked me for explanations and assurances. I am entirely convinced of the merit of this clause, but in Committee I heard good arguments from Members across the House about ways in which the legislation might be applied that would not produce more houses soon, or could threaten that possibility. I will address two of those arguments, which I hope will offer some reassurance to many hon. Members.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) raised the issue of rural exception sites. I understand that the likelihood of more land being brought forward in the future to supply affordable housing in key rural exception sites might diminish if the clause were to be applied to those genuinely exceptional schemes. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for organising a meeting with the housing association and the national park authority, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove for attending it. I have been persuaded by the principle of their argument, but the precise way that the right hon. Gentleman’s amendment takes account of the issue is not necessarily right and I hope I can persuade him not to press the amendment to a vote. I am currently looking at proposals that will be brought forward in the other place to achieve a carve-out for rural exception sites from this provision.

I have also been persuaded by some of the arguments about developers achieving a more favourable affordable housing agreement and then sitting on it. That is why, unprompted, the Government have clarified that any affordable housing agreement renegotiated by the Planning Inspectorate will survive for three years but return to its previous level at the end of that period. If the developer has not built out on the basis of the new, lower, affordable housing agreement, the agreement will return to the previous higher level and they will have to continue to build it out at that level.