Brandon Lewis
Main Page: Brandon Lewis (Conservative - Great Yarmouth)
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
3. What steps his Department is taking to speed up the planning process.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
Significant progress has been made over the past few years on speeding up the planning system, to the extent that some 242,000 homes were given planning permission in the year to June 2015. The Housing and Planning Bill will further improve the performance of the planning system right across the country.
Mr Mak
House building is a key element of Havant Borough Council’s economic growth plan, Prosperity Havant. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the council on increasing the number of new homes being built in recent years through working in partnership with local developers and communities?
Brandon Lewis
I am happy to thank my hon. Friend’s local authority for taking such a pro-growth, pro-housing approach. It is good to see local councils and others in the local area coming together to work out their housing needs and doing their best to provide for their local residents.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
When will the Minister wake up to the fact that many people in this country are desperate for a home? When will he stop blaming planning and show some leadership? What has happened in Ebbsfleet? It was supposed to become a new town, but it has only a tiny number of Barratt-built homes. Why is it not thriving? Why are there not tens of thousands of new homes there?
Brandon Lewis
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving his support to Ebbsfleet; it is a shame that nothing happened there in a decade and more of Labour rule. I am proud that this Government, and this Chancellor, have put the money into Ebbsfleet, and into the infrastructure there, to enable those homes to be built.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I support my district councils in their desire to deliver thousands of new homes. Would the Minister be willing to support ideas in planning that could up-front infrastructure delivery, such as requiring developers to pay community infrastructure levy moneys from the point at which planning permission is granted?
Brandon Lewis
I am always willing to look at new ideas, and I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to look at that one. The one challenge for the community infrastructure levy is that the local authorities should pool it so that they can use it within their authority areas. His proposal might not lend itself to that in the way that a section 106 arrangement would, but we are committed to reviewing the levy and I look forward to liaising with him and to hearing his views.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
As the Minister knows, there is a long-standing chronic shortage of good planners and an over-reliance on consultants. Has he found any real solution to that problem?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Local authorities should view their planning departments as the heartbeat of economic regeneration in their communities in terms of designing and building for businesses and homes. I would encourage local authorities to work together and to share services in the same way that some have shared chief executives and other parts of their management structure. They have not done that so much with planning yet, but that would be a good step towards building a strong resource.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Community and business leaders in my constituency are concerned that the lack of an agreed five-year housing supply in Cheshire East means that a presumption in favour of housing development is overriding the designation of much-needed land for employment. Given the Government’s provision of £45 million for a Congleton link road to help promote jobs and growth, will Ministers meet me and community representatives urgently to discuss this matter?
Brandon Lewis
I encourage my hon. Friend’s area to get their five-year land supply and their local plan in place as quickly as possible, to make sure that local residents have their voice and the protections that are right for them. When planning decisions are made, both by the local authority and by the inspectors, environmental and other policy constraints in that area will be looked at, but I am happy to meet her and her local council.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
4. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of house building.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
Housing starts have almost doubled since 2009. More than 608,000 new homes have been built since 2010, which therefore makes almost 800,000 in England since 2009. Trends in house building are published in the quarterly house building release.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am keen to see further new housing built in my constituency but I want it built on derelict, former industrial sites, rather than on the green belt. Some of these sites are very contaminated but the Government offer funds to clean up land only for employment purposes, not for housing. Will the Minister re-examine that, because we could be enabling thousands more homes to be built?
Brandon Lewis
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be joining us in the Lobby in due course when we consider the Housing and Planning Bill, which creates the new zones for the brownfield register and the brownfield fund, which the Government will be putting £1 billion into.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
With the welcome increase in the number of planning applications granted for residential development, will the Minister say what assessment he has made of the number of developers who are getting the planning permission but then failing to develop out, in a practice known as “land banking”?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point; we do want to see planning permissions built out. I would also like to them to be built out more quickly. We can still go a long way towards speeding up the rate at which our traditional builders develop; it is still taking, on average, 20 weeks to build a home, even though modern technology can do it in just a couple of weeks. Clearly, local authorities have to look at the land they are giving permission for, to make sure that planning permission is viable and can be built out in good time, so that land agents out there do not give the development industry a bad name.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Last week, we heard the bluster from the Minister and Secretary of State about the Government meeting the one-for-one replacement of right to buy sales. Is the Minister aware that to stay on track as a result of the increase in the right to buy, 2,300 house building starts are required per quarter, but only 300 were achieved in the first quarter of this year? The Government are therefore going to be woefully short of that target. Does he agree that it is time for a rethink and that they should copy the Scottish Government, who are building record numbers of council houses?
Brandon Lewis
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, here in England we built more council houses in the five years of the last Parliament than were built in the entire 13 years of Labour before that. We are very ambitious for our housing programme and we make no apologies for being very ambitious about having one extra home or more built for every home sold through right to buy. The reinvigorated scheme is on target and in London it is almost at two for one.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
As a young person myself, I am acutely aware of the difficulties of getting on to the property ladder. I, too, have been struggling to get on to it for the past 10 years, because of the lack of housing that was built in 13 years of Labour. Will the Minister join me in celebrating the work that Bath and North East Somerset Council is doing in building 7,000 new homes in Bath, of which 2,300 will be affordable? He will, thus, explain how the Housing and Planning Bill will end up benefiting my local authority.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point, not least about his age. I do not think anyone in this House would argue with the fact that this country has built far too few homes for far too long. We are ambitious about ensuring that we correct that. On that Bill, I suggest that he looks at the starter homes programme, where we will be looking to build some 200,000 homes for first-time buyers, at a 20% discount.
Victoria Borwick (Kensington) (Con)
5. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of extending Sunday trading hours on high streets and market towns.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
6. What support his Department provides to local authority planning departments to facilitate sharing of services.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
Planning authorities that have introduced new ways of delivering planning services have shown that performance can be improved while reducing costs. I hope that more will follow their lead. We have put support in place through funding the Planning Advisory Service, and we are open to supporting planning authorities to deliver ambitious proposals through devolution deals.
Sir Simon Burns
Does my hon. Friend accept that shared services can lead to cost savings and greater efficiency. What can be done about those local authorities that consistently fail to meet their timetables for taking planning decisions, which holds up the development of new housing and economic growth?
Brandon Lewis
My right hon. Friend is right to highlight local authorities which do not play their part and thus create a problem. I hope local authorities will be keen to make sure they deliver the housing their communities need. He has the advantage of having a local authority, Chelmsford, which is one of the better performing planning authorities, as I know from my experience as a council leader nearby. It is clear that local authorities that share services can make sure that they protect and improve front-line services, such as planning services, and can see savings of as much as 20% on the work.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Many local authorities, including my own, Halton, do a lot of good work through sharing and working in co-operation with other local authorities, but services such as planning have been cut to the bone and have great difficulty meeting requests. When does the Minister think planning and other departments in councils will reach a point where they struggle to deliver their service?
Brandon Lewis
Planning is one of the services that councils, particularly small district authorities, have not gone very far in sharing. In some of the shire areas and small district councils in particular, coming together with one strong planning service is not just cost-effective, but will produce a good quality service and interesting work for the planners to do as well.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Residents in north-east Lincolnshire have been without a local plan for many years, and it will take another 20 months on a revised timetable to produce one. They would welcome shared services. Will my hon. Friend use his good offices to have a word with the council to see whether it could co-operate more closely with its neighbours to produce a plan much more quickly?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. As we have just heard, devolution provides opportunities. My hon. Friend is right to prod, encourage and cajole that local authority to make sure that a local plan is in place in the best interests of local communities, but as we have said and as we are outlining in the Housing and Planning Bill, the Government will make sure that these are done from 2017.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
8. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of further extending measures on community buy-outs of local assets.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
12. What plans he has to improve conditions for tenants in the private rented sector.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
The Housing and Planning Bill contains measures to tackle rogue landlords who rent out substandard accommodation. The proposals include the introduction of a database of rogue landlords and letting agents, banning orders for serious or repeat offenders, a tougher fit and proper person test, and the extension of rent repayment orders as well as the introduction of civil penalties.
Dr Whitehead
I am sure the Minister will be aware that the Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) Regulations 2015 could have made a great difference to the improvement of tenant conditions by requiring landlords to uprate their properties. I am sure the Minister will also be aware that the regulations were heavily dependent on the operation of the green deal, which was abolished shortly after the regulations were laid. Does the Minister now intend to intervene to get the regulations rewritten so that they actually work when they are introduced and tenants can benefit from landlords uprating their properties?
Brandon Lewis
We have no intention of imposing any new regulatory burdens on the private rented sector because that simply pushes up costs, which reduces choice and is bad for tenants, and because we want supply to increase. In the Housing and Planning Bill, we will target criminal landlords who are ignoring their existing legal obligations.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
18. Private renters face up-front letting fees of up to £500 when they move house and charges when they renew their tenancies. Will the Minister tell the House why the Government’s Housing and Planning Bill does nothing to get to grips with the scandal of sky-high letting fees?
Brandon Lewis
The measures that we are taking to deal with bad and rogue landlords, whom I am sure we all want driven out of the system, as do the many good landlords out there, have been welcomed by people across the sector, including Shelter, which thinks they provide a good focus to ensure that tenants get the right protection. The changes that we have brought in to bring transparency to letting agent fees have just come into play and we will review them in due course. Being aware of what people are paying is absolutely key.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
Research released today shows that since 2005, more than 1.5 million properties have gone from being owner-occupied to privately rented—a sector that is notoriously insecure. Longer tenancies could stabilise the sector, yet most mortgage lenders insist that tenancies are restricted to a year, and freeholders of leasehold properties, many of which are local councils because the properties have been bought through right to buy, often restrict tenancies for a year. What conversations has the Minister held or does he intend to hold with the Treasury and his DCLG colleagues about lifting those artificial barriers to longer tenancies?
Brandon Lewis
One of the biggest things that we can do to increase tenancy security is to ensure that we have growing and stronger institutional investment in the private or professional rented sector, so that there is more supply from institutional investors, like elsewhere in the world, where there are one-year tenancies but there is security because the properties stay in the sector. That is why we have the £1 billion build to rent fund, which will see 10,000 homes coming through. There are already 15 schemes under that fund, which are worth more than £450 million and will supply thousands more homes. That is the answer to ensure that more homes are available.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
13. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of rough sleeping.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
T2. The planning policies of Sutton borough and the Mayor of London prioritise development on brownfield sites over greenfield sites and metropolitan open land. Is the Minister as surprised as I am that in a debate on Wednesday, an Education Minister described a site on metropolitan open land as the “preferred” site for a new secondary school, despite a brownfield site having been identified and purchased by the local authority? Will the Minister talk to the Education Minister about the basics of planning, and explain to him why it was perfectly in order for a local authority to prioritise development on brownfield land?
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
As the right hon. Gentleman will know, we prioritise brownfield planning permission. He will also know—I am sure I do not need to “educate” him, to use his phrase—that I cannot comment on a particular planning application due to the quasi-judicial role. I am happy to look at some of the details he has outlined.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
T10. As the Minister will be aware, I am a great supporter of enterprise zones. Will he assure me that before further consideration is given to yet more enterprise zones in Lancashire, we will make every effort to ensure that the two existing zones—one of which is in my constituency —and a further one that may be announced in coming days, are successful?
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
In my Bury St Edmunds constituency, both the district council and the county council have an appetite for building houses. They would like to know what support the Minister will give them for looking at funding arrangements in order to facilitate that growth.
Brandon Lewis
Having visited my hon. Friend’s constituency and local authorities over the summer, I know what appetite they and other district and county councils have to build more homes. That is good to see. I am fully aware that they want to move forward and, through the devolution deals—I know that Suffolk County Council and Norfolk County Council are engaged with them—we are looking at what we can do to support more economic development and housing growth to satisfy their ambitions.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
T5. Over the three years to 2014, the Mayor of London fell short of his target for building affordable homes by 40%. He was not helped by councils such as Hammersmith and Fulham—then Tory-controlled—which actually managed to reduce the number of social and affordable rented properties by sale or demolition. Those policies are now enshrined in the Housing and Planning Bill: what are they but crude pieces of social engineering?
Brandon Lewis
If the hon. Gentleman looks at the extended and reinvigorated right to buy since 2012, he will find that in London roughly two extra homes have been built for every home that has been sold. We have made it clear that we want to see the Housing and Planning Bill increase not only home ownership, but housing supply. I encourage local authorities, including his own, to make sure that they deliver more home development permissions than before.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The draft joint core strategy for Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury was submitted almost exactly a year ago to the Planning Inspectorate, since when no substantive reply has been received. Without agreement on the JCS, the Gloucester city local plan cannot be finalised. Will the Minister give vigorous encouragement to the relevant inspector to respond to the Gloucester JCS as soon as possible so that local government can then make real progress on both documents?
Brandon Lewis
I know that the examination of the plan is ongoing. I also understand that in September the inspector was in touch with the local authority and agreed an extension of time to allow the authority to undertake some further work. I further understand that it has been agreed that a hearing will be scheduled for January 2016 so that consultation can take place on the additional work. I will look into the detail of the case because it is critical that inspectors approach examination from the perspective of working pragmatically with local authorities to achieve a sound local plan.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
T6. The Minister wants to punish council tenants who do well by raising their rents. In a high-cost city such as Cambridge, £30,000 is now the Government’s cap on aspiration. He has been vague about what household income means: will he give us a proper definition today?
Brandon Lewis
Obviously we will be taking this issue through in the Housing and Planning Bill over the next few weeks, and it will no doubt be discussed. We are clear, as has been welcomed by the housing associations and local authorities, that it is right that high earners pay their way.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
Can the Secretary of State give any update on his discussions with local government about the resettlement of Syrian refugees?
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
My local Kirklees Council has today begun a long-overdue consultation on its local plan. Does the Minister agree that the council must listen to local communities as well as developers, and must take into account the Government’s £1 billion brownfield first campaign?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Another area entering into consultation is welcome news. It is vital that local area plans represent and take into account the views of the local community. I encourage the local authority to listen very carefully to residents in his area.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
T8. After the Energy and Climate Change Committee wrote to the Government deploring their lamentable failure to get anywhere near targets on low carbon heat reduction and saying specifically that they had to go beyond part L of the building regulations to get new homes back on track, is the Minister reconsidering his decision to abolish the code for sustainable homes?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s recent policy announcement on new planning applications from Gypsies and Travellers in the countryside. Has the Planning Inspectorate been fully briefed on the Government’s programme, and will particular importance be attached to combating the overconcentration of sites in the countryside?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The short answer with regard to the Planning Inspectorate is yes. We are very keen to ensure that the planning system treats everybody equally and fairly, and that everybody abides by the same rules in a fair and proportionate way.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
T9. Will the Government legislate to provide for a substantial programme of municipalisation of private sector housing, especially empty homes, to help to rebuild the local authority housing sector to provide more decent homes at affordable rents for thousands of families languishing on housing waiting lists? If they will not do that, will they explain why?
Brandon Lewis
I am very proud of the fact that we have pretty much one of the lowest levels of empty homes on record thanks to the work done and the substantial investment made in the past few years, and to the fact that the new homes bonus applies to empty homes. I encourage local authorities to look at those kinds of properties and think about what they can do with them, and to deliver housing—whether affordable, private rented sector, or, for example through the new starter homes programme, homes for sale to people who want to be able to afford to buy their own home—for their local area.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I once again commend the excellent enterprise zone in Corby bid, which is supported by both Corby Borough Council and East Northamptonshire Council. Will the Minister provide us with an update and let us know when we are likely to hear the outcome?