Construction Industry

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jackson]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not give way for the time being because I have quite a few points to make and others might wish to speak. I will let her in later.

It is not possible to design a system that delivers the same result in every part of the country, and the experts the hon. Gentleman mentioned will be disproved, I believe, by the impact. Six years’ matched funding for infrastructure, giving genuine fiscal power to local authorities, will deliver, using the market mechanism, the right kind of quality housing in the right place. None of us can prejudge that until we have seen it in action. The new homes bonus will work, based on a council tax band D of £1,414, and the Home Builders Federation projects that that will bring £1.2 billion into local authorities each year. That is income to the local economy of each authority that builds new homes, which can only be good, and it is 215,000 jobs.

The wider context of the Government’s construction policies is about rebalancing an over-reliance, in some parts of the country in particular, on the public sector, and trying to encourage, with tax policies and a regulatory regime, more private sector growth in jobs. We have already begun to see that. We are not steaming ahead with the creation of private sector jobs, but the trend is in the right direction, and I expect more jobs to be created in the construction industry.

[Mr Charles Walker in the Chair]

The Government’s plan for growth, published in March at the same time as the Budget, introduced significant changes that will help the construction industry. Of course, it makes a presumption in favour of sustainable development, and the wording was criticised for being opaque, but it is now in place and subject to consultation and discussion. The national planning policy framework is coming forward. I have some concerns about it. I am particularly mindful of the possibility of a watering down of the primacy of town centres over out-of-town shopping centres, and the Treasury needs to be mindful of it too. It is all very well creating Asdas and Tescos on the fringes of towns, but that effectively destroys the viability of niche retailers in town centres.

Generally, however, the national planning policy framework will de-clutter the governance of planning, which can only be good. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton is right that certainty and the ability to plan properly are absolutely integral to a successful construction industry. That is why this Government’s remit includes simplifying generic planning policy.

To my mind, we are not going fast enough in piloting local land auction models, but we are going in the right direction. Public land will be the first to be auctioned. There is a myth about the availability of land, and a lack of available land clearly contributed to the overheating of the housing market between 2006 and 2009. However, even in the south-east of England, only 12% of land is used for housing, and 10% is used across England as a whole.

The conversion of commercial premises to residential premises and a duty to co-operate would meet some of the objections made by the hon. Member for Derby North about regional spatial strategies. The Local Government Association and others, including KPMG in its report on regional governance, found that regional development agencies did not alleviate differences between regions, or even within regions. He will know that there is a world of difference between Rutland and Melton and inner-city Nottingham or Derby. We as a Government believe—I cannot speak for the Minister—that there are sub-regional economies that were not reflected in regional development agency boundaries. We believe that it is much more practical and flexible to consider a duty to co-operate, particularly in the development of infrastructure.

We are proceeding with a major infrastructure planning system overhaul and consulting on the liberalisation of use classes as a way forward, but the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) is absolutely right that the principal issue is mortgage finance and the capital available for the development of housing. None of us can deny that—it is absolutely the case—but he must concede that the Minister for Housing and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), did an extremely good job in raising with the Treasury the importance of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater in terms of the Financial Services Authority’s mortgage market review. Both the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills are mindful that the FSA review must get the balance right. Without reckless spending, they must make available the mortgage moneys that young people need to buy their first property.

To give my own local authority a plug and pay tribute to it, Peterborough city council voted just last week to put £10 million aside for a local authority mortgage scheme. Without wanting to be too partisan, I must say that I am slightly disappointed that the Labour group on Peterborough city council has seen fit to call in that decision, which will delay the process of getting young people the finance that they need to buy property. Not everything that the previous Government did was wrong. The HomeBuy Direct scheme was good, and we have built on it pragmatically and practically with the Firstbuy scheme, which will put about £1 billion into the system and help 10,000 first-time buyers.

The other issue is the planning system. We cannot get away from the fact that the planning system in this country can be construed as dysfunctional. One hears anecdotes all the time. Developers bring an expensive, costed plan for the development of a few hundred houses to a planning department and an officer says, “Yes, that’s a good plan. We can run with that.” He leaves, and another officer comes in and says, “Hmm, I don’t really like the aesthetics. Will you do it again?” Time is money, and that takes an enormous amount of time. It is extremely frustrating, and it is not fair on shareholders or on the people who want to buy the new houses.

We must develop a way to break through the shroud of mystery around town planners, as we used to call them in the old days. They are a bit like hospital consultants: “Don’t question my professionalism on this.” However, it matters to economic growth and people’s jobs and livelihoods that planners expedite decisions. We must develop a way to incentivise them to get inherently viable projects off the ground. They must work much more closely with developers on things such as section 106 and focus on the affordability of individual projects. The evidence that has been presented shows that it is complex. Some supplementary planning documents for large-scale developments can take 18 months to two years. With core strategies, site allocation plans and consultation on local development frameworks, the process can be frustrating for developers. We must find a way to simplify the system.

A report by Michael Ball of Reading university, “The labour needs of extra housing output”, suggests that the costs associated with development control could be up to £3 billion a year. That is not acceptable if we are committed to a pro-growth agenda. Since January 2005, 3,250 pages of national planning policy guidance have been issued. The complexity and cost of development are significant. The hon. Member for Derby North made the point that the gross cost of regulation, the cost of construction and the market price of floor space are significantly greater in London and other UK cities than elsewhere.

I am being admonished by you, Mr Walker, to conclude my remarks, but I will say that we need to see construction policy holistically. We need to consider residential real estate investment trusts and what the Treasury can do to simplify them. We need to consider how EU procurement rules affect large-scale regeneration. We need to consider brownfield remediation to make it simpler for construction companies to build. We need to encourage special purpose vehicles through the tax system so that local authorities can work with developers. We need to push forward tax increment financing so that there is a fiscal incentive to regenerate town centres and other areas. We also need to concentrate on empty properties.

We must find a way to deal with land banking by people who hold land but will not release it—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. We must find a way of concluding this speech as well, Mr Jackson.

[Mr Jackson]

I am happy to conclude my speech, Mr Walker, with three brief points. Developers must engage properly with local authorities and local planning authorities, and with politicians here in Westminster, to lobby hard for changes in the Budget next year. Mortgage providers must provide more flexible mortgage products. We must also concentrate on developing the right houses in the right places at the right price. There is a wider issue, which is not just a local issue of building.

My final point concerns apprenticeships. This Government have a good record on apprenticeships and announced 50,000 new apprenticeships in the Budget. That will be an integral part of growing and enhancing the construction sector.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

The Front-Bench spokesmen have about 10.5 minutes each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Prisk]

I do not deny that there is a challenge in construction. We cannot force that number. The point is to ensure that we put the funding in place, so that businesses who wish to do so can participate. In that first year, we have seen a good picture overall.

The important issue of green skills was mentioned. For the record, we have agreed a clear strategy with the sector skills councils and established a programme to create an additional 1,000 apprenticeship slots for green skills. Last week the “Low Carbon Construction Action Plan” was published. That document sets out our response to the industry’s programme in terms of 65 specific tasks, including skills and investment. We do not simply want to set out what we might do in five, six or seven years’ time; there is a programme for what happens now, through the next four or five years. The programme is specific in that context.

I shall turn briefly to Building Schools for the Future. The reality is that it was a hideously complex programme with an overrunning budget, an incredible duplication of processes and wasteful outcomes. It has been suggested that Building Schools for the Future is the end of school building. It is not. The Department for Education has spelt out clearly that we intend to ensure that £15.8 billion is available for schools spending over the four-year comprehensive spending review period. Clearly, we need to get value for money and to strip away what the industry has told us are some of the processes that block the system and do not deliver the calibre of buildings that our children deserve. That is why the Department will be responding to the independent James review. I am mindful of the time, so I will respond in writing to the point that the hon. Member for Wrexham made on low carbon.

Let me draw my thoughts to a conclusion. I come from the sector, so I recognise that these have been tough times and that the industry is not out of the woods yet. There are glimmers of opportunity, but there are challenges as well. For the first time, we have an infrastructure plan in place and a rolling programme for the funding of infrastructure and construction schemes—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. Time is up.