Housing in Sittingbourne and Sheppey

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is, as ever, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and certainly a great pleasure to respond to the debate brought to us by my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), who is an industrious and doughty campaigner on behalf of his constituents in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, and across all of Swale borough. I think that he was being rather modest in his claims; I would say that he has raised this issue more than six times in the interests of his constituents.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need a planning system that is speedier, more transparent and more fair, and that delivers the right homes, in the right places, with the right infrastructure that people want and can support. I think he would agree with me that the present planning system does not achieve those objectives. It certainly is not particularly engaging, as I think we all know. About 1% of local populations get involved in local plan making. That is almost literally only planning officers and their blood relations in a particular local authority. That percentage rises to a massive 2% or 3% when it comes to the engagement of local communities in individual planning applications—again, far too few.

[Gordon Henderson]

On that point, I accept that only a very small percentage of people get involved in planning decisions at the planning stage, but the Minister will find, if he looks through the results of the last local elections in Kent, that they came out in their thousands to vote for the Green party against the Conservatives because of planning issues.

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We want to make the planning system much more engaging so that more people get involved at an early stage and play a part in local plan making, so that they can say that the choices they have made are contributing to their community while ensuring that the infrastructure that they require locally is properly planned for. I will come to that in a moment.

My hon. Friend made some important points, which I will address. First, he mentioned the local housing need numbers for Swale. He will appreciate that, because I have a quasi-judicial role, I must not go into too great detail about Swale’s local plan. I am pleased that I may say that its latest iteration is progressing—I think it is about to go to section 19 and is well on course for update before the end of 2023. However, there are some misconceptions about how local housing need should be used. It is a starting point, not an end point. It is based on the 2014 Office for National Statistics household population projections. We took a view a couple of years ago that, particularly given the pandemic, local authorities needed consistency and certainty, so we chose not to change the local housing need calculations for all but the 20 largest cities in our country.

As I say, the housing need numbers, as calculated, are a starting point, not an end point. It is for local authorities to determine their building target for each year over the lifecycle of their plan, to be agreed with the planning inspectorate. Local authorities are able to identify constraints—such as green belts or areas of outstanding natural beauty—that allow them to land at a different number from that expressed in the local housing need calculations. It is very much for local authorities to determine the right number of homes that should be built in their community. As I say, we want more people to become involved in the formulation of those local plans.

My hon. Friend mentioned developers not developing on land for which planning permission has already been granted. There are different views about those numbers. Sir Oliver Letwin found a couple of years ago that land banking, as it is popularly described, is not a particularly prevalent issue. However, I recognise the concern of local communities and our colleagues about this particular challenge. That is why we have committed, as part of our future planning reforms, to look carefully at how we can, shall we say, incentivise developers to build out on the applications that already exist, rather than looking for more and more applications to be given on other sites.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the important issue of the small number of developers who have those permissions and who build the homes in our country that we need. We want more developers, and more SME developers, developing different types of homes in different places for different tenures. We know that in the last 10 years or so, partly as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, the number of SMEs developing homes has fallen by something like 40%. We need to encourage more small and medium-sized developers to develop, and not leave development in the hands of the so-called big six. Having a planning system that is speedier, more predictable and more transparent is a way of ensuring that those SMEs come back into the marketplace and develop the sorts of homes that we want to see.

My hon. Friend and I certainly want to ensure that the right homes are being built in the right places for people to live in. We believe in a property-owning democracy; we want people to have the opportunity to get on to the property ladder. I am pleased to say, as a result of work done by the Yorkshire Building Society—I think the announcement was made only today—that some 408,379 first-time buyers got on to the property ladder last year. That is a 20-year high in first-time buyers getting on to the ladder and a 35% uplift in the figures from the year before. As we emerge from the pandemic, which has affected all our lives, we want to ensure that we are building better, building brighter, and building more homes for people to buy to live in, to get a stake in the country and in their community.

We also have to ensure, as my hon. Friend rightly says, that we have the right number of affordable homes built. We have an affordable homes programme. It is the largest cash injection in the development of affordable homes in 15 or 16 years—some £12.3 billion, £11.5 billion of which is new money. We anticipate that, economic conditions allowing, over the next five years it will build 180,000 new homes, 32,000 of which will be for social rent. We have also allowed local authorities the opportunity—through removal of the housing revenue account cap on borrowing—to spend more money on social homes if they so wish. The Public Works Loan Board offers them loans at very attractive rates. We have also allowed them much more flexibility through the use of their right-to-buy receipts—partly as a result of the pandemic—to ensure that local authorities have the wherewithal to build the sorts of homes that they want to build.

However, I am very conscious of what my hon. Friend says about the section 106 system. It has some supporters, of course. A lot of big developers like section 106 because it tends to load the weaponry—to give the ammunition to the bigger developers, with the bigger bank balances and the bigger batteries of lawyers, at the expense of smaller local authorities. We want to rectify that imbalance in the system by introducing an infrastructure levy, which will be set by the local authority, so that it is very clear what the cost of development is going to be. It will enable greater land capture value to be obtained by local authorities, so that local authorities and local communities get the infrastructure that they want, up front in the development process and not way down the line, if it is built at all. The levy means that the playgrounds, health clinics or schools that local authorities and local communities need to support the homes that are proposed for development are built where, when and how they want them, rather than what happens under the present system, which is rather more uncertain.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the predilection, shall we say, of some local authorities nearer to where we are now than to his constituency to buy up properties in his constituency. I am very conscious of that issue. I say to him that we have provided very clear—indeed, unambiguous—guidance to local authorities that they should, wherever possible, place families and individuals within their own area. The guidance also that they should only be looking to secure housing outside their local authority as a very last resort.

[Gordon Henderson]

I am grateful because this is a very important point that I hope the Minister will take on. I accept what he says, and he recognises the problem of London boroughs buying properties in areas such as mine. The boroughs pay for those properties and they pay the rent of the people they place there, but what they do not have to do, which they should, is fund the social services and education needed to look after those people and educate their children. Kent County Council taxpayers have to pay for that. That must be looked at.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am conscious of the issue raised by my hon. Friend. I will make a couple of points in response. First, he is absolutely right that we want a system that provides the school places and GP clinic places. That is why we want to change from the section 106 system to the infrastructure levy, which we believe will provide those sorts of bricks-and-mortar services more rapidly. He also knows that we are investing more in the NHS. I will not go into great detail on that; it is a matter for my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care. However, he knows that we are training up more doctors and nurses. That will take some time, but we want to invest more in the NHS.

My hon. Friend should also be aware that, as a result of the affordable homes programme, over £4 billion have been provided to the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London to build properties in London for Londoners. I call on the Mayor to get on and build those properties, for which he has the funds, to take the pressure off places such as Kent. My hon. Friend also mentioned brownfield sites over greenfield. We are clear through the national planning policy framework that brownfield should be used first wherever possible. We have provided funds to that effect, which he will know about, either for big or small investments, which allow local authorities to focus on the redevelopment of brownfield sites.

I also tell my hon. Friend that as a result of the Environment Act 2021, which is now on the statute book, there is a requirement on developers to ensure a biodiversity net gain of at least 10% where developments take place. Again, that will ensure that where development happens, not only is bricks-and-mortar infrastructure provided, but environmental infrastructure is supported and enhanced. I am conscious, Mr Hollobone, that my hon. Friend will probably want to say a few remarks, so I will give him the opportunity.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. In a half-hour debate, I am afraid that the Member in charge does not have the right of reply, so the Minister still has two minutes to make further remarks, if he wishes to do so.

[Christopher Pincher]

Mr Hollobone, you honour me in allowing me further time to expostulate on the Government’s policies. We are conscious of the challenges that my hon. Friend raises. I am keen to ensure that the reform to the planning system that we have in mind will result in greater community engagement, the provision of infrastructure to give local communities the schools, school places and GP surgeries they need, an environmental support mechanism to enhance developments as they are brought forward, and more SMEs in the system to ensure new homes of different tenures, styles and types built in the places we need, so that we have a planning system which, while it will never be uncontroversial—there will always been controversies when it comes to individual developments—everybody understands, can buy into and can accept is fair, just and predictable. I look forward to further debates with my hon. Friend over the next several weeks and months, as we bring our proposals forward. I am grateful to you, Mr Hollobone, for your advice and guidance in the debate.

Question put and agreed to.