Housing and Planning Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, may I thank you for your unprecedented ruling that those of us who are latecomers to this debate will get more time? That is very welcome.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. May I just say that I did not make any changes to the time limits? I inherited the time levels.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I should have perhaps said “the Chair”. Mr Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to catch your eye in this debate and I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley).

This is an innovative Bill. It is a big Bill that will bring about a great change. It builds on this party’s great tradition of supporting those who aspire to own their own home. A Bill that potentially allows more than 1 million people to buy their own home from housing associations must be a good thing. I have listened carefully to many speeches from Opposition Members who have said that they support the right to buy in principle, but then there is a “but”. I cannot understand that, because if they support the right to buy in principle—presumably when a house is owned by the local authority—why do they not support it when a house is owned by a housing association? What difference does it make to tenants? I think this is a good Bill.

I have a difficulty in my constituency in that it probably has the most difficult affordability ratio in the south-west. I sympathise with those areas in London that have an even worse affordability ratio, so I support this Bill’s bringing forward more people able to buy their own houses. Above all, though, I support the provision of more affordable houses. I commend to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning a scheme in my constituency where we use section 106 moneys to allow developers to put in trust to the local authorities part of the equity of the house, so that somebody, particularly a first-time buyer, can buy, say, a 60% ownership of the house and then staircase up to 100% ownership when they can afford it. That seems to be an excellent scheme.

Lots of Members have spoken in detail about the housing provisions in the Bill. As a chartered surveyor—I declare my interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I want to talk about parts 6 and 7 of the Bill, which relate to planning and compulsory purchase. Given that 80% of my constituency is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty, Members will understand that I have a very difficult planning situation. None the less, I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for introducing the national planning policy framework. It has simplified the planning system and it is beginning to work really well. The problem is that it is a plan-led system, and my local authority, the Cotswold District Council, does not have a plan, and it has been using every sort of excuse for why it does not have one. The neighbouring council, Stroud District Council, which I partly represent, is about to get its local plan adopted and I congratulate it. I therefore welcome clause 99, which enables the Secretary of State to address the issue that 36% of local authorities do not have a plan. The problem is if an authority does not have a plan, it is subject to speculative developers. I warmly welcome the provisions on neighbourhood plans and making it easier for local communities to produce a local plan saying what type of developments should occur where in their neighbourhood.

I note that clause 102 changes the conditional and full system of planning consents as regards the technical stage and in-principle planning permissions. In Committee, we will need to tease out what will be allowed for the in-principle development and at the technical stage. For example, will a significant increase in housing be allowed at that stage? Clause 105 allows the Secretary of State to take over the planning function from local authorities when too many appeals have been disallowed. That power is fairly draconian and should be used only in sparing circumstances.

Let me move on to the compulsory purchase provisions. All businesses or individuals should, in every respect, be put back through compensation into the position they would have been in had compulsory purchase powers not been used. I appreciate that that is far-reaching, because anyone who can prove blight should be compensated, but everybody who makes a valid claim should expect a high proportion of their money to be paid in advance—about 80%—so businesses that need to purchase other properties can go out and do so. The Bill addresses the issue of interest rates for late payments in compulsory purchase and specifies a margin over base rate of 2%. The standard national conditions of sale usually presume a margin of 4% over base, which is what I would suggest to the Minister.

I serve on the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill Committee and many of the petitioners have said a number of times that if the Government can afford these large infrastructure projects, they can afford to pay generous compensation for those that suffer. I welcome the fact that the Bill consolidates a number of old Acts providing for compulsory purchase powers and I ask the Government to make the provisions generous to those who have been affected by big infrastructure projects. If the Government do that, it will make it easier to build such projects as there will be less controversy.

I warmly welcome the Bill, which contains some very good provisions on housing as well as some good provisions to speed up the planning process. I urge the Minister to ensure that all authorities such as mine get a local plan as soon as possible so that they are not subject to builders submitting speculative applications where we do not want houses.