Housing and Planning Bill (Sixth sitting)

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I think it does. We will issue guidance that makes it very clear to local authorities and ensures the proposals are driven forward to deliver exactly what we want, which is a clear identifiable ability to get access to land. That is good for small and medium-sized builders. That kind of development will be perfectly suited to a small and medium-sized business. The hon. Gentleman is quite right: I have visited the Builders Merchant Federation’s members and we have benefited from seeing the work they do to support their local communities. Local builders are good for everybody. They drive jobs locally and they tend to build high-quality homes because their reputation relies on it. They build at a good pace, in contrast to the building rate of the larger developers. That is good for all.

Self-build and custom house building includes homes built by people themselves and homes built on behalf of individuals, where professionals are commissioned to do the work by the eventual owner-occupier. The common theme is that the individuals have significant input and choice over their finished home and intend to live in it as their main and sole property.

The second part of the definition is to exclude the sale of off-plan homes, where the developer agrees to minor changes to the property but where the finished home is wholly or mainly the original specification, into which the buyer had no input. That tends to fit the description of most new build properties around the country. However, the definition of self and custom house building includes where someone has bought a shell of a building because they will have significant input into the final internal layout and specification.

Turning to other Members’ points, clause 8 provides the definition of a serviced plot of land. That is land that has access to a public highway and connections for electricity, water and waste, or can be provided with those things in specified circumstances or within a specified period. The clause provides for regulations to amend the definition of “serviced plot of land” by adding further services to the list—I am sure many Members will be thinking about broadband. That allows services such as broadband to be included in the future as and when required.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I want to make a few brief points, because I know time is precious. I have already raised a number of issues that are relevant to my constituency with the Minister in the Adjournment debate. Like my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow West and for Greenwich and Woolwich, we are very keen to join the revolution that has been promoted by the hon. Member for South Norfolk. There is common agreement across the Committee about the benefits of not just the grand design but the ambition for self and custom build for everyman that the Bill espouses. Some 100,000 properties over the lifetime of the Parliament seems incredibly ambitious, but will bring many benefits, not least to the building supply sector, in terms of employment and meeting housing needs.

Will the Minister respond to the points raised by my hon. Friends about the obligations to be placed on local authorities? Notwithstanding the existing or potential demand for custom and self-build, there is a concern related to subsection (4) and the various conditions that are placed on the definition of a serviced plot of land. Subsection (4) would define a serviced plot of land as one that,

“(a) has access to a public highway and has connections for electricity, water and waste water, or

(b) can be provided with those things in specified circumstances or within a specified period”.

Will the definition place any additional burdens on local authorities or service providers to connect properties or serviced plots of land at costs which they cannot meet? My own local authority is facing immense costs as a consequence of budget cuts from central Government. On the eve of the spending review, we are making some difficult decisions.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is making a good point. That is what I tried to get at, and we got part of the way there. Does he agree that it would be useful to have, not only a better understanding of what burdens might be placed on local authorities, but an idea of how much money, if any, has been allocated by the Department to cover any new burdens that the Bill will impose on local authorities?

[Grahame M. Morris]

That is a really good point, which I hope the Minister will address in his closing remarks.

[Mr Thomas]

A slight alarm bell got set off in my head when the Minister talked about the power to make regulations potentially to include broadband. Harrow is in central London, and one would think it had good access to broadband, but that is not the case at the moment. There is a very mixed performance by BT and other providers. Given that it is Ofcom’s responsibility to direct the provision of broadband, one worries that the Minister might feel gung-ho one day and draft the regulations to include broadband, when it is not the local authority’s responsibility to provide such a crucial facility; it is Ofcom’s or, indeed, the private sector’s responsibility. It would be useful to probe the Minister a little more on his intentions for those future regulations.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Again, the Minister might respond to that point in his concluding remarks.

Finally, I remind the Minister of the Adjournment debate we had at the close of the last Parliament, in which particular problems were highlighted in the former colliery village of Horden in my constituency as a consequence of the withdrawal of the housing association Accent, due to housing market failure. The Minister suggested, on that occasion, that we look at what was termed “homesteading” on a large scale. Sadly, that was not possible, perhaps because of some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for South Norfolk about access to finance, whether the necessary skills and leadership were available at that time and perhaps the lack of a housing co-op with the dynamism to take it forward. I think we will address a little later some of the issues that have arisen since that debate, with rogue landlords and problems as a result of a failure to adequately address that. I would welcome any assurances the Minister can give.

[Brandon Lewis]

There is obviously a process that the Government go through in agreeing with local government the new burdens that will still apply. With regard to our general position on plots and the cost of servicing them, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the comments I made earlier about our expectations. I am happy to give him further feedback on that over the next few days.