Housing and Homes

Debate between John Penrose and Richard Bacon

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

The hon. Gentleman leads me to my next point.

The current situation is the wrong way around. It should not be easier to buy land, do nothing, aim to get planning permission and then flip for a profit than it is to build houses. From a moral and an economic standpoint, design and construction should be the things that add value to land, not hope or speculation. Planning permission is a huge and value-creating decision. The decision is taken by each local community, so they should see some of the value that is created. We need a tax on the speculators’ profits, paid straight to local councils on the day that planning permission is given or changed, in order to fund the local services that turn dormitories into communities.

[Mr Bacon]

It is great to hear a radical speech. I hope that those on the Government Front Bench are listening carefully. Will my hon. Friend come to the next Right to Build expo, which is run by the Right to Build Task Force, and speak about lowering the barriers to entry so that more new players can come in? For example, governors of high schools or NHS trusts wanting to use housing as a recruitment and retention device should be able to get involved in this space.

[John Penrose]

I would be delighted to accept my hon. Friend’s invitation.

Fortunately we do not need a new tax, which the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) mentioned, to achieve this value acquisition. Here’s one we prepared earlier—the community infrastructure levy. The levy nearly does what we need and could easily be tweaked so that it does what we need by making it simpler and broader with fewer exemptions. It would be simpler, faster, cheaper and more predictable for developers, planners and landowners alike. Best of all, the revised community infrastructure levy would completely replace the hideously overcomplicated section 106 agreements, with all their uncertainty, unpredictability and lawyer-friendly viability assessments.

Finally, in order to get developers building faster, councils should be able to charge business rates and council tax starting from the day that planning permission is granted, rather than when developers finally get round to start building. We could give big developers a few months’ grace to get their crews on site, but then the meter would start running. They would have a huge incentive to build and sell promptly, rather than to take their time.

Equally important, the same forces would apply to the hedge funds that own derelict brownfield land in town and city centres. These sites already have old, unused permissions, so the clock would start ticking immediately. Just think of the enormous shot in the arm—the jolt of adrenaline—that we would give to urban regeneration projects everywhere, right across the country, if the owners could no longer sit on them for years waiting for something to turn up.

As the Government’s housing White Paper says, the only way to make homes more affordable to rent or buy is to build a whole lot more of them. I agree. There is no time to waste, otherwise house prices will continue to spiral and we will lock another generation out of the dream of a place of their own.