Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I reiterate my thanks to my hon. Friend, who has worked so hard with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet to make sure that we get our planning system right, on behalf of and with so many colleagues on our Benches. I assure him that we in the Department for Levelling Up—me and the Secretary of State—believe that we have come to a better solution. We are committed to delivering it, as I am sure my hon. Friend and others across this House will see in the policy that we will propose in the NPPF and bring forward before Christmas.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

rose—

[Lucy Frazer]

I will make a little progress, because I would like to address the Government amendments, which I will do in five categories. First, we are making it easier for people to develop where they want to develop, and where it delivers the best gain to the community and ensures that planned-for development actually happens. I will highlight five measures in this first category.

Through new clauses 49 to 59, we will pilot community land auctions. They will seek to increase the supply of land and aim to capture more land value more effectively to the benefit of the local community. Planning permission will not be granted automatically on sites allocated in the local plan through the auction process.

Through new clauses 60 and 69, we are allowing for street votes enabling residents to come together and propose additional development on their streets in line with their preferences—subject to meeting prescribed requirements—and vote on whether it should be given permission. In speaking to those new clauses, I would like to acknowledge the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and the “Strong Suburbs” report by Policy Exchange.

We are making it easier for people to access suitable plots to build their own homes. We are building on the immense work of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon). We recognise the importance of self-build and custom housebuilding, and new clause 68 clarifies the duty on authorities to provide for plots for such homes in their planning decisions.

We will also seek to reduce barriers to smaller-scale developments that communities can easily get behind. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) has worked significantly on that area. I can confirm that our intention is to consult on changing national policy to encourage greater use of small sites, especially those that will deliver higher levels of affordable housing.

Importantly, we are ensuring that when permissions are given, developments can be built out quickly. New clauses 48 and 67 deal with that. Members across the House have been concerned about the rate at which development occurs once planning permission has been granted. It is wrong for developers simply to sit on planning permissions, because that increases the number of permissions that have to be granted and risks overdevelopment. The Bill introduces further steps to tackle the issue, including a requirement for developers to report on the rate at which they build, and allowing authorities to deny permission for further development on the same sites where the developers have failed to build out. All those measures will encourage development where people want it and where they have agreed to have it.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Mike Amesbury will be the last speaker on a five-minute limit. I will indicate whether the new limit is to be four or three minutes as soon as he has finished.

[Mike Amesbury]

I rise to speak to my amendments 97 and 98, to my new clause 111 and to other amendments that I support.

After 12 years of pursuing policies that have wrecked and hollowed out communities and deepened inequalities, this Tory Government now say that they are the ones to repair the damage and that the so-called levelling-up agenda is the way to do it. The Bill exposes levelling up as the empty promise that it is. It will not ensure that our planning system delivers for us, it will not provide the genuinely affordable housing we need, and it will not put investment and power back into communities and people’s pockets. In fact, the current Government are doing exactly the opposite.

I support several Labour Front-Bench amendments, including amendments 78 and 84 and new clause 98. This Parliament declared a climate emergency in 2019, so it is somewhat bizarre that, years later, mitigation and adaptation are not hardwired into our planning system. New clause 98, which would do just that, is welcome. As it stands, the Bill will create a power grab by the centre and by the Secretary of State, undermining the local plans and neighbourhood plans that Members across the House have spoken for so strongly in this debate, so I strongly support amendment 78. If we are to build communities with the right houses in the right places that are genuinely affordable, with essential infrastructure and beautiful green spaces, they must be sufficiently funded. That is not the case now, has not been the case for 12 years and will not be the case under the Bill, which is why I am backing amendment 84.

I turn to the amendments that I have tabled. Amendment 97, which is supported by the Local Government Association, would provide local authorities with the certainty that they need about how to administer the levy in relation to retrospective planning applications; the Bill does not currently make provision for that. Amendment 98 would ensure that all forms of provision delivered through section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, including affordable housing, are not lost but continue to be delivered by the levy. Otherwise, important schemes that do not come under the definition of infrastructure, but are currently delivered through section 106—including apprenticeships, skills development, supporting the local workforce and supporting young people into employment—may be omitted. New clause 111 would have the same effect as new clause 94: by removing the clauses of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 that relate to the sale of vacant higher-value local authority housing, it would hold the Government to a commitment that they made in the social housing Green Paper.

I also support amendment 2, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). Rightly, it would add childcare, either subsidised or free, to the definition of infrastructure. It is common sense, it is the right thing to do and I wholly support it.

My amendments and many others tabled by Members across the House seek to add some substance to a discredited and vacuous slogan: namely, “levelling up”. Over the past 12 years, communities such as mine have been hollowed out, with facilities from leisure centres to libraries closed down and our high streets boarded up. We need something radically different. In fact, what we need is a Labour Government who will empower our communities, genuinely power up our communities, and fill people’s pockets with the money and opportunities they deserve.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There will be a four-minute time limit. I call Sir John Hayes.