Nick Boles
Main Page: Nick Boles (Independent - Grantham and Stamford)Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Nick Boles Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful for that intervention and I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the world of Twitter —he was tweeting in Welsh over the weekend and I was very pleased to see it. I shall come on to Labour’s current policy later in my speech.
As I introduced my Bill, I said that the people of Wales were extremely protective of their natural resources. Naturally, as a result of the vote there was a public outcry in Wales, with Labour accused of betrayal. Subsequently, the First Minister made a public statement that the Labour party, despite the voting record of its MPs, supported total control over energy planning policy. His Government then published an energy policy document that highlighted how the sector was key to the future of the Welsh economy. I could not agree more, which is why I have introduced my new clause this evening.
I hope that, if pushed to a vote, the Lib Dems will maintain their principled position. If Labour MPs sit on their hands or join the Tories in the Lobby, the credibility of Carwyn Jones will be shot to pieces. The shadow Secretary of State for Wales has said today in the Western Mail, in response to my new clause, that Labour in Westminster supports the devolution of planning for energy projects only up to a limit of 100 MW. That shows a complete lack of coherence between Labour in London and Labour in Cardiff. It flies in the face of and contradicts the wishes of the First Minister, who said in March that he did
“not see why 100 MW should be the limit in the future.”
In addition, in June this year, John Griffiths, the Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, stated that
“the Welsh Government…wishes to have further devolution of power over energy”
and “do not limit” themselves at 100 MW.
During a recent “Sharp End” interview, the First Minister adopted Plaid Cymru’s position and said that he wanted full control over energy planning policy. If energy policy is the key to the future of the Welsh economy for jobs and growth—I am certain that it is—why should a 100 MW limit be set? Total control over energy planning policy would allow the Welsh nation best to decide its energy future and would be essential in driving growth in our economy.
From a good governance point of view, there needs to be consistency in planning policy. Having two different authorities responsible for policy is a disincentive for investment, leads to a lack of coherence in energy and economic strategy and is awfully complicated for my constituents. I have two technical advice note 8, or TAN 8, areas in my constituency, which are designated zones towards which the Welsh Government direct onshore wind development. The projects under 50 MW are determined by the local planning authority and those above are determined by Ministers here in Whitehall. Local people experience a huge difference when dealing with both authorities. With the LPA, they have direct access to planning officers and local councillors, whereas not a single official or Minister has even bothered to come to north Carmarthenshire to discuss with them the Brechfa Forest West development, which has just landed on the Secretary of State’s desk in London. The arrangements lead to a huge democratic deficit and my surgeries are constantly filled with angry and disillusioned people. My new clause would help to deal with that.
I have tabled a modest and reasonable amendment that would enable the people of Wales better to plan our energy infrastructure over 50 MW on a par with Scotland. It will also help the Welsh Government play their part in helping the UK Government to achieve the aims of this Bill, leading to greater policy coherence and unleashing the economic potential of Wales’s energy resources. If Ministers refuse to accept the new clause, I am minded to press it to a Division.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
I apologise to the House and to Members who tabled new clauses and amendments and have not had a chance to speak. I hope that the House will understand if I focus on amendments that are new on Report, rather than those tabled in the Bill Committee, where we had a full discussion, although I will of course return to clause 1 and the justification for it at the end of my brief remarks.
I shall start by addressing new clause 11, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and a range of right hon. and hon. Friends. The Government and I share completely my right hon. Friend’s emphasis on the vital importance of infrastructure to support new development. Indeed, one of our main criticisms of the record of the previous Government was their complete failure to ensure that it was put in place. Ironically at a time when money, both public and private, was more available than ever before, infrastructure was simply not provided for.
Mr Blunt
The effect of the new clause tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), to which I put my name, is “must,” rather than “should,” which is the position I believe the Minister is about to defend, and “must” speaks to the arguments he has just made.
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend anticipates the meat of the argument I want to make, but perhaps I could return to my point. It was in response to the failure of the previous planning regime to provide the infrastructure to support development and make local authorities and local communities feel empowered to shape their communities and their future that this Government produced the national planning policy framework and the Bill that became the Localism Act 2011. It is important to understand that while the national planning policy framework is indeed only policy, it is an incredibly carefully constructed and negotiated balance of measures. Taking one measure out of the framework and putting it into primary legislation, when no other part of it would be there, would be to up-end the balance, and would give primacy to one—very important—element at the expense of other important elements of the framework.
Mr Redwood
As the Minister may know, the borough unitary I mainly represent—Wokingham—has a local plan. It has identified land for 12,500 houses, which is a massive increase in development and well beyond the number many of my constituents would like. The authority has been prepared to argue the plan through; it wants to concentrate the development to get money for the infrastructure mainly from private sources, but the Minister decided to grant permission somewhere else, completely undermining the negotiations the authority wants to hold with the private sector. How does that help to get infrastructure?
Nick Boles
My right hon. Friend accuses me of things I have not done, but I am happy to take responsibility for all decisions of the Government, whether quasi- judicial or otherwise.
Perhaps I could return to the argument, because it is important. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs made the very good argument that over the past 10 to 30 years local authorities have not been in a position adequately to provide the infrastructure improvements required to support housing and other kinds of economic development. I should like to try to persuade him that it is not because the provision is not in primary legislation as a duty—as a must, rather than a should—that the failure has arisen; it is because there have not been dedicated sources of revenue to support infrastructure. It is not that local authorities are out there saying, “We want to build 5,000 houses and not build any more roads and primary schools and not put in better sewers.” It has not happened because they have not had dedicated revenue streams to do it.
Nick Boles
Perhaps I could finish; I do not have much time.
The Government have put in place a huge range of specifically targeted measures to ensure that a funding stream is in place. That is why we supported the previous Government’s innovation of the community infrastructure levy, which is due to deliver £1 billion a year of infrastructure funding directly to local authorities; they will have to provide a list of infrastructure improvements so that developers know that they are making a contribution to specific matters, whether roads, drainage, schools or other things. We have also allocated £730 million to local enterprise partnerships.
Nick Boles
I have very little time and I need to get on to clause 1. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way right now.
The autumn statement a few weeks ago included another round of £350 million for the regional growth fund and a new local infrastructure fund worth up to £470 million. I hope my right hon. Friend and my other right hon. and hon. Friends will understand that it is not primary legislation that will ensure that local authorities plan properly, as they should, for infrastructure; it is money. Part of the way to get that money is to plan positively for development, because that development will bring the community infrastructure levy and the new homes bonus.
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
I had the good fortune to be born in the Thames valley and I represent a constituency in the Thames valley. In my lifetime I have watched tens of thousands of homes being built and many industrial estates and business parks. The M4 motorway has never been widened and the hospital has never been built to serve the community that has grown so much. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the levy to which he refers goes towards a new motorway and a new hospital? My region desperately needs them.
Nick Boles
It will be for my hon. Friend’s local authority to specify the infrastructure. Those are good examples. The money could go towards a hospital, a school, drains or whatever is required. He is right that that has not been available previously.
Finally, on new clause 11, I make this promise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs. We are currently looking at all the planning guidance that is provided to local authorities about how they should go about interpreting the national planning policy framework and putting that into their local plans. Although I do not want to up-end the careful balance of local plans by putting this in primary legislation, I will look at making sure that the guidance that is provided in a much reduced set of planning guidance is very clear about the need to plan positively and specifically for infrastructure that is required to support the development and to ensure that it is brought on stream in good time for that development.
I turn to the general arguments about clause 1. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) and I have debated this at some length over the past few months. It has been my sole objective since the autumn to provide satisfaction to her, so it is a matter of great regret that I seem to have failed in this mission. I will try one last time on clause 1 to persuade her that her fears can be allayed and she, too, can embrace this extremely restrained proposal.
We hope that vanishingly few local authorities will be caught by the measure, but just as we accept that some schools fail and require intervention, and that Ofsted is the right judge of whether they are failing, and some hospitals fail and the Care Quality Commission is the right judge of whether they are failing, we believe it is our responsibility as Government to identify where some—very few—local planning authorities are failing to discharge their responsibilities to local people. That is why we are introducing the clause.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Has the Minister considered giving notice and support to such authorities, before moving to designation?
Nick Boles
I have good news for my hon. Friend. I had discussions with the Local Government Association just a few days ago. Because of the proposal on which we are consulting, which is that it should be two years of data about the timeliness of decisions on major applications, it will become clear, probably publicly but certainly to my officials and to officials in the Local Government Association, which authorities are heading into the danger zone, even after probably only six months’ data.
I have had discussions with the Local Government Association, with full support from the Department and my officials putting an arm round those authorities that are beginning to get into the danger zone and helping ensure that they get out before the axe falls—before the designation becomes real. It is my genuine hope that no local authority gets caught by the provision, because no local authority consistently fails to discharge its responsibilities.
Nick Boles
The statistics currently capture planning performance agreements that are agreed before an application is submitted, but not those that are agreed after. We will be altering that to ensure that the data are more accurate. Where we cannot do that, what we can do, which I think is just as good, is take submissions from local authorities on why the data might not present a fair picture of their performance, and we will of course take fully into account the fact that the data might not be absolutely conclusive for those submissions in year one.
Finally, new clause 12, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), is incredibly well intentioned, but we believe that the national planning policy framework and the local plans already contain all the emphasis on sustainability, environmental quality and protection of rights and heritage for future generations—
Mr Betts
I put to the right hon. Gentleman a point that has already been made very effectively: why, then, are the Government targeting only the social and affordable housing element of section 106 agreements? What about the rest of the obligations on developers? Do they not cause a problem too? In an earlier debate—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was present—when challenged by his colleagues behind him about the need to ensure proper infrastructure, the Minister talked about the need for the community infrastructure levy to provide the resources to ensure that that infrastructure was provided. If developers have a problem with viability, why is he championing the community infrastructure levy and 106 agreements that are currently providing infrastructure for non-housing elements while targeting the housing element of 106 agreements? Why is that necessary? Again, we have had no answer from him.
On the housing element, I want to return to a point that we discussed in the Select Committee the other day and which my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) just made very strongly. I refer to the crucial issue of mixed housing developments. I would have thought that there would be cross-Chamber support for the idea of mixed housing developments. We do not want people in owner-occupied houses in one place and a smaller number of rented homes completely segregated on a different site. We need mixed schemes where everyone, irrespective of their tenure, can live together side by side. I thought that was the Government’s policy.
We had an interesting discussion about that in the Select Committee. We asked the Minister why, if £300 million was to be made available to provide additional rented homes in order to compensate for the ones lost under section 106 agreements, those properties could not be built on the same sites as the schemes in question in order to increase their viability. As I understand it, that is precisely what my hon. Friend’s amendment 46 would do, so will the Minister respond favourably to it? It would simply put into the Bill the idea that he seemed to welcome in the Select Committee the other day. I look forward to his response.
I turn to amendment 44, which was also tabled by my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) made the point about viability and whether we can trust developers when they say that a scheme is not viable. By what criteria will they and the Secretary of State be judged if a scheme is changed and fewer affordable houses are built? The Minister must accept that 106 agreements are not often backroom deals made in isolation between council officials and developers; they are often out there and scrutinised not merely by councillors, but by the public affected by them.
Communities want to know what will be built in their areas and whether rented homes will be available for people who cannot afford to buy. They will be very suspicious if, without such criteria in the Bill, the Secretary of State seems to be doing a deal behind the scenes—whether or not it is called the Planning Inspectorate—which results in the withdrawal of the affordable homes that they thought were being built, and to which they and their families would have access, and different amounts of affordable housing, if any, being agreed for the site. That is why it is important that the Minister states upfront the criteria that will be used to change the affordable housing component that communities will assume will be negotiated for their areas.
Finally, the lack of rigorous time scales in the proposals is worrying. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham mentioned the possibility of revisiting the issue after one year and reinstating higher levels of affordable housing for any scheme. That is a really important point, because the worry that some people have about the proposal is that developers will simply say that schemes are not viable; renegotiate them so that less affordable housing has to be provided; and sit on the land and wait till times become more propitious—when they can sell the houses for more, sell more houses and provide fewer for rent. In the meantime nothing will happen. In other words, instead of a stimulus to growth, the proposals could defer development and increase the profitability of the schemes so that fewer affordable or rented houses are produced. The Minister needs to address that worry and include some proper time periods, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham has suggested.
Nick Boles
Everybody is keen for me to explain things and reassure them, but they have not given me a great amount of time in which to do so. I hope you will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I canter through my remarks pretty quickly.
I am a simple soul and do not have a lot of truck with ideology. I want to build more houses now, and I want the absolute certainty that they will go up, rather than a vague, tenuous hope of even more houses at a possible future date. Our discussions in Committee and this evening have persuaded me even more of the merit of this clause, and I am redoubled in my enthusiasm.
Nick Boles
I am sorry, but I will not give way because many hon. Members have asked me for explanations and assurances. I am entirely convinced of the merit of this clause, but in Committee I heard good arguments from Members across the House about ways in which the legislation might be applied that would not produce more houses soon, or could threaten that possibility. I will address two of those arguments, which I hope will offer some reassurance to many hon. Members.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) raised the issue of rural exception sites. I understand that the likelihood of more land being brought forward in the future to supply affordable housing in key rural exception sites might diminish if the clause were to be applied to those genuinely exceptional schemes. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for organising a meeting with the housing association and the national park authority, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove for attending it. I have been persuaded by the principle of their argument, but the precise way that the right hon. Gentleman’s amendment takes account of the issue is not necessarily right and I hope I can persuade him not to press the amendment to a vote. I am currently looking at proposals that will be brought forward in the other place to achieve a carve-out for rural exception sites from this provision.
I have also been persuaded by some of the arguments about developers achieving a more favourable affordable housing agreement and then sitting on it. That is why, unprompted, the Government have clarified that any affordable housing agreement renegotiated by the Planning Inspectorate will survive for three years but return to its previous level at the end of that period. If the developer has not built out on the basis of the new, lower, affordable housing agreement, the agreement will return to the previous higher level and they will have to continue to build it out at that level.
Simon Hughes
Will the Planning Inspectorate system ensure that anybody can see the figures as well as the facts?
Nick Boles
I was coming to that. Currently, I am glad to say, the Planning Inspectorate is required to consider in its decision only evidence that is published or available publicly. It is not allowed to take into account anything that it is given on an entirely confidential basis. We intend to apply that principle to its decisions on viability under this clause, and through guidance we will urge local authorities as strongly as possible to adopt the same policy. Currently there is not quite the same expectation, but being a proper localist I am not in the business of compelling local authorities to do such things. However, I reassure my right hon. Friend that we will be nudging them hard.
The further financial support announced at the same time as measures in the Bill—£300 million of subsidy and a further £10 billion of guarantees—was also raised. As I explained in Committee—it is important to repeat it in the House—the subsidy is awarded to particular providers of affordable housing, not particular schemes, and Members across the House will want provision of that subsidy and its allocation to different providers to be based on value for money. We all want more, rather than fewer, houses for the amount of money available. We cannot allocate money to solve the problem of a particular site, because that would not meet the value-for-money test, as some sites will represent worse value for money than others. It is, therefore, right to retain the discretion to give the subsidy where value for money is greatest, but there is nothing to prevent providers who have sites that are affected by such renegotiation from coming forward with proposals for that subsidy and guarantee. If they can make the case that a site represents a good place to invest the Government’s money, there is every chance they will secure some of that subsidy.
What we are trying to achieve is simple. Many local authorities, of all political stripes, have understood that some agreements were based on market values that no longer pertain, or on market conditions that are no longer in place, and are therefore impossible for any developer to build out. Those authorities—and I congratulate them on it—have voluntarily renegotiated the affordable housing elements of their section 106 agreements, and sometimes other elements, to unlock activity and house building now. The Government would like to see every local authority do that willingly, off its own bat, without the application of this clause, and transparently so that the local population can see why it has taken those decisions.
A common thread running through this Bill is that we want many of its measures never to be needed because local authorities have acted first. That is true of clause 1 and equally true of this clause. We want local authorities to take responsibility, and instead of fetishising an agreement that sets out a vague target for affordable homes that might be built, we want them to do whatever it takes, pragmatically and practically, to ensure that homes are built. I have accepted many suggestions from hon. Members on all sides of the House, and I have learned a great deal from those more experienced than me about such things as rural exception sites and the way viability is assessed.
I hope I have persuaded hon. Members that the Government are genuinely trying to make the legislation work to produce more houses now, while retaining the important principle of mixed communities, emphasised by Members across the House. We want mixed communities to remain a key theme; we do not want gated communities. That is why the new section 106 affordable housing agreements will return to their previous level after three years if they have not been built out fully. The Government hope and would prefer local authorities, rather than the Planning Inspectorate, to renegotiate affordable housing agreements. The amendment is a last resort to prevent a very few pig-headed local authorities from doing what is in the interests of their own people and ensuring that more houses get built quickly, rather than waiting for some never-never land where that unrealistic agreement is finally translated into bricks, mortar and roofs over people’s heads.
This debate, and those in Committee and on Second Reading, have shown that the Government—two parties with very different philosophies—believe in practical measures to get things done and make people’s lives better. All too often the Labour party prefers postures, statements and wild aspirations with absolutely no explanation about how it will deliver them. On that basis, I hope that the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will withdraw his well-intentioned and sensible amendment with a view to an alternative being brought forward in the other place. I urge the House to resist the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for City of Durham and her hon. Friends.
Mr Raynsford
I am slightly disappointed that the Minister cannot accept the wording of my amendments. I took some care with the wording in Committee—indeed, one of my amendments was treated as poetic, which was a rather attractive description. On this occasion, despite the affront to my amour propre and the fact that the Minister has not accepted the wording, I accept his good intentions and the fact that he has agreed for the Government to introduce amendments in another place. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 46, page 6, line 40, at end insert
‘or,
(e) request that the requirement is to be met in part, or in full, by central government funding allocated for the delivery of affordable homes.’.—(Roberta Blackman-Woods.)