Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Olly Glover Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak to amendment 2. Before I do, I would like to welcome the tone in which the Minister has presented the clauses in this part of the Bill. I recognise and understand the intention to clarify the CPO process and enable it to work better, and I particularly welcome our discussions on clause 88—the determination to ensure a fairer distribution between tenants and owners, for example.

Amendment 2 is intended to be fully in that spirit. It recognises the reality of our dysfunctional land and housing markets in the UK, that hope value plays a part in that, and that reforming hope value could unlock significant resources for the delivery of social and affordable housing. I understand that the calculation is that reforming hope value could free up £4.5 billion a year, which could enable us to build a third more social rented homes than had previously been intended. That would be very valuable.

Under the Land Compensation Act 1961, land owners can potentially claim the value of planning permissions that have not even been thought of, let alone applied for. I understand that land with planning permission is on average worth 275 times more than land without—really quite an extraordinary step change in land value. Reforms to address the issue are very much needed.

Under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, changes were made; the previous Government recognised that there was a problem. The 2023 Act allows hope value to be removed when a development is deemed to be in pursuit of public benefit, particularly affordable housing, health and education. It is a step in the right direction, but still requires the local authority to apply to the Secretary of State for permission on a case-by-case basis. Amendment 2 would simply clarify the situation and specify that when a local authority is compulsorily purchasing land to provide affordable housing, hope value can be disregarded. It is entirely in the spirit of previous reforms to the legislation. It clarifies the situation, and it avoids the potential for councils to be subject to challenge from developers on a case-by-case basis. It does that by clarifying that when the public benefit is being served—something that the Minister has repeatedly referred to—it is clear that hope value can be disregarded, because the public benefit from providing affordable housing is, in those cases, overriding. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once again, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak to amendments 86 and 87 on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson). In tackling the issue of hope value, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill misses an opportunity when it comes to playing fields. The amendments seek to include recreational facilities such as playing fields by ensuring that when an acquiring authority uses a compulsory purchase order to acquire land for use as a sports or recreational facility, hope value would not be applied, thus making the cost more affordable.

The amendments would enable hard-pressed local authorities to acquire playing fields for their local communities’ use at playing-field value, instead of at an overinflated hope value, to boost additional grassroots sports provision. Such a change would allow sites such as Udney Park playing fields in Teddington, in my hon. Friend’s constituency—they have lain derelict for more than a decade under private ownership—to be acquired for public use. There is a dire need for additional playing space in the area.

The Liberal Democrats believe that everyone should have access to high-quality sports and recreation facilities in their local community. Indeed, Sport England says that those spaces are key to physical and mental health, and to community links. According to a 2023 College of Policing report, such facilities can help to reduce reoffending, particularly among young people. Up and down the country, too many communities lack the necessary land and space to support young people and families, as well as the wider community, to enjoy sport and improve their physical and mental health. I hope the Minister will consider the amendments in the spirit in which they are intended.

[Gideon Amos]

I rise to support the principle of what is being proposed in clause 91 and what has been said about the need to allow authorities to acquire land without paying additional hope value or value of planning permissions not yet sought or granted. It is a long-standing issue, and debates on it go back a very long time indeed; I think it began with Lloyd George, who said that it should be the state, rather than landowners, that benefits when the state invests resources or increases the value of land from its own actions.

I support the clause as a Liberal Democrat—it was in our manifesto—but I should add that it does not represent a radical or enormous change; in fact, it was the position for a great many years. Following the second world war, the Pointe Gourde case established the principle that hope value would not be paid. As has been mentioned, it was only the Land Compensation Act 1961, exaggerated by further case law in the 1970s, that gradually increased the amount of compensation payable to landowners on the basis of planning permissions not sought or obtained—that is, hope value. As we have been discussing, that frustrates and stymies the delivery of social housing, which we all wish to see, and of other public development.

For all those reasons, this is a welcome clause and we definitely support it. On amendment 2, my understanding is that the clause would allow social housing to be delivered under the provisions of clause 91, but no doubt the Minister will clarify that. We will make our decision about amendment 2 on that basis.

Finally, this has been a long campaign by a number of people and organisations, including the Town and Country Planning Association. People such as Wyndham Thomas, a pioneer in this field, long argued for a change to the hope value provisions. The change, if it comes today, will do credit to those who pushed for it for so many decades.