Housing and Planning Bill

Ranil Jayawardena Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who talked passionately about her constituents. I want to ensure that Britain is a country where her constituents and mine can all aspire—through good, decent jobs—to buy their own home. That is why I am pleased to rise in broad support of the Bill. I support the initiatives being taken forward on brownfield; I support the desire to streamline compulsory purchase orders; and indeed I support the right to buy. However, the Bill still needs further work and requires greater clarity in a number of areas. I hope, in the short time available to me, to make a few suggestions which I hope the Minister will consider carefully.

I believe that “planning in principle” must not be used inappropriately to overrule councils on greenfield sites. We have said that we want to streamline brownfield development, and that is absolutely right—we must prioritise such development—but councils must be listened to when they devise both local and neighbourhood plans. Moreover, the definition of brownfield lacks clarity. For example, would a town centre site where there is mixed-use building, both retail and residential, be considered to be brownfield if not all the buildings were in use? I believe that the Government are determined to regenerate our town centres to ensure that they are prosperous, vibrant places in which people can live, shop and work, and I support them in that, but we need clearer answers to such questions.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Gentleman given any consideration to the additional cost that might be involved in clearing brownfield sites, especially when industrial use is involved, and to what happens when the value of land is so low that resale does not meet that additional cost?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I was about to say something about the cost of brownfield remediation. I know that the Government have considered that very carefully, because they have announced a £1 billion brownfield regeneration fund. I am a passionate supporter of the fund. I think that it needs to be introduced more quickly, and that councils should be involved in its introduction so that they understand how to gain access to it, but I believe that it is an important initiative that will bring into use brownfield sites—industrial and commercial sites, for instance—that would otherwise not be suitable for housing development, and would lie empty to the detriment of greenfield developments.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), it is important for the deal to include not only remediation but infrastructure. There is not enough in the Bill about how infrastructure can be delivered in step with new development. The Government’s commitment to infrastructure projects is welcome, but I want to be certain that Ministers have considered carefully how those projects will conform with any planning process that is introduced by means of the Bill. As Members have pointed out, the community infrastructure levy will be reduced for brownfield developments, as it will be difficult to make use of brownfield sites with the same level of developer contributions, but it is critical that we do so. I do not want the reduction in the CIL to be a barrier to brownfield development, and I believe that the Government will step in to ensure that the regeneration fund is used for that purpose.

[Simon Hoare]

I entirely take my hon. Friend’s point about the need to deliver infrastructure in step with new housing development, but local planning authorities are often cautious about what the inspectorate might deem to be onerous conditions. Might not greater clarity about what is and what is not onerous lead the authorities to adopt a more robust approach to setting conditions, and thus to ensure that infrastructure development is delivered apace?

[Mr Jayawardena]

My hon. Friend is right. Governments do not necessarily have to fund projects; they can help local authorities to deliver the infrastructure that communities need simply by providing that clarity. I am sure that Ministers intend, either in the Bill or in regulations, to set out in clear English what local authorities can and cannot ask for in delivering for their residents.

That leads me neatly to the subject of the brownfield register. Many sites are currently vacant, and it is important for us to bring them into use. Introducing a brownfield register is critical to that, and I welcome wholeheartedly the Government’s enabling action, but I hope that they will adopt an approach that is common to the other parts of the planning process, such as the strategic housing land availability assessment process. Under SHLAA, it does not have to be the landowner who registers a property. It can be registered by any interested party, and the council then weighs that option alongside the others. That would be a helpful step, ensuring that even when land is not in common ownership, suggestions can be made and local authorities, which are democratically elected—and if we believe in localism, we want to give them the power to make decisions—can decide what land is suitable for brownfield development in the future. If that is done properly, it will prevent local authorities from being landed on by other forces, be they neighbours or others, who want to introduce more development than is necessary to meet local need in their districts. Local authorities will have an opportunity to shape the future of their areas.

The Government want to make compulsory purchase orders clearer, fairer and faster, and I fully support that initiative. It will help local authorities to use the information that they have identified in the brownfield register, to establish the infrastructure needs in their areas, and to deliver a package of measures that will work for their communities. Again, however, more clarity is required, because it is not yet clear what steps will be removed from the process to make it easier for councils to do just that. They will need support, financial and otherwise, to deal not only with land purchase—which can be arranged through back-to-back deals with developers—but the administrative process of undertaking a compulsory purchase order. That is costly, and takes much time. Streamlining will help, but councils will still need more support.

I also fully support the right-to-buy policy because I think that people should have the chance to own their homes, but I should like the Government to go further. I want the presumption in relation to affordable rented homes in any section 106 agreement on any new development to be replaced by the option for local authorities to say “No, we want affordable homes to buy.” I want the Government to consider paragraph 50 of the national planning policy framework, which still requires local authorities to produce a mix of housing types and tenures. A local authority might say, “We already have enough homes to rent; we want more to buy.” It should be for local authorities to make such decisions. It should also be up to local authorities to ensure that when money is being accrued from the sale of homes, there is potential for off-site provision, because it may well be possible to deliver more homes elsewhere

I support the Bill, but I hope that Ministers will give careful consideration to the points that I have made.