Housing and Planning Bill (Third sitting)

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I think we have got the general gist. Thank you very much.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Q 241 Dr Ellis, can I quickly go back to your written evidence? Is all your analysis through the prism of the 1947 Act, the nationalisation of development rights and all those things? Is that the gold standard by which you work?

Dr Hugh Ellis: At the time, it was certainly the best way of settling the key arguments about how to control land in the public interest. We represented them in our evidence only because we are struggling to see what the underlying principles in the Bill are based on for this reform package. We are looking for a standard to which you can go back and say, “That’s the kind of planning system we want.” I do not understand from the Bill what our planning system will look like in 2020, how it will fit together strategically and locally, and what people’s rights will be.

Given that we have not had consolidated planning legislation since 1990, which is a long time ago, our planning legislation is extraordinarily complicated. The TCPA is advocating, yes, by all means, let us have change, but let us base it on clear transparent principles: local democracy, the idea of comprehensive planning and high place-making standards. That 1947 settlement was interesting because it was cross-party, particularly driven by solving the land tax problem. That seems interesting to us.

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 242 Would you accept, though, that the world has moved on? The nationalisation of planning has not really worked now. Up until 2010 the number of houses it was delivering, in the light of the 1990 Act, was too low and there needed to be radical change.

Dr Hugh Ellis: I do, but that was 1990. The 1947 Act and the New Towns Act 1946 delivered at the peak almost 400,000 units a year. That was delivered through effective planning. All that we are suggesting, given the age of our organisation, is that there are some important lessons that we need to learn from the past. I think the last 20 years of planning reform have all sorts of problems, so you are quite right. We are arguing for a comprehensive reassessment, if that is what we want, of planning. We are arguing against walking blindfolded into a new planning framework where these issues have not properly been discussed.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Q 243 Ms Alafat, reading through your evidence, you do not seem confident that one-for-one replacement of right to buy is likely to happen. What are your views on the fact that replacement, if it does happen, does not need to be in the same area? What effect do you think that would have?

Terrie Alafat: To clarify the position on one-for-one replacement, we did some interim analysis a couple of months ago. That was, of course, based on what we knew in the policy as it was evolving. In particular, the definition of high value and how that will work in practice has an effect in the receipts that would be delivered.

Our early analysis showed that if you looked at a higher-end estimate, the receipts would probably be just enough on the estimates for the right to buy. We were more concerned about the replacement of the local authority housing stock as well. More work needs to be done. We are keen that Government work on the definition and consulting. That is quite positive because that is really important.

The reality is that when you look at the numbers—the receipts that will be generated across the country and where, given the high value, with that definitional issue—there is no doubt that there will be higher receipts in areas such as London and parts of the south-east. The receipts generated in some other parts of the country will probably not be enough to replace in the local area. There will be a whole issue about how the funding is apportioned to deliver the one-for-one replacements. That is still very much up for discussion and there is obviously a lot of work going on around the implementation of the policy.