John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)
Mr Speaker
We are grateful to the Minister. If one pops the question, one is likely to get the answer.
Greg Clark
I am grateful, Mr Speaker; I do not know what to make of that comment. I will respond to a few of the points that have been made by hon. Members, including the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods).
I have been clear that there will be transitional arrangements and that we will ensure that they are produced in a timely way so that there is no difficulty with authorities preparing for the introduction of the national planning policy framework. That does not require an amendment. The amendment proposed by the hon. Member for City of Durham does not specify what the transitional arrangements should be. All it does is to elicit the commitments that I have given her tonight. I see that she is nodding. I hope that she accepts that and that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) takes the same view.
On the community infrastructure levy, the regulations already require the independent assessment of viability when an authority considers a claim for CIL relief from a developer to be unviable, especially in the case of affordable housing. I give that commitment. If the hon. Member for City of Durham has any suggestion that the guidance is inadequate in any way, I am happy to meet her to consider that, but that has not been our experience so far.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) knows that we recently concluded a consultation on Gypsy and Traveller policy. It would not be appropriate for me to pre-empt that, but I would say that the abolition of the regional strategies puts clearly into the hands of local authorities the ability to assess the needs of Gypsy and Traveller communities across the country. Of course, the changes that we have discussed tonight provide for a fairer system of enforcement, whereby a planning application that is introduced retrospectively does not stay the enforcement action, which has sometimes been the case.