The Oxford-MK-Cambridge Arc

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I will ensure that I leave at least two minutes for my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). I really want to congratulate him on having secured this debate, along with everybody involved in the work of the Milton Keynes Futures 2050 Commission—all the commissioners and Sir Peter Gregson, obviously—who have put this forward and worked with ambition and vision to feed into this long-term plan for Milton Keynes. I think it mirrors the clear ambition and determination that my hon. Friend has to see Milton Keynes continue being a very special place, which I know it is from my experience many years ago—I was not too far from there as a student—and from visiting him over the last few years. It is a really good example of the real success that there has been from the original new town’s ambitions; it has continued to grow ever since.

There is the ambition for seeing things like more lifelong learning opportunities at a new university, as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on the Opposition Front Bench outlined, along with a good example of that kind of ambition. As was said, it is linked with the Open University. It is also important for areas to realise that the planned reforms in the Higher Education and Research Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech earlier this year make it easier to establish new universities, helping more providers to offer higher-quality degrees. As a Government we are making sure that we work to deliver in those areas.

No one is in any doubt about the clear ambitions for Milton Keynes for the future, not just through this plan but as part of that Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge growth corridor. In March 2016, the Chancellor announced that he had asked the National Infrastructure Commission to lead an inquiry into the potential of Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge. He asked the commission to explore the corridor as a key growth locale for high-tech, knowledge-intensive industries coupled with an ambitious, high-quality housing offer to meet the growing needs of the area. That commission’s inquiry is currently under way and I look forward to seeing its recommendations in due course. It is worth noting, in response to the point made by the hon. Member for Easington, that the consultation is open until 5 August and I encourage people to feed into that.

Increasing the supply of housing is critical to our economic success, in Milton Keynes and more generally. As a Government, we have got the country building again with a 25% increase last year alone. We have set out an ambitious vision for housing—probably the most ambitious vision for a generation—by doubling the housing budget to more than £20 billion to deliver on our ambitions to build 1 million new homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South outlined and commented on the type of homes, affordable homes and shared ownership. I would encourage the area to look at the available funds. There is £4.7 billion-worth of funding for shared ownership specifically, as well as the £1.2 billion fund for starter homes that is available as well. I hope that organisations in the area will look at those.

We also welcome the recent announcement by the Home Builders Federation, on behalf of its largest members, to further increase that growth in supply. My hon. Friend touched on this issue around build-out rates. This is also creating more transparency as we go forward about what those rates are, and building more homes to support the ambitions we all have to see the homes we need actually being built. Increasing housing supply cannot be done in isolation, and I recognise the important roles that having the right spatial plans, infrastructure and services play in creating the right communities for the future.

I will turn to a couple of points around this issue specifically. First, on planning, Milton Keynes adopted a core strategy in 2013 and I know that it is now working on a new local plan to be published, hopefully, later this year. It is right that local authorities keep their plans up to date and that they work with neighbourhood plans. I was delighted when visiting Milton Keynes not too long ago to see some of the ambitious neighbourhood planning work that is going on; indeed, I think the largest in the country is in Milton Keynes. Local councils need to make sure that they are making decisions on planning applications locally and neighbourhood plans are the ultimate way to do that with the local community having real involvement and control over planning by having a neighbourhood plan that has weight in law. In determining planning applications, local councils have to have regard to their local plan as well as to national planning policy and neighbourhood plans. We are committed to making sure that we keep the country building, to deliver the homes, and the type of homes, that our communities want to see.

Our consultation document in December 2015 proposed specific changes to the national planning policy to drive up the delivery of new housing and bring forward more land for development. However, I recognise that excessive pre-commencement planning conditions can slow down or even stop the construction of homes after they have been given planning permission, and my hon. Friend made the point about the frustration people feel about the gap between planning permission being granted and housing actually being built. The new neighbourhood planning and infrastructure Bill that was announced in the Queen’s Speech will seek to deal with that issue. We need to make sure that the homes that are getting planning permission are being built and that the process is not being slowed down by unnecessary bureaucracy.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Does the Minister accept that the constraints often do not just relate to delays in planning? In my experience, certainly in my authority, that was never an issue. The problems often relate to the lack of infrastructure. The MK Futures 2050 Commission has highlighted how important it is to invest in transport infrastructure. Will he at least acknowledge that that is one area—from the six big issues—that should be addressed?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is getting the cart and the horse the wrong way round. He is absolutely right that, in terms of getting homes built and planning for homes in future, infrastructure is part of the equation and is part of what a local authority should be looking at when it develops its local plan. However, once planning permission is granted—infrastructure is part of the consideration in granting planning permission—one of the main delays that causes the gap between planning permission being granted by the local authority and work starting on site is planning conditions. Examples from around the country show that there can be more than 1,000 planning conditions on one site. That explains why, in many cases, a council will give permission but it can be up to a year or two years later if not longer before a builder can get on site and physically start doing anything, including putting in infrastructure. That frustrates communities, local authorities and builders. We need to make sure that we are doing something about it, so we are taking that kind of bureaucracy out of the system. That is what I mean by saying that we want to continue to reform and speed up the planning process, so we minimise the delays caused by unnecessary or burdensome conditions.

Looking towards the longer term, I recognise the key role that dedicated delivery bodies have played in the creation and continued growth of somewhere such as Milton Keynes. At the outset, there was the new town development corporation, and more recently there has been the Milton Keynes development partnership. I welcome the MK Futures 2050 Commission’s focus on ensuring that the right delivery vehicle is in place to drive Milton Keynes’ further transformation in future.

Through the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which we have just passed, we have made some important changes to the new towns legislation to make it easier to set up new statutory development corporations when local areas decide that that is the best way forward, but having the right infrastructure in place to support growth is critical for the wider planning process. The neighbourhood planning and infrastructure Bill will transform how we make long-term plans for our nation’s infrastructure, empowering local communities to get the homes and local infrastructure that they want and need delivered, and making infrastructure policy at the national level much more strategic and consistent. The Bill will underpin that statutory function.

Significant funding is already being invested to support housing growth. More than £200 million of the local growth fund has been prioritised to date to support growth across the south-east midlands and the Northamptonshire areas. We are expecting a further bid for local growth funding from the south-east midlands shortly as part of the current bidding round.

In addition, the Government have announced plans to radically reform the business rates system to enable local government to be more self-sufficient and to benefit from growth. The changes build on the existing reforms that have given areas 50% of the business rate growth, and full retention pilots are going on in four areas. The 100% retention reforms are accompanied by additional flexibilities for local authorities to reduce rates to boost growth, and mayoral combined authorities will have the opportunity to increase rates through an infrastructure levy with the agreement of the local enterprise partnership.

Those are big changes with significant opportunities for local government. How local government chooses to use that retained income and the growth in business rates in areas such as Milton Keynes will be a matter for the people there. However, I am encouraged by Milton Keynes’s wish to earmark spending for education and infrastructure investment and by the ambition shown in the report through the six projects. We are sensitive to the challenges that will come with the changes we are making and are therefore seeking feedback on them in an open manner, through a consultation that was launched last week. I encourage people to take part in and respond to that.

Securing the right level of developer contributions is also vital to ensuring that infrastructure is delivered in the right places and is supporting growth. That is part of the planning process. A review of the operation of the community infrastructure levy is being undertaken by an independent panel, which will report back to Ministers later this year. That review is to look at assessing the extent to which the levy provides an effective mechanism for funding infrastructure and to recommend changes that would improve its operation in support of our wider housing and growth objectives, with a clear focus on the needs and plans for local areas.

I recognise the significant ambitions that Milton Keynes has, both as a city and as part of the wider Oxford-MK-Cambridge arc. We look forward to working with the area on just that, as the hon. Member for Easington said.

[Grahame M. Morris]

In view of that commitment, will the Minister agree to meet representatives of the Fast Growth Cities group to discuss how it is possible to embrace growth—housing growth, in particular—and how that initiative should not go to waste?

[Brandon Lewis]

I meet the cities group fairly regularly and have done as a local government Minister over the last few years, and I am always happy to meet any organisation that wants to talk about developing more housing in its area. There is very much an open-door policy on areas that want to develop housing.

This is all part of our drive for local areas to have the power to work out what is right for them. That is why it is absolutely right that we continue to devolve powers, and the devolution landscape has been driven by those local areas. Government have responded to places that are clear about their ambitions and how they want to get there. I encourage areas to work out what they think is right for them and then to make that pitch to us. With the right governance and structures in place, anywhere could look to drive forward its own priorities and find its own local solutions, and to have the power and ability to do that. I look forward to seeing that develop further in Milton Keynes and to seeing it work to deliver on the ambition it clearly has. I know that it will be supported and matched by the ambitions of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South.