Land Banking

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on securing this, his first Adjournment debate? I am particularly grateful that he has chosen a topic that is so important to his constituents and to all our constituents.

Let me begin by saying that the Government are committed to providing the homes that this country needs. The debate provides an excellent opportunity, as expressed by my hon. Friend, to discuss the Government’s position on build-out rates, which, we recognise, are an issue that many communities feel strongly about.

My hon. Friend spoke eloquently about the challenges his constituents face. It is important to recognise at the outset that Sir Oliver Letwin’s independent review of build out, which builds on that of Dame Kate Barker and many others before them, highlighted that the repeated arguments of house builders sitting on land is overstated. Sir Oliver’s work found no evidence that speculative land banking is part of the business model for major house developers or that it is a driver of build-out rates. Of course, not everybody agrees with the conclusions reached by Sir Oliver and his report. The Local Government Association, as referenced by my hon. Friend, has recently stated that in some cases there are legitimate reasons why development stalls. It could be, for example, that the land owner cannot get the price for the site they want, that the development approved is not viable or that there are supply chain or other economic hindrances to starting. However—

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I had begun a sentence, but as it is the hon. Gentleman I shall end it and give way to him.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister. In the past year, we have seen a massive increase in the price of houses. In my constituency, house prices have risen 20% and that has been the case across the whole United Kingdom. It probably is not right to say now that developers could not get their price out of a site—they clearly could.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. House prices have increased and that is a very good reason why we need to build more homes of different types and tenures across the country to ensure that people can get the home of their dreams either to buy or to rent. I was going to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), both doughty campaigners on behalf of their constituents, that we recognise that build out is important to ensure that communities see the homes they want and need built promptly.

The Government want homes to be built and expect house builders to deliver more homes more quickly and to a high quality standard. Indeed, we are exploring further options to support a prompt and faster build out as part of our proposed planning reforms. We are now analysing the responses to the consultation on our White Paper, “Planning for the future.” We had some 40,000 responses. That work will include pursuing further options to support faster build out of our proposed planning reforms. More details will follow.

I was interested to listen to my hon. Friend and hear ideas raised such as charging council tax on unbuilt permissions. It is an idea that has been mentioned previously, too. That will require some careful thinking because council tax is levied on properties and paid by the residents. Who would pay council tax on a permission? Would it be the developer, the land owner or the promoter? Those are questions we need to address if that option were to be further pursued.

[Christian Wakeford]

The council tax proposal is just one idea. Obviously, council tax as a policy is open to interpretation in this place. However, there are other ideas and notions, such as land value tax as soon as an application has been granted and the land value increases. That would certainly be an incentive to get people building again. What are the Minister’s thoughts on the potential of a land value tax?

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend is right that there are many options. I used that example because it has been positive, but it is also complex and needs to be thought through. Let me assure him that we are thinking through a number of options we can employ to ensure that more homes are built more quickly, to that high-quality standard that we expect, and that build-out occurs, as we all want to see.

We will also be looking at enforcement rules for landowners who wilfully abuse the planning system. We will talk more about that when we introduce the legislation. We know that our country does not have enough homes. It is a decades-long problem of demand consistently outstripping supply and it has undoubtedly fuelled rising house prices. Indeed, the median price in England is nearly eight times higher than the median gross annual earnings outside London. In London, it is nearly 12 times higher. How are people expected to get on the property ladder and buy their own home—even rent their own home—with such challenges? It is clear that things have to change.

Building the homes the country needs is at the heart of the Government’s commitment to levelling up across our United Kingdom. Our vision for the future of planning and home building in England has to be bold and ambitious. That is at the heart of our White Paper. It proposes changes to the focus and processes of planning, to secure better outcomes for local communities, in terms of land for homes, for beauty and for environmental quality.

Simplifying the content of local plans will be a big part of this. It will make it easier to identify areas suitable for development, such as brownfield land, and to protect the all-important green-belt land sites, which are the sorts of sites that my hon. Friend referred to. A good example of brownfield land development can be found at the East Lancashire Paper Mill site in his own constituency.

These changes will transform a system that has long been criticised as being too slow to provide housing for families, key workers and young people, and too weak in getting developers to pay their fair share towards supporting essential infrastructure such as local schools, roads, GP surgeries and clinics. It is our ambition to deliver 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s and one million homes over this Parliament.

Increasing the number of up-to-date local plans across England is central to achieving that goal. Local plans not only unlock land for development and ensure that the right number of new homes are being built in the right places, but they also provide local communities with an opportunity to have their say on how their local areas will transform over the coming years.

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank the Minister for being very generous and giving way a second time. The Labour council in Bury does not have a local plan. We have been working on the Greater Manchester spatial framework but that has been pushed back time and time again, as the people say, “No.” What message can the Minister give to the Labour councillors about bringing forward a local plan, and doing so quickly?

[Christopher Pincher]

My message to all local authorities that do not have up-to-date local plans is: “Move as quickly as you can. If you do not, you do your constituents a disservice, because you leave them open to speculative development based on the presumption of sustainable development. It means you cannot protect your land, or support the communities that live on or around it, because you do not have a plan in place.”

Home building statistics show that in 2019 to 2020 there were nearly 244,000 net additional homes, including 220,000 new build homes. That is the highest annual increase for 30 years. The 2020 housing delivery test measurement, which we published in January, shows that around two thirds of local authorities have risen to the challenge and are supporting the delivery of the homes they need. The other third need to follow suit.

My hon. Friend referred to empty homes. I am pleased that the number of long-term empty homes has fallen by more than 30,000 since 2010. We have given councils powers and strong incentives to tackle long-term empty homes, including the power to increase council tax on them by up to 300% and to take over the management of them. Councils also receive the same new homes bonus for bringing an empty home back into use as for building a new one. It is probably worth mentioning that not all empty homes are habitable without some significant expenditure, or are in places where people need and want to live, but he raises an important point. I hope that I have demonstrated the Government’s commitment to getting appropriate empty homes back into use.

My hon. Friend also mentioned infrastructure. If we are to build new homes, we must have good infrastructure to support them. We recognise the crucial role that infrastructure plays in supporting new communities and improving neighbourhoods. Our manifesto committed to amending planning rules to ensure that the right infrastructure is in the right place before people take the step of moving into their homes. That is why we announced the national home building fund in the 2020 spending review.

The fund brings together existing housing, land and infrastructure funding streams into a single, flexible, more powerful pot, ensuring that roads, GP surgeries and schools are ready for people moving into new neighbourhoods, and driving an increase in supply in the areas of greatest need over the long term. At the next spending review, we will set out our proposals for the future of the national home building fund, to deliver on the Government’s commitment to invest £10 billion to unlock homes through the provision of infrastructure. That is on top of the £7.1 billion that we have already allocated, which we believe will unlock 860,000 new homes.

My hon. Friend mentioned the Government’s commitment to building back better after the pandemic and the importance of protecting the environment. Through the national planning policy framework, we have made it clear that planning policies and decisions should minimise the effects on biodiversity from development, protect our most sensitive habitats and provide net gains. That means that opportunities to incorporate biodiversity improvements in and around developments should be sought, especially where they can secure measurable net gains for biodiversity.

We intend to go further: 2021 will be a landmark year for environmental policy because in November we will host the UN climate change conference in Glasgow. Our Environment Bill will be a pivotal part of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to create the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on Earth. We will make provision for a mandatory 10% of biodiversity net gain improvements for a range of developments, including house building. That will ensure that future developments result in measurable enhancements to nature, strengthening the biodiversity of our environment overall. We will also give new powers to local authorities to tackle air pollution in their areas.

My hon. Friend made important reference to the green belt, and our priority as a Government is to continue to protect the status of our green-belt land. We stand by our manifesto commitment:

“In order to safeguard our green spaces, we will continue to prioritise brownfield development, particularly for the regeneration of our cities and towns.”

We are clear that green-belt land should be considered for release only if an authority can fully evidence that it has examined all other reasonable options for meeting its development needs.

In addition, the national planning policy framework makes it clear that there should be no approval of inappropriate development in the green belt, including most forms of new building, except in very exceptional circumstances, as determined by the local authority. That means that the authority should use as much brownfield land as possible, optimise development densities and co-ordinate with neighbouring authorities to accommodate development.

We are committed to working with local authorities to turn old, disused brownfield land back into use for vibrant, exciting new places, levelling up for communities across the country. We have announced a package of measures that sets a new and far-reaching cross-government strategy to build more homes, protect and enhance the environment and create growth opportunities across the country. It includes: our home building fund, providing £2 billion of funds to support often SMEs in the delivery of larger, mostly brownfield sites through loans for infrastructure and site preparation; and £2.9 billion to support small and medium-sized enterprises, custom builders and construction innovators to build housing, including on brownfield land.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not give way to my hon. Friend, because I have not got very long left and I appreciate he has only just arrived in the Chamber. If he will forgive me, I will continue.

Additionally, we have made available £400 million in brownfield housing funding, which has been allocated to seven mayoral combined authorities, including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South, enabling around 26,000 new homes across the region—brownfield site homes. He asked me what we can do to encourage Mayor Burnham to build the right homes in the right places in the right way. I point him to the investment we are making in the combined authority in Manchester to ensure we are unlocking the opportunity to build homes on brownfield sites and not greenfield or green-belt sites, which people understandably want to see preserved.

My hon. Friend has spoken passionately and eloquently in support of his constituents in this, his very first Adjournment debate. I congratulate him again on securing it and being such a champion for his constituents. I hope it is clear to him and to others that the Government are committed to delivering a planning system that is fit for purpose and that works for everyone.

The Gracious Speech announced that the Government will bring forward a planning Bill in the current Session of Parliament. We are working hard with our stakeholders, and with colleagues across the House and in the other place, to make sure that we get the Bill right. We want to hear people’s views. We want to ensure that we refine our proposals in such a way that we introduce legislation that works for everyone in our country and provides the right homes that the country needs. It will be a Bill that gets more infrastructure built, that will modernise the planning system and that will bring the entire system—more democratic, more engaging—into the 21st century. It will propose simpler and faster processes, giving communities and developers much more certainty over what development goes where, what it looks like and what the infrastructure should be, and ensuring that developers have to contribute their fair share to funding affordable homes.

Our reforms will empower local people to set standards for beauty and design in their area through design codes that put beauty at the heart of our system. We want to grow the supply, boost affordability and unlock opportunity, and to do so for every community in every region in our United Kingdom. I am very pleased to be able to say those words and to commend my hon. Friend for his debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the technical and broadcasting teams for ensuring that all Members of Parliament have been able to participate in our democracy, whether they are in this iconic Chamber or not.

Question put and agreed to.