Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Third sitting)

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate - 3rd sitting
Thursday 23rd June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Stuart Andrew]

Q My final question returns to the community infrastructure levy. We have said that we want to take a test-and-learn approach, trialling it with a number of authorities, so I welcome the fact that you want to engage in that process. Do you agree that planning authorities often spend a considerable amount of time in negotiation on CIL or section 106, and often find the negotiations going downwards in terms of investment for the local community? That further erodes trust in the process in respect of what will be delivered on the ground for communities. Will this legislation help to free up the time of some of the planners to do some of the more important strategic stuff? I will go to David first.

David Jackson: On replacing CIL with the infrastructure levy, the simplification of the infrastructure levy based on value is certainly advantageous. In our experience, we were very engaged in the preparation of CIL on behalf of the Home Builders Federation. We engaged with many local authorities on that basis, and it was indeed a very complex process, looking at viability and trying to project that over a period of time and for a range of development scenarios. That simplification is welcome.

I take a slightly different view on section 106. It goes without saying that where section 106 is engaged, we are dealing in large part with complex, difficult, challenging projects. We have to ensure that local communities have trust in the process and that it will deliver the outcomes they expect to see. Inevitably, there is an element of commercial negotiation, because viability can often be engaged where we have multiple demands on investment in a local community, so it is right that we go through that complex process. I think CIL helps in terms of taking—[Inaudible.] The complexity of section 106 is merely a reflection of the complexity of the projects we are dealing with and the wish on both sides—both the community and the developer—to ensure that the infrastructure that is required to make the project work is actually delivered.

Victoria Hills: We have been very clear that anything that comes in needs to not overcomplicate an already quite complicated system. As proposed, the infrastructure levies will all go through PINS—the Planning Inspectorate —which we think will add more delay and cost to the system. We are advocating for the new infrastructure levies to get directly agreed by local authorities with the Secretary of State or the Department, to take out some of what I think you are alluding to—the horse trading, the negotiation and all the rest of it. Then, there is one discussion between the directly elected authority and the Department, and that gets agreed. You can take months and significant cost out of the whole system by not running it through PINS.

Another important point, which I could not make earlier, is that it is really important to understand how, in simplifying the system, the new infrastructure levy will sit alongside other statutory requirements—not least biodiversity net gain and affordable housing—and how, in simplifying it, it will balance out those quite complex aspects. The requirement for affordable housing has always been the case, but biodiversity net gain was not a thing before.

At the moment, until we see the detail, we are not convinced that it will all be simplified. There are some important complexities to take on board.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q In the light of the Government’s proposals and commitment to building 300,000 homes by 2025 and real revision of the planning process, do the witnesses believe that is deliverable? Do they believe we will see homes that are predominantly assets, investments, second homes and Airbnbs?

Victoria Hills: We have always been very clear that the way to deliver great places and great communities is through a robust local plan and framework where the local authority has the opportunity to set out their priorities, which could include some of the aspects you referred to. The elevation of the importance of the local plan in all this is welcome. The detail, which we do not yet have, is on to what extent local authorities will be able to carry on delivering priorities through policy, and to what extent they will get pulled out into the national framework.

We support the principle of the local plan being elevated. We recognise that it is the only way you can move ahead with delivering on agendas including net zero, affordable housing and well-designed, healthy homes. If you are going to have policies against second homes, that may well be something to prioritise in your local plan, or in national guidance—the detail is yet to be seen on that.

Whether or not it meets the housing numbers is still an area for debate. The Government are on the record saying that is very much the plan in action. We will be advocating for local authorities to be well resourced, without delay to the national framework, to enable them to get on with the business of producing local plans as quickly as possible, in order to provide certainty for local communities and the development sector, so that it can get on and start planning and then building. It really just relates to the earlier theme of resourcing.

However, there also needs to be no further delay. There is an urgent need to deliver more homes, as we know. The housing waiting list continues to rise, and more and more people are still desperate to have a place of their own. The need continues to grow, so it is important that we move forward quickly on any regulatory reform and that we move forward with a resourcing package—which surely must include bringing up the planning fees as well, to help to move those things forward as quickly as possible.

Tony Mulhall: I totally agree with Victoria’s point about the importance of having up-to-date local plans, and the important aspect in the Bill of being able to combine local authorities so that they better match their functional urban region or their socioeconomic hinterland. That is important because we are spending a lot of time and money squeezing the carbon out of our buildings, but there will not be much point in doing that if we have to drive miles to get to our jobs and schools. It is critical that we have a proper planning system linked with the standards of quality construction that will achieve climate change.

On the point as to whether the measures in the Bill will deliver the target of 300,000 houses per annum, the feedback that I get from our members is “No.”

[Rachael Maskell]

Q Could you expand on that?

Tony Mulhall: There are many other factors besides planning that have an impact on the delivery of housing. The market has typically provided a certain level of housing delivery. It has fallen to housing associations and Government to supply what is actually needed. There is a big danger here—we raised this during Sir Oliver Letwin’s review—that if you allow house prices to increase to a certain level, there is nobody who is in favour of them falling. Everybody is invested in them staying at that level. If we continue to have a shortage of supply, which is resulting in price rises, then that is what is pulling up land values. It is the price of the house that is pulling up the value of the land, not the value of the land pushing up the house price.

Those are very important things to understand, because once a certain price level is arrived at in the housing market, nobody is in favour of that falling. Every metric that we are relying on extols the increasing value of property. We need to be very careful about what our expectations are with the affordability of housing if we allow there to be a very tight supply, like there is at the moment. The lending industry is not going to welcome a managed reduction in values. Those are really big issues that are outside of the planning Bill, but are crucial to the delivery of housing.

[Rachael Maskell]

Q Thank you for that answer. Could I ask Mr Jackson and then Ms Hills, is there anything that you think is missing from the Bill that would address housing inequality?

David Jackson: I will just comment quickly on the target of 300,000 and then come to your question. The 300,000 target is correct; we are in the midst of a housing crisis, so it is right to set that as a national ambition. If we look at vacancy rates for residential property across the country, they are typically very low—between 1% and 2%. That ties in well with what the levelling-up agenda is trying to achieve. If we are seeking to create a stronger economy, then the availability of homes near to the jobs that we are creating is an essential component part of that. Tony was talking about creating sustainable relationships between jobs and homes. We have to boost the delivery of homes, but they have to be related to the availability of jobs and the growth in the economy. As Victoria was saying, the fundamental requirement of the local planning process is to get those balances right and to put in any checks that need to be in place to control the downsides of that—be those downsides secondary homes or whatever else.

[Rachael Maskell]

In view of the time, can I just move quickly over to Ms Hills—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the allotted time for the Committee to ask questions. May I thank the witnesses on behalf of the Committee for their evidence? We now move on to the next panel.

Examination of Witnesses

Jonathan Owen and Tony Burton CBE gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

The final question is from Rachael Maskell.

[Rachael Maskell]

Q How do you think the Bill could be strengthened to better support neighbourhood planning? What kind of governance structures would you want to see to achieve that?

Tony Burton: We would like to see a Bill that gives more incentives to produce neighbourhood plans and ensures that neighbourhood forums have access to and can make decisions on the spending of the community infrastructure levy. We would like to see a Bill that removes some of the obstacles to neighbourhood plans coming forward where there are obstructive local planning authorities—principal authorities—by strengthening the legal duty on them to support neighbourhood planning and by putting more time limits and appeal mechanisms in place to navigate the process accordingly.

We would like to see the neighbourhood priorities statements being given more weight where they are to be taken forwards, so they cannot just be ignored, and to see them piloted. We would like to see the Bill come forward with a package of support that would scale up what has been learned from the experiences of the last 10 years, and a programme of support, with an emphasis on more funding but also better use of the existing funding, that was designed to enable those communities to come together to produce plans and tap into the expertise that they need at certain key stages. Above all, the support should enable them to learn from each other and build the neighbourhood planning movement, so that that becomes the norm across the country.

Jonathan Owen: I agree very much with what Tony has said. I would offer a couple of additional points. First, recipients must be able to use the infrastructure levy flexibly for a range of uses. Linked to that, I would like to see in the Bill the extension of the general power of competence, which is proposed for the county combined authorities, to parish and town councils too, so that they can use some of that to support a range of things that they might not otherwise be able to support. That should make it easier for local councils to deliver for their communities and to ensure that they are spending money wisely on the right things locally.

[Rachael Maskell]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm in this room to hear further evidence on the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Miss Dines.)