Draft Self-build and Custom Housebuilding (Time for compliance and fees) Regulations 2016

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 General Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir David.

I appreciate that the Minister was not in his position when the Housing and Planning Bill—now the Housing and Planning Act 2016—went through the House, but he will know from Hansard, if from nowhere else, that the Opposition are generally in favour of the measures in the Act to promote self-build and custom-build. We also agree with the Minister that we are too reliant in this country on volume house builders and that we need to diversify the range of people who are building homes, including through custom-build and self-build.

AMA Research suggests that the self-build and custom-build output remains steady at about 7% to 10% but that the overall number of new homes built each year in self-build completion is well below the 2007 peak of 14,000 homes. Perhaps I should not say this in these Brexit days, but as the Minister has said, the figures for a number of European countries are much higher. They do much better with custom-build than we do.

We broadly support the Government’s aim of increasing the output in this part of the house-building sector and share the analysis that more needs to be done to bring plots forward and to make a reasonable assessment of the local need for such plots by compiling a register, which is the subject of this statutory instrument. However, measures put forward by the Government must be reasonable and it must be possible for local authorities to deliver on them. In that regard, I have some questions about what the Government propose.

Our concern is that the Bill and the regulations might place unreasonable burdens on local authorities. For example, section 2A of the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015 imposes a duty on relevant authorities to grant a sufficient number of development permissions in respect of several plots of land to meet demand as evidenced by the register. I will come to the register in a moment, but regulation 2 specifies three years, as the Minister said, as the period within which the registered number of development permissions relating to the base period must be granted to satisfy the duty.

What happens if not enough land is available or it cannot be brought forward at all or without huge or unreasonable costs? There is nothing in the regulations about the sanctions or what they might be. Can the level of fees be increased to acknowledge that large costs might be involved in bringing forward a plot with planning permission?

We know that the Government intend to provide support to cover the costs of developing the register under the new burdens doctrine, but we would appreciate clarification today on whether they intend to provide support for the costs of bringing land forward for development, including the servicing of the plots. If the Government are providing financial support for local authorities under the new burdens doctrine, how long will that support be in place for?

What system is in place to ensure that the costs remain proportionate? As I am sure the Minister understands, local authorities could face a situation whereby the only plots available have quite high costs for extending electricity supply and other services. That could place undue burdens on the local authority. What system is in place to ensure that that does not happen and that the costs attached to the available land are proportionate? The Government have run a series a pilots, which might have dealt with the issues. In that case, we would like to hear about those today.

On fees, regulation 3(2) says:

“A relevant authority must determine when a fee is to be payable, and must refund any fee paid by a person whose application to be entered on or to remain on the register is unsuccessful.”

Local authorities may have put a great deal of work into determining whether someone should be on the register, and they will have to refund the fee to be on the register if they do not then place the person on the register. That leaves the question of who meets the costs of the determination work that has to be carried out by the local authority. Will that cost simply be borne by local authorities and their council tax payers? That does not seem entirely fair.

Has the Minister thought about including in the system a determination cost, as well as a cost for simply being on the register, to ensure that local authorities are not out of pocket because they are determining a lot of applications that do not end up on the register, but for which they have to bear the costs? I am pressing that point because we all know that planning departments are really short of resources at the moment. Giving them more work with no additional resources will make a bad situation worse. Will the Minister provide some clarity on that?

We welcome different fees for different categories of applicant and the overall thrust of the policy. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my questions and concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is luring me into the wider debate about what we are going to do on housing. I will say just two things. First, there is a target to get local authorities to release a similar scale of public land to the Government’s own commitment. We have committed to release land that would be suitable for 160,000 homes over the course of this Parliament; there is a similar target for local authority land.

Secondly, my hon. Friend makes an important point about smaller sites. I think all Members would agree that in recent years there has been a trend for local authority plans to focus on large sites. That brings several dangers. It essentially guarantees that we will be dependent on large-volume developers, because large sites are really only suitable for such developers. It also creates a risk of local authorities falling below their five-year land supply targets, because if one of those sites hits the buffers and drops out, the local authority finds itself below the five-year land supply and the rules on speculative development then apply. There are many good planning policy reasons. If my hon. Friend bears with me until we discuss the White Paper, he will see that there are many good reasons for strongly encouraging local authorities to provide for a mixture of sites in their local plans, especially if we want a more diverse range of people to provide housing.

I am pleased to hear that the official Opposition favour the policy. I have now presented two statutory instruments, both of which have been supported from the Opposition Benches, and long may that continue. I am conscious that other bits of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 did not meet with such favour, but I will gloss over those for now.

The hon. Member for City of Durham asked a number of questions. The first was about how local authorities might identify sites. They can use a number of mechanisms, one of which was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen. Surplus local authority land may be suitable for such purposes. Authorities may, in certain circumstances, wish to acquire sites on the market, but there is also potential for them to use the planning system to deliver sites. For example, they could include as an application condition for a larger site that the developer provides a certain percentage of custom build sites.

The hon. Member for City of Durham raised a very fair point: what if local authorities cannot find enough sites to provide for the number of people on the register? The negative procedure statutory instrument that sits alongside this provides the answer to that question, which is that areas that have a high demand for self-build or custom house building, and very limited land for development through no fault of their own, are able to seek an exemption from the Secretary of State. Those regulations broadly set out how that exemption works, but I will provide a little bit of detail.

The Government’s view is that it would be unreasonable to require authorities to grant planning permission in respect of all their future land supply for self-build or custom build. At the moment, about 10% of new homes are self-build or custom build housing, and we want to double that. The regulations will enable those authorities where the demand for self-build and custom build is greater than 20% of their available land to apply for an exemption. That is how we would seek to address that issue.

Even if there is an exemption, the authority would still need to have regard to persons on the register when carrying out their general duties in terms of seeking further sites over time. Individuals in an exempt authority would be able to register in neighbouring areas with greater land availability, so it would not rule out opportunities altogether for people who live in those authorities.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Will the Minister confirm whether the negative statutory instrument also covers any possible sanctions against local authorities? If authorities do not meet the supply within the three-year period, will they be subject to sanctions?

[Gavin Barwell]

Obviously, we would have to keep that under review. The evidence from the vanguard programme is that there is generally an enthusiasm in local government for this purpose, but my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen made the point that we need to get out there and evangelise. We need to look at what action we will take if authorities do not meet their obligations. When we come discuss the housing and planning White Paper, the hon. Lady will see that a considerable amount of thought has been given to the extent to which the Government should intervene in local plans, and to what those thresholds should be. If she bears with me for a little while, she will hear some more details about that.