Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I have some preliminary announcements. Members should please email copies of their speaking notes to [e-mail]. No food or drinks are permitted, but there is plenty of water provided—obviously, you should drink that today. If you would like to remove your jackets, feel free to do so, and please keep electronic devices on silent mode.

Clause 88

Contents of a neighbourhood development plan

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 119, in clause 88, page 94, line 27, at end insert—

“(aa) policies (however expressed) relating to the proportion of dwellings which may be in—

(i) use class 3A (second homes), or

(ii) use class 3B (holiday rentals)

under Schedule 1 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (S.I. 1987/764).”

This amendment would enable neighbourhood plans to include policies relating to the proportion of dwellings which may be second homes and short-term holiday lets under use classes created by NC38.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 38—New use classes for second homes and holiday lets—

‘(1) Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (S.I. 1987/764) is amended as follows.

(2) In paragraph 3 (dwellinghouses)—

(a) for “whether or not as a sole or” substitute “as a”, and

(b) after “residence” insert “other than a use within Class 3B)”.

(3) After paragraph 3 insert—

“3A Class C3A Second homes

3A Use, following a change of ownership, as a dwellinghouse as a secondary or supplementary residence by—

(a) a single person or by people to be regarded as forming a single household;

(b) not more than six residents living together as a single household where care is provided for residents; or

(c) not more than six residents living together as a single household where no care is provided to residents (other than a use within class C4).

Interpretation of Class C3A

For the purposes of Class C3A “single household” is to be construed in accordance with section 258 of the Housing Act 2004.

Class C3B Holiday rentals

Use, following a change of ownership, as a dwellinghouse as a holiday rental property.”’

This new clause would create new class uses for second homes and short-term holiday lets.

New clause 39—Planning permission required for use of dwelling as second home—

‘(1) The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is amended as follows.

(2) In section 55 (meaning of “development” and “new development”), after subsection (3)(a) insert—

“(aa) the use of a dwelling as a second home following a change in ownership involves a material change in the use of the building (whether or not it was previously used as a second home);”.’

This new clause would mean planning permission would be required for a dwelling to be used as a second home following a change of ownership.

[Tim Farron]

Good morning, Mr Paisley; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship on this lovely day. I am grateful for the opportunity to move the amendment and to speak to new clauses 38 and 39.

I volunteered for this Committee for many reasons: to spend time in great company and to be involved with a Bill that gives great opportunities to make a difference for this country, if we get it right. However, my fundamental motivation was to try to address a problem that has afflicted my community in Cumbria, and others, for a number of decades, and which I referenced in my maiden speech more than 17 years ago. That problem has got catastrophically worse in the last two years.

Before the pandemic, the average house price in my constituency was about £250,000, and the average household income was about £26,000. In the lakes and the dales, there is a much greater disparity in scale, where average house prices were already pushing towards £500,000 and average household incomes were no greater than in the rest of the district. There were 5,500 people on a council house waiting list and we have fewer social rented properties than that. Second home ownership was creating massive problems with under-population in villages that were losing their schools, their post offices and their bus services. In many communities, more than 50% of properties were empty.

Even before the pandemic, there was a huge problem. We have pushed the Government to take action for years, but we have seen precious little action. Since the pandemic, the situation has gone from crisis to catastrophe and urgent action is needed. The Government are dragging their feet; the one or two things they have talked about doing to address those issues will not even touch the sides.

Let us look at the situation now. Between June 2020 and June 2021—we are awaiting the figures for this year—in South Lakeland alone there was a 32% rise in the number of holiday lets. That area includes the most populated parts of the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales, and there was a colossal number of holiday lets to start off with, so where does a rise of 32% come from? They were not built for the purpose; they were long-term lets that migrated into short-term lets or Airbnbs.

According to estate agents, up to 80% of all house transactions in the last two years fall into the second homes market—to people who own a property but do not live in that property. From live information—literally, given yesterday—AirDNA says that within our community there are 8,111 short-term available lets. Rightmove sent a snapshot yesterday of 262 long-term lets, which means that there are 35 times more short-term lets in our community than long-term lets. We are seeing lakeland clearances, which have taken place in just a couple of years. People have been evacuated and expelled from the communities where they served and worked, where they may have grown up, where they sought to retire. People of all ages, not just the working-age population, have been evicted under section 21. Typically, those homes then migrate instantly into the Airbnb market.

Let me give you some examples. Debbie in Windermere, a hotel manager, was evicted from her property under section 21 and had to move to Lancaster, 30 miles away. She could find no way of staying in that community. As a consequence, that hotel is still without a manager. I think of a couple in Ambleside: him a chef, her a teaching assistant. They have one child in school and one about to go to school. They have been evicted from their property, which is now worth five times more on Airbnb than they were paying for it. They do not live anywhere in Cumbria now. They both had to give up their jobs and pull their children out of school and nursery, robbing that community of their services and their work.

I also think of Mike, who I spoke to on Saturday. He works in Windermere and lived in Troutbeck Bridge, just two or three miles up the road. He was evicted from his long-term let there, where he had lived for years, and he now has to live in Morecambe. It is a lovely place, but it is 30 miles away. He will soon have to give up his job. Good luck to his employer in finding anyone to replace him.

In the relatively small Yorkshire dales town of Sedbergh, 24 people were evicted during a two-week period in April. Not a single property is available on Rightmove to help those people. There is no doubt whatsoever of the reasons for that. I have some schools in our national parks reporting drops in school rolls of between a fifth and a third of their entire school numbers over the past two years. There are consequences to inaction. We are talking about the death of communities. It is happening as we speak.

We are seeing the annihilation of the workforce. In a study a few weeks ago, 63% of Cumbria Tourism’s members reported that they had to operate below capacity last year because they could not find staff. The workforce is being expelled at a rate of knots. What is the impact of that on our economy? Cumbria Tourism is the biggest employer in Cumbria, contributing £3.5 billion to the Exchequer. Our businesses are underperforming because they are understaffed, because the workforce has been cleared out. In Sedbergh, again, just a few weeks ago—in a snapshot of this one dales town—there were 104 unfilled vacancies. By the way, there are zero spaces available for any long-term let on Rightmove.

Look at the care sector. In the census report a couple of weeks ago, we saw a 30% rise in retirement age groups in our communities. Subsequently, there is a massive rise in the demand for care and a massive drop in the number of people available to provide that care. A tragedy is happening on our doorsteps and within our communities, and not just in the lakes and dales, but elsewhere in Cumbria and other parts of rural Britain. What we are seeing is the tragedy not only of divided families, but of lost services—the impact on schools under pressure and on bus services being lost because of a lack of an active, full-time population in our communities.

Those of us who live in or around a national park—I have the honour of representing two—are not trying to hold them tightly and keep them for ourselves. We want to share them with the country. We are stewards of our national parks for the whole country. However, due to Government inaction and the market being broken, we are seeing our communities and national parks being turned into no-go zones for anybody who is not a millionaire.

There is nothing in the Bill that even touches the sides of being able to tackle this crisis. I want the Government to tackle it with the urgency and speed with which the problem itself is developing. Rarely would we find anything like this amendment and these new clauses when looking at legislation, but they are genuinely the silver bullet to give communities the power to take back control and ensure that they breathe life back into those communities.

I will briefly talk the Committee through the amendment and the new clauses. New clause 38 would provide local planning authorities with the power to make a difference. Under current planning criteria, a permanent dwelling, a second home and a holiday let are all the same category of use, technically. Practically, of course they are not the same category of planning use; they are three very distinct categories. All that the new clause would do is allow local council planning authorities in the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales to be able to differentiate between the three. In a community such as Coniston, where more than half of the homes are not lived in all year round, the council will be able to set a cap and say, “No more.” These measures are about simply giving our communities the power to decide their own destiny.

I simply ask the Minister to take this matter seriously and accept the amendment and the new clause. Together, they would allow local communities to decide their own destiny, to prevent the clearance of a local working-age—indeed all-age—population and ensure that our national parks and rural communities, not just in Cumbria but across the country, are available to everyone, not just the wealthy.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I will be relatively brief, both because we have discussed these issues extensively in Committee and because the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made the case so comprehensively, speaking about the communities in his constituency and the lives and livelihoods of those who make up the communities.

As I have said before, one need only speak to any hon. Member with acute housing pressures of the kind the hon. Gentleman set out to realise that the Government have not got the balance right between the benefits of second homes and short-term holiday lets to local economies and the impact of excessive concentrations of them on local people. It has also become apparent over the course of previous debates that there is a divide between those on the Opposition side and those on the Government side when it comes to how urgently and how boldly we must act to address the problems of excessive second home ownership and its staggering growth. The hon. Gentleman gave truly staggering figures of short-term holiday lets, showing the problems they cause around the country.

The Opposition are clear that we need urgent action in a range of areas to quickly bear down on this serious problem. There is no doubt in my mind that the introduction of new planning use classes could—along with a suite of other measures, because more measures would be needed—go a long way to restoring the balance that we all agree must be struck, giving communities back a measure of control that they do not currently enjoy. For that reason, we wholeheartedly support the amendments and urge the Government to give them serious consideration.

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[The Chair]

I call the charmingly persistent Tim Farron.

[Tim Farron]

Thank you, Mr Paisley; that is very nice of you. I am also grateful to the Minister, but I think that my constituents and many other people in rural Britain, on hearing his reply, will consider this a case of the Government fiddling while communities such as mine die. The Minister deployed some interesting language, and perhaps we should change the name of this Committee to the increasing burdens Committee. Give us the flipping burdens! We want the burden of responsibility to save our communities; that is what we are asking for.

As I said, planning authorities, committees and departments need the resources to enforce the powers they already have. They also need the resources to enforce the new powers that I hope the Government will see the light over and grant. But it is worth addressing what the Minister said about what the Government are already doing because, to be clear, it will not touch the sides. I reckon the council tax premium will affect the wealthiest 5% of second home owners. It will not make one bit of difference to whether they carry on having a second home, particularly when they are allowed to rent their holiday cottage out for 70 days a year, which they do. They can then register as a holiday let small business. As a consequence, they do not pay council tax, and as a “small business” they do not pay business rates either.

In other words, some of the people who are just about clinging on in my communities—single parents living on the estates in Windermere, Milnthorpe, Kendal or Sedbergh—are subsidising the Mancunian barrister’s or London banker’s second home in Coniston. It is out-flipping-rageous, and the Government have the power to do something about it. Never mind having further inquiries and investigations. We know what the problem is and what the solutions are, and I am utterly frustrated that the Government will not accept it.

This is a test—a burden on the Government—of whether levelling up means anything in rural communities. Rural Britain, today and through the coming weeks, will hear whether the Government are up to that test. Many of the Minister’s right hon. and hon. Friends who represent constituencies like mine will be forced to make a big choice: will they take the Whip or will they stand for their communities? I will start by posing that test today and pressing this amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Division 9

Ayes: 5

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Labour: 4
Liberal Democrat: 1

Noes: 8

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Conservative: 8

[Tim Farron]

I beg to move amendment 120, in clause 88, page 94, line 27, at end insert—

“(aa) policies (however expressed) limiting new housing development in a National Park or an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to affordable housing;”.

This amendment would enable neighbourhood development plans to restrict new housing development in National Parks and AONBs to affordable housing.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 40—Local authorities to be permitted to require that new housing in National Parks and AONB is affordable—

“(1) Notwithstanding the National Planning Policy Framework, a local planning authority may mandate that any new housing in its area that is within—

(a) a National Park, or

(b) an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

is affordable.

(2) A local planning authority may define ‘affordable’ for the purposes of subsection (1).”

This new clause would enable local authorities to mandate that new housing under their jurisdiction and within a National Park or an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is affordable, and to define “affordable” for that purpose.

[Tim Farron]

We have just talked about what we do with existing housing stock and about seeking to make sure that it is retained and that we increase the amount that is available for permanent occupancy, for all the reasons I set out earlier. The amendment would tackle extreme situations, using some admittedly extreme measures, to ensure that new build also provides for the needs of local communities.

I want to stop for a moment to make it clear that we are not saying, “Only homes for locals.” We are delighted for anybody to come to Cumbria to become new locals and part of our community, to work and to contribute. We are proud of our diversity and of being a welcoming community, but let us ensure that the houses we build are affordable.

It is a pleasure to represent the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales, as well as the Arnside and Silverdale area of outstanding natural beauty, which has many of the features, including some of the planning powers, of a national park. Any property that goes on the market in those areas will be snapped up within seconds for a premium price. That includes new properties that are potentially built for local occupancy. It is easy to get around the occupancy clauses: people can buy the properties and then turn them into holiday lets quite quickly or move away from the area and use them as second homes, so the occupancy clauses are no protection.

The amendment would give planning authorities in national parks, which face extreme circumstances, radical powers that they can use, in some circumstances, for a period of time. We are not saying that they have to use them, but the powers would be there and available to them. If the Lake district or the Yorkshire dales wished to say, as I am sure they would if they were given these powers, that they would permit only developments that were genuinely affordable, which would normally mean social rented or shared ownership properties, they would be able to enforce that.

The experience in the not-too-distant past, when national park planning authorities had greater powers in practice than they do today, was that such provisions worked. There is a wrong view, which I think is held by some in this place, that the more restrictions there are, the less development we get. That is baloney. Practice proves that that is not true. If authorities are crystal clear to developers, housing associations and others that this is what they will get, and no more, people will either come forward or they will not.

I can call on experience in places such as Grasmere; Ambleside, where the Methodist and Anglican churches worked together to provide new affordable housing with the support of the national park; Windermere, where a similar thing happened; Coniston; and Hawkshead. The communities there were the diametric opposite to nimbys: they actively went out to find land to develop, which people gave up cheaply; they worked and fundraised to make sure things happened; and they left properties in their wills to make sure that collaborations could happen and we could build affordable houses. One reason why that was possible was that people potentially leaving a bequest knew that they could trust the national parks to ensure that their property would end up being redeveloped in an affordable way for a local family, which also meant that developers were clear that that was all that would be on the table. The evidence from 20 years’ experience is that if we are more restrictive, clearer and more directive, we will get the homes that we need for communities such as mine.

The simple fact is that in many parts of the country—not just Cumbria but especially there—if we build it, someone will buy it. By not giving local communities that power, we are simply building for demand, not for need. We can carry on building for demand, but as a result, we will lose our workforce and there will be no one to care for the older people in our community, of whom there are many, in their need. The economy will dissolve because of that lack of workforce, and communities will die.

We need to ensure that we build the houses so that they are there and people can afford them, and that affordable means affordable. We need to ensure that the national parks can enforce those criteria for a period of time, so that we can solve this problem through what we do with our new builds, as we should be doing with the properties that already exist.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for tabling these amendments, the intention behind which we very much sympathise with. We know that excessive rates of second home ownership in rural and coastal areas are having a direct impact on the affordability, and therefore availability, of local homes, particularly for local first-time buyers. Correspondingly, we know that the marked growth in short-term and holiday lets in such areas is having a direct impact on the affordability and availability of homes for local people not just to buy but, as he said in relation to the previous group of amendments, to rent.

Research from CPRE, the countryside charity, makes it clear that our rural housing supply is disappearing and social housing waiting lists in rural areas are lengthening year on year. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is crucial that more is done to ensure that national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty have not just more affordable homes but—I make the distinction—more genuinely affordable homes.

If I am honest, however, I am concerned about the implications of the blanket nature of the restrictions provided for by these proposals. Although there is no doubt in my mind that the provision of genuinely affordable homes to buy and rent must be the priority in such areas, I worry slightly about the potential for unintended consequences, such as ruling out the provision of housing for general demand, which might be needed in some parts of the country to sustain the life of communities.

That said, I appreciate that these proposals are premised on giving communities discretion as to whether they use these powers, and I recognise and support the point that the hon. Gentleman is making with them. I hope the Government respond constructively.

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[Mr Jones]

Although I entirely understand the desire of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for more affordable housing, particularly in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, I fear that the approach he advocates would be counterproductive.

Clause 88 sets out what communities can address in their neighbourhood development plans. It already allows communities to include policies on the provision of affordable housing in their area, taking into account local circumstances. We recognise that delivering affordable housing in national parks and AONBs can be a challenge. To help address that paragraph 78 of the national planning policy framework includes a specific rural exemptions sites policy. It allows affordable housing to be delivered on sites that would not otherwise be developed to meet specific local housing need, and the majority of that housing will be required to remain permanently available to those with a local connection. In addition, in 2021 we published planning practice guidance to help bring forward more of those sites in the future.

Hon. Members will be aware that authorities in designated rural areas can set policies that contain a lower development threshold, above which affordable housing can be sought. That threshold can be between one and five units, compared to a threshold of 10 units in other areas. We will be consulting on how the small sites threshold should work in rural areas under the infrastructure levy.

New clause 40 would enable planning authorities for national parks and AONBs to mandate that new housing under their jurisdiction is affordable and to define “affordable” for that purpose. Authorities are already empowered to set policies in their local plans that require developers to deliver a defined amount of affordable housing on market housing sites, unless exemptions apply. These policies are able to take into account local circumstances in setting the appropriate minimum amount of affordable housing to be delivered, which will vary across the country.

Under the infrastructure levy, we will introduce a new “right to require” through regulations, by which authorities can require a certain proportion of the levy to be delivered as on-site affordable housing. That will be in addition to the rural exemptions sites, which I have already outlined. The revenue from market housing is vital for delivering affordable housing and other vital infrastructure, with over 24,000 affordable homes being delivered through developer contributions in 2020-21. As we will discuss, the new infrastructure levy has been designed to deliver as much on-site affordable housing as at present, if not more. Requiring only affordable housing could therefore reduce the amount of affordable housing obtained in these areas by making market development unable to proceed at all. Ultimately, that would make the affordability challenges in those areas worse rather than better. As such, although the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale are valid and the Government are taking them seriously in our design for the infrastructure levy, I hope he will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[Tim Farron]

Just to be clear, the wording of the amendment means that it would enable national parks to do these things, and they can choose not to if they wish. If we are about respecting local communities, then what we do is about giving people power, not telling them what they must or must not do. For the Government to not support what I am proposing is effectively removing that choice from them.

I hear what people say about the impact on neighbouring communities. It is worth bearing in mind that national parks are—rightly or wrongly—made up of people from a whole range of different backgrounds. The people who are placed on national parks include those appointed by a Secretary of State, people from parish councils within the national park, and the principal authorities that make up that national park, which also cover areas that are not in the national park. At the moment, most of the area that Cumbria County Council covers is not a national park. It includes larger towns and, indeed, one city within Cumbria, which are not in the national park. Likewise, the district councils also have representatives, and not one of those district councils is majority national park in terms of population, so there is that understanding of the impact beyond the boundaries of a national park.

I understand what the Minister says about the importance of the revenue raised by market housing, but the evidence we see with our own eyes in communities like mine is that when communities can bank on new developments being affordable, we suddenly see a huge reduction in build costs, because landowners will give up land for significantly less than they would have done otherwise. Build costs reduce, and the whole community tries to find ways to achieve things. It is very similar to what has happened in my area with rural broadband—communities can deliver broadband much more cheaply than BT because, as it turns out, landowners are quite happy to allow a bunch of people to dig trenches as part of a community effort. People will do that for nothing, whereas they would not do that for a commercial enterprise. So that does not undermine the case at all.

The evidence I have brought before the Committee—the Rural Services Network stating and showing evidence that, on the Government’s own metrics, rural England is more in need of levelling up than any of the geographical regions of England, even the poorest of them—tells us that we have to do something to tackle the need. This amendment is one way in which that could be done. I understand, however, and was interested in, some of the things that the Minister said, so I will not press it to a vote at the moment. I would love to see further action from the Government to address the issue in the coming weeks. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Rachael Maskell]

I beg to move amendment 131, in clause 88, page 94, line 27, at end insert—

“(ab) policies (however expressed) that can require that some or all housing development sites within the neighbourhood plan area are used exclusively for the delivery of affordable housing, as determined in the neighbourhood plan;”.

This amendment would specifically provide for neighbourhood development plans to specify that housing development must deliver affordable housing.

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I will end my comments there, but I trust that the Government will support the amendments and new clauses, which are important for communities that experience flooding.

[Tim Farron]

I am happy to support this group of amendments and new clauses. Flood resilience is of huge importance. We are dealing with extreme weather—today is an example, but there are other days that are extreme in a different way. In my part of Cumbria, in the past 18 years we have had two storms deemed to be one-in-100-year events, and a third that was deemed to be a one-in-200-year event. That does not add up, does it? It is because our weather and our climate are changing. We need to mitigate, prepare and build to protect homes, families and businesses.

Most recently, in 2015 Storm Desmond devastated the town of Kendal as well as many parts of Burneside, Staveley and other communities. The human and economic consequences are vast, and vastly greater than spending money up front to do the right thing in the first place. It is very wise to build into the Bill powers to ensure that neighbourhood development plans and planning controls can bring on board very powerful bodies that otherwise might seek to shirk their responsibility to ensure people are protected. I am thinking in particular of the water companies, which made nearly £3 billion in profit last year, and the extent to which they are compelled to ensure their drainage and other facilities can cope with new development, not just in that small parcel of land but as regards the impact on the wider community.

There is also the work with farmers, who are desperate to be part of the solution, to make sure we retain water in the uplands so that we slow the flow and minimise the impact on communities. The River Kent is one of the fastest-flowing rivers in the country and only 20 miles or so long from source to sea. When floods come they are dramatic, but the water can be down to quite a reasonable level within 24 or 48 hours. It therefore stands to reason that if we can hold back some of that water in the uplands by investing there and supporting farmers to do that, we can save millions of pounds and thousands of people from the terrible experience of being dramatically flooded.

It is about making sure we build in those things in the first instance. As we speak, we are building flood resilience networks in Kendal: both what can be seen by the river in the town and what cannot be seen up in the hills, where we are seeking to retain the water by tree planting, bunding and other work to slow the flow. We should be doing that sort of stuff in advance, before communities get devastated, as happened to mine. That is why the amendments are important. They are about making sure we build resiliently for the future so that other families do not have to go through what families in my community did in December 2015, with the devastation of soggy, sodden Christmas presents and wrecked Christmas trees on the sides of streets in the estates and people utterly devastated by what they had experienced, unable to get back into their homes for six months or more. Surely it is possible for us to prevent these things. With the right powers and provisions, we can.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise to strongly support this important group of amendments, and I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle and for York Central on proposing them. It is right that my hon. Friends seek to amend the Bill to ensure that planning rules on flood prevention and mitigation are strengthened and that the planning system responds better to the challenges associated with drought. As has been said, the amendments would not only ensure that we enhance the resilience to flooding of communities across England, but reform how the insurance and reinsurance markets operate in terms of data accuracy and how premiums take into account mitigations and defences, as well as beneficially extending reinsurance to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Although I am more than happy to acknowledge the positive steps taken by the Government on flood prevention and mitigation in recent years, such as the publication of the adaptation communication 18 months ago and the investment allocated to improving flood defences up to 2027, it is clear that there has been an absence of cross-departmental working when it comes to addressing the issue explicitly in the Bill. When the adaptation communication was published in 2020, it promised that climate mitigation would be integrated across Government Departments, including, most importantly in this case, infrastructure and the built environment. It is therefore problematic that the Bill lacks any explicit reference to flood mitigation and, indeed, references the term “flood” only once in relation to what charging authorities may spend the proposed infrastructure levy on. It is laudable that mitigating and responding to climate change has been included in the Bill as a new requirement for development plans and spatial development strategies. However, the Bill as a whole does nowhere near enough to address the specific issue of the susceptibility to flooding experienced by so many of our communities.

The risk and frequency of flooding will only increase as global temperatures rise and its effects, as hon. Members will know, can be devastating, not only in terms of its impact on people’s lives but on businesses and the economy. How can we plan, for example, to respond to the increased frequency and potency of flooding events when surface water flood hazard maps for the UK have not been improved upon since 2013? They urgently need updating. Indeed, that issue speaks to a wider concern, which is the dearth of accurate, up-to-date and publicly available data about flood prevention and risk. If accepted, new clause 3 would ensure that data, so that property owners could better plan for surface water flooding in areas at risk and, importantly, insurers could more accurately assess risk and therefore insurance premiums. There is widespread support in the sector for the amendments for that very reason.

When it comes to insurance, the introduction of a certification and accreditation system for flood prevention and mitigation improvements, which new FCA rules would ensure were taken into account in setting rates, is an entirely sensible reform that should help lower premiums. I hope the Government will consider accepting new clauses 4 and 5 on that basis.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 90 inserts new section 39A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, setting out a requirement on specific bodies to assist in the plan-making and plan-revising process. The explanatory notes to the Bill make clear that the clause is intended to support the more effective gathering of the information required for local planning authorities that produce local, strategic, supplementary and other forms of plans.

It appears to us that the clause is the Government’s answer to the question of how to sustain engagement and co-operation between plan-making authorities and relevant bodies after the removal of the duty to co-operate, which is an issue that we debated in relation to schedule 7. However, it is not at all clear how the clause interacts with the Government’s stated intention to introduce a “more flexible alignment test” in planning policy. I would be grateful—again, we have touched on the issue—if the Minister could set out in more detail precisely how the clause and that forthcoming alignment test will ensure that there is sufficient engagement and input in the plan-making process on the part of those bodies that are important contributors to the process of delivering infrastructure at local or strategic levels.

That question aside, we welcome the new duties that the clause places on infrastructure providers to engage with the production of local plans, which is an entirely sensible measure. However, we question why the prescribed bodies referred to in the clause are confined to those that are public. If one considers even for a moment which types of body it might be useful and necessary for a plan-making body to engage in terms of the information required for the production of a plan, it quickly becomes apparent that they would include private infrastructure providers—for example, private utility companies.

Amendments 104 and 105 to 108 would revise clause 90 in a way that would enable plan-making authorities to require prescribed private bodies to assist in the plan-making and plan-revising process. They achieve this simply by clarifying that prescribed bodies need not be public in terms of their ownership or have functions that are entirely of a public nature. The Minister will no doubt surprise me with the ingenuity of his reasoning as to why the amendment is unnecessary, but I cannot imagine what reason the Government have to oppose it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Tim Farron]

This is a really useful amendment, and I hope that the Minister takes it seriously. Utility companies have been mentioned already. When I think of Openreach, or United Utilities, a water company in my part of the world, I think about the impact that these businesses have on our communities. The infrastructure that they oversee and are responsible for is fundamental to the wellbeing of those communities. For example, we have seen sewage on the streets in places such as Staveley and Burneside, and the answer from United Utilities is, “Put it a bid, and we’ll look at it in our next-but-one funding round.” Surely communities ought to have the ability to say to United Utilities or other water companies, or to broadband providers and other such bodies, that their access to the greater public realm and their almost monopoly position in the market mean they have a responsibility to those communities, which will be overseen by those in local authorities who have the right to make these decisions.

It is right that private bodies should be included; it should be specified in the clause. The amendment would help communities like mine to bring in hugely powerful and very wealthy outfits such as Openreach and United Utilities, so that they perform the role they should perform—to provide for every part of our community—and do not take advantage of their power and strength over the relative weakness of local authorities.

[The Chair]

Minister, are you going to surprise us?