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The trouble with the Bill is that it represents the biggest divorce of cause and effect that could possibly be imagined. The developer will happily hand over a percentage, because that will be a done deal for him. He will know exactly what he has to do in the system, but the local authority will not know all the vagaries of what on earth it will get back or what it can deliver. What is more, the people who have voted in the local
authority that might have had some say on the planning decision will have absolutely no way of coming back at their local council when the hoped-for goods are not delivered. The PGS is therefore the worst of all possible scenarios. With a straightforward tax for the developereasy come, easy gohe will not need to negotiate with or even talk to the community that might suffer the harm. All that will happen is that he will get on with his developments and the local community will be left bewildered as to exactly how much it can expect to receive in return.
I am afraid that I was not assuredagain, I am such an old cynicby the words area or authority. Altering the structure of the authorities will mean a wholly different beast, but again we are not sure about areas, such as for hospital provision. I am not due to receive a hospital in my areathat one has been scotchedbut there is one in Watford. I should also like to correct the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable)Watford is not my constituency. One could argue that, because my constituents go to that area, they are receiving some benefit from a hospital or facility placed elsewhere; but they do not want it there, they want it in their own area.
It has been argued that payments under section 106 arrangements were made willingly, because they were win-win. I support that. I do not think that the fact that some people did a bad job and got a single and not a dual carriageway is a reason for abolishing section 106.
The PGS is a redistributive taxit has no other formbecause, although we are not sure of the figures, at least 30 per cent. will be redistributed. The local community that has suffered the harm will have no say in that. In communities such as mine, with large areas of green belt and greenfield sites, which are protected, there will be a perverse incentive to redesignate those areas, because they will have the biggest planning gain uplift. In areas with lots of brownfield sites, which might have almost a negative value before remedial works are done, local authorities might be pressured into releasing more green belt land and green fields, as they scrabble around to ensure that they secure the funding, in order to deliver their share of an areas contribution, particularly if there is an assessment formula. We should therefore consider the proposals incredibly carefully.
Then there is the law of unintended consequences. We have not really heard about the valuations. Mention has been made of self-assessmentand, therefore, people perhaps laying themselves open to investigation if they get the assessment wrongbut there was not much clarity in the response to my question about who in the community can really challenge those assessments. Again, the arrangement becomes a done deal between the developer and the Government with which everybody else can either agree or disagree.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) also serves on the Communities and Local Government Committee. He said that he welcomed the fact that the Government had accepted many of our recommendations, but there were a few that they did not accept, one of which concerned the comparison between section 106 agreements and the planning gain supplement. The Committee had some quite heated
debates about that. It should be transparent to a community whether it will be better or worse off under a 106 or a planning gain supplement.
When it was put to the Committee that the Government should make it open, transparent and
obvious to those in any local authority area what the gains were from any potential development,
we thought that that meant the public and the voters as much as anybody else. We agreed with that, but the Government said:
If PGS were introduced, the Government would expect to make available information on the PGS revenues,
and that comparing potential section 106 revenue and the planning gain revenue was considered to be disproportionately difficult and expensive. A local area will therefore never know whether it was better off under 106 or planning gain supplement. The Committee felt that local areas and local people should be able to see that, so I am disappointed that we are being asked to accept the PGS on a hope value and expect things to be better. I am not prepared to give it a go, to suck it and see, or to do whatever else we are supposed to do, licking and promising all over the place. [Hon. Members: Steady!] I hate to say it, but there are so many nebulous phrases being used. We do not know what the proposal means, so we should be treading with enormous caution.
Mr. Paul Goodman: Just to confuse my hon. Friend further, does she agree that, following the speech from the Government Front Bench, it is rather uncertain whether there will be a planning gain supplement at all, since the Minister appeared to water down the Governments position even further?
Anne Main: I completely agree with that. The PGS did not receive resounding applause from the Select Committee. I remember some heated discussions among members of the Committee to ensure that there were suitable caveats to reflect what we had heard, because the proposals are so vague. As hon. Members have said, attempts to introduce a planning gain supplement have been made before, but the see-sawing of the level at which it was to be pitched was one of the things that caused them to fail.
As far as I can see, we all accept the need for infrastructure. The Government have not assured us that there will be pump-priming of that infrastructure. If there is, who will start it in the first place? Some hon. Members have said that perhaps we will pay it back to the system, but what if the system is a private finance initiative? Will it increase the debt that might be accrued?
Many hon. Members have mentioned the fact that the PGS is levied at the planning stage, but as those who have served on planning committees will know, proposals are often returned on an incremental basis, to be improved by the developer. We have not heard at what point that chain of accountability for the planning gain supplement will stop. That will make proposals hugely convoluted, with people arguing about the exact proportion for which they are liable, as they hand on planning consents through the system. That issue has not been ironed out by the Governments proposals.
I am not prepared to vote for a nebulous pig in a poke, with the hope that everything will better. I do not believe that the PGS will be better. Rather, it will give massive encouragement to companies such as Landspy in my constituency, which sells parcels of green belt and greenfield sites with hope value, hoping that people will buy them and sell them on, and that eventually permission will be granted. Hon. Members on the Government Benches might put me right on this, but I defy them to show me how the paper trail could be followed back to the person who originally bought land that was sold on and on, on hope value rather than planning permission. Quite often that can mean quite a raise in gain.
Again, change of use has not been dealt with; we have not yet ironed that one out in an area such as mine, where many small residential properties are converted to other uses. St. Albans does not have so many large building projects, but small, incremental in-filling has occurred and we do not know the figure at which the planning gain supplement will kick insub-divisions of properties? I do not know.
Given all the vagaries, I am not prepared to support the Government in their hope or belief that the measures will deliver. I sat on the Select Committee and listened carefully, and heard no proof that anybody else shares the hope that the Government have put in the Bill.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North) (Lab): Like all the distinguished speakers in this debate, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this paving Bill. I come to the debate from two different perspectives: first, from that of our debate in the Environmental Audit Committee two years ago; the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) also served on that Committee. The issue in that debate was how, whatever investment is made in the south-east, we should make sure that we build sustainable communities. It is important that we consider environmental impact assessments and how they relate to infrastructure.
My other starting point, which makes it so important for me to speak in this debate, is our situation in north Staffordshire. Many of the contributions so far have been about development in the south-east and how to get infrastructure there; my concern is about north Staffordshire, an area in need of great regeneration. Ministers know all too well about our problems there. I place my contribution in the context of the two issues that I have mentioned.
From the outset, I should say that I wholeheartedly support the principle of developers contributing to infrastructure and community facilities. It is important that we do not think that one size fits all on this issue. We should consider how we can get the right kind of investment to different parts of Englandand Scotland and Wales as welland back it up with the different means of raising it that are required.
I hope that Ministers and those charged with taking forward the debate will consider the key partners with whom they need to have ongoing discussions. I particularly hope that those will include the Town and Country Planning Association and, not least, those responsible for taking forward housing market renewal
programmes. Outside the south-east and the four or so areas in which there is already commitment for growth, the housing market renewal areas also need to be included in the debate as it is taken forward.
I briefly refer back to the Governments response to the Environmental Audit Committee report two years ago. I remind the House that the Government recognised
that a PGS alone cannot fund the infrastructure needed to support housing growth, so alongside dedicating PGS revenues to such infrastructure the Government has announced a cross-cutting review into supporting housing growth as part of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review.
to be successful in its delivery of new communities that are sustainable environmentally, socially and economically, the essential decisions on investment in infrastructure needed to support planned housing growth need to be taken in the context of existing spending programmes, strategic tools such as co-ordinated growth plans and the Governments future spending plans, including robust assessment as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review process.
I am particularly pleased that our debate on this paving Bill includes my hon. Friends the Financial Secretary and the Minister for Housing and Planning. It is critical that the Government should take a joined-up, cross-cutting approach to their planning gain supplement proposals.
In the context of north Staffordshire, I say gently to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning that the developers responsible for investing heavily in my area and the practitioners have both flagged up concerns with me. I have got to know practitioners from meetings that I have hadnot least a wonderful awayday with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and Renew North Staffordshire last Monday. Those practitioners really want the best possible job to be done in north Staffordshire, where a huge amount of derelict land, and land already being recycled, can be recycled into sustainable communities as part of vibrant economic, social and environmental policies. It is important that we get that right.
I also want to flag up constituents concerns. Even before we consider how the new tax might work, I would like the Minister to take one step backwards and consider the existing housing legislation relating to the compensation paid to people when their homes are acquired for the purposes of housing market renewal. Such people find themselves unable, even with the extra support through section 106 and other means, to get like for like. Perhaps they very much want to carry on living in the community of the housing market renewal, and want to be there in five and 10 years time. However, they will get insufficient compensation to buy the kind of house that they had before in the area to which they are attached.
I urge the Minister for Housing and Planning to consider our cases studies in north Staffordshire. We are talking about a tax on land at the stage when it has an uplift and about the profits that developers are making. Rightly, we want those to go into improved infrastructure. However, I am also concerned about home owners who will not be involved in the profits from the sale of the property, so the development will
be at their expense unless we find a way of pulling those issues together. I urge my hon. Friend to consider that closely.
Practitioners too have expressed concerns to me. I have concerns about the fact that we have a paving Bill without knowing any of the constraints under which we are to operate. I should like us to look beyond the south-east to brownfield sites such as those I that described in Stoke-on-Trent. I urge that in pre-legislative scrutiny, we consider all the details of the issues that I am flagging up now.
In the first instance, the Government have suggested that under the new system, infrastructure falling outside the narrower scope of planning obligations will be delivered through other public sector funding mechanisms. However, I am still not clear about how that system will provide the confidence that pathfinder areas will have. A high priority is needed for infrastructure funding. As we work out the area research and master planning, it is already clear that although the urban core of north Staffordshire has already established how much infrastructure investment is needed and the economic and social contexts, there will have to be huge investment.
It is difficult to see where the parallel investment in the environment and public realm will come from. For example, the latest criteria for assessing bids to the transport innovation fund are unhelpful to us in north Staffordshire, because there is no obvious source for investment in housing, in the city centre and in new jobs and facilities. I want the Government to consider how their national departmental functions can be wholly aligned and supportive of the sustainable communities programme so that we can match the new housing investment with that needed for new education and all the other things required.
It would be helpful to have assurances on the Governments commitment to the alignment of infrastructure funding gathered through the supplement. I hope that it can be linked with other mechanisms to support substantial infrastructure investment underpinning north Staffordshires pathfinder programme, along with related investments in the city centre, key employment sites and an education centre. The provisions for the review referred to in the Changes to Planning Obligations consultation paper seem to refer only to financial provision for investment in growth areas, but the pathfinder areas are just as important as the growth areas. I hope that when the Minister is developing her thinking on PSG, she will not distinguish between growth areas and pathfinders; otherwise the PSG will be seen as merely another form of very centralised tax gathering for the Treasury, with no benefits for the regeneration and market renewal investments that my constituency needs so badly.
Earlier speakers mentioned affordable housing contributions. The proposal for a clear legal and policy basis for them is welcome, but the proposal for a common starting point, using the value of the site for a dwelling as a basis for negotiating affordable housing contributions, could cause difficulties. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider that in detail.
I should like to say a little about the way in which the consultation paper dealt withor perhaps did not deal withplanning methodologies. Substantial change is already taking place, and we need to catch up with the whole local development framework. Planning
inspectors are making decisions about planning applications, and there is real concern that they may not be in line with the framework.
There are also issues relating to regional spatial strategy, the local planning authority and the planning inspectorate, which have already been drawn to the attention of Lady Andrews, the housing Minister in the other place, in the context of the new planning policy statement 3. It would be useful to have an assurance that PPS3 will give weight to the housing market renewal programme in the assessment and development of statutory planning policy at regional and local level, and in the determination of planning applications. My discussions with the housing Minister in the other place lead me to hope that she will visit Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire in the not too distant future, which might provide an opportunity for those discussions to be taken further.
This may not be the right time or the right place for me to say what I am going to say, but there never is a right time and a right place. I remind my hon. Friend that part of our housing market renewal programme is closely linked to desperately needed economic regeneration. One of the targets that we have set ourselves is try to relocate a Government agency from the south-east to Stoke-on-Trent, so that we can provide jobs for those who will build the new houses that are needed in north Staffordshires housing pathfinder area.
When my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary introduced this paving Bill, he spoke of the dedicated team in the unit that would collect the tax and provide a valuation service. Has any thought been given to where it will be based? Could that be put in the context of the Lyons review and the Office of Government Commerce? Perhaps north Staffordshire could be considered as a location for some of the units paving work, given that resources are available.
I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to raise issues, particularly those relating to my constituency, and I hope that in her reply this evening and in future discussions, meetings and visits to north Staffordshire, the Minister will be able to pursue them further.
Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members Interests. I am a district councillor in South Shropshire, a planning authority that has benefited considerably from effective use of section 106 agreements. I am also a farmer, although my farm on the Herefordshire-Shropshire borders is relatively unlikely to be a beneficiary of a Milton Keynes-style new town. I am pleased about that, despite what it might have meant for me financially.
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