Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-08
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): The principle of levelling up is absolutely right, and it is one that is shared across the House. We have one of the most unequal countries by geography, and one of the most centralised. Both of those issues need addressing. However, the two fundamentals to addressing them are missing from the Bill. First, where is the money? Individual pots of money adding up to a few billion pounds are not going to do it. We need to see a commitment from the Government to actually change the way in which whole departmental budgets are spent. Why is it right that we spend 10 times as much per head on public transport in the south-east as we do in Yorkshire? That is a question the Government need to answer I asked the Secretary of State if he could point to any new powers in the Bill that would be available to councils and Mayors. It was clear from his answer that he could not do so, because there are none. He reverted back to saying that there would be discussions between Mayors, combined authorities and the Government as the initial devolution measures that the Government introduced under the coalition were brought in. Why are we back to individual negotiations? Why do we not have a right, through a devolution framework, to powers for all local authorities to access? That is something that we on the Select Committee have asked for, but it is not in the Bill Initially we were told that we were going to have a levelling up Bill with some planning powers incorporated into it. What we actually have is a planning Bill with a levelling up wraparound, because most of the serious measures in it are about planning. Some of them are probably welcome. The proposals to simplify local plans and make them accessible to local people, so that the argument can be about where we build homes at that stage rather than having rows about individual planning applications later, are welcome. Will the other measures in the Bill really do it? We are going to test that in the Select Committee. The Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) is going to come to the Committee next week, and we are looking forward to seeing him. I hope he is looking forward to coming. There are measures in the Bill that the Committee has asked for to simplify the powers available to local councils relating to compulsory purchase orders. Again, are they going to do it? Is there a real commitment to end the hope value system whereby landowners get money out of this process for doing nothing? We welcome the plans for improved environmental impact assessments, and we are going to test how they will work in practice. We welcome the increased powers of enforcement for local authorities, and I come back to a point I have mentioned before. When a developer refuses to implement the conditions given to an application that has been agreed, should that not be able to be taken into account by a local authority when the same developer puts in an application to build somewhere else? If that developer has failed at the first hurdle, why should it be given a second permission? Avant Homes, in Owlthorpe in my constituency, is an appalling developer, and there have been problems with it elsewhere as well The strengthening of powers over retrospective applications is also to be welcomed, but will there be an impact assessment to see whether it is really going to work? The Royal Oak, a centuries-old pub in Mosborough in my constituency, was demolished, and the developers came back months later to get permission to rebuild on the site. They are going to get a slap on the wrist, and that is not good enough. We need real powers to deter that. On the levy being implemented instead of section 106 agreements, can the Government absolutely assure us that this will not reduce the number of affordable homes being built? This will be tested at the Select Committee. We all share the ambition on levelling up, and there are some good specific measures in the Bill, including the ability for local authorities to set up local development corporations. That is another measure that is positive. However, I am really doubtful whether the specifics, particularly around planning in total, add up to a real agenda that will deliver the levelling up goal that we all want to see.