Housing and Planning Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-02
Topic: Housing
Oliver Newton Colvile (Conservative, Centre-right): I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have a shareholding in a small communications company that I set up before I was elected to this place and which gives advice to, and sometimes opposes, developers, including in respect of public consultation I thank the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), for having visited my constituency in the last year. The Housing and Planning Minister met constituents of mine who were having difficulty with their development—something I will talk about in a moment I am also chairman of both the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment and the APPG for the private rented sector. The built environment APPG is undertaking an inquiry into the quality of design, while the private rented APPG is holding one into energy efficiency. I would like to point out that I am one of the few Conservative Members who represents a totally urban, inner-city constituency. I very much welcome the Government’s target to build 200,000 new starter homes over the next five years, but to deliver it we need not only enough brickies, plumbers and electricians in the industry, but a speedier planning system. This means better public consultation and forcing developers to build the new homes fairly quickly once they have been granted planning permission. As I have said, I think that if the development is not brought forward within six months of a brownfield site being granted planning permission, business rates should have to be paid on the site Working commercially, I worked on a number projects that failed to get planning permission, partly because the client did not take any notice of what I was saying and also because they did not gain local community support. We need more master planning of developments. Taking local communities with us will, I firmly believe, quicken the granting of planning permission I am also a champion of what we are doing on the APPG for the built environment. We are going to have an inquiry into the quality of design, because I have had a number of constituents who have had problems with their new-build homes in my Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport constituency Buying a first home is probably the largest investment someone will make in their life. It is the first rung on the housing ladder and being part of the property-owning democracy. People expect the new home to be in tip-top condition and, being new, one would expect the various authorities to have checked it to ensure there will be no problems for a significant amount of time. People do not necessarily think that they need to have it surveyed before handing over the cash, as they expect the local council to have done its job Imagine, therefore, discovering a few months or a couple of years later that there are some difficulties. One would certainly not expect to have to produce a list of problems, as one of my constituents did—and it went on for three pages. While I very much welcome the Government’s investment into new-build at Devonport, I have been appalled at the brown stains that are already appearing on the outside walls of these new homes. Earlier today, I met the Royal Institute of British Architects, which wants to have equality of space, so that people can live in developments that have a suitable amount of space. While I was doing a project in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, I was made very aware of the importance of children having space to do homework rather than having to share a kitchen-diner with their siblings Let me deal with the private rented sector. It is important to ensure that this sector delivers good quality housing to rent. If people are renting from housing benefit landlords who are not delivering housing of the appropriate quality, those landlords should be struck off the list immediately. In my opinion, this Bill is very much about making sure that we have suitable quality homes for today that will not become the slums of the future.