Greater London Authority Bill

I shall start by mentioning that I am chief executive of London First, which has house builders and property companies among its members. I support the Bill in the main. It is appropriate and necessary that the Mayor has a strategic role in housing and in planning, which we will come on to later. The population and economic growth challenges facing London make necessary a special response from the Greater London Authority to drive them forward. I shall make a few specific points. The first is on consistency between housing and planning. The Mayor should decide the broad allocation of housing grant in the capital in line with his policies in the London plan and the housing strategy. It is appropriate that the Secretary of State should have the opportunity to issue a direction if the strategy is inconsistent with national policies or is detrimental to the interests of other areas, as with the London plan. However, proposed new Section 333A(5) in the Greater London Authority Act 1999 is broader than the planning equivalent and gives the Secretary of State powers to neuter the Mayor’s housing strategy, which might happen if he were of a different political persuasion, so it is important that it does not go that far. I do not support Amendment No. 89, which provides that local authority housing strategies should ““have regard to”” rather than ““be in general conformity””. That is the way the London plan is dealt with and is appropriate.