Planning Bill

In my view, one of the benefits of the community infrastructure levy should be that it has wide application. In general, it should apply with the smallest possible number of exceptions. I am afraid that some of the representations that Members have received from lobbyists are rather self-serving, and the danger of making large-scale exemptions is that it would be difficult to sustain the levy in other cases where parallels could be drawn. I do not want to be definitive in my response at this stage, but I am a little cautious about some of the arguments for widespread exemptions from the levy. The scheme was developed only in the past couple of months, because the Government committed themselves to establishing a community infrastructure levy only as recently as that, and I suspect that that has not allowed much time for the details to be explored as fully as they need to be. That might account for the fact that I find the Bill somewhat confusing. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will be able to clarify the arrangements over the next few weeks, if not tonight. My first concern is with clause 163(2), the drafting of which seems to imply not a tariff but a tax on the uplift in value. The subsection states that"““the overall purpose of CIL is to ensure that costs incurred in providing infrastructure to support the development of an area can be funded (wholly or partly) by owners of land the value of which increases due to permission for development.””" That seems to have a direct relationship to the increase in value attributable to the granting of planning permission, which was the core principle behind PGS, rather than providing for a levy designed to reflect the nature or type of the development. My confusion is compounded when I turn to clause 166(4), which contains powers to introduce regulations. Those powers will allow regulations to"““permit or require calculation by reference to descriptions or purposes of development””." That seems to be a tariff. The power in clause 166(4)(b) will allow regulations to"““permit or require calculation by reference to increase in value arising from permission for development””," which seems to refer to a tax, not a levy.