Planning Bill

I oppose the amendments in the name of the noble Earl, and, in so doing, I draw attention to my interests on the register. Like the noble Earl, I am a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, but I take a different view to the introduction of the community infrastructure levy. I take that view based on almost 10 years’ experience of major infrastructure projects across the length and breadth of England and the difficulties that all parties—central and local government, private developers and house builders—have encountered over that time in unlocking land for development because of lack of investment in infrastructure. The noble Earl drew attention to the previous idea of a planning gain supplement. He was not alone in having grave concerns about the PGS, but, to the Government’s credit, there was widespread consultation on that, and the department went to great lengths to listen, understand that concern and modify its proposals in light of that concern. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Andrews for the lead she took in that work. There is no doubt in my mind that all across England lots of perfectly viable, sensible and sustainable developments are held up for want of a mechanism to fund the necessary infrastructure to release those developments. An example that I could give would be in west Bedford, where five major landowners could not unlock that development for the want of a relief road. Often the issue is not over a massive infrastructure; sometimes it is actually quite small. Because of that, it is below the radar of departments such as the Department of Transport, but it is simply too rich for the appetite for resources of a single authority. In the case of west Bedford, central Government brought all those landowners together and with the local council they were able to secure a voluntary contribution to unlock that infrastructure over a period. Again, in Milton Keynes there is now a tariff in place; the 18 landowners there voluntarily came together because they knew that it was in their own interests to unlock that development in a sustainable way and agreed to pay a tariff of just over £18,000 per house for that. In response to these amendments, I think that the Government have listened very hard. The planning gain supplement was regarded as unworkable and unfair on all sides; on the other hand, there is a very great measure of support in the private sector for the community infrastructure levy. We know that the British Property Federation, from which we have all received interesting and thoughtful correspondence, has concerns about some of the detail here. But it is evident to all of us that if we are to have proper sustainable development across England, we must simply do more to make a contribution to that very necessary infrastructure. If landowners have a windfall gain because of a change of planning status of the land, it is reasonable that they should pay some of that towards necessary infrastructure on account of that land being developed. I do not believe that the levy is unreasonable; there is widespread support for it; and it is a necessary procedure. For those reasons I urge noble Lords to resist the amendments.