Planning Bill

Mr Healey said that it would be done by the autumn, but clearly it has not been done. Although it has been a wide-ranging debate, I particularly wish to draw attention to what the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, said. She and I raised the same point but we attacked it from different points of view. I think that her amendments are better than mine. It is obviously the case that the levy should deliver infrastructure that is to the benefit of the development, its occupiers and users, but if you link CIL to the land value then that will make it a tax on the planning permission rather than what the charge is supposed to be about. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, is right—and I said it, too—that, in key development areas where planning permission is likely, uplift will already have been taken into account in the price. It is confusing to have a reference in the Bill to value as a result of planning permission. It undermines the reason for CIL and what the noble Baroness is trying to do with it. However, I understand that she is still thinking about this and I hope that she will bring forward more sensible wording on Report. The Minister did not deal with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith that there would be no reduction in central government funding. Will the charge be used as an opportunity for central government to reduce funding of local authorities? It is clear that developers, individuals and, indeed, bigger companies will be charged CIL, but individuals and small businesses will not get any benefit at all. There will be no increase in infrastructure in their development and they will not get any uplift in value. They are being subjected to a new charge. For that reason, the charge must be closely linked to the development plan. We need to explore that further as we go through the next amendments.