I am pleased to be able to follow the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris). I thank her for praising the last Labour Government for introducing the small business rate relief, and for describing it as a great success. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will give her credit for those comments.
In my speech, I want to concentrate both on housing and the impact that the planning changes will have on my constituents, and on the effect of the changes on businesses—particularly small businesses—and jobs. One would have thought that a Growth and Infrastructure Bill would address both the construction of housing and the growth of business and creation of jobs, but a big question mark hangs over its impact on both. What exactly will it achieve? There is so little meat on its bones when it comes to the way in which the housing that people need will be built, the way in which business will benefit, and the way in which growth will be created. It makes no mention of the possibility that the £4 billion to be raised from the 4G licences, or indeed a repeat of the bankers bonus tax, could enable houses to be built and support the construction industry, helping to create jobs and growth.
My constituency has a great need for housing, jobs and economic growth, but that must be set against environmental constraints. The fact that the constituency contains a series of small towns and villages surrounded by green-belt land, most of it high-quality agricultural land, inhibits the local plan that is being prepared. Developers have been queuing up for many years, buying up plots in the green belt with, no doubt, the intention of building on them at the earliest opportunity.
People in my constituency need homes. Many young adults there live at home or with friends. What do they need, and what do developers want to build? Those are two very different questions. What the constituency needs are homes to buy and homes to rent, but the homes to buy must be affordable starter homes and the homes to rent must also be affordable, in either the private or the social landlord sector. There must also be “part buy and part rent” arrangements. However, affordability is simply not being offered. What developers in my constituency are offering are executive four and five-bedroom houses, and they want to build them on green-belt land because they know that they will then be able to sell them for more money.
David Wilson Homes held an exhibition in Formby, in my constituency. Its representative told the hundreds of residents who attended the exhibition that they considered an affordable home to be one priced at £300,000. That would be out of the reach of most people on average pay in London, let alone on Merseyside. It is clear that that definition of an affordable home was addressed to a group of people who do not live in my constituency, but who might come in from outside.
No wonder there is suspicion about the motives and approaches of developers, and huge resistance to building on the green space both in and outside the towns and villages in my constituency. No wonder there are public meetings attended by hundreds of people in each of the small towns and villages that I mentioned earlier. Residents have formed action groups to campaign against the plans of developers to build on green belt and on urban green space. That is not because they do not want houses; they do, but they know that it takes eight years to reach the top of the housing waiting list, and they know that people in Formby and Maghull do not earn enough to buy any of the £300,000 housing that is being made available. They also know that developers are not interested in helping them, their families or their friends who need affordable homes. Residents believe that there is nothing in it for
them, and the Government intend to make matters worse rather than better by cutting the number of affordable homes.
A 500-home development by Ashworth hospital in my constituency has already been given planning permission, under the old system—before the NPPF—and without any affordable housing element. The applicant engaged a QC to demonstrate to Sefton council that the site would be economically viable only if the affordability element was dropped. Even before the NPPF was published, councils were negotiating with developers on section 106 matters, as they always have. Quite why legislation is needed is beyond me, although my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) suggested that it might be intended to fill up time because of the gaping hole in the Government’s agenda., and that may well be true. Meanwhile, my constituents have been denied the prospect of decent affordable housing, first by the Government’s economic failure and now by the centralising of planning in favour of developers at the expense of local people.
The proposal to allow developers to remove affordable housing will be music to their ears, and no doubt it will result in money in the coffers of the Tory party to say thank you. That will follow the £4 million already provided by the Conservative Property Forum. However, it is homes to rent and affordable starter homes that my constituents need. The proposed green belt development offers them nothing except more congestion on the roads and more flooding on the flood plains, because the whole constituency lies on a flood plain.
Have we not learnt yet about the impact of building on flood plains and concreting over areas where rain water currently drains away? Have we not learnt from the fact that the level of rainfall has increased over the past few years, and the fact that we have just experienced a summer featuring exceptional rain and flooding? Is it not time that the Government gave more consideration to the impact of flooding in drawing up planning policy, rather than allowing developers to do as they wish? Perhaps if this were a proper infrastructure Bill, the Government would be finding a way of replacing our antiquated drainage system.
Councils used to build homes, and large sums are tied up in housing stock. The reason developers are not building is the shortage of funds. If we put those two together, we start to see some solutions. The Local Government Association said of the Bill that it failed to tackle
“the real barriers to growth”,
that
“Further changes to the planning system will not address the key issues stalling development”,
and that
“The Government should use this Bill to lift restrictions on local authority borrowing for housing, freeing councils to build new affordable homes and kick-start job-creating infrastructure projects.”
It also said:
“Councils have a proven track record of prudent borrowing. Their credit rating is excellent and interest rates would be low.”
According to the LGA, the Government must let British councils
“take advantage of these conditions in the same way as municipalities in competing countries, like Germany, already are.”
If the Secretary of State is serious in his offer to work with the LGA, its ideas are there on how to unlock the funds to build the housing, especially the affordable housing, that is needed not just in my constituency but up and down the country. He might also choose to consider the report of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government following its inquiry into housing finance supply and the opportunities available not just in housing stock within local government and housing associations, but in pension funds and other public sector sources.
Developers are not building because people are not buying and the banks are not lending. Mortgage lending is still falling—it is still at a record low—but in local government there are examples of Labour councils building five times as many social homes as Tory councils with which they can be compared. So there are examples in local councils that the Government could choose to follow if they wanted to.
Without intervention, developers will want to build on the best sites, to build the most expensive houses they can and to make as much money as they can. After all, they are in business to make as much profit as they can. That is why regulation and Government intervention are so important. It is why we have a planning system. There are examples across the country of what happened when planning was not sufficiently robust, whether in commercial or residential developments. That is why we should have a planning system that ensures that developers meet the needs of the country and do not just maximise their profits.
In my constituency, we need affordable homes and the infrastructure to support the people who want to live in them. It is the role of Government at both national and local levels to ensure that developments meet the needs of local areas. That is what the Localism Act 2011 should have been about and now it has been overtaken by this Bill and all the disastrous implications of its proposals and what we are debating tonight.
The reason we have local plans that designate land for residential or commercial development is to ensure that planning is done properly and that communities are given what they need. The Bill would put the power in the hands of developers and prevent any chance of my constituents from benefiting from the housing that they need.
There is nothing in the Bill to recommend it to small businesses. Small and medium-sized enterprises have the ability to grow, to innovate and to drive economic recovery. Where is the intervention with the banks to help small businesses? Why is that not in the Bill? Where are the tax breaks, such as the VAT cuts that Labour has proposed for a number of years? Gimmicks and removing workers’ rights are no way to stimulate growth. Creating greater uncertainty among staff will do nothing to encourage people to spend money, which is needed to kick-start the economy. Business understands that and is saying that.
The Federation of Small Businesses says that its members lose thousands through poorly maintained roads. I have mentioned the problems with drainage.
Where are the measures in the Bill to replace the infrastructure that business needs? If this were a proper growth and infrastructure Bill, there would be measures to deal with those issues. This is anything but a growth and infrastructure Bill and the House should oppose it.
7.53 pm