First, may I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register?
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), and I agree with most of what he said. He rightly dissected the elements in this Bill that have nothing to do with growth and very little to do with infrastructure, and which are probably in part the product of ideas that were floated by a Mr Beecroft in a report that gained notoriety and should have been consigned to the dustbin. I advise the hon. Gentleman to think about who he sups with in coalition, because his views as expressed this evening are not very close to those that seem to be driving this Bill.
It is a curious Bill, and it has a grand title referring to “Growth and Infrastructure”, thereby implying that it will have a substantial impact on the economy and on development. If it were to stimulate the economy and ensure long-overdue new investment in infrastructure, we would be able to welcome it. Sadly, however, it follows the same line as its predecessor, the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill, which we dealt with in this House just a few weeks ago. When that Bill was announced in the summer, the Government claimed it would unlock some £40 billion in new infrastructure development and a further £10 billion in housing investment. One of the Lords Ministers stated in July that there was £40 billion-worth of shovel-ready schemes ready to go by the autumn. We are well and truly into the autumn now, yet so far the Government have not been able to identify a single new scheme to benefit from that legislation.
In the final stages of consideration of that earlier Bill a couple of weeks ago, we asked about the success criteria and how the legislation’s performance would be measured. That question clearly flummoxed the Minister responding to the debate, who simply told us we would have to wait and see. After that experience, it is hardly surprising that Opposition Members—as well as a significant number of Government Members—are very sceptical indeed about the claims being made for this Bill, which appears to be simply a collection of disparate items put together for political effect, but with very little empirical evidence as to their ability to achieve the real investment in infrastructure that is needed.
We have read a lot over the past few days about the need for more infrastructure investment. We have heard that from the Mayor of London: he specifically said that the Government are going slow on infrastructure investment. He has also called for a speeding up of the consideration of the need for more aviation runway capacity in the south-east. I agree with that. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) echoed that view in his contribution today, saying that our response to the need for investment in aviation infrastructure was inadequate and that addressing that need should be a priority. They and the rest of us will look in vain for anything in this Bill to help accelerate the glacial pace of the Davies commission on aviation capacity. That commission has clearly been set up by this Government for “long-grass purposes”—in order to kick the issue into touch until after the general election. The same Government have introduced this Bill, saying it is about speeding up infrastructure investment. There is a clear inherent conflict between the Government’s stated objective of stimulating infrastructure investment and what they are actually doing.
Clause 1 has received a lot of attention. It can be summarised as the “blame it all on planning” clause. Two and a half years ago the incoming Government said that the old system they inherited—the top-down, centralist system—was the problem and that they would tear it up and replace it with a new localist planning system. At the time a number of us advised them that introducing such radical change was not the best way to achieve improved confidence at a time when confidence was vital to stimulate the economy and that what they were doing risked having a catastrophic effect on planning consents. The current figures show the parlous situation in terms of development. We only have to look at housing investment in recent years to see what a bad state we are in and how the changes that were made to the planning system a year ago have not improved things, but have, in many ways, made them worse.
Let us consider the housing supply figures. I was astonished to hear the Secretary of State say in his opening speech that the number of affordable homes being built was increasing, because the figures show exactly the opposite. The most recent National House-Building Council report states:
“The affordable housing sector continues to show a poorer performance than the private sector. Housing starts for the three months to the end of September 2012 from NHBC were 32.8% below the same period in 2011.”
When combined with the private sector, the reduction was 10.6% compared with last year. The combined housing starts are down by 10%, therefore, and the affordable housing starts are down by 32%, yet the Secretary of State claims things are getting better. They are not; they are getting very much worse, and this Government’s policies have been damaging.
It would be nice to hear the Government express a degree of remorse for their mistakes and a willingness to consider changes that would improve things, but I do not see very much evidence of that. Instead, it is being suggested that powers should be taken away from local authorities and given to the Planning Inspectorate in order to speed up both infrastructure and housing development.
When we probed the Secretary of State on the criteria that will be applied to defining which authorities may have their planning powers removed and their cases
referred directly to the Planning Inspectorate, we were not given a very clear response. When the planning Minister, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), gave evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee, he highlighted two criteria: the number of times the Planning Inspectorate had overturned an authority’s decision on appeal, and the speed with which authorities deal with planning applications. So, like my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, who gave an excellent speech and a forensic demolition of the Bill, I looked at Planning magazine. It has produced a helpful table showing authorities that might fall into the category of being tardy in dealing with applications or having a disproportionate number of their cases overturned on appeal. Could I find Hackney listed—the one authority the Secretary of State identified? Yes, it was there, but only at the very bottom of one of the three lists—it was in only one of the three. It was the 21st—out of 25—lowest scoring English councils for determining all applications within 26 weeks. That is not exactly the kind of criterion that would lead one to assume that it deserves to be singled out for having powers stripped away from it. By contrast, Stratford-on-Avon, Torbay and Kensington and Chelsea all feature much higher up the lists, and all are in two out of three of the lists.
I am pleased that you are in the Chair, Mr Hoyle, rather than the Deputy Speaker who preceded you, because I see that the hapless Ribble Valley is the only authority in the country to appear in all three lists. It would therefore appear to be high in the pecking order of authorities likely to have their planning powers taken away from them, if the Minister’s criteria, as defined to the Select Committee, are applied in practice. I have to say that a lot of councillors in a lot of authorities all over the country will be extremely nervous as to how this power will be applied, given the lack of clarity and given what the evidence suggests about where weaknesses and failures have been.