I put to the right hon. Gentleman a point that has already been made very effectively: why, then, are the Government targeting only the social and affordable housing element of section 106 agreements? What about the rest of the obligations on developers? Do they not cause a problem too? In an earlier debate—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was present—when challenged by his colleagues behind him about the need to ensure proper infrastructure, the Minister talked about the need for the community infrastructure levy to provide the resources to ensure that that infrastructure was provided. If developers have a problem with viability, why is he championing the community infrastructure levy and 106 agreements that are currently providing infrastructure for non-housing elements while targeting the housing element of 106 agreements? Why is that necessary? Again, we have had no answer from him.
On the housing element, I want to return to a point that we discussed in the Select Committee the other day and which my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) just made very strongly. I refer to the crucial issue of mixed housing developments. I would have thought that there would be cross-Chamber support for the idea of mixed housing developments. We do not want people in owner-occupied houses in one place and a smaller number of rented homes completely segregated on a different site. We need mixed schemes where everyone, irrespective of their tenure, can live together side by side. I thought that was the Government’s policy.
We had an interesting discussion about that in the Select Committee. We asked the Minister why, if £300 million was to be made available to provide additional rented homes in order to compensate for the ones lost under section 106 agreements, those properties could not be built on the same sites as the schemes in question in order to increase their viability. As I understand it, that is precisely what my hon. Friend’s amendment 46 would do, so will the Minister respond favourably to it? It would simply put into the Bill the idea that he seemed to welcome in the Select Committee the other day. I look forward to his response.
I turn to amendment 44, which was also tabled by my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) made the point about viability and whether we can trust developers when they say that a scheme is not viable. By what criteria will they and the Secretary of State be judged if a scheme is changed and fewer affordable houses are built? The Minister must accept that 106 agreements are not often backroom deals made in isolation between
council officials and developers; they are often out there and scrutinised not merely by councillors, but by the public affected by them.
Communities want to know what will be built in their areas and whether rented homes will be available for people who cannot afford to buy. They will be very suspicious if, without such criteria in the Bill, the Secretary of State seems to be doing a deal behind the scenes—whether or not it is called the Planning Inspectorate—which results in the withdrawal of the affordable homes that they thought were being built, and to which they and their families would have access, and different amounts of affordable housing, if any, being agreed for the site. That is why it is important that the Minister states upfront the criteria that will be used to change the affordable housing component that communities will assume will be negotiated for their areas.
Finally, the lack of rigorous time scales in the proposals is worrying. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham mentioned the possibility of revisiting the issue after one year and reinstating higher levels of affordable housing for any scheme. That is a really important point, because the worry that some people have about the proposal is that developers will simply say that schemes are not viable; renegotiate them so that less affordable housing has to be provided; and sit on the land and wait till times become more propitious—when they can sell the houses for more, sell more houses and provide fewer for rent. In the meantime nothing will happen. In other words, instead of a stimulus to growth, the proposals could defer development and increase the profitability of the schemes so that fewer affordable or rented houses are produced. The Minister needs to address that worry and include some proper time periods, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham has suggested.