I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made some very fair points on space standards that we looked at in the Select Committee when I was a member. She will be aware that the Government have brought forward these new proposals to make sure that there are space standards in permitted developments. That is why I support the proposals in principle, although there are one or two points of detail that I would like to raise.
The hon. Lady painted one side of the picture, but I have seen many developments in my constituency and just outside it that are conversions of redundant office buildings that are not being used any more into perfectly adequate, nice apartment blocks for young first-time buyers. Clearly there is a lot of merit behind permitted development, which has delivered 60,000 homes in the past few years in terms of additional stock. That is partly how this Government have doubled housing delivery since the lows of 2009. There is a lot to commend in the Government’s action on this.
Statutory Instrument No. 755 seems to say that any two-storey property, pretty much anywhere in the country —there is no geographic restriction, as I understand it—be it a three-bed semi in Thirsk, Malton, Harrogate or wherever else, can have two more storeys put on top of it as long as it is no more than 3.5 metres higher than the neighbouring property. I worry about the street scene in that situation. It is the same for terraced houses as well. It may be appropriate in some parts of London where it would not impact adversely on the local street scene, but I wonder whether it would be appropriate in some parts of the country. I urge Ministers to consider whether more controls should be put in place in relation to certain parts of the country where that would not be appropriate.
Similarly, paragraph AB.2 allows a commercial property such as a takeaway or shop of two storeys to have two more storeys put on top of it, with, again, the 3.5 metre height restriction. Again, that could impact the street scene in certain parts of our towns, cities and suburbs. Another point is that lot of these kinds of properties are owned in self-invested personal pensions. They are commercial properties. Ministers will be aware, as I have raised this on a number of occasions, that residential property, even a rented property, cannot be put as a separate dwelling on top of a commercial property if it is owned in a personal pension and held in a pension wrapper, which is restricting supply in many towns and cities. We should change that to allow it to be the case as long as the properties were delivered for social rent at half market value to encourage development of such properties on their upper floors. If I look down the streets in Thirsk, I will see lots of instances where this is the case. This is a real opportunity to deliver more housing above shops in our city centres.
On the other planning reforms that are being brought forward, I very much support the zoning element. I do worry about some of the underlying assumptions, though, which are driving the high number of properties in certain
locations with low affordability, and therefore expensive house prices. I am not convinced that simply building lots of houses in expensive areas is going to lower prices to the degree that Ministers obviously want.
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