My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for the absolutely crucial Amendment 55F, and indeed for the support of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for all these amendments. It might be worth spending a minute or so on Amendment 55EA which talks about the prediction by the inspector that prices are going to be lower than expected when properties come to be sold being proved wrong, and whether the local authority would benefit from that. Let me run through this briefly. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, will be clearer about the position and see that this is not such a foolish suggestion.
The developers say to the inspectorate that when they agreed to the Section 106 agreement, they expected prices to be X thousands of pounds at the time of sale. They now tell the inspector that a lower figure is expected from the sales. The inspector agrees and says, “Okay, we will let you off and allow you to break the contract you have already signed with the local authority. You will be let off the obligation to provide as much affordable housing”. But what happens later is that prices rise and it turns out not to be such a bad deal after all. If, instead of saying, “Good luck to the developers. They paid over the odds for the site. It was foolish at the time, but everything has come right. They have not had to build any affordable housing, they have made their profits, and that is the end of the story”, one says, “If the prediction is wrong and prices rise so that the developers make a handsome profit, over a certain pre-agreed level, there should be a share back to the community in lieu of the affordable housing that has been sacrificed”.
The Minister makes the very fair point that dealing with this in cash may be unwise and it may be that one should return to the agreement for more affordable housing. One should get back some of the affordable housing. I would certainly favour that over the hard cash and that would fit in with other requirements here. That would be a good way of doing it. It would give an opportunity for that deal to be negotiated at the time that the inspector provides their judgment, saying, “Less affordable housing, but, if I am wrong in my predictions and prices rise, then we will have some more affordable housing later”. It must not be any better than the original deal, however. That would be a fair way of handling the unforeseeable circumstances of when properties are actually sold in the future as opposed to guessing.
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