My Lords, we have agreed to support Amendments 51A and 51B despite the 17th report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We opposed the original amendments in Committee and sought a rethink from the Government, which has come in the form of a sunset clause which would bring the provisions of these clauses to an end by 31 March next year so their use would be strictly limited.
We remain unconvinced that the negative procedure accompanied by a statutory duty to consult is the appropriate procedure for establishing a UDC, but agree that there is little time left in this Parliament properly to explore and debate this issue. We are also not unsympathetic to the strong points raised by the Delegated Powers Committee. We will not, however, stand in the way of the Government for this limited period, but we wish to see a revised approach for the future. A new generation of new towns and garden cities is essential to tackling our housing crisis, and the Government’s handling of the development of Ebbsfleet has fallen far short of what is needed to address the problem.
After many years of delay the Chancellor finally announced support for 15,000 homes at Ebbsfleet in his 2014 Budget, although that figure was significantly lower than the over 22,000 homes that had been planned for as recently as 2012. Even now, Ministers have failed to make clear how they intend to support development in light of a funding shortfall of well over £1 billion. Moreover, there is no commitment, as we have heard, to ensuring a minimum number of affordable homes.
My colleague the shadow planning Minister, Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, sought to amend the Bill to update the remit of new town development corporations to ensure that they are fit for purpose for creating a new generation of garden cities, but the Government voted that down and have taken a very short-sighted approach to planning garden cities.
The TCPA has argued strongly against taking forward this development by way of a UDC, which risks confusing the real differences in the nature of the challenges of regenerating existing places and that of building new communities. We have made clear that in government we would not go down the UDC route; as recommended by the Lyons review we would support the delivery of a new generation of garden cities delivered by garden city development corporations based on updated new towns legislation. However, having given the Government their way on this issue for this limited time, we hope that they will now make progress in delivering at Ebbsfleet.