My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the government amendment, which concedes a principle of public bodies—the police—being able to use less than best consideration for land no longer needed. I am unashamedly seeking to extend that, as a result of the MP for Twickenham, my honourable friend Munira Wilson, introducing in the other place the idea of enabling public bodies to dispose of land for less than best consideration. That was already available in a limited form but the idea here is that it is out of date because of the change in land valuations—that is what the Minister said.
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There are two reasons for changing this. The first is for reasons of inflation in land prices. It is hard to arrive at a conservative estimate—conservative with a small “c”—of inflation in land prices between 2003 and 2023, given that an accurate analysis of the true level of inflation is difficult to ascertain. Secondly, it may be more helpful to refer to increasing or uprating in line with inflation, rather than referring to a concrete figure. For example, according to the UK house price index, average house prices across England have risen by 160% since 2003. Research by Savills suggests that urban land prices in the UK are still below their peak in 2008 and that greenfield land prices have only recently returned to that level. The point is that inflation in land prices is not necessarily the best or most accurate way of making these judgments.
The other way of doing it is by percentage difference in value. The Government’s own land value estimates for 2019 reveal that while the average price of a hectare of land for housing in London was £35.5 million, in the north-east it was just £1.1 million. There is a huge percentage difference and cash difference in land values across the country. What this is attempting to do is to create a fairer way of making these judgments about best consideration, as set out in Amendment 174. That is what we are trying to do.
I accept that the Minister and the Government have agreed that this should be extended to local police and crime commissioners, which is very positive. Our amendment seeks to extend it to all public bodies, for the reasons that I have explained. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is not able to be here today. He is a signatory of Amendment 174 and has asked me to say what he would have liked to say, if the Committee agrees.
The poorest communities generally have the poorest public facilities of all sorts, including access to open spaces. Therefore, it is desirable that public bodies disposing of land do not further impoverish the community or miss opportunities for creating new local facilities because of the rules governing the sale
of land. It is also vital that public bodies work in a more joined-up fashion, considering, for example, how the NHS can support education or social housing and vice versa. The NHS is a national body, and many of its facilities serve wide populations that go far beyond local communities, and it needs to take these wider regional and national health considerations into account when disposing of land. However, it could also be enabled and required to take local community needs into consideration. If the Government do not support this amendment, do they have alternative proposals which would ensure that the NHS takes into consideration local community needs, not just those relating to health, when disposing of land?
In conclusion, there has been a great deal of movement on the idea of changing best consideration to enable public land to be sold for community benefit. The Government have conceded that for police land. This amendment would extend it to other public land and has the support of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, who obviously has considerable experience and expertise in the National Health Service. He considers that it would be a very positive change to enable the National Health Service to be able to dispose of land no longer needed for public good. I commend the amendment to the Committee.