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Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), particularly given his optimistic and trusting nature. The developer was trusted to deliver a dual carriageway but delivered only a single carriageway. I would urge caution and say that, old cynic that I am, I do not trust anyone to give me anything, not even the Government. We need to test some of the rather vague proposals. In response to one of the Select Committee’s recommendations, the Government said that they believed that"““overall the PGS proposals will raise additional revenues over and above the current planning obligations system””," but there is no proof whatever that that will occur. I do not take their assertion on trust. I am not prepared just to give the PGS a go and see what happens. That would be a recipe for disaster for many of our communities. We have heard about good and bad section 106 practices—indeed, we just heard about some particularly bad section 106 negotiations. However, I do not argue that we should not get tougher in negotiations or that we should throw those negotiations out of the window. Having been the chair of a planning committee, I would argue that the one positive thing about section 106 agreements, in all their imperfect forms, is that they are directly linked to discussions and communications with the community that is suffering the harm of the development. If planning committees play hardball with developers, they can make the system work. Much of the time I find myself nodding in complete agreement with the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford)—the system can be made to work really well. The trouble with the Bill is that it represents the biggest divorce of cause and effect that could possibly be imagined. The developer will happily hand over a percentage, because that will be a done deal for him. He will know exactly what he has to do in the system, but the local authority will not know all the vagaries of what on earth it will get back or what it can deliver. What is more, the people who have voted in the local authority that might have had some say on the planning decision will have absolutely no way of coming back at their local council when the hoped-for goods are not delivered. The PGS is therefore the worst of all possible scenarios. With a straightforward tax for the developer—easy come, easy go—he will not need to negotiate with or even talk to the community that might suffer the harm. All that will happen is that he will get on with his developments and the local community will be left bewildered as to exactly how much it can expect to receive in return. I am afraid that I was not assured—again, I am such an old cynic—by the words ““area”” or ““authority””. Altering the structure of the authorities will mean a wholly different beast, but again we are not sure about areas, such as for hospital provision. I am not due to receive a hospital in my area—that one has been scotched—but there is one in Watford. I should also like to correct the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable)—Watford is not my constituency. One could argue that, because my constituents go to that area, they are receiving some benefit from a hospital or facility placed elsewhere; but they do not want it there, they want it in their own area. It has been argued that payments under section 106 arrangements were made willingly, because they were win-win. I support that. I do not think that the fact that some people did a bad job and got a single and not a dual carriageway is a reason for abolishing section 106. The PGS is a redistributive tax—it has no other form—because, although we are not sure of the figures, at least 30 per cent. will be redistributed. The local community that has suffered the harm will have no say in that. In communities such as mine, with large areas of green belt and greenfield sites, which are protected, there will be a perverse incentive to redesignate those areas, because they will have the biggest planning gain uplift. In areas with lots of brownfield sites, which might have almost a negative value before remedial works are done, local authorities might be pressured into releasing more green belt land and green fields, as they scrabble around to ensure that they secure the funding, in order to deliver their share of an area’s contribution, particularly if there is an assessment formula. We should therefore consider the proposals incredibly carefully. Then there is the law of unintended consequences. We have not really heard about the valuations. Mention has been made of self-assessment—and, therefore, people perhaps laying themselves open to investigation if they get the assessment wrong—but there was not much clarity in the response to my question about who in the community can really challenge those assessments. Again, the arrangement becomes a done deal between the developer and the Government with which everybody else can either agree or disagree. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) also serves on the Communities and Local Government Committee. He said that he welcomed the fact that the Government had accepted many of our recommendations, but there were a few that they did not accept, one of which concerned the comparison between section 106 agreements and the planning gain supplement. The Committee had some quite heated debates about that. It should be transparent to a community whether it will be better or worse off under a 106 or a planning gain supplement. When it was put to the Committee that the Government should make it open, transparent and"““obvious to those in any local authority area what the gains were from any potential development””," we thought that that meant the public and the voters as much as anybody else. We agreed with that, but the Government said:"““If PGS were introduced, the Government would expect to make available information on the PGS revenues””," and that comparing potential section 106 revenue and the planning gain revenue was considered to be disproportionately difficult and expensive. A local area will therefore never know whether it was better off under 106 or planning gain supplement. The Committee felt that local areas and local people should be able to see that, so I am disappointed that we are being asked to accept the PGS on a hope value and expect things to be better. I am not prepared to give it a go, to suck it and see, or to do whatever else we are supposed to do, licking and promising all over the place. [Hon. Members: ““Steady!””] I hate to say it, but there are so many nebulous phrases being used. We do not know what the proposal means, so we should be treading with enormous caution.