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Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill

My right hon. Friend pushes me on the rate, and perhaps we should push the Minister on that question today. Throughout this process, the Government have not said, unless I have missed it, what the rate of the PGS would be. There is certainly no such commitment in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to enlighten us about the level at which the PGS will be levied, so that we can make a more accurate assessment. Thus far, however, there has been a deafening silence from the Treasury on the question that my right hon. Friend has just raised. It is not only the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Property Federation that have outlined their opposition to the imposition of the planning gain supplement in Scotland. Scottish Labour Back Benchers in this House have also expressed their misgivings about the Government’s proposals. During the debate on the Bill in Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) expressed doubts about how the proposals would operate in practice. He pressed the Minister on how effectively any money raised would be recycled to the area of development in question, and on whether some of it might be diverted along the way—a process that he described as ““filtration””. He said that"““if the Scottish Executive were to absorb some of the funds for their projects, the sum that goes to local authorities will be less than that under a simple section 75 agreement. I am concerned about that filtration system.””" I understand that the hon. Gentleman and his colleague, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine), asked for a meeting with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in order to express their concerns about the system and the effect of growth in Edinburgh on the areas of Falkirk and West Lothian. In Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk went on to say that"““those councils would need to provide social services and education for the people who would live in the houses that those areas are going to absorb, because of the pressure on Edinburgh. If there is any question of the designation or use of the money being wrong in terms of the priorities for the local authority, there will be a major problem with the measure being accepted in Scotland.””––[Official Report, Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Public Bill Committee, 30 January 2007; c. 42-43.]" It is evident from all this that, in Scotland, it is not clear how the planning gain supplement that the Bill seeks to facilitate will operate in practice. The Scottish Property Federation, the Labour-led Scottish Executive and even Labour Back Benchers in this place—including, it should be noted, the successor to the originator of the West Lothian question—have expressed reservations about how the measure will operate north of the border. In the light of that, our new clause seeks to ensure that the Bill cannot effectively be implemented until the Treasury and the Scottish Executive have worked out between them in detail how it will operate on the ground and, specifically, how the well-established Scottish section 75 procedure will be affected as a result. In the light of all these considerations, I hope that the House will be minded to accept our new clause as an addition to the Bill.