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Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill

My Lords, I will bear in mind the Minister’s remarks that this is a paving Bill. However, I feel moved to speak. If the Bill progresses further, I hope that the assumptions, policy and IT systems designed for it will be able to accommodate exemptions. I want to talk specifically about exemptions for exception sites in rural areas. The current situation is dire. The noble Lord, Lord Stewartby, has just dealt with whether the planning-gain supplement is likely to make it more difficult to develop land. The top issue in rural communities is the lack of housing. As the Minister himself may be aware, for at least the past five years the Commission for Rural Communities has highlighted that as its number one issue. The Government reacted in 2005 by creating the Affordable Rural Housing Commission. The commission duly reported. I should declare an interest here as I served on the Joseph Rowntree commission, the work of which fed into the Elinor Goodman commission inquiry. The Government have yet to act positively on any of the recommendations of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission. The Government themselves estimate that 11,000 new homes will be needed annually, at a price which enables those with an income of less than £17,000 per annum to make use of it. The Commission for Rural Communities goes even further. It believes that about 31,000 affordable homes will be needed annually for at least the next five years, whereas only 1,700 are being built annually. Whichever figure one accepts, there is an enormous shortfall. The price is being paid by rural communities, members of their younger generation leaving for the towns in droves because there are simply no houses for them. The situation is ridiculous. The Government talk about sustainable communities but, because of this housing shortage, they have condemned rural communities to a situation which is anything but sustainable. The Minister may say that the Government do not need to go to the trouble in rural areas of exempting exception sites for affordable housing, but these sites are developed only because they are an exception to the usual rule of no further development. The Government may say that the availability of such sites for affordable housing will deflate land values. However, evidence shows that land values rise significantly after planning permission has been given even when new developments include an affordable housing element, and even when the planning permission may be solely for affordable housing. Regardless, there is an overwhelming argument that, as this new tax is considered, nothing must be done to reduce the supply of land of land for houses in rural communities. The Government themselves recognise the value of these sites. They were about to get rid of them last year when the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, made the wise and significant decision in the government U-turn on preserving exception sites. It was a particularly helpful move. I conclude by providing some figures showing why the sites are so important and must not be discouraged. According to the best figures of the Rural Housing Trust, a key housing trust in this area, about 2,450 exception sites have provided 19,600 homes since 1989. The Minister may not think that a great number, but he should bear in mind that those homes were provided in the smallest communities in Britain, those which are hardest to sustain. If these villages are not to be condemned to being ghettos for the very elderly and the very wealthy, the Minister will have to take serious account of the situation in those areas.