Speeches by Curtis.

“I expect most people on this panel will have first bought properties in their constituency, and what you are describing is quite some distance from the experience of us and our residents. Redhouse Park is in my constituency. As of May this year, you emailed telling me that you had not signed off the accounts from 2022:…”

“If any other business was responsible for managing a gate and did not fix it for eight years, then turned around to residents and said, “We want a 123% increase in your fees to manage gates that have not worked for eight years,” that company would be out of business within months. And yet, because of the way this entir…”

“Do we know what percentage of the sector overall uses KSI? You say it is a third of yours—is it a third overall?”

“I get the point on this. Most flights I get now arrive early, since we have introduced fines in the European Union for flights arriving late.”

“Jumping back to the question, you have these viability assessments and there is, broadly, a conversation that happens around, as far as I understand, the 20% profit margin on each site. It is said to me by many people who have gone and looked at this that developers will go and have those negotiations with councils abo…”

“I am Chris Curtis, the MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“Very quickly, beyond everyone having a local plan, which they should—you will not find much disagreement on that in this room—are there any reforms to S106 or CIL that would be useful?”

“The Chair is keen for me to be move on, so I will. Last week, one of Paul’s members said to me that, in the case of the promoter, who is not taking on the risk or anything else, the number is from £10,000 up to £600,000. I am not entirely convinced that there is not more value to be extracted from a shift of £590,000 p…”

“I have some very quick points. We have skirted around the key number in this long conversation, so maybe it is worth coming to Emily quickly on this. Many points have been made. Local plans are good. That is fine. We have probably got a bit better at extracting land value. That is also great. That does not answer the q…”

“Airlines have extended the estimated length of a flight, because that decreases the chance that they are going to have a penalty. I suppose that that is the same analogy that happens here. If you were to do that, would developers not then just decrease their projected build-out rates in your S106 projections and work t…”

“In one of the wettest countries in Europe, we could face summer water shortages because we have not built a single major reservoir in over 30 years. Here is the real kick in the teeth: we have paid all those prices for rules that have failed even on their own terms. We have created endless hoops to jump through and pou…”

“May we please start by acknowledging something that still has not been acknowledged enough: the current planning system is broken? Nowhere is that clearer than in our environmental and habitats regulation, which part 3 of the Bill is hoping to fix, and which many amendments—amendment 69 in particular—would make signifi…”

“Oh, is it?”

“On that point, will the Minister give way?”

“Does the hon. Member agree that what he has just described would lead to more delays in the system, which would mean that more planning permissions were held up—something that Opposition Members have complained about? If the amendment were passed, the requirement would also add a lot more expense to the system, which w…”

“I will make some progress. Now we have a Bill that will finally move us towards environmental delivery plans that take a far more strategic approach to improving nature and increasing the building that this country so desperately needs. I want these changes to go further. We need to look at the culture within our regul…”

“I start by appreciating the description of a rant—I will keep ranting on this point until I do not have to speak to my constituents waking up in temporary accommodation because of this country’s failure to build. I note that there is a middle ground; in fact, it is even better than a middle ground, because through this…”

“Hundreds of thousands of children will wake up tomorrow morning in temporary accommodation as a consequence of this, and millions of families will continue paying some of the highest energy bills in the western world. When Russian tanks rolled into Europe, we were dangerously reliant on foreign oil and gas because our …”

“If the busyness of the Department is a reason not to do “big bang” reforms—and as a Committee that is scrutinising a lot of the work the Department is doing, we fully appreciate that point—is there not an appetite to at least look at some of the smaller changes that could be done to improve the council tax systems? Tha…”

“Can we look at council tax more generally? You have said in the past that council tax is unfair and regressive and that it has increased significantly over recent years with no improvement to services, and this disconnect is a real danger to the democratic process. Do you think that the Government should think more abo…”