Speeches by Pennycook.

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. The order was laid before the House on 4 June. It will establish a centrally led urban development corporation in greater Cambridge, pursuan…”

“Committee rose.”

“That the Committee has considered the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026.”

“That was a long list of perfectly reasonable and fair questions, which I will seek to answer in turn. If I miss any, hon. Members are more than welcome to intervene on me. I will begin with the questions from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. The order establishes, as a corporate b…”

“That is a very good question. In short, although I am more than happy to expand on this response, the development corporation’s boundary does not pre-empt or prejudice the outcome of the recent consultation on local government reorganisation. The Government would, of course, consider, through due process, any changes t…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to correct an inadvertent error I made earlier today. During the Ninth Delegated Legislation Committee debate on the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026, I inadvertently stated that a relevant powers and functions order would fall …”

“Resolved,”

“You are confusing a proposal from us with evidence seeking. As I said, we have evidence that negotiated quid pro quo leases exist, but we do not know how prevalent they are. We are seeking evidence on whether any exemption for them is justified given their nature. We are not proposing a roll-out of quid pro quo leases …”

“I have lost track of the number of times I have gone around this with the Committee. There is a very clear measure of how we are performing against our 1.5 million homes target across the Parliament, and that is net additional completions. Those are publicly recordable figures and you will be able to judge them on it. …”

“That is a really good and topical question and I will answer it. For reasons that are best known to you—Chair and the Committee—this is a very wide-ranging session in terms of topics, lots of which are very technical. I am not going to dominate; I am going to pass to Emma and Jo to fill in and take some questions. On o…”

“That is a tough question. I hear bandied about fairly often that as a Government we came into office without a plan.”

“In a quid pro quo lease?”

“I am the Housing and Planning Minister.”

“That is precisely what we sought to investigate further through the pre-legislative scrutiny process. In the policy document that we published on ground rents specifically, you will remember that we sought further evidence on whether there is a justification for certain exemptions. We drew particular attention to negot…”

“We do not need a wholesale, fresh consultation on the ground rent cap, just this brief technical exercise to try to get a bit more evidence and supplement what little we got through the PLS process in terms of specifically negotiating quid pro quo leases.”

“I am sure you do. We had developed in opposition a very well thought-through, detailed and comprehensive plan with respect to housing and planning legislation and policy. I would argue we have ruthlessly executed that over the past two years. If I recount all the things we have done, they include overhauling the planni…”

“Just to supplement that, the bar for an exemption has to be extremely compelling in my mind. Let us see the evidence as to whether or not this type of lease meets that bar.”

“I would not say it is fair to characterise what we have done as prioritising quid pro quo leases. As I said, we need further evidence and have launched the technical consultation. We are hoping to publish the consultation on valuation rates imminently. As Committee members will know, that sits within the context that w…”

“Sorry, what do you mean by consulting on ground rents?”

“That is the type of issue we are trying to get more evidence on, and why we have had to go out for a further technical consultation to try to get more, so that we have a basis to make a rational decision on.”