Speeches by Pennycook.

“No.”

“Yes, as an example of a local authority that is not taking the West Berkshire approach to reimburse residents.”

“You are right that some councils have given refunds. West Berkshire is a good example of one that has chosen to take that path. There are two things to say. First, a series of households across the country have been very badly hit by this. It is very clear to us that the CIL regulations in question are not intended to …”

“That was a series of very pertinent but, in some ways, technical questions. Starting with CIL, it is a discretionary charge locally led by local planning authorities. That is why the main data is locally driven and published, including through the legal requirements that are in place to publish infrastructure funding s…”

“I would add to that in the sense of reinforcing what Will said, in that every planning application decision is a decision by the decision maker, or PINS on appeal, as to planning judgment in the round, based on material considerations where national policy has significant weight. The other thing I would add is—and we t…”

“Not by 31 December, no. It will be far sooner than that.”

“It will be as soon as possible this year.”

“I will give you a few thoughts and then bring Will in, because it is fair to say that we went round the houses on this extensively at the point of the NPPF refresh in December. We have not dropped the policy of benchmark land values, but we are undertaking further work to assess how benchmark land values, on green-belt…”

“I understand the concerns around it. Is it worth me detailing to this Committee precisely the problem as I see it? It might be valuable. It goes without saying that private developers require sufficient incentive—profit—to build out schemes. They should, of course, be able to use viability assessments to reduce contrib…”

“We can do that.”

“And proportionate.”

“Temporary accommodation lies outside my area of responsibilities as a Minister.”

“I would say two things. I know about this from a constituency point of view. There are creative solutions to some of this happening. For example, some local authorities are using local authority housing fund funds to take up some of these units and to remove people off their TA rolls. That is happening. Local authoriti…”

“It is 1,500 as of last week, but that does not tally with, for example, the Home Builders Federation telling us that there are 17,400 of these units out there in the country. I wrote to the HBF recently asking for a detailed breakdown of the ownership and location of those 17,400 section 106 units that it references in…”

“There was new data last week on how many have gone through our clearing service. It was 800 in the early stages. I think we have new numbers.”

“Again, that is a policy challenge without an easy answer. It is a very complex one. On the general point, the fact that large numbers of section 106 homes remain uncontracted and unsold is undoubtedly a challenge. We recognise that. It is a complex problem. We continue to refine our understanding of it. It is clear, an…”

“That is an overly simplistic solution that would have a range of unintended consequences. I would put it no more forcefully than that.”

“The investment cycle for that is out of line with the planning cycle and that is one of the challenges. That situation operates across the board. I make a general point that perhaps gives the Committee an insight into how we see that challenge fitting with the rest of the Government’s reform agenda. What is different b…”

“It is also worth saying that this is not just confined to the NHS. I understand that this challenge in individual honourable Members’ constituencies is very real, in terms of ensuring we get the right infrastructure and amenities up front in the development process to ensure we are building sustainable, thriving commun…”

“I will go back and look at RICS’s argument for it. It was introduced in the 2016 Act and successive Governments have not yet been convinced that it will not simply add complexity and bureaucracy into the system, as opposed to genuinely speeding it up. The challenges that the dispute resolution scheme was attempting to …”