Member

Unfortunately, this absence of a clear legal safeguard has wider consequences. I refer to planning performance agreements. They have become yet another growing unregulated financial burden on small builders. PPAs were designed for large, complex projects but are now routinely applied to small developments. In one case, a developer of fewer than 100 homes in London was charged £150,000 for a PPA. These are big sums for small builders. Without proportionality established in law, there is no check on such arbitrary and inconsistent charges. That is why the SME sector believes that the current system is far from fair. I urge the Minister to think again, and I beg to move.