Gideon Amos

I reiterate my thanks to all members of the Bill Committee and to the Clerks and officials, who I know had plenty to be getting on with during our sittings. I am grateful for the support of my colleagues for the amendments I have tabled. The Liberal Democrats’ new clause 22 on active travel, and new clause 114 on open spaces in new towns and other development corporation developments, and our amendments 88 and 89 on recreational land, form our key proposals for this part of the Bill. All of them urge the Government to go further when it comes to releasing land value for infrastructure that meets community and environmental needs. On part 5 of the Bill generally, our compulsory purchase proposals included that where major permissions of over 100 homes are not built out, greater powers to acquire that land for housing would be given to councils in a new “use it or lose it” planning permission. I was delighted to hear in the news that the Government are taking up that idea—although I gained a slightly different impression in Committee—even if the promise of more conditionally approved compulsory purchase orders will not give councils the same strong “use it or lose it” power that our amendment would have. Wary of your strictures to stay on topic, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will briefly allow me to add my welcome to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) of the fact that, following the introduction of his private Member’s Bill, the Government, to their credit, have agreed that all new homes will be fitted with solar panels as standard—his sunshine Bill really is “winning here”—bringing zero emissions a step closer, after all the hard work of Liberal Democrat and Labour Ministers on zero-carbon homes, before the Conservatives cancelled the programme in 2015. I turn to our amendments on compulsory purchase and development corporations. Our community-led approach is about the essential infrastructure people want to see being put in place ahead of the building of new homes. Clause 104 could support that by helping the building of council and social homes. It would reward landowners with a fair value, rather than inflated prices from an imaginary planning permission no one has ever applied for, as set out in section 14A of the Land Compensation Act 1961. Our manifesto supports that for the delivery of council houses, and we are supportive of steps that ensure that landowners are awarded fair compensation, rather than inflated prices, for specific types of development scheme. However, at my meeting with farmers in North Curry on Friday, there was concern about the idea—possibly as a result of rumours—that under the clause, farmers would lose land to Natural England so that it could carry out its environmental delivery plans, and in return would get only a reduced payment. I am not convinced that is what the clause does, but family farms have had a tough time recently. They provide food for our tables, and they have been hit hard by risky trade deals with Australia and New Zealand under the last Government, followed by a new inheritance tax on small family farms, the underspend of the agricultural budget, and the closing of the sustainable farming initiative.