John McDonnell

There have been many references to the housing crisis and impassioned speeches, which I have welcomed. Like every other constituency in London, we have a housing crisis on a scale not seen before, and it has largely been caused by council houses being sold off and not replaced. What has happened in my area is a salutary lesson about infrastructure developments. Crossrail is going through and the Elizabeth line has now gone through, so land value prices have gone through the roof. In central Hayes, I have more than 4,500 properties being built. We have no lack of planning permissions—in fact, we have planning permissions coming out of our ears—but most local people cannot even think of affording what is being built. Many have tried to become leaseholders, and now they are being hit by huge increases in service charges, and some cannot even sell on their properties as a result. With new clause 49, which no one has mentioned so far, we are asking the Government to look at how we can capture land value. There is a discussion to be had about a land value tax, and I think its time is coming. Many of those 4,500 properties are described as affordable, but they are not affordable to local people. That is why new clause 67 is so important, because we do not want affordable properties; we want social rent properties. In fact, I would like simply to give our local authorities the resources and to let them start building again, so that we can have places of a decent standard with a rent that people can afford. Some 45 years ago, I was on the Greater London Council’s planning committee, and I was chair of finance, too. By the way, we should have some confidence in local government being able to undertake infrastructure projects, because were it not for the GLC—and me as well, actually—building the Thames barrier, most Members here would be swimming. That shows what local government can do. We decry local government too often. I dealt with developers throughout that process, and I can say that I have dealt with some good developers and also some atrocious ones. Often they do not deliver, and often they do let us down, and that is why new clause 69 is so important. It merely asks for measures to be put in place during the planning process before a development is properly allowed to go ahead: in other words, the mitigation is there. Deals have been done in my constituency, such as section 106 deals, that have not really stood up, and the developers have walked away leaving us to clear up the mess. New clause 74, tabled by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa)—who is not in the Chamber at present—draws attention to a classic example of what almost constitutes betrayal on the part of developers who come along, develop the site, take the profits and walk away. In many instances, our local council does not even have the financial resources to challenge them legally. For that reason, I am also attracted to new clause 33, which says, “If a developer has let you down in that way, do not give them any more planning permissions.” It gives the authority the responsibility of saying, “No more: you are not going to do that to us ever again.” In our area, we will, if we are serious, have to go for compulsory purchase orders. Amendment 68 would take “hope value” out of the CPO calculations, which is significant because in the past too many compulsory purchases have failed because developers have applied hope value, which has escalated the cost and prevented us from acquiring property.