Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for his contribution to this short debate. He is quite right that this provision was brought forward in a Bill from the previous Government. As I set out in my introductory speech, the purpose of this is to try to help support the SME sector and others, including local communities, alongside our other package of work, as we go forward to make sure that they have transparency and access to the information they need to make the business and local decisions that are so important to them. Transparency is not a substitute for other interventions to boost delivery, but it is a complementary and necessary precondition for a properly functioning and competitive land market. The noble Lord is right that SME housebuilders have seen their market share significantly shrink since the 1980s, when SME builders delivered about 40% of the nation’s homes. A structural barrier to their return, as I am sure he will be aware, is the difficulty of identifying genuinely available sites. This new database will directly reduce that barrier for SMEs by allowing smaller developers to identify from the outset which sites are already under contractual control. More SMEs competing for genuinely available sites means more homes can be built by a more diverse market, which is central to our Government’s ambition to deliver more homes. We know that these regulations are not a silver bullet to the challenges SME builders face, but they do form part of a wider package of measures. The noble Lord asked about exemption agreements. We have included targeted exemptions to make sure that the regulations are proportionate and require information to be provided only where it progresses the transparency aims. We have included the exemptions that I set out earlier, on national security arrangements such as loan security, non-development rights, short-term rights under 18 months and Section 106 agreements. Overage and clawback agreements are primarily financial mechanisms, which do not give a party the power to control how land is used or disposed, so a clear majority of the consultation respondents did not support their inclusion. Information about easements and restricted covenants is typically already available through the register of title. I think the burdens and costs on the sector were the main issue that the noble Lord was raising. We have been deliberate throughout about ensuring that requirements are proportionate. The Government’s assessment is that the overall impact on business will be de minimis. No significant impact on the public sector is foreseen, and local authorities will benefit from access to the data at no cost. The information required is typically information that parties already hold. Exemptions exist for short-term and non-development rights. Our consultation, which was extensive, confirmed that the vast majority of parties already engage lawyers when drawing up these agreements. It was estimated that the process would add between 21 and 60 minutes per agreement. As the noble Lord said, the impact on businesses is estimated at approximately £4.2 million per annum. That consists of ongoing compliance costs and one-off familiarisation costs to developers, land promoters and conveyancers. But, as always with these things, the important thing is to balance this with the improved transparency for communities and the industry to understand how land is available. Hopefully, that will off-set some of the costs because it will enable SMEs and others to access information that will tell them what land is available and save them wasting money looking at land that already has agreements over it. In conclusion, these regulations will for the first time give government, planning authorities, small builders and local communities a clear and reliable picture of who controls development land in England and Wales. That is a straightforward but significant change and one that is long overdue. I trust the Committee welcomes the regulations.