Matthew Pennycook

My hon. Friend made the same points when I appeared before the Select Committee earlier this week. I have taken them on board and I am happy to look at what the Department can do to ensure that there is a constructive relationship in each instance where the Government are seeking to build the evidence base. I certainly do not recognise, however, that it is the Government’s intention to go out to local areas and ask them to bid in to the programme. We want to work with local communities and local leaders to better understand and assess the proposition in each case. I want to address two further issues. First, on financing, all the lessons suggest that once development is under way on new town sites, the long-term increase in the value of land can be captured and reinvested. Several hon. Members made that point forcefully, and the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington is correct that the three waves of new towns programmes each repaid the investment that was ploughed into them up front. We know that, and the taskforce recommended that we should explore a range of options, including taxation, in the financing model—for example, we are exploring the role that tax increment financing might play in the new towns programme, as was mentioned by the Select Committee Chair. Lastly, I want to address the important theme of stewardship, which several hon. Members raised. We welcome all the taskforce’s recommendations on place-making and other issues that will be pertinent in the years ahead as we take the programme forward. On stewardship, the taskforce recommended, rightly in my view, that a long-term stewardship model should be in place from the outset and that it should include clear governance and funding structures to manage and maintain communal assets. In that way, we can learn the lessons from the earlier waves of new towns and get things right for this new programme. To conclude, the Government’s new town programme, in the Government’s view, provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fundamentally reshape the delivery of large-scale new communities and, by delivering them, to boost economic growth and productivity, and make a significant contribution to meeting housing need in England over the coming decades. The Government remain resolute in their determination to bring forward the next generation of new towns. We will work tirelessly across Government and with delivery partners and local communities to ensure that they are, in the words of the taskforce, not just places to live, but places to live well, and places for people. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch for securing and opening the debate, and to other hon. Members for taking part. I know that hon. Members will take me at my word when I say that I look forward to further engagement with Members across the House as we advance the programme in the months and years ahead.