Clause 30
Greater London Authority Bill
4:00 pm
Yvette Cooper (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Department for Communities and Local Government; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
The clauses that we have before us and the new clause that we were debating are important components of the Bill. That part of the Bill is about giving the Mayor more responsibility to ensure that housing and affordable housing needs in London are delivered in practice. Currently, the Mayor only has the right to block things and he should be able to support much-needed major strategic development in the interests of the capital as a whole. It is important that there are safeguards to ensure that the discussion is focused around those major strategic applications. I will come on to discuss those because we have set out the order in an attempt to give effect to that intention.