Clause 50
Housing and Regeneration Bill
1:00 pm
Iain Wright (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Hartlepool, Labour)
As the right hon. Gentleman said, we had an in-depth discussion on the matter when we debated clause 10, and I undertook to do additional work to reassure hon. Members on clause 50. The point is important, and I was rightly challenged on best consideration and the agency’s wider objects.
Clause 50 empowers the Secretary of State to grant consent to the Homes and Communities Agency when it proposes to exercise powers that are subject to that consent, such as the giving of financial assistance, forming or acquiring companies or—this was the point mentioned under clause 10—the disposal of land for less than best consideration. Consent may be given with or without conditions, and generally or specifically, as circumstances require.
Following our debate on clause 10, I should like to set out in more detail the way in which general consents for the disposal of land at less than best consideration are operated by local authorities, the role of English Partnerships and an indication of the nature of general consents that we plan under clause 50. First, I shall first set out the situation for local authorities. They have sought, and been given, the Secretary of State’s consent to dispose of land at less than best consideration under the Local Government Act 1972 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The most recent guidance on general disposal consents was issued in 2003 under the 1972 Act. It sets out measures whereby local authorities can dispose of land at less than best consideration if the disposal meets a “well being test”, as well as the difference between the open-market value on disposal and circumstances in which its value, subject to conditions imposed by the local authority, is less than £2 million. The provisions have been used by local authorities on several occasions, but as I told the Committee on Tuesday, consent is not required, so we do not hold records of disposals carried out under the general consent.
On disposals above the £2 million level, approximately eight consents are given each year under the Local Government Act 1972 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and I can give the Committee examples to illustrate the point and drive the debate forward. In October 2003, in the London borough of Brent, there was a freehold disposal of land on the Chalkhill estate in Wembley for the purpose of housing. It was disposed to the Metropolitan Housing Trust, and the under-value was £2.04 million. Similarly, in August 2004, Basingstoke and Deane borough council disposed of the freehold of undeveloped land at Foxdown, in Hampshire, to Westbury Homes Ltd; the land was for residential development, and the under-value was £2.5 million.
The point that I made earlier about the wide definition of well-being is not confined to housing. The London borough of Greenwich disposed of the leasehold of a school site in Abbey Wood to St. Paul’s Academy; the land was for a city academy school, and the under-value was £7.39 million. Ipswich borough council disposed of land to University Campus Suffolk for the development of a university campus, and the under-value was £9.32 million. The important point is that there are precedents, and the definition of well-being, as set out under the general consents in the Local Government Act 1972, is incredibly wide. That shows what the agency could do when disposing of land at less than best consideration.