Draft Legislative Programme

For over one and a half centuries—[Interruption.] For over one and a half centuries, the annual Gracious Address has been drafted inside Government and agreed by the Cabinet far from the public arena, but I believe that it is right, in the interests of good and open government and public debate, that each year the Prime Minister make a summer statement to the House so that initial thinking, previously private, can be the subject of widespread and informed public debate. Today, in advance of final decisions, the Leader of the House is publishing details of our initial list of proposed legislative measures, inviting debate on them in both Houses this month and making provision for region-by-region deliberation and responses. To respond to the rising aspirations of the British people we must deliver new and better opportunities in education, employment and the provision of housing and health care, and ensure that in a fast-changing world there is opportunity and security not just for some people, but for all British people. A new educational opportunity Bill will mean that for the first time not just some but all young people will be able to stay in education or training until the age of 18. The new pensions Bill will ensure that, for the first time, not just some but all working people have the right to a workplace pension, with a duty on every employer to contribute towards it. Putting affordable housing within the reach of not just the few but the many is vital both to meeting individual aspirations and to securing a better future for our country, so for housing and planning in the 2007-08 Session there are three proposed legislative measures. Let me tell the House the scale of the new opportunities for home buying and to rent that we are proposing. In two eras of the last century—the inter-war years and the 1950s onwards—Britain made new house building a national priority. Now, through this decade and right up to 2020, I want us, in environmentally friendly ways, using principally brownfield land and building eco-towns and villages, to meet housing need by building over 250,000 more homes than previously planned. That would be a total by 2020 of 3 million new homes for families across the country. For England, we will raise the annual house building target for 2016 from 200,000 houses a year to 240,000 new homes a year. We propose a new housing Bill that will support and encourage initiatives on the ground by local authorities and other authorities. We will bring together English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation to create a new homes agency charged with bringing surplus public land into housing use to deliver more social and affordable housing and to support regeneration. This work will include new partnerships with local authorities, health authorities and the private and voluntary sectors to build more housing made affordable by shared equity schemes and more social housing responsive to individual needs. The planning Bill will implement the Eddington and Barker reports to speed up the development of major infrastructure projects that Britain now needs to facilitate economic and housing growth, and it will speed up planning generally. The planning gain supplement Bill—to ensure that the public benefit from planning gain—is provisional, because if, prior to the pre-Budget report, a better way is identified of ensuring that local communities receive significantly more of the benefit from planning gain, including to invest in necessary infrastructure and transport, and it is demonstrated that it is a better alternative, the Government will be prepared to defer next Session’s legislation. To move housing supply forward, English Partnerships is negotiating a new deal with the Ministry of Defence to acquire at least six major redundant sites. Similar discussions are being undertaken with the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency and the British Railways Board residuary body, and the Department of Health is undertaking an urgent review of surplus land owned by NHS organisations and trusts. I can announce that in total over 550 sites owned by central Government are now being examined for housing development, with the potential for up to 100,000 new homes. In addition, we estimate that another 60,000 homes can be built on brownfield land currently owned by local authorities. The Minister for Housing will publish further details next week in a Green Paper to this House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is announcing today that he will consult on creating a new regime for ““covered bonds”” to help mortgage lenders to finance more affordable 20 to 25-year fixed-rate mortgages, and he will report by the Budget on how to overcome other barriers that prevent lenders from offering people long-term mortgages, including the case for changes to instruments used by the Debt Management Office. At the same time as building more affordable homes we must reduce the environmental impact, so we will consult local councils on using the New Towns Acts to enable eco-towns with zero or low-carbon housing and to ensure that they are built more quickly. I assure the House that we will continue robustly to protect the land designated as green belt. Alongside this, measures in the Climate Change Bill, which was published in draft on 13 March, will make Britain the first country in the world to introduce a legal framework for reducing carbon emissions by setting targets for carbon emission reductions for each five-year period to 2050. The energy Bill will also provide greater incentives for renewable energy generation. The local transport Bill will support the Government’s strategy to tackle congestion and to improve public transport. I turn to some of the other proposed Bills in our programme. As we approach the 60th anniversary of the NHS, we will do more to put power in the hands of patients and staff and ensure that every patient gets the best treatment. Alongside the NHS review announced last week, the health and social care Bill will create a stronger health and social care regulator, and there will be a clear remit to ensure improved access, clean and safe services, and high-quality care. The children in care Bill is an attempt to do more to protect vulnerable children. The child maintenance Bill will do more to prevent children from falling into poverty when parents split up. Behind the unclaimed assets Bill is our determination that money in dormant bank accounts will be used to improve our country’s youth and community facilities. The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill has already been published in draft for discussion. Measures to support British businesses as they strive to succeed in the new global economy and to break down the barriers holding enterprise back include the enforcement and sanctions Bill, which will keep the burden of regulation on compliant businesses to a minimum while effectively targeting and penalising those deliberately disregarding the law. The employment simplification Bill will deliver simpler and fairer enforcement of the national minimum wage. Protecting the security and safety of the British people is paramount for every Government. We stand ready to introduce new measures into the Criminal Justice Bill, which will be carried over into the next Session, including measures that come from the review of policing by Sir Ronald Flanagan, which will report later this autumn. We are committed to building a broad consensus on the right balance between protecting our national security and safeguarding the civil liberties of every individual in this country, so the Home Secretary plans to consult on, and we will seek an all-party consensus on, new measures to ensure more successful prosecutions against terrorist suspects and increased penalties for terrorists charged with other criminal offences. We will consult on, and hope to achieve a consensus on, the period of pre-charge detention where, for terrorism alone, exceptional circumstances in my view make it necessary, while ensuring rigorous judicial oversight and parliamentary accountability, that we extend the time. As the House knows, we shall review the use of intercept material in prosecutions. The full and final programme will be set out in the Queen’s Speech in November. Many of the proposals that I set out to the House last week will also be taken forward in a constitutional reform Bill. Just as with the challenge of securing justice and security for all, the challenge for the Government and the foundation of next Session’s legislative programme is to support all parents with children, not just some; to invest in the educational chances of all young people, not just a few; to offer more people the chance to get on the housing ladder for the first time; to help more people into work; and to give all patients the best health care. In this way, we respond to the rising aspirations of the British people, by ensuring that the opportunities that are today available to only some are available to all. I commend the statement to the House.