Planning Bill

I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I was about to touch on that point when I talked about viability. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, made an enormously important point about viability. It is not invariably the case, but it is frequently the case, that the areas that require the most investment in infrastructure are the more prosperous areas where development is on greenfield land and infrastructure has to be built or an existing settlement needs a major extension. In those situations, the way in which CIL is framed will work as it is intended to work. Indeed, the work done on the tariff, not just in Milton Keynes, but also in Bedfordshire, South Hampshire and Ashford in Kent, all follows that logic. However, it is exceptionally important that authorities which have a large amount of brownfield sites are able to take the time to consider whether they feel it is appropriate to have a zero charge for CIL in such situations. Frequently but not invariably, brownfield sites tend to be rich in infrastructure because they tend to be in city centres or in areas around city centres which have good infrastructure but they may have been neglected in other ways. The reason I like the proposition in front of us is that it gives authorities flexibility so that they do not need an additional take from a development because the infrastructure is in reasonably good shape or it is where it should be. Finally, I ask the Minister to respond to my noble friend Lord Woolmer’s point about whether charging authorities will have the ability to vary the level of CIL across an authority. That goes to the heart of the point about the viability. You may have a charge which is perfectly viable in one part of an authority but completely unviable in another. I should like some reassurance that that will be possible, but not in a way that one ends up with developers negotiating every single application because that has been the bugbear of Section 106. I should be grateful if my noble friend could respond to some of these points.