I support the amendment and, in doing so, declare my interests as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association. It is worth going back to when this policy came in. It was in the context of an economy struggling to recover and the Government’s desire to stimulate development rapidly. It was particularly focused on the issue of office developments that had outlived their useful economic life and an unwillingness on the part of local authorities to contemplate change to an alternative use. That was the context in which the policy came forward. There was considerable debate about the issue, but the difficulty was that what worked in one part of the country may well not have worked in others. The safeguard introduced at the time was, essentially, to allow certain areas to be excluded from the application of the permitted development rights. In reality, only very few areas were excluded. The exclusions were very narrowly drawn to include areas, such as the City, that were very concerned about the issue.
We now know that, while the policy was well intentioned, the consequences have been perverse in some parts of the country, particularly in London and particularly in places of it that we have heard about, such as Richmond and Sutton. Having that information now, it is right that the Government revisit this issue and think again. For the price of a small addition of new housing, we are in danger of denuding significant areas of their economic capacity to grow and develop. The case is compelling: we should learn from how policies have worked in practice and be open to revisiting them.