>> Late yesterday, sent following email to House of Commons Enquiry Service:
Dear HC Enquiries,
I am emailing you, in hopes you may be able to answer following question:
When it comes to providing services to constituents, what is procedure when an MP leaves the House by accepting office under the crown AND a new MP has not yet been elected?
Specifically, does the former MP have any remaining responsibilities for his former constituents in this situation?
Or must they contact some other MP for help? Or what?
Thank you in advance for your professional assistance!
>> This morning, received following response:
Thank you for your email.
When a Member of Parliament steps down there is no standard procedure for how the work of that MP will be managed until a new MP is in place. Whilst it would only be an informal arrangement, typically an MP of the same party in a neighbouring constituency manages constituency matters until a by-election is held.
I hope this proves helpful.
>> That's good enough for me, but if any other PBer wants to enquire further:
Thank you for actually taking the time to enquire. It's slightly sad that it took someone from overseas to bother to actually ask the question of the House of Commons rather than rant at each other without checking to see.
>> Just sent the following to HOC Enquiry Office:
Thank you for your prompt reply.
My question was sparked, by contention that ex-MPs whose successors have not yet been elected and sworn into office, neveretheless remain responsible for attending to issues or whatever raised by their (former) constituents.
Personally think this is a lot of poppycock, but wanted to see what your office had to say!
Thanks again, and have a great week in Westminster.
Still got the bastard Previa. I don't care about any of his lockdown bollocks because obeying the rules was a beta cuck move anyway but that shitty car enrages me.
>> Late yesterday, sent following email to House of Commons Enquiry Service:
Dear HC Enquiries,
I am emailing you, in hopes you may be able to answer following question:
When it comes to providing services to constituents, what is procedure when an MP leaves the House by accepting office under the crown AND a new MP has not yet been elected?
Specifically, does the former MP have any remaining responsibilities for his former constituents in this situation?
Or must they contact some other MP for help? Or what?
Thank you in advance for your professional assistance!
>> This morning, received following response:
Thank you for your email.
When a Member of Parliament steps down there is no standard procedure for how the work of that MP will be managed until a new MP is in place. Whilst it would only be an informal arrangement, typically an MP of the same party in a neighbouring constituency manages constituency matters until a by-election is held.
I hope this proves helpful.
>> That's good enough for me, but if any other PBer wants to enquire further:
@christiancalgie Close Boris ally James Duddridge: "Why not go the full way, put Boris in the stocks and provide rotten food to throw at him. Moving him around the marginals, so the country could share in the humiliation."
Who will play Boris in the next biopic? Surely there must be one in the works, or several. The Hatton Garden robbery gave us half a dozen films and series. We can't wait for The Crown.
Isn't there a young HoL nominee with some resemblance?
I don't buy it myself. When has BoJo ever done anything for any of his children, legitimate or not?
No 10 official says building was 'island oasis of normality' as wine time Fridays continued
'Birthday parties, leaving parties & end of week gatherings all continued'
Staff told to be 'mindful of cameras' outside but it was 'all pantomime'
Boris problem in all of this is not the parties, the drinking or the cake... it's lockdown! They knew it was all bullshit but kept everyone locked up anyway.
If one good thing comes out of Boris downfall and all the subsequent economic troubles since we opened back up, it will be that any future government/PM facing a pandemic will decide the problems locking everyone down would cause outweigh the benefits...
If that is the lesson they learn then we are truly fucked. And if you think that all the lockdowns were unecessary then you are deluded.
Should businesses be forced top stay open during a pandemic without any GIvernmental support? Should people be forced to go to non essential work - as they would be if there was no formal lockdown?
You can debate about the refinements of lockdowns but the idea that they should not be considerd is dangerous rubbish.
Or you can do what Sweden did, which was far better. Offer support to those who want it or need it, but leave it then to educated people to make responsible choices.
Never again should we ever have a lockdown.
And when companies insist that people come into work? How do you deal wih that?
Or when shops and businesses are stuck with making a choice between risking their lives by opening or risking their business by staying closed?
I am assuming you are not suggesting that we should still have the costs of lockdown in terms of Government support and furlough schemes and just let people choose whether they take them or not? That would be unworkable.
Sweden had a furlough scheme.
We had a furlough scheme even post-lockdown.
Yes I am 100% proposing support is offered but then people choose whether to take it or not. As we did post-lockdown, and Sweden did throughout.
There are big questions about lockdowns. As I think @kle4 has said, 'successful' lockdowns would always end up being framed as not having been needed. NHS didn't fall over, so lockdown was not necessary.
I suspect the majority of people in this country supported at least some of the lockdown periods. Sweden had notably poorer covid health outcomes than comparable Nordic nations, and that matters to people, You only need to see the anger at the Covid inquiry from those who lost people.
I'd like the Inquiry to come up with a better plan. I'd like to think that providing advice would be enough, but generally I think Brits are pretty poor at taking health advice. If we were better there would be less smoking, fewer overweight/obese inactive people. There would also be those who just take the piss.
Generally I think we had to lockdown at the start. We got it wrong in my view when we had vaccinated the most at risk in not opening fast enough. I still recall in summer 2021 being made to sit at separate tables outside a pub with our cricket team. But its not right to say 'no lockdown ever again'.
In addition, it's not as if they leapt from zero to full lockdown every time. Each time, they tried to do things a bit Sweden-y. Prior to the first lockdown, it was explicitly said that we and Sweden were following a similar path. Then as cases and hospitalisations climbed exponentially, they had to do something.
Personally, I suspect that the restrictions and guidance that applied over the weekend prior to the first official lockdown would probably have done the job, but I can fully accept that they couldn't gamble any more. As it was, they were going to oversaturate the health system.
(100,000 or so general and acute beds, of which c. 10,000 were free, and 4,100 ICU beds, of which 750 were free - that doesn't give much headroom. Especially bearing in mind that the highest we had in hospital for covid was 32,000 with a further 4000 coming in per day during the winter peak (for ICU it was 4,500 covid ICU patients with 400 coming in per day), so we actually did melt down the NHS. They couldn't provide enough intensive care, as it's not exactly the number of beds that counts too much - it's not the furniture - so the death rate more than doubled during that time. It's just it was "graceful degradation"; it hadn't totally collapsed.
In summer and autumn, they tried a bunch of things, including strong recommendations, but too many journalists and others tried the "Aha, but what about Scotch Eggs!?!?" stuff (plus idiots pushing narratives like "But they're all false positives, it's gone away and is never coming back, how stupid would you have to be to believe going over 200 deaths a day could ever be possible after Easter 2020!?!?").
Every country is different. Sweden just about pulled that off, at a cost of considerably higher deaths and hospitalisations (and higher economic damage) than their immediate neighbours. We tried things like guidance and advice ("It's a FEAR campaign! How dare they!"), and it didn't work.
Who will play Boris in the next biopic? Surely there must be one in the works, or several. The Hatton Garden robbery gave us half a dozen films and series. We can't wait for The Crown.
Isn't there a young HoL nominee with some resemblance?
I don't buy it myself. When has BoJo ever done anything for any of his children, legitimate or not?
Impossible to say, not knowing how many of them exist
No 10 official says building was 'island oasis of normality' as wine time Fridays continued
'Birthday parties, leaving parties & end of week gatherings all continued'
Staff told to be 'mindful of cameras' outside but it was 'all pantomime'
Boris problem in all of this is not the parties, the drinking or the cake... it's lockdown! They knew it was all bullshit but kept everyone locked up anyway.
If one good thing comes out of Boris downfall and all the subsequent economic troubles since we opened back up, it will be that any future government/PM facing a pandemic will decide the problems locking everyone down would cause outweigh the benefits...
If that is the lesson they learn then we are truly fucked. And if you think that all the lockdowns were unecessary then you are deluded.
Should businesses be forced top stay open during a pandemic without any GIvernmental support? Should people be forced to go to non essential work - as they would be if there was no formal lockdown?
You can debate about the refinements of lockdowns but the idea that they should not be considerd is dangerous rubbish.
Or you can do what Sweden did, which was far better. Offer support to those who want it or need it, but leave it then to educated people to make responsible choices.
Never again should we ever have a lockdown.
Given that Sweden had various distancing rules in place it sounds like you are agreeing that some measures are a good idea, just a question of which ones.
AFAIK Sweden's rules were guidance and encouragement rather than police enforcement.
If so, then yes I totally agree, give guidance but then let people choose.
Would you say that, when people are driving, we should give guidance on what speed to drive at, but then let people choose?
No, I'm a liberal not an anarchist.
But I don't view driving 100mph outside a school as the same as sending a child to school.
In some situations, the actions of someone carrying an infectious disease or possibly carrying an infectious disease can be as dangerous as driving at 100mph outside a school. Of course we should weigh up costs and benefits, but I don’t see why you are so absolute against legally-enforceable public health restrictions in a pandemic, but fine with limits on driving.
I don’t know what the next pandemic will be. I hope we don’t have lockdowns ever again, but I see no reason to rule them out as an option in extremis.
Well, many reasons for one but not the other, but the simplest is that there are a hell of a lot more downsides to missing months of school than to be unable to exceed speed limits.
The costs and benefits are very different. It’s going to depend on what the pandemic is. It’s going to depend on what lockdown is proposed. (A week long lockdown during the summer holidays isn’t going to have the same impact as a months long lockdown.) It depends on what sort of road is outside the school. What I don’t see is a rationale as to why there could never be a case where a lockdown could be the right approach. I question Bart’s absolutism.
Well I'd agree that there are circumstances where school closures could be justified in public health grounds. I wouldn't even dispute too hard that the original closure - an early start to an extended Easter holiday - was reasonable under the circumstances, given what we knew. My view is that schools should have then reopened in May 2020, given the balance of costs and benefits. But if you pick a different date - well, I recognise we all have an imperfect understanding of the costs and benefits, and that we all value costs and benefits differently. So lets just agree that costs and benefits of decisions need to be taken into account.
@christiancalgie Close Boris ally James Duddridge: "Why not go the full way, put Boris in the stocks and provide rotten food to throw at him. Moving him around the marginals, so the country could share in the humiliation."
Sensible policies for a happier Britain.
Farmers could provide unharvested crops, I'm sure.
Who will play Boris in the next biopic? Surely there must be one in the works, or several. The Hatton Garden robbery gave us half a dozen films and series. We can't wait for The Crown.
Isn't there a young HoL nominee with some resemblance?
I don't buy it myself. When has BoJo ever done anything for any of his children, legitimate or not?
When this all started I Google Image Searched for the lady in question trying to see if there was any resemblance and I have to say the image that came up, the resemblance to a former Prime Minister is uncanny.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
Who will play Boris in the next biopic? Surely there must be one in the works, or several. The Hatton Garden robbery gave us half a dozen films and series. We can't wait for The Crown.
@christiancalgie Close Boris ally James Duddridge: "Why not go the full way, put Boris in the stocks and provide rotten food to throw at him. Moving him around the marginals, so the country could share in the humiliation."
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
No 10 official says building was 'island oasis of normality' as wine time Fridays continued
'Birthday parties, leaving parties & end of week gatherings all continued'
Staff told to be 'mindful of cameras' outside but it was 'all pantomime'
Boris problem in all of this is not the parties, the drinking or the cake... it's lockdown! They knew it was all bullshit but kept everyone locked up anyway.
If one good thing comes out of Boris downfall and all the subsequent economic troubles since we opened back up, it will be that any future government/PM facing a pandemic will decide the problems locking everyone down would cause outweigh the benefits...
If that is the lesson they learn then we are truly fucked. And if you think that all the lockdowns were unecessary then you are deluded.
Should businesses be forced top stay open during a pandemic without any GIvernmental support? Should people be forced to go to non essential work - as they would be if there was no formal lockdown?
You can debate about the refinements of lockdowns but the idea that they should not be considerd is dangerous rubbish.
Or you can do what Sweden did, which was far better. Offer support to those who want it or need it, but leave it then to educated people to make responsible choices.
Never again should we ever have a lockdown.
Given that Sweden had various distancing rules in place it sounds like you are agreeing that some measures are a good idea, just a question of which ones.
AFAIK Sweden's rules were guidance and encouragement rather than police enforcement.
If so, then yes I totally agree, give guidance but then let people choose.
Would you say that, when people are driving, we should give guidance on what speed to drive at, but then let people choose?
No, I'm a liberal not an anarchist.
But I don't view driving 100mph outside a school as the same as sending a child to school.
In some situations, the actions of someone carrying an infectious disease or possibly carrying an infectious disease can be as dangerous as driving at 100mph outside a school. Of course we should weigh up costs and benefits, but I don’t see why you are so absolute against legally-enforceable public health restrictions in a pandemic, but fine with limits on driving.
I don’t know what the next pandemic will be. I hope we don’t have lockdowns ever again, but I see no reason to rule them out as an option in extremis.
Well, many reasons for one but not the other, but the simplest is that there are a hell of a lot more downsides to missing months of school than to be unable to exceed speed limits.
The costs and benefits are very different. It’s going to depend on what the pandemic is. It’s going to depend on what lockdown is proposed. (A week long lockdown during the summer holidays isn’t going to have the same impact as a months long lockdown.) It depends on what sort of road is outside the school. What I don’t see is a rationale as to why there could never be a case where a lockdown could be the right approach. I question Bart’s absolutism.
Well I'd agree that there are circumstances where school closures could be justified in public health grounds. I wouldn't even dispute too hard that the original closure - an early start to an extended Easter holiday - was reasonable under the circumstances, given what we knew. My view is that schools should have then reopened in May 2020, given the balance of costs and benefits. But if you pick a different date - well, I recognise we all have an imperfect understanding of the costs and benefits, and that we all value costs and benefits differently. So lets just agree that costs and benefits of decisions need to be taken into account.
Sure, we can agree on much. I look forward to the COVID-19 Inquiry’s findings.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
And then, round here at least, they employ a planning consultancy which is staffed with ex-council planning officials and can be relied upon to - let's say - "find a way through tricky situations".
I am not remotely alleging malpractice for one second (he says hastily) but it's remarkable how many controversial applications, that nonetheless gain planning consent, have this particular consultancy's fingerprints on them.
But yes - the small developers do manage to find their way through the system.
It appears that the Dorries has decided not to resign as an MP yet. You can imagine just how horrendous her contribution in next Monday's debate is going to be! Indeed we will have a line up of fawning lickspittles all fingering their Boris Bauble whilst entirely coincidentally saying how the report is an outrage.
And then the Dorries. I want flying spittle. I want her named for refusing to shut up or retract the most unparliamentary language. Go on Nadine, show them how a working class girl from Liverpool fights the establishment.
I don’t reckon she will resign at all. She acted hot-headedly, then realised she would be left with nothing and is now reverse ferreting.
The tories are going to need some very nuanced messaging on brexit. Brexit's brilliant but the person who delivered it is a fucking swindler might be a tough sell.
Bozo wasn't just the person who delivered Brexit, he is also the person who sold everyone their own personal view of Brexit that he then delivered to absolutely no-one.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
It appears that the Dorries has decided not to resign as an MP yet. You can imagine just how horrendous her contribution in next Monday's debate is going to be! Indeed we will have a line up of fawning lickspittles all fingering their Boris Bauble whilst entirely coincidentally saying how the report is an outrage.
And then the Dorries. I want flying spittle. I want her named for refusing to shut up or retract the most unparliamentary language. Go on Nadine, show them how a working class girl from Liverpool fights the establishment.
I don’t reckon she will resign at all. She acted hot-headedly, then realised she would be left with nothing and is now reverse ferreting.
If she doesn’t resign I predict she’s going to be one of the more entertaining casualties of GE2024.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
Nope I am talking facts from what I know actually working in the system providing professional advice to developers. The difference with many other countries is a lack of a self build system here which encourages small developers and builders.
Most of the planning applications rejected outright are from people wanting to build another house on their already existing plot. Back garden building. Then there are those who, in spite of years of evidence of how stupid it is, still insist on making applications to build on flood plain. Many of the appeals through the system are from dvelopers who want to build but don't want to have to pay for the environmental and archaeoogical mitigation costs that are imposed. This is the day to day business of planning (a system by the way that was largely introduced in its modern form by Thatcher in the late 80s following the 'pollutor pays' principle although this has been greatly watered down since unfortunately.
THere are still reforms you could do but you wouldn't like them. Insist that developers have to actually pay for and build the infrastrustuce and facilities needed for a new development - schools, surgeries etc - rather than just giving money to the council to do it which almost never ends up actually being spent on that. Reintroduce Thatcher's PPG system which had real teeth and meant developers spending real money to deal with archaeology and environmental issues.
Then start charging council tax on any land with planning permission that hasn't been developed after a year. That would get more houses built instead of continually adding to the land bank.
It appears that the Dorries has decided not to resign as an MP yet. You can imagine just how horrendous her contribution in next Monday's debate is going to be! Indeed we will have a line up of fawning lickspittles all fingering their Boris Bauble whilst entirely coincidentally saying how the report is an outrage.
And then the Dorries. I want flying spittle. I want her named for refusing to shut up or retract the most unparliamentary language. Go on Nadine, show them how a working class girl from Liverpool fights the establishment.
I don’t reckon she will resign at all. She acted hot-headedly, then realised she would be left with nothing and is now reverse ferreting.
If she doesn’t resign I predict she’s going to be one of the more entertaining casualties of GE2024.
She probably won’t stand, but will be entirely focused on getting the reward she thinks she was promised, and will be of zip all use to her constituents meantime.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
Bart's view of the rights and wrongs of the planning system is not mine, but I agree wholeheartedly with his final paragraph (and also though this is more subjective, that this is a bad thing).
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
FWIW I have been dealing with a development where the local council has taken 7 years negotiating the section 106…
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
FWIW I have been dealing with a development where the local council has taken 7 years negotiating the section 106…
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
Which is why this stuff should be non negotiable and just be enforced on the developer. It should not be a 'negotiation'. It should be a condition of development.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
If planning were more straightforward to get then they couldn't nab all the land, because there'd be alternative land which can be developed instead. Which is what happens elsewhere.
The problem is that some like our own @Richard_Tyndall look at the numbers of permissions granted and act as if they should all be developed (never going to happen) or that there's no issues as a result, when the opposite is the case, alternatives should get permission on top of that given elsewhere because that's how competition thrives.
Of course having more permissions granted just means more competition, it doesn't mean an infinite number of homes are built since as we've already established not all potential homes with permission end up developed anyway.
@christiancalgie Close Boris ally James Duddridge: "Why not go the full way, put Boris in the stocks and provide rotten food to throw at him. Moving him around the marginals, so the country could share in the humiliation."
Read the room, Dudders.
Sorry, Sir* Dudders.
(*Grand Order of Sycophants and Buffoons)
All of the people granted baubles by the Liar are grifting like crazy for him today,
It was suggested upthread that it was outrageous of me to suggest a link between the awarding of a dishonour by Boris! and that person embarrassing themself in the media for him. But here we are...
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
FWIW I have been dealing with a development where the local council has taken 7 years negotiating the section 106…
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
Which is why this stuff should be non negotiable and just be enforced on the developer. It should not be a 'negotiation'. It should be a condition of development.
Agreed. Cut out the Council entirely and have a standardised duty enforced on the developer, like petrol duty, cigarette duty or alcohol duty, to cover externalities.
Pragmatic and sensible, but I'm not sure this entirely gets them off the hook.
Tellingly, Tory whips have offered “slips” (permission to skip the Commons) for Monday to MPs willing to go and campaign in the by-election seats, I'm told
Sounds like quite a few MPs will seize the chance to miss the (unwhipped) vote on privileges cmtte report on Boris Johnson
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Only the last 2 (in my argument anyway). According to the LGA these currently account for 1.2 million undeveloped plots with planning permission. A number that is currently increasing by around 80-100K a year with far more permissions being granted than are being completed.
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
FWIW I have been dealing with a development where the local council has taken 7 years negotiating the section 106…
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
Which is why this stuff should be non negotiable and just be enforced on the developer. It should not be a 'negotiation'. It should be a condition of development.
Agreed. Cut out the Council entirely and have a standardised duty enforced on the developer, like petrol duty, cigarette duty or alcohol duty, to cover externalities.
Nope because the council know what is needed in an area. They have the plans for population growth and changes in usage etc.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Only the last 2 (in my argument anyway). According to the LGA these currently account for 1.2 million undeveloped plots with planning permission. A number that is currently increasing by around 80-100K a year with far more permissions being granted than are being completed.
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
1.2 million is a tiny number that even if every single one was built, which is physically impossible, would not resolve our housing shortage.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by the oligopoly of firms which as I have said the planning system currently favours.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by people who don't even develop houses and have just sought to inflate the value of their land?
What proportion of those plots are controlled by small businesses who actually do develop land and compete with the larger firms?
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
FWIW I have been dealing with a development where the local council has taken 7 years negotiating the section 106…
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
Which is why this stuff should be non negotiable and just be enforced on the developer. It should not be a 'negotiation'. It should be a condition of development.
Agreed. Cut out the Council entirely and have a standardised duty enforced on the developer, like petrol duty, cigarette duty or alcohol duty, to cover externalities.
Nope because the council know what is needed in an area. They have the plans for population growth and changes in usage etc.
No they don't know what is needed in an area, its a free country so people are free to move around and immigration happens every year too.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
It’s why option agreements have been developed. No purchaser - not even the big guys - can take the risk of a planning decision. So they pay a smallish amount up front as an option fee with an agreed deal contingent on planning permission
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Only the last 2 (in my argument anyway). According to the LGA these currently account for 1.2 million undeveloped plots with planning permission. A number that is currently increasing by around 80-100K a year with far more permissions being granted than are being completed.
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
1.2 million is a tiny number that even if every single one was built, which is physically impossible, would not resolve our housing shortage.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by the oligopoly of firms which as I have said the planning system currently favours.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by people who don't even develop houses and have just sought to inflate the value of their land?
What proportion of those plots are controlled by small businesses who actually do develop land and compete with the larger firms?
1.2 million and rising.
Start charging council tax on each one of them and see how quickly that attitude changes.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them now! Both economically and environmentally.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
It’s why option agreements have been developed. No purchaser - not even the big guys - can take the risk of a planning decision. So they pay a smallish amount up front as an option fee with an agreed deal contingent on planning permission
Yes, which again works brilliantly for the big guys to be able to lock up tracts of land for just a fee.
Doesn't work so well for the small firms who need their capital to be working and getting turned over.
If planning decisions weren't so crucial, then the option agreements wouldn't be needed, and the small firms could act easier, while the large firms would lose the option to control land for a relatively [for them] small fee.
Yep. I'm getting a bit pissed off with weather presenters burbling on about tomorrow being another fantastic day.
Quite. I've just had a checkup for skin cancer (fortunately negative) - and done very fast, at all levels, from GP to specialist (clinic on a Saturday, too) and with a copy of the specialist letter to GP sent to me.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Only the last 2 (in my argument anyway). According to the LGA these currently account for 1.2 million undeveloped plots with planning permission. A number that is currently increasing by around 80-100K a year with far more permissions being granted than are being completed.
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
1.2 million is a tiny number that even if every single one was built, which is physically impossible, would not resolve our housing shortage.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by the oligopoly of firms which as I have said the planning system currently favours.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by people who don't even develop houses and have just sought to inflate the value of their land?
What proportion of those plots are controlled by small businesses who actually do develop land and compete with the larger firms?
1.2 million and rising.
Start charging council tax on each one of them and see how quickly that attitude changes.
1.2 million isn't enough, we have a shortfall of about 3 million homes. So even if that 1.2 million changed, you're not fixing the problem. And since there always has to be a pipeline anyway, taxing that pipeline is just going to make some things worse not better.
We need to get rid of the oligopoly/monopoly powers our current system encourages. None of your little nuggets that don't actually address the concerns, remotely address of the problems raised. Its pure "look squirrel".
Tyndall consistently refuses to engage with the argument that the planning regime itself creates a monopolistic building industry.
He notes that there is no self-build industry in the UK, but seems incurious about why this might be.
He cannot explain why Britain’s housebuilding volumes are strikingly behind that of peers like France.
Because one of the main barriers to self build in the UK are building regs not planning laws. They are two entirely different things.
Moreover the system by which banks lend money for self build drives many people away. When money is only released in stages, usually after the stage, has been completed it makes it very difficult for individuals to raise the capital to actually do a self build.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Only the last 2 (in my argument anyway). According to the LGA these currently account for 1.2 million undeveloped plots with planning permission. A number that is currently increasing by around 80-100K a year with far more permissions being granted than are being completed.
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
1.2 million is a tiny number that even if every single one was built, which is physically impossible, would not resolve our housing shortage.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by the oligopoly of firms which as I have said the planning system currently favours.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by people who don't even develop houses and have just sought to inflate the value of their land?
What proportion of those plots are controlled by small businesses who actually do develop land and compete with the larger firms?
1.2 million and rising.
Start charging council tax on each one of them and see how quickly that attitude changes.
With the CT doubling each year until the plots are handed over.
(Just need to find a way to stop councils getting a perverse incentive, to want to keep the construction going as late as possible)
Alternatively, as house prices stop rising or even start falling, the incentive to build slowly should remove itself, the developer not wanting the buildings to become uneconomical to build in the future.
Who will play Boris in the next biopic? Surely there must be one in the works, or several. The Hatton Garden robbery gave us half a dozen films and series. We can't wait for The Crown.
Isn't there a young HoL nominee with some resemblance?
I don't buy it myself. When has BoJo ever done anything for any of his children, legitimate or not?
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
The problem is that too many people will read that and think "well that's a good thing, isn't it?" because they're obsessed with domestic production of oil instead of domestic consumption of oil or imports.
Far from ensuring a clean break from Boris, most Tories look set to absent themselves from Monday’s vote.
Not fit to govern.
Boris is history. He's not PM, he's not even an MP.
The break has already been taken. Its over. He's gone. Voting whether to strip him of his pass as an ex-member or not is neither here nor there for that.
Far from ensuring a clean break from Boris, most Tories look set to absent themselves from Monday’s vote.
Not fit to govern.
I know we don't agree on much but on this - and on most stuff to do with Boris - I go agree.
MPs should have the balls to stand on principles. If those principles are for Parliament then they should be voting for censure. If they are for Johnson then they should vote accordingly. Creeping off to avoid being seen to vote is cowardice.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
The problem is that too many people will read that and think "well that's a good thing, isn't it?" because they're obsessed with domestic production of oil instead of domestic consumption of oil or imports.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
You are obsessed with this figure as if it actually means anything or addresses any of the concerns raised. It does not. Quite the opposite, your figure demonstrates that my concerns are valid.
Why do you think that figure is remotely relevant?
There are two reasons why houses might have permission but not be built which are both fuelled by the planning system being the problem.
One is that as I said land with permission is worth magnitudes more than land without. So people with zero intention of actually building a house can seek to get permission in the hope of artificially inflating the value of their land in order to then flog it to someone else with a permission premium in the price. If they fail to flog it, then land will never be developed, as they were operating in bad faith all along and only doing so due to the permission system inflating the value of land with permission so much.
The second is that land with permission can be controlled by a local monopoly or oligopoly of developers. This was a key concern I raised and you dismiss because you look at a percentage figure and think it matters. That oligopoly can choose to go slow or develop land at their preferred pace because they know they're safe from competition because the planning system acts as a barrier of entry against competitors.
Your percentage figure is not relevant to the debate in the way you think it is. That people are abusing the planning system to inflate the value of their land banks is precisely a flaw of the planning system that would be resolved with planning reform.
Garbage. Your argument would only apply if planning applications were being routinely denied. They are not. Over 90% of all housing planning applications are approved by the local authorities without reference to a higher authority. And half of those which are appealed by developers are then granted with conditions to satisfy the local authority concerns.
Your whole argument about planning is just riubbish and reveals a profound ignorance of what planning is actually for and what it does.
10% being routinely designed by your own figures means they are being routinely denied.
If you're an independent, small tradesman who could develop a house but has limited capital would you put all your capital into buying a plot of land knowing there's a 10% chance that your application would be denied thus tying up all your capital into an asset you can't develop?
No, of course you won't and nor will anyone else, which is why the small businesses that can develop houses around the world are crowded out in this country by an oligopoly who can control the market instead.
Still spouting rubbish. The smaller developers talk to the council planning officials and find out how likely it is that planning would be given and what restrictions on permissions are likely. This is because they are not idiots and know how the system works.
You're just making things up now, the facts say otherwise.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
They’re not working the planning system, they are sitting on land and permissions and progressing them so very slowly.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Where are these land banks you talk about?
land without planning permission applied for land where planning permission is being sought land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
Only the last 2 (in my argument anyway). According to the LGA these currently account for 1.2 million undeveloped plots with planning permission. A number that is currently increasing by around 80-100K a year with far more permissions being granted than are being completed.
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
1.2 million is a tiny number that even if every single one was built, which is physically impossible, would not resolve our housing shortage.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by the oligopoly of firms which as I have said the planning system currently favours.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by people who don't even develop houses and have just sought to inflate the value of their land?
What proportion of those plots are controlled by small businesses who actually do develop land and compete with the larger firms?
1.2 million and rising.
Start charging council tax on each one of them and see how quickly that attitude changes.
1.2 million isn't enough, we have a shortfall of about 3 million homes. So even if that 1.2 million changed, you're not fixing the problem. And since there always has to be a pipeline anyway, taxing that pipeline is just going to make some things worse not better.
We need to get rid of the oligopoly/monopoly powers our current system encourages. None of your little nuggets that don't actually address the concerns, remotely address of the problems raised. Its pure "look squirrel".
Nope it is directly addresing the issue rather than blaming a planning system that is there for a purpose.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
Well how about we continue producing from the fields that are already in production and don't start any new ones?
Far from ensuring a clean break from Boris, most Tories look set to absent themselves from Monday’s vote.
Not fit to govern.
Boris is history. He's not PM, he's not even an MP.
The break has already been taken. Its over. He's gone. Voting whether to strip him of his pass as an ex-member or not is neither here nor there for that.
It’s not about stripping him of his pass, which I agree is largely irrelevant.
It’s about Parliament observing and validating its own rules and due process.
Yep. I'm getting a bit pissed off with weather presenters burbling on about tomorrow being another fantastic day.
Quite. I've just had a checkup for skin cancer (fortunately negative) - and done very fast, at all levels, from GP to specialist (clinic on a Saturday, too) and with a copy of the specialist letter to GP sent to me.
My dad had two skin cancer growths removed about a month back, which was about a month (certainly no more than 6 weeks) after the initial referral from GP.
Daft bugger is bald as a coot and hadn't used a sun hat or sun cream for years. How does that song go? Looks like he's got away with it though (and is now using a sun hat!). He only saw the GP in the first place because I made him do it
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
The problem is that too many people will read that and think "well that's a good thing, isn't it?" because they're obsessed with domestic production of oil instead of domestic consumption of oil or imports.
Globally, we can't reduce consumption without also reducing production.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
The problem is that too many people will read that and think "well that's a good thing, isn't it?" because they're obsessed with domestic production of oil instead of domestic consumption of oil or imports.
Globally, we can't reduce consumption without also reducing production.
And increasingly inevitable so long as we keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels (with the absurd justification that we don't actually burn all of it so it's fine to keep drilling).
If we just start importing and burning fossil fuels then everything will be better instead? 🤦♂️
Well it does seem to me that it would make more sense to keep our reserves under the ground until they are needed for the production of plastics, lubricants, etc, rather than burning most of them all now! Both economically and environmentally.
No it doesn't because the sunk costs mean that once you end North Sea drilling you will never go back to it again. I can count on half of one hand the number of North Sea fields that have been restarted after abandonment. Indeed I did the geosteering for Yme field which was the only field in Norway where this was ever attempted - it failed.
The problem is that too many people will read that and think "well that's a good thing, isn't it?" because they're obsessed with domestic production of oil instead of domestic consumption of oil or imports.
Globally, we can't reduce consumption without also reducing production.
While at the same time dramatically increasing the price of oil and oil-related products and services which I'm sure sits well with left-leaning posters on here.
Meanwhile gas prices have now doubled since the start of June and are up over 8% today. The trend appears upwards too. Now at the same price as August 21.
Hardly going to help tame inflation is this carriers on.
And they are going to put interest rates up in an attempt to cure it. Which doesn't work for external price shocks.
I've said this before and I'll say it again; while everybody is focussing on culture war issues, we now have two major parties who don't know (now even in theory post-Truss) how to run an economy, don't even understand their ignorance, and are plowing on like [rudewords]. We are in trouble.
I’ve said it before about culture wars too. You’re right.
At least Reeves seems to get it. But Starmers policy on oil and gas really worries me given global uncertainty and the windfall tax is shambolic.
All,of the Johnson stuff is a distraction from the utter shambles in this country.
Neither party offers anything.
I’ll not vote next time.
The problem Labour has is that to just keep current Government spending actually going they need to increase tax before they think about anything else.
The Tory party have completely and utterly wasted the last 13 years and delivered nothing...
The problem Labour has is that increasing tax just shrinks the pie and ultimately reduces the tax take, which is why all Labour governments have always ran out of other people's money.
Find ways of boosting productivity, growing the pie, and tax take will increase even at the same tax rates.
Here's 2 ideas to start with.
1: Issue new North Sea licences and tax North Sea operators accordingly, rather than blocking new licences and importing hydrocarbons from overseas which are taxed abroad and just as harmful to the environment as domestically produced fuel.
2: Remove impediments to development and growth, such as reforming our planning system. New developments can be taxed accordingly, and if costs come down due to increased competition that could both reduce inflation and reduce the amount the Exchequer spends on housing support which is a major component of the non-pension welfare bill nowadays.
I'm sure others can come up with other good ideas too.
Except of course there is absolutely no evidence that reforming planning permission will remove impediments to development and growth.
You and I are never going to agree but I find the fact that land with planning permission can be worth 600x land without it a pretty significant indicator that planning permission is an impediment. When planning is worth upto 99.8% of the value of the land, then its hardly inconsequential now is it?
A key measurement to business transparency and opportunities is that businesses can reliably operate and act with delays measured in days or weeks, not years. The planning system can hold up developments for years and the risk of that is enough to keep small businesses out of the market almost altogether leaving the market to an oligopoly who can afford to land bank and abuse the system safe from competition from smaller firms.
None of your arguments on this can have any traction for as long as only 60% of homes with planning permission are actually being built. And this is not a case of having land in the pipeline or any of those feeble excuses. The number of unbuilt homes with planning permissions has been going up by between 80 and 100 thousand a year for more than a decade.
Deal with that and then come back and look at planning - 90% of which has nothing to do with 'permission' and is only concerned with the necessery conditions attached to permission.
FWIW I have been dealing with a development where the local council has taken 7 years negotiating the section 106…
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
What about the council commissions and build the schools etc? Puts in the services. Lays the streets.
Then auctions the plots in the resulting skeleton community - max a whole street to one developer.
Comments
Thank you for your prompt reply.
My question was sparked, by contention that ex-MPs whose successors
have not yet been elected and sworn into office, neveretheless remain
responsible for attending to issues or whatever raised by their
(former) constituents.
Personally think this is a lot of poppycock, but wanted to see what
your office had to say!
Thanks again, and have a great week in Westminster.
Boris is not an MP and has no casework. Case closed.
@christiancalgie
Close Boris ally James Duddridge: "Why not go the full way, put Boris in the stocks and provide rotten food to throw at him. Moving him around the marginals, so the country could share in the humiliation."
Each time, they tried to do things a bit Sweden-y.
Prior to the first lockdown, it was explicitly said that we and Sweden were following a similar path. Then as cases and hospitalisations climbed exponentially, they had to do something.
Personally, I suspect that the restrictions and guidance that applied over the weekend prior to the first official lockdown would probably have done the job, but I can fully accept that they couldn't gamble any more. As it was, they were going to oversaturate the health system.
(100,000 or so general and acute beds, of which c. 10,000 were free, and 4,100 ICU beds, of which 750 were free - that doesn't give much headroom. Especially bearing in mind that the highest we had in hospital for covid was 32,000 with a further 4000 coming in per day during the winter peak (for ICU it was 4,500 covid ICU patients with 400 coming in per day), so we actually did melt down the NHS. They couldn't provide enough intensive care, as it's not exactly the number of beds that counts too much - it's not the furniture - so the death rate more than doubled during that time. It's just it was "graceful degradation"; it hadn't totally collapsed.
In summer and autumn, they tried a bunch of things, including strong recommendations, but too many journalists and others tried the "Aha, but what about Scotch Eggs!?!?" stuff (plus idiots pushing narratives like "But they're all false positives, it's gone away and is never coming back, how stupid would you have to be to believe going over 200 deaths a day could ever be possible after Easter 2020!?!?").
Every country is different. Sweden just about pulled that off, at a cost of considerably higher deaths and hospitalisations (and higher economic damage) than their immediate neighbours. We tried things like guidance and advice ("It's a FEAR campaign! How dare they!"), and it didn't work.
I wouldn't even dispute too hard that the original closure - an early start to an extended Easter holiday - was reasonable under the circumstances, given what we knew.
My view is that schools should have then reopened in May 2020, given the balance of costs and benefits. But if you pick a different date - well, I recognise we all have an imperfect understanding of the costs and benefits, and that we all value costs and benefits differently. So lets just agree that costs and benefits of decisions need to be taken into account.
Farmers could provide unharvested crops, I'm sure.
The fact is that the proportion of houses built by smaller developers in this country, with this planning system, is a tiny fraction compared to other countries with more sensible zonal planning systems.
The small developers are crowded out in this country by the oligopoly who can work the planning system to their own agenda.
Sorry, Sir* Dudders.
(*Grand Order of Sycophants and Buffoons)
I am not remotely alleging malpractice for one second (he says hastily) but it's remarkable how many controversial applications, that nonetheless gain planning consent, have this particular consultancy's fingerprints on them.
But yes - the small developers do manage to find their way through the system.
It’s essentially the OPEC approach. Given their purchasing power the large developers are always going to be able to nab most of the development land, regardless of planning or not.
Correction: forgot she’s standing down anyway…
Most of the planning applications rejected outright are from people wanting to build another house on their already existing plot. Back garden building. Then there are those who, in spite of years of evidence of how stupid it is, still insist on making applications to build on flood plain. Many of the appeals through the system are from dvelopers who want to build but don't want to have to pay for the environmental and archaeoogical mitigation costs that are imposed. This is the day to day business of planning (a system by the way that was largely introduced in its modern form by Thatcher in the late 80s following the 'pollutor pays' principle although this has been greatly watered down since unfortunately.
THere are still reforms you could do but you wouldn't like them. Insist that developers have to actually pay for and build the infrastrustuce and facilities needed for a new development - schools, surgeries etc - rather than just giving money to the council to do it which almost never ends up actually being spent on that. Reintroduce Thatcher's PPG system which had real teeth and meant developers spending real money to deal with archaeology and environmental issues.
Then start charging council tax on any land with planning permission that hasn't been developed after a year. That would get more houses built instead of continually adding to the land bank.
But land banking is necessary for public companies to have a regular income
land without planning permission applied for
land where planning permission is being sought
land where planning permission has been granted bot building has not started
land where building has started but only a few houses out of the final total has been built
The problem is that some like our own @Richard_Tyndall look at the numbers of permissions granted and act as if they should all be developed (never going to happen) or that there's no issues as a result, when the opposite is the case, alternatives should get permission on top of that given elsewhere because that's how competition thrives.
Of course having more permissions granted just means more competition, it doesn't mean an infinite number of homes are built since as we've already established not all potential homes with permission end up developed anyway.
It was suggested upthread that it was outrageous of me to suggest a link between the awarding of a dishonour by Boris! and that person embarrassing themself in the media for him. But here we are...
Justice for the 17.4m.
Tellingly, Tory whips have offered “slips” (permission to skip the Commons) for Monday to MPs willing to go and campaign in the by-election seats, I'm told
Sounds like quite a few MPs will seize the chance to miss the (unwhipped) vote on privileges cmtte report on Boris Johnson
https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/1669322727310729217
If the number was stable you could argue perhaps that it is just the development process - although it is still way too high. But the number is rapidly increasing by around 10% a year which means more and more land is being given planning permission with no more houses actually being built.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by the oligopoly of firms which as I have said the planning system currently favours.
What proportion of those plots are controlled by people who don't even develop houses and have just sought to inflate the value of their land?
What proportion of those plots are controlled by small businesses who actually do develop land and compete with the larger firms?
Start charging council tax on each one of them and see how quickly that attitude changes.
He notes that there is no self-build industry in the UK, but seems incurious about why this might be.
He cannot explain why Britain’s housebuilding volumes are strikingly behind that of peers like France.
Doesn't work so well for the small firms who need their capital to be working and getting turned over.
If planning decisions weren't so crucial, then the option agreements wouldn't be needed, and the small firms could act easier, while the large firms would lose the option to control land for a relatively [for them] small fee.
We need to get rid of the oligopoly/monopoly powers our current system encourages. None of your little nuggets that don't actually address the concerns, remotely address of the problems raised. Its pure "look squirrel".
Moreover the system by which banks lend money for self build drives many people away. When money is only released in stages, usually after the stage, has been completed it makes it very difficult for individuals to raise the capital to actually do a self build.
Not fit to govern.
(Just need to find a way to stop councils getting a perverse incentive, to want to keep the construction going as late as possible)
Alternatively, as house prices stop rising or even start falling, the incentive to build slowly should remove itself, the developer not wanting the buildings to become uneconomical to build in the future.
The break has already been taken. Its over. He's gone. Voting whether to strip him of his pass as an ex-member or not is neither here nor there for that.
MPs should have the balls to stand on principles. If those principles are for Parliament then they should be voting for censure. If they are for Johnson then they should vote accordingly. Creeping off to avoid being seen to vote is cowardice.
It’s about Parliament observing and validating its own rules and due process.
Daft bugger is bald as a coot and hadn't used a sun hat or sun cream for years. How does that song go? Looks like he's got away with it though (and is now using a sun hat!). He only saw the GP in the first place because I made him do it
This thread is now deranged!
Then auctions the plots in the resulting skeleton community - max a whole street to one developer.