Speeches by Curtis.

“It seems like there are two issues that are causing problems here. One is local government finance—the lack of money in local councils means that they would quite often be comfortable not taking these on because they cannot afford it. The other one is the planning process, because ultimately, I assume you could use the…”

“Do you think there should be better guidance from Government or do you think councils should be better at adopting more, or working out an increasing amount that they can adopt?”

“But would you accept the premise that, if it was an open market and everyone was going for the best deal, it should be the same percentage of FirstPort that is using it as the industry as a whole? And if it was higher, that would imply some sort of bias towards FirstPort using a broker that is within the parent umbrell…”

“You talked about the 20% of embedded management companies. As far as I can see, there is a significantly larger section where there is effectively a resident management company, but the directors on the board of those are from the developer and that process never gets handed over. So it is still effectively impossible …”

“I will come to you next, Carys. The best way of solving this problem is to minimise the extent to which it becomes one in the first place. Not specifically on leasehold, but particularly on the leasehold/freehold problem, we seem to have an increasing number of bits and pieces on these new-build estates that are not be…”

“I am MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“I am Chris Curtis, the MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“I get the point on this. Most flights I get now arrive early, since we have introduced fines in the European Union for flights arriving late.”

“Airlines have extended the estimated length of a flight, because that decreases the chance that they are going to have a penalty. I suppose that that is the same analogy that happens here. If you were to do that, would developers not then just decrease their projected build-out rates in your S106 projections and work t…”

“I have some very quick points. We have skirted around the key number in this long conversation, so maybe it is worth coming to Emily quickly on this. Many points have been made. Local plans are good. That is fine. We have probably got a bit better at extracting land value. That is also great. That does not answer the q…”

“The Chair is keen for me to be move on, so I will. Last week, one of Paul’s members said to me that, in the case of the promoter, who is not taking on the risk or anything else, the number is from £10,000 up to £600,000. I am not entirely convinced that there is not more value to be extracted from a shift of £590,000 p…”

“Very quickly, beyond everyone having a local plan, which they should—you will not find much disagreement on that in this room—are there any reforms to S106 or CIL that would be useful?”

“Jumping back to the question, you have these viability assessments and there is, broadly, a conversation that happens around, as far as I understand, the 20% profit margin on each site. It is said to me by many people who have gone and looked at this that developers will go and have those negotiations with councils abo…”

“Does the hon. Member agree that what he has just described would lead to more delays in the system, which would mean that more planning permissions were held up—something that Opposition Members have complained about? If the amendment were passed, the requirement would also add a lot more expense to the system, which w…”

“I will make some progress. Now we have a Bill that will finally move us towards environmental delivery plans that take a far more strategic approach to improving nature and increasing the building that this country so desperately needs. I want these changes to go further. We need to look at the culture within our regul…”

“I start by appreciating the description of a rant—I will keep ranting on this point until I do not have to speak to my constituents waking up in temporary accommodation because of this country’s failure to build. I note that there is a middle ground; in fact, it is even better than a middle ground, because through this…”

“In one of the wettest countries in Europe, we could face summer water shortages because we have not built a single major reservoir in over 30 years. Here is the real kick in the teeth: we have paid all those prices for rules that have failed even on their own terms. We have created endless hoops to jump through and pou…”

“Hundreds of thousands of children will wake up tomorrow morning in temporary accommodation as a consequence of this, and millions of families will continue paying some of the highest energy bills in the western world. When Russian tanks rolled into Europe, we were dangerously reliant on foreign oil and gas because our …”

“May we please start by acknowledging something that still has not been acknowledged enough: the current planning system is broken? Nowhere is that clearer than in our environmental and habitats regulation, which part 3 of the Bill is hoping to fix, and which many amendments—amendment 69 in particular—would make signifi…”

“Oh, is it?”