Sir Brandon Lewis is the Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, and was Housing Minister from 2014 to 2016.
As both I and many contributors to ConHome have repeatedly argued, Britain is not building enough homes. As a general election approaches and a generation of young people face exclusion from home ownership, the question of how we solve this problem is now more urgent than ever.
One of the greatest problems developers face when they propose plans for the homes we desperately need is local opposition to urban sprawl or building on green belt land.
Clearly, the public would prefer that land which was previously developed and now lies derelict were used: recent polling by the Adam Smith Institute showed that 61 per cent of the general public believe that brownfield should be prioritised for greenbelt land for new housing sites.
This is understandable. After all, brownfield sites have inbuilt social and civic advantages. They are often already integrated into the fabric of local areas with good existing transport links and proximity to local jobs and services, letting people take shorter commutes and reducing carbon emissions.
Turning a derelict gasworks or underused retail park into new homes can not only remove blight from communities but also create new public spaces, shops, and jobs right alongside them. The requirements for biodiversity net gain created by the Conservative government’s Environment Act 2021 mean that any new development on brownfield land will have a measurably positive impact on local plant and animal life.
Last year, research from Development Economics said 1.3 million new homes that could be delivered by developing brownfield land at suitable urban densities across Britain’s biggest cities over the next decade. This would be a giant stride towards realising our homebuilding ambitions.
Yet for all their advantages, brownfield sites are often much more expensive to develop than greenfield equivalents. Decontaminating polluted land, restoring heritage buildings, installing new infrastructure, and navigating through a constrained and congested urban environment all take time, and add costs not faced by developers who simply send the diggers into a field.
As a consequence, there are sites across the country sitting derelict because they are not economical to develop.
Promoting brownfield development is stated government policy, and Michael Gove has recently announced further sensible planning reforms to drive more development in these areas. To really build on these reforms, as PricedOut and the Adam Smith Institute have outlined, it should look to close a tax loophole that results in a brownfield tax.
The Conservatives led the charge to supercharge investment in Britain by offsetting a rise in corporation tax with the super-deduction, and more recently, full expensing. Both of these boost long-term, growth focused spending from companies, driving growth.
However companies who invest in the sustainable new homes that we need have not seen the benefits. Corporation Tax has risen to 25 per cent, a new Residential Property Developer Tax of four per cent has been introduced, and there are whispers of a Building Safety Levy. Meanwhile, there is no incentive to invest to offset them.
Because brownfield regeneration comes with bigger upfront costs, this tax environment is another factor driving new development out into the countryside.
The Budget presents the Chancellor with the perfect opportunity to close this loophole and set this right. A simple change in the Finance Bill could extend our world-leading pro-investment regime for plant and machinery to investment in new brownfield housing.
By completing the reforms they have begun, and giving the full expensing treatment to the build costs of brownfield housing delivery, Conservatives can unlock more brownfield sites currently sitting idle, and create the homes and facilities local communities need, where they need them.
Cash-constrained smaller developers will benefit most. If they need upfront capital to start work, they can increase their ambition and, over time, help grow and diversify the sector away from mass-produced greenfield homes.
Full expensing is not a tax cut to developers. As revenue is simply postponed, the change would, at worst, be cost-neutral to the Treasury; given its likely impact in tipping more sites into economic viability, its impact will almost certainly be positive to the public finances in the medium term.
This policy would, in short, leverage the economic credibility of the UK to drive investment into the homes and places we want to see that investment go, at no cost to the taxpayer.
There is a debate to be had about planning reform and to what extent we need to build on green fields. On brownfield, there is little room for debate, and no disagreements between the parties.
Conservatives have a proud history of homebuilding and once gloried in the title of the party of homeownership. For a century, the promise of a stake in a property-owning democracy was one of our party’s most powerful appeals. Our generation of Conservatives must leave no stone unturned to renew that promise.
Sir Brandon Lewis is the Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, and was Housing Minister from 2014 to 2016.
As both I and many contributors to ConHome have repeatedly argued, Britain is not building enough homes. As a general election approaches and a generation of young people face exclusion from home ownership, the question of how we solve this problem is now more urgent than ever.
One of the greatest problems developers face when they propose plans for the homes we desperately need is local opposition to urban sprawl or building on green belt land.
Clearly, the public would prefer that land which was previously developed and now lies derelict were used: recent polling by the Adam Smith Institute showed that 61 per cent of the general public believe that brownfield should be prioritised for greenbelt land for new housing sites.
This is understandable. After all, brownfield sites have inbuilt social and civic advantages. They are often already integrated into the fabric of local areas with good existing transport links and proximity to local jobs and services, letting people take shorter commutes and reducing carbon emissions.
Turning a derelict gasworks or underused retail park into new homes can not only remove blight from communities but also create new public spaces, shops, and jobs right alongside them. The requirements for biodiversity net gain created by the Conservative government’s Environment Act 2021 mean that any new development on brownfield land will have a measurably positive impact on local plant and animal life.
Last year, research from Development Economics said 1.3 million new homes that could be delivered by developing brownfield land at suitable urban densities across Britain’s biggest cities over the next decade. This would be a giant stride towards realising our homebuilding ambitions.
Yet for all their advantages, brownfield sites are often much more expensive to develop than greenfield equivalents. Decontaminating polluted land, restoring heritage buildings, installing new infrastructure, and navigating through a constrained and congested urban environment all take time, and add costs not faced by developers who simply send the diggers into a field.
As a consequence, there are sites across the country sitting derelict because they are not economical to develop.
Promoting brownfield development is stated government policy, and Michael Gove has recently announced further sensible planning reforms to drive more development in these areas. To really build on these reforms, as PricedOut and the Adam Smith Institute have outlined, it should look to close a tax loophole that results in a brownfield tax.
The Conservatives led the charge to supercharge investment in Britain by offsetting a rise in corporation tax with the super-deduction, and more recently, full expensing. Both of these boost long-term, growth focused spending from companies, driving growth.
However companies who invest in the sustainable new homes that we need have not seen the benefits. Corporation Tax has risen to 25 per cent, a new Residential Property Developer Tax of four per cent has been introduced, and there are whispers of a Building Safety Levy. Meanwhile, there is no incentive to invest to offset them.
Because brownfield regeneration comes with bigger upfront costs, this tax environment is another factor driving new development out into the countryside.
The Budget presents the Chancellor with the perfect opportunity to close this loophole and set this right. A simple change in the Finance Bill could extend our world-leading pro-investment regime for plant and machinery to investment in new brownfield housing.
By completing the reforms they have begun, and giving the full expensing treatment to the build costs of brownfield housing delivery, Conservatives can unlock more brownfield sites currently sitting idle, and create the homes and facilities local communities need, where they need them.
Cash-constrained smaller developers will benefit most. If they need upfront capital to start work, they can increase their ambition and, over time, help grow and diversify the sector away from mass-produced greenfield homes.
Full expensing is not a tax cut to developers. As revenue is simply postponed, the change would, at worst, be cost-neutral to the Treasury; given its likely impact in tipping more sites into economic viability, its impact will almost certainly be positive to the public finances in the medium term.
This policy would, in short, leverage the economic credibility of the UK to drive investment into the homes and places we want to see that investment go, at no cost to the taxpayer.
There is a debate to be had about planning reform and to what extent we need to build on green fields. On brownfield, there is little room for debate, and no disagreements between the parties.
Conservatives have a proud history of homebuilding and once gloried in the title of the party of homeownership. For a century, the promise of a stake in a property-owning democracy was one of our party’s most powerful appeals. Our generation of Conservatives must leave no stone unturned to renew that promise.