🎥 Jason McCartney MP asks Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about the £100,000s of developer contributions going into a black hole in Labour run Kirklees

At PMQs today, Jason highlighted the issue of Labour run Kirklees and £100,000’s of developer contributions for local infrastructure.

The cash needs to spent on schools, roads and health services in the communities directly impacted by these huge housing developments.

Transcript from Hansard

Jason McCartney MP

Labour-run Kirklees Council’s local plan is seeing hundreds of homes being built on greenfield sites, but the agreed developer levies, the section 106 agreements, which are supposedly for local infrastructure spending, seem to be disappearing into a black hole. 

Does the Prime Minister agree that agreed infrastructure levies from developers should not be going into a general slush fund? They should be spent on local roads, local schools and local health services for the communities impacted by those developments.

The Prime Minister 

My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. That is why the Government are reforming the section 106 payment system to ensure that new development is matched by new infrastructure. The current system sees far too little of developers’ profits going to build new schools, hospitals or transport infrastructure. 

It is also too slow and plagued by uncertainties and that particularly hampers smaller local developers. It will be replaced by a new, non-negotiable, locally determined infrastructure levy, which will deliver exactly what my hon. Friend and others want to see—investment in local communities.