(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
Before I begin my statement, I know that the whole House will join me in sending our deepest condolences and strength in the hours ahead to those affected by yesterday’s shocking incident in Southport. As a mother and grandmother, I cannot even begin to imagine the depth of pain and suffering of those involved. I would like to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) in thanking the police and the emergency services for their swift response. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have already sadly lost loved ones and those who are now fighting for their lives.
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I have come to the House to make a statement about the Government’s plan to get Britain building. Delivering economic growth is our No. 1 mission—it is how we will raise living standards for everyone, everywhere, and the only way we can fix our public services—so today I am setting out a radical plan not only to get the homes that we desperately need, but to drive growth, create jobs and breathe life back into towns and cities. We are ambitious, and what I say will not be without controversy, but this is urgent. This Labour Government are not afraid to take the tough choices needed to deliver for our country.
We are facing the most acute housing crisis in living memory, with 150,000 children in temporary accommodation, nearly 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists and under-30s less than half as likely to own their own home compared with the 1990s. Rents are up 8.6% in the last year. Total homelessness is at record levels. There are simply not enough homes.
Those on the Conservative Benches knew that, but what did they do for 14 years? As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said yesterday, they ducked the difficult decisions. They put party before country. They pulled the wool over people’s eyes by crowing about getting 1 million new homes built in the last Parliament, but they failed to get anywhere near their target of 300,000 homes a year. In a bid to appease their anti-housing Back Benchers, they made housing targets only advisory. They knew that would tank housing supply, but they still did it. As I stand here today, I can reveal the result: the number of new homes is now likely to drop below 200,000 this year. Unforgivable.
That legacy makes our job all the harder, but it also makes it so much more urgent. So today, I will explain how Labour will deliver the change needed to turbocharge growth and build more homes. I will start with housing targets. Decisions about what to build should reflect local views, but that should be about how, not whether, to deliver new homes. While the previous Government watered down housing targets, caving in to their anti-growth Back Benchers, this Labour Government are taking the tough choices, putting people and country first.
For the first time, we will make local housing targets mandatory, requiring local authorities to use the same method to work out how many homes to build. But that alone is insufficient to meet our ambition, so we are also changing the standard method used to calculate housing need so that it better reflects the urgency of supply for local areas. Rather than relying on outdated data, this new method will require local authorities to plan for homes proportionate to the size of existing communities, and it will incorporate an uplift where house prices are most out of step with local incomes. The collective total of these local targets will therefore rise from some 300,000 a year to just over 370,000 a year.
Some will find that uncomfortable, and others will try to poke holes, so I will tackle four arguments head on. The first is that we are demanding too much from some places. To that, I say we have a housing crisis and a mandate for real change, and we must all play our part. The second is that some areas may appear to get a surprising target. No method is perfect, and the old one produced all sorts of odd outcomes. Crucially, ours offers extra stability for local authorities.
The third argument is that we are lowering our ambition for London. I am clear that we are doing no such thing. London had a nominal target of almost 100,000 homes a year, based on an arbitrary uplift, which was absolute nonsense. The London plan has a target of around 52,000, and around 35,000 were delivered in London last year. The target we are now setting for London of roughly 80,000 is still a huge ask, but I know it is one that the mayor is determined to rise to, and I met him about this last week. Fourthly, some will say that a total of 370,000 is not enough. To that I say: ambition is critical, but we also need to be realistic.
Let me move on to the green belt. Once we have targets for what we need to build, next we need to ensure that we build in the right places. The first port of call must be brownfield land. We are making some changes today to support that, but they are only part of the answer, which is why we must create a more strategic system for green-belt release, to make it work for the 21st century. Local authorities will have to review their green belt if needed to meet housing targets, but they will also need to prioritise low-quality grey-belt land, for which we are setting out a definition today. Where land in the green belt is developed, new golden rules will require the provision of 50% affordable housing, with a focus on social rent, as well as schools, GP surgeries and transport links that the community needs, and improvements to accessible green space. Let us not forget that the previous Government’s haphazard approach to building on the green belt saw so many of the wrong homes built in the wrong places, without the local services that people need. Under Labour, that will change.
Increasing supply is essential to improving affordability, but we must also go further to build genuinely affordable homes. Part of that must come from developers. The Housing Minister will meet major developers later to ensure that they commit to matching our pace of reform. An active, mission-led Government must also play their role, which is why I am calling on local authorities, housing associations and industry to work with me to deliver a council house revolution. This is not just a nice add-on, but vital to getting the 1.5 million homes built, because we know that schemes with a large amount of affordable housing are likely to be completed faster, and injecting confidence and certainty into social housing is how we will get Britain back to building.
The previous Government had to downgrade the number of new homes that their affordable housing programme would deliver. Today, I can reveal that only 110,000 to 130,000 affordable homes are due to be built under that programme, down from their original target of 180,000. In our worst-case scenario, some 70,000 families in need of a secure home will lose out. How have they let that happen? Once again, this Government will have to pick up the pieces. That is why today I am announcing immediate steps for the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation. We will introduce more flexibilities in the current affordable homes programme, working with Homes England, and will bring forward details of future Government investment at the spending review. I recognise that councils and housing associations need support, too, so my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will set out plans at the next fiscal event to give them the rent stability that they need to borrow and invest.
We must also maintain existing stock, which is why I am announcing important changes to the right to buy. We have already started reviewing the increased right to buy discounts introduced in 2012, and will consult in the autumn on wider reforms. We are immediately increasing flexibilities for councils when using right to buy receipts. In addition, to help councils provide homes for some of the most vulnerable in society, I can confirm today that the £450 million of the local authority housing fund will flow to them to provide 2,000 new homes. This is what Labour does.
These reforms are key to realising our wider growth ambitions. Part of that comes from new homes themselves, releasing the untapped potential of our towns and cities, which for too long have been throttled by insufficient and unaffordable housing. It also flows from making it easier to build the infrastructure on which we rely, so we will make it easier to build laboratories, gigafactories, data centres and electricity grid connections. We must make it simpler and faster to build the clean energy sources needed to achieve zero-carbon energy generation by 2030. We have already ended the de facto ban on onshore wind, but we are also proposing that large onshore wind projects be brought back to the nationally significant infrastructure projects—NSIP—regime. We will change the threshold for solar development to reflect the developments in solar technology, and set a stronger expectation that authorities identify renewable energy sites.
To deliver all that, we need every local authority to have a development plan in place. Up-to-date local plans are essential to ensure that communities have a say in how development happens. Areas with a local plan are less vulnerable to speculative developments through appeals, yet just a third of places have one that is under five years old. This must change. We will fix this by ending the constant changes and disruption to planning policy, setting clear expectations of universal local plan coverage and stepping in directly when local authorities let residents down. Local plans ensure local engagement and are critical to making developments that meet local people’s needs.
While demanding more of others, we are also going to demand more of ourselves. Two weeks ago, I said that I will not hesitate to review an application where the potential economic gain warrants it. So today, I can confirm that Ministers and I will mark our homework in public, reporting against the 13-week target for turning around ministerial decisions.
I know that what I have said seems a lot, but this is only the first step. We plan to do so much more. We will introduce a planning and infrastructure Bill that will reform planning committees so that they focus on the right applications with the necessary expertise. We will further reform compulsory purchase compensation rules so that what is paid to landowners is fair but not excessive. We will enable local authorities to put their planning departments on sustainable footings, streamline the delivery process for critical infrastructure and provide any legal underpinning that may be needed to ensure that nature recovery and building work hand in hand. We will also take the steps needed for universal coverage of strategic planning within this Parliament, which we will work with local leaders to develop and formalise in legislation. Shortly, we will say more about our plan for the next generation of new towns. Because we know that this crisis cannot be fixed overnight, in the coming months the Government will publish a long-term housing strategy to transform the housing market so that it delivers for working people.
These are the right reforms for the decade of renewal that the country so desperately needs. We will not be deterred by those who seek to stand in the way of our country’s future. Opposition Members may say that it cannot be done but, once again, I will prove them wrong. This Government will build 1.5 million high-quality, well-designed and sustainable homes. We will achieve the biggest boost to affordable housing for a generation, and we will get Britain building to spur the growth that we need. I commend this statement to the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I call Kemi Badenoch. If you can, shadow Secretary of State, aim for between seven and eight minutes.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I echo the comments by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) regarding the appalling incident in Southport. We on the Conservative Benches send our deepest condolences to the families of all those who are impacted.
Having listened to the right hon. Lady’s statement, I have many questions. I know she will not be able to answer all of them, certainly not in the time we have today, so I hope that, for the questions she does not have the answer to now, she will be able to provide written answers within a month and before the end of the summer recess, so we can pick up quickly when we return for her Department’s oral questions.
The Labour party has a mandate to deliver what it promised in its manifesto. As a party which has governed for most of the past 100 years, the Conservatives respect that mandate. It is our job, as His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, to scrutinise its plans and ensure that Labour is saying what it means and, more importantly, doing what it says. With that right to deliver its manifesto come many responsibilities. Labour now has the responsibility—unlike in its manifesto—to be crystal clear about what it actually wants to do to avoid prolonged uncertainty. It now has a responsibility to understand and address the concerns of councillors and local residents. It now has a responsibility to explain the economics and allocate the funding that we all know will be needed for this plan. It now has a responsibility not to be contradictory in what it is setting out. It must not make promises that any impartial observer knows cannot be delivered. Crucially, it must not break its commitments early, yet we are already seeing changes to what it committed itself to.
On 20 June, the Chancellor stated that the Government would update the national planning policy framework within 100 days, so why is Labour now briefing that it will be before the end of the year? That is a lot more than 100 days. They have just started and they are already changing their targets. Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the NPPF will be updated and in effect by mid-October, the deadline they set for themselves? They are proposing an eight-week consultation over the summer holidays for their updates to the NPPF. This is the third set of updates we will have in a year. In the previous consultation on the NPPF in 2023, we had 2,600 responses. How will they have a meaningful consultation, which is what the legislation requires, that respects the input of local planning authorities and others? There will be legal challenges. Are they ready for them?
The Government are proposing multiple changes to planning: the NPPF updates; the new primary legislation that the right hon. Lady just described; the changes to nutrient neutrality, which they have recently converted to; and the NSIP—just to name a few. The right hon. Lady says she wants to end constant changes and disruption to planning policy. That is great, but how will she avoid creating years of uncertainty and making it harder for local authorities and developers to build new housing as all those changes are worked through? As I said to her the last time we sat opposite each other, these things take time and they are not as straightforward as she is making out. The Government will not be able to deliver their ambitions unless they recognise that.
What is most interesting in the statement is that the right hon. Lady confirmed she is reducing the housing need calculation for London. Can she confirm whether that reduction will apply to other urban areas? Can she explain why she is reducing the need for cities like London to build more housing when they have the infrastructure to support it? Why is she forcing suburban and rural areas to take more housing when there are schools in Hackney, such as De Beauvoir primary school and Randal Cremer primary school, that are shutting down because they do not have enough pupils? Why is she doing that?
The Government talk about the grey belt in the planning framework. It is very interesting; I have had quick look through it. They define it, but what does the limited contribution to the five green belt purposes actually mean in planning terms? If they are not clear, planning inspectors will determine that, and we will yet again have more and more local opposition. It is also interesting that the Government are considering changes to restrict the right to buy. The right hon. Lady has told us very proudly how she was able to buy her own council house—[Interruption.] At least one, certainly. Can she confirm that, following these changes, young people across England will still be able to exercise the same right to buy that she had in 2007?
There is also a responsibility to address the concerns of councillors and local residents. From my own constituency, I know that the references to Traveller sites will cause some concern. The fact that the right hon. Lady has stood up and said that many of the housing allocations will be surprising will make it very difficult for local councils and local communities to deal with. Where is the respect for local decision making? We are not saying that they should not be ambitious, but they will have to take local government in hand when they do that. They say they want to impose exacting mandatory housing targets on local authorities. We had the advisory target so that councils could make sure they could do better, not worse, so it is wrong for her to claim that that was us removing mandatory housing targets. Councillors have repeatedly told me they are afraid they will be forced, under a duty to co-operate, to sacrifice their own green spaces to take the housing need that urban leaders, who are her friends, fail to meet. What will she say to reassure leaders in places like Bromsgrove, Wychavon and South Staffordshire? What penalties will she apply to local leaders like Sadiq Khan who fail to meet local housing need requirements? What happens when the mayor fails to meet even these reduced targets that she has set for him?
The right hon. Lady has already let slip that she is ditching the requirement to ensure that beauty is a key part of housing, something I was very proud that the previous Conservative Government put at the heart of our planning reforms. Local people want beautiful housing. Now she is telling us that she will be replacing what they want with a requirement to meet 1.5 million ugly houses instead. Why on earth would they take out something that means so much to local communities? People deserve to live in beautiful homes. The fact that the Labour party does not care about that shows exactly how it will develop its policies.
The Government’s responsibility to explain the economics and set out how they will fund their proposals is also key. They say they need to ensure that the NPPF has a new growth-based approach, but that is already in the NPPF. The right hon. Lady would know that if she had read it. I bet she hasn’t. The Chancellor effectively killed off some major NSIP schemes on Monday, such as the Arundel bypass. Is all the talk of prioritising energy infrastructure projects just a way of dressing up these cuts to other kinds of infrastructure? Where is the economic analysis that her Department has undertaken on the housing market? Yesterday, we all saw the Chancellor come to the Dispatch Box claiming not to have understood the pressure on public finances and how it was all so difficult. We warned repeatedly during the election that Labour says one thing and does another. It said that it was not going to raise taxes; now we can see what it is planning. The Chancellor said nothing about the impact on housing, so now I am asking the right hon. Lady, on behalf of the British people and local authorities, what it means for them. Is she going to follow the same playbook, pretending she did not know what it cost to build affordable housing, or to change the planning system and impose more costs for builders, homebuyers and renters?
Those are just a few of the questions the Government will need to answer. I am sure colleagues across the House will have many more. The Government are in danger of choosing the worst of all worlds: not addressing the basic economics of housebuilding and centralising decision making. When we look at all that, it looks like the 1.5 million homes will be a distant aspiration rather than a meaningful target.
Angela Rayner
Let me start by welcoming the right hon. Lady to her place. I wish her luck for her leadership campaign, now that she has confirmed that she is running. It was her ambition all along to be Leader of the Opposition, not mine. I must say that she seems to be taking to opposition very naturally. I think she will find herself comfortable for a long, long time on the Opposition Benches. She had a lot to say in her response and I will come to the substance of it in a moment. She has already put in quite a few written questions. I look forward to many more from her once she has had a chance to read and digest her brief after the election.
There were a couple of things that I am not quite sure the right hon. Lady understood. First—this is critical—the British people kicked the Conservatives out of office in a landslide. Secondly, why was that? Let me remind her. The Government in which she served left us to clear up the mess. They crashed the economy and trashed our public services. They bankrupted Britain and they covered it up. They threw the book at the doctors and then they doctored the books. She keeps speaking about the Tories’ record on housing, but I remind her again that year after year the Tories failed to meet their housing targets. She speaks about the Mayor of London and the bizarre figures they set for him, but the Conservative Government—talking of promises they can’t keep—failed to meet their own target in every single year.
On the right hon. Lady’s question about the NPPF consultation, it starts today, for eight weeks. We are asking people to engage. It is an incredibly detailed consultation, because we mean business. It will come as no surprise that the work needed to be done after the disaster of the last Tory Government, which ripped up the NPPF and made a right mess of it. The right hon. Lady talked about the affordable homes grant. The former Tory Secretary of State handed £1.9 billion of vital funds back to the Treasury. This Government will, working with Homes England, make it more flexible to get the homes we need.
Members of the party opposite—
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
You are just reading! You are supposed to be answering the questions, not just reading out what has been written for you to read.
Angela Rayner
These are the answers to the questions. [Interruption.] No, they are the bits that I have written, actually, in regard to her questions.
Members of the party opposite are now talking to themselves and not the country. The right hon. Lady mentioned chaos and uncertainty; I really do not know how Opposition Members can say that with a straight face after the chaos and uncertainty that we have seen, with countless Housing Secretaries not knowing what was going on.
In every inner-city area—this is in answer to the question—there are increases in the targets. I remind Members that we inherited the most acute housing crisis in living memory. I say to the right hon. Lady that the green belt definition is in the consultation document, and I suggest that she read it. It also tackles the issue of “beautiful homes”, We will build homes at scale and they will be beautiful. We will protect the natural environment, and we will make sure that people have the homes that they deserve and need.
I was astonished by what the right hon. Lady said about councils and council leaders. The council leaders I have spoken to are overjoyed by the fact that the Tories were kicked out. They say to me that they have been left in a dire situation. I know that Opposition Members like to think that that is just Labour councils, but councils across the political spectrum have been left in a disastrous situation, because the party opposite did not build the homes that people need. We have a homelessness crisis in this country. People under the age of 30 cannot get homes now. It is impossible for people to get on to the housing ladder. That is the failure of the last Conservative Government, and that is what we are going to fix. That is what we are going to get on and do.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also welcome both the ambition and the detail in my right hon. Friend’s statement, and the commitments made in it.
I have two questions. First, if the targets are not mandatory—although, in the last Parliament, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee said that they had to be—many councils will simply choose to ignore them, but if they are to be mandatory, will my right hon. Friend assure me that they will be based on a proper needs assessment of each local authority, and will do away with the nonsensical and arbitrary urban uplifts to which she referred in the context of London?
Secondly, may I ask a question about social housing? I was proud to be brought up in a council house, as my right hon. Friend was. Will she work closely with local authorities and look particularly at land value capture? Will she ensure that when the planning permission for a site uplifts the value of that site, the total increase in value does not go to the landowners alone, but is used to benefit the public purse and reduce the cost of building those homes?
Angela Rayner
I can confirm that we are getting rid of the urban uplift. The new method of establishing housing targets is better than the previous one, which we believed was outdated. The urban uplift figures were plucked from thin air, but we believe that our new method will give councils the stability and certainty that will enable them to plan for the homes and local services that they need. As for land value capture, there is a little bit about it in the consultation document, but there will be more in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also thank the Deputy Prime Minister for giving me advance sight of her statement, and associate myself and my party with her remarks about the devastating and senseless attacks in Southport. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.
For too long under the Conservatives, we had a planning system that put developer greed above community need—a system that did not deliver the homes that we needed to tackle the crisis, but did destroy swathes of our green belt. However, the statement raises a great many questions, so here we go.
Will local authorities that are at an advanced stage of their draft local plans need to start again with the new standard method, or will they be able to continue? Will authorities that have recently conducted a green belt assessment need to do it again under the new system, or will the current assessment stand? There seems to be a conspicuous absence of a specific target for social homes—not affordable homes, but social homes. Will the Deputy Prime Minister take up the Liberal Democrat target of building 150,000 social homes every single year? We welcome the Government’s proposal to review the compulsory purchase compensation, but will she take up the Liberal Democrat plan to put an end to land banking by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961 so that local authorities can acquire land at fair values? We welcome the review of the right to buy, but will the Government allow local authorities to use that money to replace lost stock?
The Government indicated that they would be reviewing borrowing rules so that local authorities could borrow to invest. Will they allow authorities to borrow to invest on a scale that will allow them to put an end to homelessness, overcrowding and housing register waiting lists? What powers and resources will they give to planning authorities so that they can enforce the requirement to put infrastructure first? Will they scrap the cap on developer planning fees?
Finally, some local authorities in the London metropolitan green-belt area, even when they have accounted for all their brownfield sites and all their grey-belt sites, still have to build thousands of homes on the green belt, land which is supposed to have been designed specifically to stop urban sprawl. Will the Government put anything in the national planning policy framework that will give any protection at all to the concept of the green belt?
Angela Rayner
The answer to the hon. Lady’s direct question about local plans is that it depends on how far they have got. There will be a transition, as we explained in the consultation document, because we recognise that some areas are quite far on. As for where that is up to, it depends very much on what the difference is between what the local plan says and what we have asked. We have explained that in the consultation document as well. We have to be fair to those that have already done the work: when the work has been done, it is just a question of updating it and not disregarding those that already have local plans. A third of areas have up-to-date local plans, so I urge all Members to speak to their local authorities to ensure that they have their local plans, because that is how we ensure that people feel engaged and part of the process—which is critical—and how we protect green belt and other areas by ending the speculative developments that we have been seeing.
The hon. Lady asked about the number of social homes. I talked about the flexibility in the affordable homes grant. There is some stuff in the consultation document about the right to buy, which I recognise, and about how councils and housing associations can borrow to bring up their stock. I also recognise the problem we have faced as a result of the homelessness crisis, and I am particularly keen to tackle it. We have talked about compulsory purchase orders as well, and we are consulting on that because we think that it needs to be dealt with. We will deal with some of the other issues in the planning infrastructure Bill.
Planning will be strengthened—we have already announced 300 extra local planners—and we will strengthen section 106. There will be an accelerator taskforce to deal with stalled sites. When grey belt land is released, the golden rules that I outlined will apply, and we will expect a great deal from developers when they are using that land. We are consulting on fees as well. There is a lot in this consultation, which I believe will make a significant difference to engagement with local areas and ensuring that we meet the housing target that we need and the country desperately deserves.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Too many families are housed in substandard, overcrowded flats created through permitted development rights, such as former office block conversions. Will the Deputy Prime Minister give families in my constituency some hope for the future by confirming Labour’s commitment to good-quality, affordable family houses, including council houses, under her proposals?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is right: 14 years of the Tories have left social and affordable housing in a crisis. To fix our overall problem with the housing crisis, we must have more social housing for rent. The shadow Secretary of State talked about speaking to councils, but Members here, including new Members, will know how desperate the situation is from their casework—from what is already arriving in their inboxes and their post—and from what their local leaders are saying. This is because of the supply problem, and because we need to fix the problem around social and affordable housing. That is why we have our golden rules, and why we are going to strengthen section 106. We expect developers to do what they say they are going to do, and all our Departments will work to make sure that the infrastructure is there, so that people get the homes they need locally and see the infrastructure that improves nature and their local area.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
New Forest district council has recently had its local plan agreed on the basis of local housing need. When will it be required to reopen that assessment on the basis of the right hon. Lady’s new algorithm, and when will the target become mandatory?
Angela Rayner
The short answer is when it next updates. As I said in my answer to the shadow Secretary of State, councils that have an up-to-date local plan will not be made to start again. I commend the right hon. Gentleman’s local authority for having an up-to-date plan, because that is the best way to have consultations with a local area and provide the housing that local people need. This Government will work with local leaders and mayors to make sure that we deliver the houses that local people want and deal with the crisis they face.
Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making a superb statement. She knows that she will have strong support on the Labour Benches for building the homes that we need in Liverpool to tackle homelessness, rising costs and the huge waiting list for social housing, but councils will be reluctant to build if they know that houses will simply end up in the hands of private landlords who exploit the right to buy. I welcome her review into the higher discounts imposed by the last Government. Can she assure me that it will be a rapid review? Given the mess that she has inherited, there is no time to waste in clearing this up.
Angela Rayner
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Again, the short answer is yes, it will be a rapid review. We were already speaking about this issue before the election. We want to make sure that people take part in the review, but we are also very clear that the discounts that the last Government applied to the right-to-buy formula in 2012 mean that councils cannot replace the houses that are bought under the right-to-buy scheme. We believe that people should have the right to buy, but it has to be balanced against the discounts given to the public on our social housing stock, so that we can make sure that we replace that stock for those who desperately need it.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Quite frankly, this announcement will be a disaster for my Hamble Valley constituency. Over the last few years, Liberal Democrat-run Eastleigh borough council has built double the number of houses required by targets and assessments. Can the Secretary of State confirm that she will take into account retrospective building numbers for areas that have already built more than their fair share? Why is she placing even more pressure on local services in the south-east, where house prices are the most expensive, but leaving cities alone and not increasing house numbers there too?
Angela Rayner
I say to the hon. Gentleman that the number of houses in cities will increase. The new method that we will be using is based on the stock and its affordability, so I ask him to look at the consultation. We will be honest: if there is a particular shortage—many areas have a particular shortage—we have to build homes. We stood on an election manifesto to do that. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman’s local authority has local plans, but we will engage with it. We do not have the homes that we desperately need. I say to the hon. Gentleman that he should engage with his local authority, get the local plans in place, and work with us to build the houses that his constituents desperately need.
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. I particularly welcome the acknowledgment that where there are new developments on green-belt land, it is necessary to have the facilities that go with them. What steps will she take to ensure that local communities can hold developers to account for the protection of our habitat and open spaces when they come forward with plans?
Angela Rayner
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Labour has a “brownfield first” policy, and there are very strict golden rules on the release of grey-belt land. We will support local authorities to make sure that they get the best from section 106 notices and that the golden rules apply. The proposals that we have put in the NPPF will strengthen the release of land, which has been done in a haphazard way in the past. We will also see the affordable homes that people desperately need in their areas, including homes for social rent.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
Could the Secretary of State confirm two things? First, could she confirm that where local residents have complied with her mandatory targets through a neighbourhood plan, rather than a local plan, the neighbourhood plan will reign supreme and will not be trampled over by planning inspectors subsequently? Secondly, could she confirm that protected landscape—what used to be called an areas of outstanding natural beauty, which comprise 80% of my constituency, but is now called national landscape—will still have significant protection within the planning system?
Angela Rayner
Yes, I can confirm that neighbourhood plans and the protections will remain, which is really important. Again, we are saying that the release of grey-belt land has to be for the benefit of local natural spaces. We want to see areas where people are within walking distance of such spaces. Many people do not have access to green-belt areas, but we will protect them, as we have always done. There is no change to areas of natural beauty, parks and so on.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
As the new MP and a former cabinet member for housing for what is arguably Britain’s most successful new town—Milton Keynes—I welcome today’s statement, which is exactly what we have needed to hear. The struggles and conflicts that we have had in trying to deliver the housing that people in Milton Keynes need have been enormous and a real waste of resource, to be quite frank. We need to build not only new houses, but new communities. Will the Secretary of State meet me and Milton Keynes city council to discuss how we can help to deliver this essential mission so that everyone has a place to call home?
Angela Rayner
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. I have visited Milton Keynes a number of times, and it is a fantastic example of a Labour new town. She has been quick to get a meeting arranged with the Housing Minister, and I look forward to hearing more about how we can learn from Milton Keynes and have the next generation of new towns coming forward.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I welcome the consultation on the national planning policy framework. One of the documents that has been circulated to colleagues today is the NPPF with tracked changes. Buried on page 55 is a footnote that says the following sentence is proposed for deletion:
“The availability of agricultural land used for food production should be considered…when deciding what sites are most appropriate for development.”
That is in the existing NPPF, but the Government are proposing to take it out. The UK is only 60% self-sufficient in food—down from the mid-1980s, when we were 78% self-sufficient. Are the Government taking enough account of self-sufficiency in food?
Angela Rayner
Yes, and we believe that it is already considered in the NPPF. There is already guidance on agricultural land, particularly high-grade agricultural land, so we believe that the protections on food are already there.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on her statement. I am slightly disappointed with some of the comments from those on the Conservative Benches, but I hope my right hon. Friend will reject them, just as the British people rejected them on 4 July.
Like the Deputy Prime Minister and most people in England who have a mayor, I am fortunate enough to live under a Labour mayor. Will the Deputy Prime Minister work with me, Labour mayors—including hers and mine—councillors and Members of this place to ensure that we get the right kinds of developments in the right places?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we are trying to achieve today, and with the legislation that was announced in the King’s Speech, is about how we strengthen local consultation. I have already said that only a third of local authorities have up-to-date local plans, so this is a wake-up call for them. As part of local planning and having local plans in place, there is an obligation to consult, and to consult again on the final plans. Many people are frustrated by housing that goes up, but that is because of speculative development and because there has been no engagement. We have already met mayors and council leaders, and what we are proposing today is a push that has come not just from local leaders and mayors but from voters. I believe that that is why we won as large a majority as we did at the general election: people want to see that change. We know that that engagement has to continue and that we have to work with local leaders and mayors to make this plan a reality, and we are going to work with them to make sure that we get those homes, that infrastructure and the next generation of social and affordable housing that the people of this country need.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and good luck in your new role.
It is possible to have successful development, but from experience it has to be something done with people and not to people. This policy is the latter. These pernicious top-down targets have the practical effect at ground level of setting one town against another, one village against another and one local community against another; and given the Chancellor’s statement on public spending yesterday, who will pay for the tens of billions of pounds-worth of infrastructure that would be required to make all this work? All experience shows that, on development and house building, the man or woman in Whitehall really does not know best. Why then, is the Secretary of State going back to the old, failed way of doing it, which will not work?
Angela Rayner
I am shocked to have to tell the right hon. Member that the NPPF was an NPPF before we came into government. National targets have always been there; this is not something that I have dreamt up.
The important thing is that our new method is clearly based upon the housing stock, the affordability and the need in an area. That need has created a housing crisis in this country, and that is why the electorate gave the Labour Government such a mandate, because we said that we are going to fix the housing crisis that we have inherited. Again, this is about local plans. I implore the right hon. Member to get with his local authority, to get a local plan, to engage with local people and to listen to those who are waiting desperately—probably thousands in his constituency—for a home that they know will never come.
Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
My local authority agreed its local plan during the general election campaign, and it was the first authority in the country to commit section 106 funds to our local hospital. As its deputy leader, I was very proud to lead on that. I see section 106 funding as the most effective method of mitigating the impacts of development and bringing in much-needed funding for infrastructure. How does the Deputy Prime Minister envision section 106 funding being reformed to make it a far more effective method of bringing in infrastructure spending?
Angela Rayner
I congratulate my hon. Friend, not just on getting to this place but on the work she did previously. I also congratulate her local authority on the work it has done on having a local plan and on making sure that it got what it needed out of the section 106 provisions. She is absolutely right to say that that is important, because section 106 plays a very important role in meeting health needs—whether it is GP services, hospitals, schools or whatever the infrastructure—and it needs to be strengthened. We talk about that in this House, and we talk about the golden rules that we will apply if grey belt is released, but our Department will be working to ensure that local authorities are given the resources they need and the expertise from here, so that they can get the best out of section 106 notices.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Thousands of new homes are planned in King’s Lynn in my constituency, but that development requires transport and other infrastructure, so will the Secretary of State work with the Transport Secretary and the Chancellor to unlock the funding for the A10-West Winch housing access road so that that development can proceed?
Angela Rayner
Again, there is a challenge that we have inherited. I hope that the hon. Member’s area has a local plan for what is required and can therefore push for that infrastructure as part of its section 106. I will happily engage, through the Minister, on that particular issue, but I am wondering whether the hon. Member was in the Chamber yesterday and realises what a mess his Government left us in.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome you to your new place.
I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for the speed with which she and her fantastic team are tackling the housing crisis. It is welcome news in Luton North, where my surgeries have been consistently full of people struggling in overcrowded housing and facing skyrocketing rents for substandard conditions. We also have daily cases of people being subjected to eviction notices through no fault of their own. Does she agree that the Government’s new plans to build genuinely affordable housing, and for this council house revolution to start, cannot come soon enough for towns such as mine?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend articulates what many Members across the House, even Opposition Members, will recognise as challenges that we face. This issue has been ducked for 14 years by the Conservatives, and in fact it went backwards because of the changes they made to the NPPF last year. That is why we make absolutely no bones about the fact that we mean to deliver. That is why this consultation is so important and why we have put it out there now. I say to hon. Members that we intend to move at pace. There are people in temporary accommodation and 150,000 children who have nowhere to call their home. I think about that every single night, and there is not a day that we can afford to waste in dealing with that situation for them. I promise those people in my hon. Friend’s constituency and in everybody else’s that I will do everything I can to make sure that they have a home.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
I welcome the news of a council house revolution, and we all know that the Deputy Prime Minister is a little bit of an expert when it comes to council housing, but can she confirm that priority will be given to British families, veterans and pensioners?
Angela Rayner
We have confirmed that people with a local connection will get priority over those homes. The hon. Gentleman tries to make a quip about the fact that I grew up in a council house, but although people used to talk about my childhood as if I grew up in poverty, there are many kids today who would think they had won the lottery if they got a council house. Those children today cannot have that, so we will build the homes, we will prioritise so that people locally can get them and we will make sure that first-time buyers get first dibs. We are putting in place a number of measures to make sure that the homes that are built are there for the people who need them.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Residents in Hethersett, Mulbarton and Loddon have sadly had their fingers burnt by the old planning policies that were in place under the previous Government. Can my right hon. Friend give me assurances that section 106 will be strengthened to ensure that public infrastructure will be in place so that our new housing is accessible for everyone and gives them the resources they need to live a very happy life?
Angela Rayner
Parts of this consultation look at how we can strengthen section 106, and we want to do that in conjunction with local authorities. As I mentioned in my statement, we are also bringing forward, at a later date through this Parliament, measures on strategic planning and the planning and infrastructure Bill. This is the start of the process, but we know there is a lot more to do. I look forward to my hon. Friend’s engagement with that.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am no nimby, but what we are seeing today is a lurch back to top-down mandatory targets that will ride roughshod through local communities such as those that I represent across Aldridge-Brownhills, and through local decision making. I do agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, though, when she says that the first port of call must be brownfield land, so will she confirm that she will give full financing to brownfield land remediation and reclamation?
Angela Rayner
We think we can use brownfield funding better, but this is not about riding roughshod over local decisions and what local people want; having mandatory housing targets and plans means that people will be able to decide. What we are saying, and what we said at the general election, is that we will build 1.5 million homes; we said that clearly, and we have a mandate to do it. We think that the new method for calculating housing targets works better; we think it will deliver for people, and that includes the affordability test. Therefore, we will deliver the houses that the right hon. Lady’s constituency needs, and I would encourage her to engage in the process with her local authority.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I am planning to end the statement at around 20 minutes past 2, so could you please help each other by keeping questions short?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
This has to be the most important statement I have heard since being in the House. York has really suffered from the proliferation of luxury accommodation, second homes and short-term holiday lets, so I very much welcome this statement. Where developers have plans in the system, what steps can be taken to ensure that we pivot to hit the targets for the affordable and social housing that we desperately need right now?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree that we desperately need affordable homes. It depends on where my hon. Friend’s local authority is in the process, but we will be setting out the targets, which are likely to be increased for her area, so that the local authority can engage in the process. The golden rules will allow more affordability where there is restrictive release of grey belt. We will ensure that we provide support on affordability and that there is no gaming of the system, so that we get the best we can out of section 106.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I strongly endorse the sentiment and purpose of the Secretary of State’s policy statement. She will be aware that, as others have said, the planning system is fuelled by greed, rather than need. Cornwall is not nimby—it is one of the fastest-growing places in the United Kingdom and has almost trebled its housing stock in the last 60 years—yet local people’s housing problems have got worse, so my question to the Secretary of State is this. House building targets are a means to an end, so would it not be far better in places such as Cornwall if those targets were set to address the need, rather than simply allowing developers to fill their boots?
Angela Rayner
That is what the new formula does. We are trying to assess the need in areas, taking particular account of their current stock, but also of affordability; I suspect that Cornwall has a particular challenge with that as well. As part of that process, we hope to strengthen the plans on section 106, and the new homes accelerator task force will help to get sites moving forward where they already have planning permission. By working across Whitehall, we will also deliver the infrastructure that people want, because that is the other big issue that keeps coming back. Where we have speculative sites or the release of green belt, or where there is a large amount of housing in an area, the infrastructure is critical. That is the issue we need to overcome, and we are clear on that as a Government.
Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)
In my constituency, we are at the sharp end of the housing crisis, and we desperately need more affordable homes and more council homes, so I really welcome today’s statement. The Conservative party may behave like this is a zero-sum game between building more desperately needed homes and protecting the environment, but Labour Members know that that is not the case. What approach will the new Government take to ensure that we have sustainable development, so that we protect our environment, ensure that we have the necessary infrastructure, including sewage pipes, and prevent flooding, while building the homes that my constituents so desperately need?
Angela Rayner
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. She is absolutely right, and her question builds on one that I answered previously. We have to protect our green belt, and the proposals we are putting forward do that. They also mean that we will have the right type of homes and the infrastructure. As part of this process, there will be nature considerations and rules around that. There will also be the infrastructure that people need, as well as access to the countryside and healthy living. My hon. Friend can look at a number of parts of the consultation that refer to how we are delivering better, greener areas for people. Hopefully, her constituents will be able to get behind that.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
It is good to see you in that Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether the Secretary of State has discussed her proposals with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the National Farmers Union, but the answer she gave on food production was risible. What she has announced today is effectively a recipe for disposing of the land that will be needed to feed our children and grandchildren. Just before she goes ahead with that, will she tell the House how many planning consents that have been granted are sitting there unbuilt-out? Should we not use those first?
Angela Rayner
I say to the right hon. Gentleman with absolute respect that he should please read the consultation. We think that we do support our agriculture, which accounts for just over 10% of land—the best and most versatile land. I talked before about protecting the best-value land, and we will do that. The land we are talking about—grey belt, which we define in the NPPF consultation—is not agricultural land; it is disused garages and things of that nature and not, as the right hon. Gentleman wants people to believe, the land we need for food.
Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
I welcome the twin ambitions the Secretary of State has set out today: to get Britain building in order to provide the homes we need, and to make sure that we have the infrastructure required to support them, such as schools and GP surgeries. Those ambitions are of equal importance, and we cannot have one without the other. On social and affordable housing, will she confirm that the aim of her package is to go net-positive, so that the number of social rent homes rises rather than falls, and to achieve that in the first year of this Parliament?
Angela Rayner
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. It will be a challenge, but we are desperate to try to meet that challenge as quickly as we can. That is why we are moving at pace with the consultation exercise we have put forward today, which we will do as quickly as we can, so that we can have the affordable and social housing, the green spaces and the infrastructure that people desperately need.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. I appreciate that she will not have time today to wax lyrical about her vision of aesthetics or to expand at length on the relationship between truth and beauty. Nevertheless, given the welcome reference in her announcement to proportionality and to the link between the existing built environment and the scale of development, will she also take into account the character and style of development? She may know that I have served on the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission and in the Office for Place. Will she agree to meet the Office for Place to discuss beauty? She will know that the wealthy can always live in beautiful places and in beautiful homes, but people from council houses—from where she and I originate—deserve their chance to know, to sense and to see beauty.
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with everything the right hon. Gentleman says. The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), will shortly meet all the stakeholders, and I think he has a meeting in the coming days with those the right hon. Gentleman just mentioned. I would love to work with him to make sure that we build the houses that people deserve. Whether it is social, affordable or any other housing, it should be beautiful and should have character and style, and we are determined to make that happen.
Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for the focus she has rightly put on delivering genuinely affordable homes, which will provide much needed housing security to many of my constituents. Recognising some of the immediate homelessness challenges felt by local authorities, will she detail how the plans she has announced today will relieve pressures that lead to homelessness, and on temporary accommodation?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about homelessness and the pressures that local authorities face. This issue feels particularly personal because the number of stories that I have heard, not just when I was the shadow Minister but in the role that I am fortunate enough and humbled to have now, show that we cannot continue with the homelessness crisis. Behind every single one of the figures is a human being. Like poverty, housing has a significant impact on people’s lives and opportunities. That is why, in my role as Deputy Prime Minister, I will bring leaders together at a local, regional and parliamentary level to ensure that we tackle homelessness. We need to do something about the figures. We have inherited a really poor state of affairs, but I am determined to ensure that we do something about that.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
Many residents in my constituency of Waveney Valley find themselves priced out of living in their community, as is the case in so much of the country, because the homes that are being built are not affordable for local people. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement on affordable housing, but how many of the 1.5 million homes that she has pledged to build does she expect to be affordable? In particular, how many does she expect to be council homes? What action will be taken to address the fact that we have a million empty homes in this country?
Angela Rayner
It is difficult to set out the detail at a local level because those types of development are subject to section 106 agreements. That is why local plans are really important, and we support that process. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the consultation document on the release of grey belt, which talks about a minimum of 50% of housing being affordable. Again, that figure will depend on local need. We have to try to get the balance right. If local areas say, “We need x”, but I say, “Well, you are going to have y,” then that is a challenge. We have said that 50% of housing built on the grey belt must be affordable. Local areas can then use that figure and say that they want a particular amount of homes for social rent. The methodology and the affordability test we are using make things much better, because they give a figure that reflects the reality for people in an area.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Deputy Prime Minister will be all too aware of the extent to which the planning system is failing communities like mine. It is not building the affordable homes that people are crying out for, not delivering the infrastructure my growing communities need, and not even protecting some of the nature-rich parts of our countryside. Opposition Members might not like to hear this, but under the last Government, green-belt approvals, often haphazard, increased tenfold, while brownfield approvals halved. Will the Deputy Prime Minister reassure my constituents that her golden rules will ensure that brownfield and greyfield sites are truly prioritised, and that infrastructure and affordability will be prioritised too, so that we finally deliver growth that works for communities like mine?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is right to mention the haphazard way in which the green belt has been built upon under the last Government, although some of the responses that I have had from Opposition Members give the impression that that never happened. I am clear that brownfield should always be the first port of call, which is why we have been making brownfield development easier under the NPPF. We will also take firm action to limit the scope to game the system, and consult on how to stop developers who have paid over the odds for land using that as an excuse for negotiating down their section 106 contributions. A number of measures, including our golden rules, will ensure that we push towards brownfield. The release of grey belt has to be within our golden rules.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Yesterday, the Secretary of State made the decision to approve the appeal by Envar Composting in relation to a proposed medical waste incinerator on the edge of St Ives, despite the initial application being rejected by Conservative and Labour members of Cambridgeshire county council. Residents in St Ives, as well as the impacted rural villages of Somersham, Bluntisham, Colne, Pidley, Woodhurst, Old Hurst and Needingworth, are hugely concerned that their opposition and concerns have not been heard by the Secretary of State. Given that NHS England’s 2023 clinical waste strategy states that there is a need to
“reduce the use of incineration”,
and details a strategic priority that
“requires in-house waste processing capability”
to be developed, why has the Secretary of State approved a medical waste incinerator against local wishes? Will she meet local residents to hear their concerns?
Angela Rayner
I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I have not personally dealt with that specific case, but when we make such decisions, we weigh up the advice and planning expertise that we have, and decisions will be made based on the evidence we have. It is an objective way of making a decision.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s plan to put building homes at the heart of our mission to raise living standards, and to ensure that what we build reflects local views. Will she give an update on plans to give councils greater powers to tackle the scourge of second homes, which put a drag on our communities and economies, particularly in Cornwall, so that we can unlock supplies through that channel?
Angela Rayner
I said in my statement, this is the first step but we know there is so much more that we need to do. We have a significant amount of legislation coming forward, about which the housing Minister will be able to update the House. The NPPF is about making sure that we get the housing targets in place, but I understand the point my hon. Friend makes. We need to address many more issues that we face in housing, which is why a significant number of measures were announced in the King’s Speech.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
An additional 3,000 homes are currently being built in Maldon and Heybridge in my constituency, and Liberal Democrat-controlled Chelmsford city council wants to build another 3,000 at Hammonds Farm in my constituency, yet the local roads and health and education services are all under intolerable pressure, so what will the Secretary of State do to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is put in place before the developments take place?
Angela Rayner
The right hon. Gentleman’s Government was in power for 14 years and could have resolved this issue. One reason why we are consulting on the revised NPPF is because we recognise that infrastructure is critical, as I have said to many hon. Members today. People often reject housing proposals because they do not see infrastructure. That is why we have the golden rules, why I have asked all the Departments to look at what we can do to ensure that infrastructure is there, and why we will support the strengthening of section 106 to ensure that developers do not try to squeeze out of what they promised as part of the development.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
As my right hon. Friend has said, this has got to be about building communities, not just about building homes. On too many occasions, residents in my constituency have been left for too long on incomplete and unadopted estates. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that both the social and physical infrastructure must be delivered at the earliest opportunity in development, and that developers must be held to account for their delivery?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree. That goes back to the point that far too often people object to development because they do not see the infrastructure, and people see that in some cases developers try to wriggle out of their obligations. As I set out in the consultation document we are putting forward today, we believe this will strengthen the hand of local authorities and we will be able to ensure that we get the infrastructure we desperately need alongside the houses.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Deputy Prime Minister has outlined the dire need for house building across this great United Kingdom and set out a system to try to achieve that. However, there is the important issue of people trying to get mortgages. In the mainland, those who earn £75,000 a year are having difficulty getting a mortgage, but back home in Northern Ireland, those who are earning much less—say, £40,000 to £45,000—have no chance of getting a mortgage. What can be done to help people to get mortgages and thereby enable them to buy a home and move forward?
Angela Rayner
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we have to fix the situation not just on the affordability of houses, and in the general election campaign we talked about our proposals for a mortgage guarantee scheme. The new deal for working people, which is coming forward with legislation in October time, will ensure that we make work pay. The Chancellor announced a pay rise for public sector workers, and we recently wrote to the Low Pay Commission to expand its remit so that we will make sure that over a million people get a pay rise, because jobs that pay will also mean people can then afford to have their own home.