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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered housing targets in rural areas.
It is a huge pleasure to see you presiding over us today, Ms Jardine.
I want to talk about housing targets for rural England in general and for my constituency of East Hampshire in particular, and I want to talk about three dimensions. The first is the balance of development between urban areas and rural areas. There is a general point about the balance in the whole country, but it has particular significance in my area. With the new formula, there is too much emphasis on building in the countryside, which will be bad for economic growth and our decarbonisation agenda, and injurious to the countryside. I will ask the Government to look again at the formula.
The second dimension is the mix of housing types that we are incentivising to be built, which is not weighted enough towards the more affordable housing that we so badly need, and the third dimension is the balance of development in my constituency specifically. We have a national park boundary cutting through the constituency, and whatever the overall numbers, there is a question of balance within the specific area.
We all know that we need more homes, so let us not have a discussion about which party is more serious about that. Figures published yesterday project a big population increase of 4.9 million over the next 10 years, which will be driven by net immigration. Those numbers are too high and we need to bring them down, but, in any case, there is already pressure from the growth in population and housing demand that we have had, which is partly to do with net immigration but also to do with factors such as people living longer and the tendency towards smaller households.
We all care about housing. Of the four highest completion numbers since 1997, three have been since 2019, under Conservative Governments. The Government want to increase the housing target to 370,000 homes a year, and they changed the formula to do that last month. By some margin, that would be the highest number of completions in a very long time—I think the highest in a single calendar year since 1997 is about 180,000. There are doubts about how realistic the target is, especially given labour and materials constraints on the supply side.
If this building is going to be done, it is exceptionally important for public confidence—as MPs, we hear this the whole time—that it is accompanied by not just the promise, but the delivery of the right services and infrastructure. It is true that most of those services are statutory requirements—sewerage will come, because it is a requirement. Hampshire county council does a good job of place planning and predicting where places will be needed, we know that funding for GPs follows the population, and so on, but, as I think all MPs have heard, there are still worries and doubts about the timeliness of that. In particular, there is a worry about whether, if we have a sudden massive increase in building but there is a shortage of builders, the schools or GP surgeries that are needed will be prioritised over the houses.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
This is exactly the issue facing my constituency, where two proposed large developments are going through planning, one on Wash Road on the outskirts of Noak Bridge, and the other—it went through a couple of weeks ago—on Laindon Road in Billericay. There are huge pressures on local services; local primary schools are overflowing. When we see our local authorities changing from two-tier to unitary and being moved around, there is real concern that section 106 money will not even go towards the needs of the communities having housing imposed on them. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that adds extra complexity to the situation?
Damian Hinds
I agree with my right hon. Friend, who has done an outstanding job of highlighting such points, including on the Floor of the House, to the benefit of his constituents.
It is also important to pay attention to maintaining the character of areas. We talked in the past about urban sprawl, but increasingly we face the risk of rural sprawl, with ribbon developments that lose the distinction between settlements. In addition to a beautiful landscape, my constituency has an important cultural heritage, as the home of Jane Austen. That is important not only to people who live in East Hampshire but to many who visit from elsewhere in the country and from abroad.
On the new formula, the Government need an overall 50% uplift in housing numbers, but in many areas they will increase by a lot more. East Hampshire is one: our target will increase from 575 to 1,142, or 98%—let us just call that doubling. That is not unusual. Colleagues will have seen that the Library paper looked at 58 mainly or largely rural local authorities and found that all had had an increase, two thirds had had one above 50%, and the average increase was 71%.
Meanwhile, in urban areas, increases are much lower—more like 16% or 17% on average. Quite a few places will see a reduction, including large parts of London and Birmingham. The Library analysis found that 37 out of 41 local authorities with a decrease were urban. I want to stress that this is not about a north-south divide; it is specifically an urban-rural divide. The County Councils Network has helpfully provided figures showing the difference in county areas. Compared with the south-east, the north-east, north-west, and Yorkshire and the Humber have much higher average increases, albeit from a lower base.
It is also important to note that this is not about correcting an historic mistake. People might think that not much building has happened in the countryside in the past, but looking back over 20 years, the rate of building—the number of additional dwellings relative to the existing dwellings per thousand households—has been higher in predominantly rural areas than in urban areas.
That shift from urban to rural is a problem for multiple reasons. One of them is a big theme today: economic growth. I am sure the Minister has a lot of time for the think-tank the Resolution Foundation. Its analysis is that tilting development towards cities, because of the agglomeration effect and other factors, makes a material improvement to growth prospects. It is also important for another theme of the day. We talk about airport expansion and the tension between economic growth and decarbonisation. When housing moves towards the countryside, that is bad for decarbonisation, because the numbers are so high that houses have to be put everywhere and it is not possible to focus on the relatively small number of places that have good strategic transport links. That hardwires reliance on the motor car, which in constituencies such as mine means two cars per couple in a household.
Why does the formula do that? We do not have the time to explain. We would need whiteboards, Excel and possibly PhDs to go through this subject—you might already have a PhD in this subject, Ms Jardine; I do not want to suppose otherwise. Various changes have been made to the formula, in particular the multiplier that gets applied to the affordability calculation, which has risen from 0.6 to 0.95. That means that the affordability calculation does a lot more work, and is more important than it was before.
No calculation of affordability of housing is close to perfect. There are all manner of problems with trying to make such a calculation. In particular, with the formula that we use today, there is a proper debate to be had about the balance between workplace earnings and residency-based earnings. Sometimes we talk about a choice between the two, but I think they are both relevant to the affordability of housing. It is also about the distinction between earnings and income, and whether we are really comparing types of housing like for like.
As I say, this is not the place to discuss those issues in detail; it is not possible in a debate format. However, I will say to the Minister that I am sure the formula looked logical when it was done on paper or a computer screen, and I am sure it was done for the right reasons, but in practice it has delivered perverse outcomes, which will reduce housing development in urban areas and harm growth, and it will be extremely difficult to deliver—certainly, it will be impossible to deliver sustainably in the countryside. The formula is an errant, rogue algorithm. We know what that feels like because it happened when we were in government, too; it can happen to anyone. The important thing is to address it as quickly as possible once it is spotted. Whatever their intent was, given the outcome, I ask the Government to look at the formula again.
The second issue is that the formula does not encourage enough of a change in the mix towards homes that are actually affordable. I will say what I mean by “actually” in a moment, but first I want to note the good work of my constituent, Nick Stenning, who has helped me in this area. We want more affordable homes, but when constituents come to my surgery and say that they want housing to be more affordable, they do not mean it in the sense the public sector means it, which is what I call Affordable with a capital A—the very strict definition of housing association rent, council rent and part ownership. They just want a home they can afford. Of course that includes those types of tenure and rent, but young couples overwhelmingly aspire to own their home, and we should be in the business of helping them to do that.
All other things being equal, for a developer, the best economic returns come from larger, costlier houses. When we consider that there is a premium on new build homes anyway, that means that, paradoxically, in spite of the economic theory, when we add more homes, the median price increases because we are adding them in the top half of the distribution. We then get a cycle that ends up calling for more of the same. We say, “Well, this area is now even less affordable than it was before, so we need more houses,” and we get more of the same homes. That is not entirely true, of course—there is a mix, but it is disproportionately weighted towards four or five-bed executive homes. I ask Ministers to look again at that; I am sure we have the same objective in this regard.
The third and final area I want to cover is specific to my constituency. It applies to a lesser extent in other areas with so-called national landscapes, but there are literally only one or two areas in the country where it applies to quite the extent it does in mine. The South Downs national park is an unusual national park: it is England’s newest, but it is by far the most populous. Its population density is about 3.5 times that of the Lake District national park, which has the next most dense population. It has huge swathes of open countryside but also significantly sized settlements, one of which is Petersfield in my constituency. Alton, which is outside the national park, is a similar size to Petersfield. They are both historic market towns and many of the people living there have the same needs and objectives, but they are treated completely differently from a housing development point of view.
There would be no point in having national parks if they did not have special protection, but the problem I have is that so much of my district—57% of the land area—is inside the national park. We have to calculate the housing need on the basis of the entire area, but that need has to be accommodated overwhelmingly in the area outside the national park. When there is a change—for instance, the number has just gone up—but the numbers that can be accommodated inside the national park do not change, we get a magnified, leveraged effect in the parts of the district outside the national park.
We would not expect development to be in proportion to landmass; otherwise, there would be an awful lot more building in, for example, the constituencies of the hon. Members for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) or for Hexham (Joe Morris). Other things being equal, we would expect it to be broadly in proportion to the existing development and existing population. In the district of East Hampshire, the South Downs national park accounts for 27% of the population and, since the national park came into existence, it has accounted for 15% of the housing development. However, with the change in targets, and without that much changing in what the national park is planning to do, it will account for 8% of the housing development, as against 27% of the existing population.
That fact creates particular pressures just outside the boundary of the national park, in places such as Alton, Holybourne, Four Marks and Medstead—all the way along the A31—and in the south of the district around Horndean, Clanfield and Rowlands Castle. There is already an imbalance between housing affordability inside the national park and housing affordability outside it, as was demonstrated by the bespoke analysis that the Office for National Statistics kindly produced. That imbalance will widen over time, and that has implications for the age mix of people living inside the national park, and therefore for the viability of schools, churches, shops, pubs and so on.
Mr Holden
My right hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. My question touches on that point about the balance between urban and rural. Semi-rural and rural areas are now being densified, and given the changes in the requirements on new buildings, places such as London are seeing less extra densification. Does he agree that the Government should be looking at schemes such as the one up at Finsbury Park, to which the Industry and Parliament Trust will take us on a visit in the next few weeks? A post-war estate of 2,000 homes is being transformed into 5,500 homes. That is proper urban densification around a major existing transport hub, and it means that those houses are not being built in the green-belt areas that he is talking about.
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In fact, there is a good example of that in my constituency, on a much smaller scale. Those schemes can materially improve amenity: we can make a better-looking housing estate and add facilities, such as a shop, even a pub, a better children’s playground and so on, that can benefit everyone.
Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that I am coming to the end of my speech. I do not want to overstate matters: the South Downs national park authority does build houses. In fact, it builds more houses, or plans for more houses, than other national park authorities. It co-operates and communicates with East Hampshire district council. However, we still end up with this imbalance, which is bad for both the part inside and the part outside the national park. Quite apart from the question of balance, there is also the question of public confidence, democratic accountability and responsiveness —people knowing how the numbers have been derived, rather than the council effectively having to be a number-taker, as it were, because of the decisions of another group.
My primary ask of the Minister is that he look again at how numbers are distributed between urban areas and the countryside overall. However, I also ask him to look again at how the calculations work in areas such as mine, so that we do not have demand calculated for the entire district with supply going mostly, although not entirely, to one part of it. That could be rectified in different ways. One would be to give district councils total clarity on how they can adjust their method for calculating need without running an excessive risk of the plan being found to be unsound. There is guidance—the Minister may have this in his notes—but here is what it says:
“The standard method should be used to assess housing needs. However in the specific circumstances where an alternative approach could be justified, such as those explained at paragraph 014”,
on national parks,
“consideration will be given to whether it provides the basis for a plan that is positively prepared, taking into account the information available on existing levels of housing stock and housing affordability.”
I do not know about you, Ms Jardine, but I am not sure I could explain to somebody else what that means. If we are going to have guidance, fine, but it has to be clear and it has to give confidence to councils and councillors, who, at the end of the day, are managing public money, that they are not running a serious risk of ending up in court proceedings when trying to do the right thing.
This could be done in other ways. It could be done by having the national park explicitly and transparently set a housing target for the entirety of its area, leaving the individual districts to work it out for themselves. That could be done either individually for each district, or just for the park as a whole.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the rural exceptions policy. He is talking about rural housing, but to achieve the outcome he is describing, surely he should be advancing rural exception schemes. There is massive hope value on the edges of towns and villages if the targets are high, but rural exception schemes can keep the development land price down by ensuring that those developments meet local need.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. In both his incarnations, he has long been a campaigner on these issues. There are many housing and development issues that I would love to talk about, but I am running out of time talking about just these three, so I hope he will forgive me if I stick to them. However, I agree about the potential of the exceptions policy.
I have one further question to the Minister. With devolution and local government reorganisation, how and when will some of the issues change because we are looking at things on different boundaries? I am grateful to him for agreeing to meet me and my district councillors to talk about the national parks issue, but I hope he will fully consider all the points I have raised today.
Several hon. Members rose—
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. Please limit your remarks to five or six minutes.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I genuinely want to thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who, until the last election, was my aunt’s MP, so I always get a letter when I speak in debates with him.
I think this debate is less about rural housing targets and more about rural homes. I grew up in the largest constituency in England, as the right hon. Gentleman indicated, and now have the privilege to serve as the MP for it. It regularly hits me, as I walk down the street or go to my surgeries, that I am far more likely to bump into my mates’ grandparents or parents than I am to bump into them because they have had to move out to Newcastle, down south or out to Manchester. It is one of the great sadnesses of the job that I do not see communities thrive as much as they could because young people are forced to leave. Communities need those young people, frankly.
I am frequently contacted by parents from across west Northumberland because Northumberland county council is trying to force some of our smaller schools to become two-form entry, rather than three-form entry. Rural depopulation is a major concern that transcends party politics, so I hope we can have a genuinely grown-up conversation about how we do better policy making for rural areas to support those communities.
When I go out into the north Tyne, where I live at the moment, or go into the central town of Hexham, or Prudhoe, I am often asked about my views on specific developments. I genuinely always try to approach these things by saying that we need to make sure there are places for people to grow up, and for businesses to invest in their employees. I spoke to one medium-sized employer in Hexham that spends a lot of time training its apprentices, who cannot afford to live in Hexham so move to a rival firm in Blyth, on the coast, which therefore gets all the benefit of that employee’s wisdom and experience, and the investment the company put into them, at none of the cost. We really need to look at how to generate vibrancy in our rural economies.
I have a slight issue with the definition of “rurality” given in a few documents I saw while drawing up this speech. “Rurality” is often defined as applying to settlements of fewer than 10,000 people. By the latest figures, Prudhoe has 10,288 and Hexham has 10,941 but no one walking down the street in either place would think of them as urban. Today, I received news of bank branch closures in my constituency and was incredibly disappointed to see that the branches were considered urban, despite the common-sense test of walking outside them and seeing the Tyne valley in all its beauty—it is possible to see right down to the north Tyne from Hexham. Prudhoe and Hexham are not urban communities. They are bigger than Barrasford, Wark, Humshaugh and plenty of other communities but they are not urban.
Any great advances in house building and housing targets must come with improved infrastructure. I hope to see much-needed investment in the Tyne valley line. My staff said to me that if I could get the Tyne valley line improved, certain villages in my constituency would build a statue of me. I do not hope for that and I am not lobbying for that—the county council probably has enough against me before I start lobbying for monuments —but we need to make sure that that infrastructure runs on time.
I also want to put on record that the limit in housing is driving the social housing waiting list crisis. Some of the main drivers of the cases coming into my inbox for my case workers are the special educational needs and disabilities crisis and the crisis in social housing in rural areas. I do not expect any hon. Members in this room to have a huge working knowledge of the diversity of Northumberland, but people are being rehomed from Ashington to Allendale, which are extremely different.
Joe Morris
I am glad to hear that the right hon. Member recognises the places. The lack of affordable social housing means that those who want to remain within the same county are forced to move to radically different communities that are often not suited to their needs.
I thank North East Mayor Kim McGuinness, a great friend of mine, who has prioritised the housing crisis in her agenda. I know that she is aware of the rural housing crisis—largely because I will not shut up about it—and the fact that it drives so much of the tragic and deeply concerning casework that comes through our doors. When the Government look at rural house building, we need to consider how we build communities and homes, rather than simply empty houses and empty buildings. I want sixth-formers at Queen Elizabeth high school—which I was privileged to attend and which I will visit this Friday—to be able to get the jobs that they want and remain local, with the broadband connectivity and transport connectivity that they need to make their homes and lives in the north-east, should they wish.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
On a personal level, it is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. We go back a long way, do we not? I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this debate. My difficulty is that housing is devolved, but—as you will understand, Ms Jardine—when constituents come to me, as a Scottish Member, with issues, I am duty bound to raise them.
I will start with two brief anecdotes. I was canvassing in Ullapool, in Wester Ross, before the election and I was astounded when I was told by a householder that the local headteacher had to commute from well to the east of my vast constituency—every day, there and back—because no housing was available in Ullapool. It seemed absolutely ludicrous because, if anyone should be part of the local community, it is the headteacher. That struck me mightily.
After the election, I was staying with my wife in the Summer Isles hotel in Achiltibuie, which is getting pretty remote. I was talking to the young barman, and because we knew that the hotel was going to be closed over winter, I said, “So, what will you do during the wintertime?” He said—you know what is coming, Ms Jardine—“I have to head south. There’s nowhere for me to stay here. I can’t afford the accommodation.”
The hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) rightly mentioned depopulation; it has been the utter curse of the highlands for generations. It is one of the great tragedies that if someone drives across Caithness on the Causewaymire—the local pronunciation is “Cazziemire”—they will see umpteen empty wee houses on either side in the heather. That is people who have gone, and gone forever, and that is the tragedy of the highlands. So people leaving because they cannot get accommodation in Achiltibuie is a desperate business altogether.
I want to say on the record that I in no way blame the Highland council for this problem. As a local authority, it does its level best against the odds to think of imaginative ways to create housing. But if a wee house comes on the market in Wester Ross, or in most of my constituency, it is snapped up by people from far away who can afford the prices, which local people simply cannot.
Let me turn to what happens in my constituency office. In the highlands, there are about 8,000 people on the waiting list for housing, and every week my office will get two, three, four or five housing cases, which are incredibly hard to resolve. We may talk about going private—renting or buying—but as I have already hinted, they are just priced out of the market.
We have to balance that against something that I am grateful to the previous Government for. We were given the Inverness and Cromarty Firth green freeport—one of two in Scotland—which was a real shot in the arm for the area, as it will be under the new Government. It could make as big a contribution as Dounreay did when nuclear power came to Caithness, or as the Nigg and Kishorn oil fabrication yards did when they came to Ross and Cromarty. These things really offer employment and can keep people in an area, but the point is very simple: if we do not have the housing, what are we going to do? Despite the best intentions of the previous Government and this Government, not having the housing really gets in the way of all of that.
I find it very difficult to see young people put in this position; it is really quite harrowing and it seems a fundamental injustice. It is wrong that they have to face these terrible decisions—“Do I stay where I come from? But I can’t, so I have to go.” I remember my own father, before the North Sea oil came, saying to me, “You’ll have to go south, young man.” That is something we do not want to see happen.
I am talking about a devolved matter, Ms Jardine, but may I simply say this? I have great faith in the best intentions of Governments of all colours. I simply ask that, as and when the best practice is developed to tackle this problem, His Majesty’s Government share that best practice with the Scottish Government, so that we can see how we can nip this problem and try to reverse this wretched tendency. I hope that now, as I speak, that teacher has got a house in Ullapool, but I am not sure that she has.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine.
I am an MP from rural Suffolk, and I hope we can create affordable rural housing. Why did our predecessors not try to do that? I believe that changes to the rural exception regulations could help achieve it, and at an appropriate scale, so that we retain the character of our towns and villages.
We need to help build housing, but crucially we need to help build local communities. We need there to be housing for young families, but also housing for older people, perhaps with embedded building features such as walls that are sufficiently strong to hold grab rails. I was told by Age UK only this morning that in Japan stamp duty is waived if the children of older people buy houses near where their elderly parents live.
Too many of our villages in Suffolk, and in Norfolk, where I live, are occupied by ageing residents far from family and services. I am sure we can make changes to improve things, while repopulating the rural community and building resilience for the future. So let us rebuild our rural communities at a scale sympathetic to the existing settlements.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for securing this debate. In many ways I was hanging on his every word, because I genuinely felt that he was also speaking to the concerns of my constituents on a whole number of issues.
Let me start in the way that my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members started: we all want housing and recognise the need for it. Meriden and Solihull East is a constituency of two halves, with a very urban north and a very rural south, so many of the issues we discuss in the House affect me in both respects.
Everyone who has spoken has referred to young families and young people, and my right hon. Friend spoke about affordable housing. I agree with him, and one of the conversations I have been having with my local council is about starter homes. As we have heard, young people want to grow their families in a place they are connected to, and that is clearly vital.
I say to the Minister that, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the formula impacts rural areas in a much more detrimental way. I would like him to achieve his targets, but I do not think that the formula will allow that to happen. I have form on this, because I raised a similar issue when the last Government tried to do this. I thought the formula was disproportionately affecting my constituency, as opposed to Birmingham, which is next to us, and areas such as Walsall, where I was born and brought up.
I remember having a conversation at No. 10 on a number of occasions, and I was very pleased that the formula was looked at again. The current formula requires Solihull, which currently builds about 866 homes per year, to increase that to 1,317. However, the current plan in Birmingham has about 7,174 homes a year, and the revised plan would take it down to 4,974. That is a huge disparity, and I am sure the Minister would agree. I believe that he is a reasonable person and that he would agree that there are people in Birmingham who will require housing, so that reduction in numbers makes no sense whatever—it is quite a significant plummet.
I campaign on protecting my green belt. I feel uniquely affected, as do my constituents, for two reasons. First, we have the Meriden gap, which is a vital throughway, through which wildlife migrate every year. It is known as the west midlands’ lungs, but is actually the lungs for the whole United Kingdom. As the new national planning policy framework comes forward, will the Government take into account areas of vital importance, such as the Meriden gap? My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire mentioned national parks, and I do not want to see the burden on the council increased because other parts of the green belt have to be affected. Through no fault of its own, it has areas of real importance to nature.
The second reason I wanted to raise is that my constituency is specifically affected by High Speed 2. We have a station just by the National Exhibition Centre and Birmingham airport. Balsall Common has had to take a huge load; it has been ripped open many times over, and is also taking on additional housing—there is a significant amount already, with thousands of homes. Hampton in Arden, a beautiful part of my constituency, is now starting to see the effects of HS2. This is critical national infrastructure, and the sacrifice my constituents are making in terms of their green belt should surely be taken into account. Currently, I do not see anything in relation to that. By the way, I posed the same challenge to the previous Government, and I stand by it.
I am conscious of the time, but I just wanted to pose those questions to the Minister. I am more than happy for him to visit my constituency, and I will happily show him around, in the spirit cross-party working, so that he can deliver some good news to my constituents.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine; I did it last week and I have done it this week as well, so we are on a roll. It was a pleasure to hear the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) clearly setting the scene in his constituency. The debate is about housing targets in rural areas, and I will set the scene in mine.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said this is a devolved matter, and it is a devolved matter for Northern Ireland as well. However, it is important that we come along to contribute to the debate and wholeheartedly support the theme the right hon. Member for East Hampshire put forward.
I represent the constituency of Strangford, which is very rural. The issue of housing in rural areas comes up all the time, and I will explain why in my contribution. There have been numerous calls for better housing provision and a better level of housing—in other words, houses that are up to the standards that people want. So I wholeheartedly echo what the right hon. Member for East Hampshire said in his opening comments about housing provision in his constituency.
From private housing to social housing provision, there are real challenges with the number of properties available. That is something that my staff and I witness daily in the office. We have countless—I use that word on purpose—ongoing social housing cases where people in rural areas need to be rehomed, for different reasons, but the stock is not there. That is the issue that all hon. Members have tried to illustrate.
Last month, the Communities Minister back home announced the launch of the housing supply strategy 2024 to 2039, which provides a 15-year framework for the development and delivery of policies and actions needed to meet our housing supply needs. There are a series of challenges that must be addressed, and that will require a collaborative approach from all stages of Government. Again, I want to sow into the debate what we are doing in Northern Ireland, to hopefully support the right hon. Member for East Hampshire and the Minister. The Minister is always constructive in his answers to our questions; we appreciate that very much, and I look forward to his contribution.
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive is of major importance when it comes to the housing stock, especially in rural areas. The Housing Executive has also released a rural strategy specifically for Northern Ireland. Evidence from the 2016-20 draft rural strategy highlighted successes in the rural housing sector in Northern Ireland. For example, the Housing Executive invested approximately £204.13 million in rural communities, and just under 18% of that was for housing stock. Work commenced on 425 new build social homes in rural areas, helping to address social housing needs and to support the growth of those communities. So there is a strategy, a policy and a way forward, and approximately £82.4 million was invested in the maintenance and improvement of our rural housing stock.
That work highlights the importance of funding our rural areas, which are a massive part of the housing sector, but there is still a long way to go. The social housing lists in my two constituency offices—one in Ballynahinch and one in Newtownards—illustrate that figuratively and statistically. As of June 2023, over 45,000 individuals were on the Housing Executive’s waiting list, with more than 32,000 classified as being in housing stress, indicating an urgent need for accommodation. That is not solely the responsibility of the Housing Executive, as the money we get to fund our Departments and sectors comes from this Government through the block grant. There is more to do to take the immense pressure off families by making housing more affordable, accessible and safe.
The housing backlog comes from an increase in property prices. Some of the greatest house price rises in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have been in Northern Ireland. The standard monthly rental price is between £600 and £700—far above the breadline.
I am conscious of the time, so I will conclude with this point. More needs to be done to preserve and maintain housing stock, and housing prices are hitting a record high, so I look to the Minister for direction on his plans to support the devolved institutions as much as he can. It is always understood that these issues are devolved, but there is a moral responsibility to ensure that no family is left behind, and that our Executive have the support they need from central Government right here.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate. I fundamentally want to talk about fairness. The Labour party used to use fairness a lot to try to define itself. I have had exchanges with the Minister regularly on this subject, not least when we both sat on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee back in 2022. Many people remember 2022 politics for other reasons—we remember it for the nine months of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee. I put it to this House and to the Minister that when we look at the differential between what rural communities, such as those that I am lucky enough to represent in Mid Buckinghamshire, and our towns and cities are being asked to build, that fairness just is not there.
Let us look at the example of Buckinghamshire as a county. We were already starting from a pretty punchy base and from the point of an expectation to build some 61,000 new homes over the coming decades. The new ask of Buckinghamshire under this new Government looked, from a starting base, like it would be 91,000 new homes, which would be a 42% increase plus the mystical 5% deliverability. The latest published number is a whopping 95,000 new homes expected over the next couple of decades. With the extra 5% added on, that is a nearly 50% increase, which does not include the proposals for new towns of more than 10,000 properties that may well come through. Buckinghamshire could well be looking at yet another Milton Keynes. I gently put it to the Minister that Buckinghamshire has already taken its hit on building a new town; that town is now the city with a population of 250,000 people that is Milton Keynes, which took away a huge chunk of rural Buckinghamshire.
Buckinghamshire council has always been reasonable in its proposals. We have actually built tens of thousands of new homes in my constituency alone since the start of the century. Villages such as Haddenham are unrecognisable as a village after the level of development, and the developers keep piling in. There are more controversial proposals on agricultural land and on farmland being considered right now, just in the village of Haddenham. This issue comes up at door after door; people are fed up with the loss of farmland and our rural identity, and with making our countryside more urban.
The reason I will talk about fairness is that when we compare and contrast what Buckinghamshire is being asked to do with what the Mayor of London is being asked to do, he is being let off on his housing targets by 20%. That is in our great capital city of London, where there are oodles of brownfield sites crying out for regeneration, and people crying out to be able to buy homes—starter homes through to family homes and everything in between. Why is Labour London being let off on those housing numbers when our rural communities in Buckinghamshire are being asked to take the pain?
If I expand that argument on fairness, it is a reasonable expectation—as my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) has said is relevant to his constituency—that development from housing must be side by side with the other asks that are taking away our landscape, our nature and our agricultural land, which presents a challenge to food security. Those additional asks come on top of housing. There are the countless solar industrial installations that my constituency sees, from Rosefield in the Claydons through to Kimblewick and many others. The battery storage facilities that we see being proposed are again in the Claydons, and another one of them has popped up in recent weeks near Little Missenden in the south of my constituency.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East, we have the great destroyer, HS2, which has devastated mile upon mile of the Buckinghamshire countryside for no benefit whatsoever to my constituents. I ask the Minister to reflect on the point of fairness and, when he considers housing targets on rural communities, to look at the other projects going on—many of them state sponsored, such as HS2—that have an impact on those rural communities.
My last point is that many services cannot cope with the residents we already have, be it GPs or hospital services. Let us take the Chiltern line, for example. The population growth is such that at Haddenham and Thame Parkway station, people are regularly being left behind on the platform in rush hour. That is not the fault of Chiltern Railways: it is because of the sheer growth in demand without anything to make up for it. I ask the Minister to reflect on fairness, and on the multiple demands on our rural communities, and to think again about the balance between rural and urban.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate. It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith). His constituency is a different environment, with a different set of conditions. It is interesting that he presented this as a question of fairness, in the sense that house building is an imposition rather than an opportunity for local communities. I will explain why I say that later.
Planning should fundamentally be about meeting need, not greed, but it is too often driven by greed rather than need. That underlies the wrong dynamic, which is creating a lot of the ill feeling towards the kind of development that the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire and others have described. The Prime Minister has created a false dichotomy by saying that he is backing
“the builders, not the blockers.”
My fear is that it is putting greed before need, but by proxy, if it is handled wrongly.
The fundamental failing of decades of setting housing targets in the ways that successive Governments have is that they are both wrongly conceived and based on the naive delusion that private developers would be willing to collude with the Government in driving down the price of their completed product. That is a naive delusion that, I am afraid, has adherents in all political parties. They have adopted the view for decades that if we build enough, the price will come down and the developers will co-operate with us in doing that. That has simply not happened.
The fundamental problem with setting house building targets is that house building is a means to an end. The end is meeting housing need. The targets could be to reduce housing need and planning applicants would have to demonstrate how their developments would address that need and reduce the need on an annual basis, rather than simply building to their commercial advantage. In places such as Cornwall, they build to meet the requirements of property investors, second home owners and holiday lets. We do not get the kind of developments that are there to meet local housing need. That is why house building targets are a means to an end, not the end. We see them as a proxy for what we are trying to fundamentally achieve. That is why they are both ill conceived and a naive delusion.
Cornwall is one of the best examples of where that policy has fundamentally failed because it has almost trebled in size. Like Buckinghamshire, it is proportionately one of the fastest-growing places in the United Kingdom. It has almost trebled its housing stock in the last 60 years, yet the housing problems of local people have got worse. I am not saying that we should not build houses and therefore will meet need; I am simply saying that setting house building targets has created an environment in which the wrong type of housing has been developed.
I have to declare an interest: during my nine-year sabbatical away from this place, I was a chief executive of a registered provider, a housing association. I therefore worked in the sector and know how the dynamics of the system work. I know how one battles with landowners, who have massive hope value—expecting that they can get 100 times the agricultural land value on the edge of their town and village if they can get away with it. That is just human nature; it would apply to any of us.
Nicholas Ridley, who was the Environment Secretary back in the early ’90s, introduced the rural exceptions policy, which was the first break from a planning policy that was based purely on use rather than the user. The policy meant that if a development met a local housing need in perpetuity, it would be allowed as an exception. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) mentioned that the policy needs to be expanded, and indeed it should. In Cornwall, where the policy is well founded, much affordable housing development is delivered through rural exception sites. It is quite a powerful policy.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
It is fascinating to hear my hon. Friend talk about the success of rural exception sites in Cornwall, but elsewhere only 14 of 91 local planning authorities that have a policy of using rural exception sites have actually built houses using the policy. Why does that discrepancy exist?
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Member that we have less than two minutes before we have to move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople.
Andrew George
I beg your pardon, Ms Jardine—I ran away with myself. As far as my hon. Friend’s question is concerned, a range of reasons make it extremely difficult to deliver on rural exception sites. One of the difficulties, which I have expressed to the Minister, is that the viability thresholds are quite difficult for housing associations to meet, particularly if the thresholds are based on a cost to value ratio. If the value of properties in a particular location is low, we get into the absurd situation in which the development cannot proceed under that formula. That has counterproductive consequences: the bigger the targets, the bigger the hope value on the edges of communities. It sounds counterintuitive, but the best way of meeting housing need in rural areas is to draw the development boundary tightly and not allow development around it, and to have a very strong rural exceptions policy.
We also need to build in the ability to deliver an intermediate market, by which I mean part-sale or discounted-sale homes that are available in perpetuity for all subsequent local occupants who meet a local first-time buyer requirement. We need to control second homes in rural areas, as well as addressing all the other issues relating to affordable housing need.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a district councillor.
Everyone deserves a decent home and should be able to find that home near family, friends and work, but young adults in rural areas do not have that opportunity. The Campaign to Protect Rural England reports that in the five years to March 2023, rural homelessness increased by 40%. From my work as a district councillor, and indeed from my MP casework, I know that much existing rural housing suffers from damp, is poorly insulated and relies on oil or bottled gas for heating.
The Liberal Democrats know that development can benefit rural communities, but only if those communities are fully involved in the decisions about that development. We welcome the priority given to housing. As well as building more houses, we must ensure that they are high-quality homes. The Conservatives let developers get away with building to poor standards and without the GPs, schools and community infrastructure that are so badly needed, especially in rural areas. They also let developers off the hook for leaving land for housing unbuilt and new homes empty.
Liberal Democrats would build 150,000 new social homes to tackle the housing shortage crisis, and give renters a fair deal by immediately banning no-fault evictions and creating a national register of licensed landlords. We welcomed those measures in the Renters’ Rights Bill. We want housing development that is community led, by integrating infrastructure and public services into the planning process. With proper community engagement, local amenities such as GPs, schools and public transport will be built alongside the new homes.
We believe that local authorities should have greater powers to build their own homes and hold developers to account. Local authorities, not central Government, are best placed to know what developments are needed in their area. In my Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency, Bottisham parish council has been exemplary in working with developers to identify sites to deliver affordable housing and maintain a strong sense of a village community.
Land for housing is in limited supply, yet land with planning permission is often banked by developers. The Government must unblock the thousands of permitted homes that are not being built, and allow councils to buy land at current use value, rather than an inflated hoped-for value, so that more social and affordable homes can be built.
None of this housing should come at the expense of our environment. The Government must deliver house building and protect our environment. South Cambridgeshire district council has an excellent record on that, with Cambourne and Trumpington Meadows in Cambridge both delivering housing and open space for wildlife and recreation, in partnership with the local wildlife trust. In my constituency, the development of Waterbeach also has green space at its core.
For the planning process to be run effectively, our local authorities need strong planning departments, which takes money. As well as the Government providing more funding, local authorities should be able to set their own fees, so that they have the capacity to consult appropriately and assess each case fully and promptly.
Finally, houses do not build themselves, and we do not have enough qualified construction workers. Further education colleges need sufficient long-term funding to set up the courses to train those workers, and we need to look at the qualifications required to teach the courses. Some older, experienced construction workers are not eligible to teach because they have older qualifications. We need to review whether their existing qualifications and experience are sufficient, or they can be fast-tracked to achieve the new qualifications, so they can teach the next cohort of bricklayers, plumbers and other construction workers.
Jim Shannon
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing up an important point about apprenticeships. In my constituency, where there is a tradition of service in the construction sector, there is a shortage because there is better pay for those outside the sector. Does she agree that if there is to be a change, with maybe a three-year apprenticeship, there needs to be a better pay structure, to incentivise people into the construction sector?
Charlotte Cane
I agree with the hon. Member, and we need to look at the salaries for the trainers as well.
We stand ready to support the Government to get more houses built, including in rural areas, but the planning reforms must work with local communities, not cut them out of the process. Local authorities must be resourced and empowered to ensure that developers build the houses, with adequate GPs, schools, shops and other infrastructure, and green space for people and nature at the heart of all developments. We must ensure that most of those houses are the social and truly affordable homes that so many people in rural areas desperately need.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine, and to respond to this debate, secured by my close constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). He is my former boss—I was his special adviser—and as you can tell from this afternoon, Ms Jardine, I was never allowed to write his speeches because he is so brilliant at orating in the Chamber. He is a doughty champion for his constituents in East Hampshire and I congratulate him on securing the debate.
In December 2024, the Government published their reforms to the national planning policy framework, which included the reintroduction of mandatory house building targets. As of March 2025, some local authorities will face an overwhelming fivefold increase in new housing targets, dictated by central Government. These targets will hit many rural areas’ councils hardest, as my right hon. Friend outlined, and they are to be imposed with little regard for local people.
We firmly believe that building more homes is a necessity. As my right hon. Friend and Members from all parties have said, for too long the dream of home ownership has felt out of reach for many hard-working families. We must make that dream a reality for as many people as possible. A property-owning democracy in which people in different areas can own a house is vital to giving maturing and succeeding generations a stake in the society in which they live. Although I am supportive of the Government’s ambitious goal to build 1.5 million new homes, I must stress that those homes must be the right homes built in the right places, by a method that ensures that the voices of local communities are listened to.
The troubling reality is that the Government’s housing targets are, frankly, unrealistic—and they know it. The chief executive of Homes England has cast doubts on whether the Government can realistically meet their goal of building those homes. In a Select Committee hearing last year, the Minister himself said that it will be hard and virtually unachievable for them to build 1.5 million homes in the lifetime of this Parliament. A recent County Councils Network survey found that nine in 10 councils cited a lack of infrastructure as the main reason why they could not support the new targets, with the delivery of new schools, doctors’ surgeries and other social infrastructure lagging behind the delivery of housing.
The targets are not just unrealistic and unpopular; the methodology behind them seems to represent a cynical gerrymandering exercise of political opportunism. For example, take east Hampshire, the New Forest and Fareham—these areas are being told to build more houses than Manchester, and the New Forest and north-east Hampshire include a national park and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Meanwhile, cities such as Labour-run Southampton, Nottingham and Coventry see their targets slashed by as much as 50%. It does not add up. The Government’s new method punishes Opposition councils for their success and rewards Labour local authorities for failure.
Why have the Government reduced housing targets in urban areas, where it is easier to build due to existing infrastructure, population density and the availability of brownfield sites? Instead, Labour reforms to the NPPF have resulted in top-down targets that will silence local voices. They have chosen to prioritise building in rural areas and on the green belt rather than on focusing where the demand for housing is greatest: in our cities and urban centres.
Under the Government’s proposals set out in the NPPF, councils and county areas will have to deliver at least an extra 64,769 homes per year, equating to 1,240 homes per week. That is seven times higher than the targets for large towns and cities governed by metropolitan authorities. It rewards city councils such as Labour-run Southampton city council, which has consistently underdelivered on its targets. Having been required to deliver 1,473 houses in the 2023-24 period, the council built a mere 261. In response, the Government have opted to ensure the council is spared further humiliation for failure by having its target cut by 12%. It is a similar story across the country. In some rural areas, housing targets will increase by 113%, while in urban settings the increase will be a mere 1%—if indeed there is an increase at all. How does that make sense?
The Minister will know that I am no fan of Liberal Democrat-run Eastleigh borough council, which is building double the number required because of its excessive borrowing and failure to run a decent council. But his policies are unfair to councils like that, too. Eastleigh is facing a 42% increase in its house building requirement, from 645 houses a year to 922, but it has consistently overdelivered on its housing targets over the last five years. Where is the retrospectivity that should be delivered to successful councils that have overdelivered on their promises and housing targets over the last period?
Richard Foord
Did I just hear the hon. Gentleman describe his local Liberal Democrat council as successful?
Paul Holmes
No. The hon. Gentleman is grasping at straws. The Liberal Democrat-run administration in Eastleigh is anything but successful if we look at value for money and the £750 million of debt that its leader has accrued for the people of Eastleigh. The council’s method of paying off that debt was to build beyond the expected targets while destroying green areas in my constituency. But it is still not fair that my local council is being asked to deliver more homes despite having delivered more than was required. That is my point. There needs to be retrospectivity for councils that have delivered on those conditions.
The issue is the same in east Hampshire where, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire noted, the target will rise by 98%, from 575 to 1,142. Fareham, which covers half of my constituency, will see a 62% rise, from 498 to 800 houses. Why are councils that have built more than their required share of housing being punished for their success, whereas the pressure has been taken off the Government’s political allies—generally Labour councils—despite their continued failures to deliver? It is beyond belief that rural areas, which are already struggling with infrastructure and a fragile environment, are being handed inflated housing targets while urban areas, with a far greater demand for housing, are seeing their targets reduced. That is not just poor planning; it is unfair.
Protecting the green belt and preserving our natural environment are non-negotiable, yet under the new policies we are seeing parts of the green belt reclassified as grey-belt land for development, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) said. We cannot allow unsustainable urban sprawl to destroy what we have worked so hard to preserve, including national parks, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) outlined.
One of the most disheartening aspects of the debate is the way in which the Government have cut key programmes such as the right to buy and first-time buyers’ stamp duty relief, while simultaneously reducing the number of affordable homes for purchase. That is not the way to help people on to the property ladder, it is not the way to address the housing crisis, and it certainly should not come at the cost of rural England—and Labour MPs agree. Indeed, 14 Labour Front Benchers have campaigned against house building in their own constituencies, which contradicts the Prime Minister’s pledge to have a Government of builders, not blockers. If Labour cannot even get its own party to back its housing targets, how can it expect its Labour council leaders to do so?
Joe Morris
One of my first visits as a new constituency MP was to Allendale parish council, in one of the most rural areas of my constituency. The council told me that it recognises the need for housing, so it is rather cynical to say that it would be the death of rural England to build more houses.
Paul Holmes
The hon. Gentleman is right in that he should have devolution, and the Government have brought that forward. His Labour leader may want to build more houses, but the Government’s algorithm is making it easier to build huge numbers of houses in rural England, where the infrastructure is harder to deliver, while generally Labour councils in urban centres are having their targets cut. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head, but I have just outlined the figures that show that that is the case, including in London. The Minister really needs to go back and re-look at the algorithm, as colleagues on this side of the House have asked him to.
In conclusion—many will be pleased to know—the road ahead is challenging, but it is not insurmountable. We can build the homes we need if we listen to communities, respect local voices and commit to sustainable development. The Government should rethink their house building algorithm to depoliticise the policy, and do local authorities the courtesy of not punishing their hard work on meeting previous targets. I stand with the Minister ready to come up with an algorithm that works for rural and urban areas. If he takes up that offer, the Conservative party will be committed to helping to deliver the 1.5 million homes he has outlined. Let us work together to ensure that the dream of home ownership remains within reach for everyone, and do so in a way that respects our environment, our countryside and our way of life.
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I ask him to ensure that we have two minutes at the end for the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) to wind up.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I note your stricture on the two minutes at the end, Ms Jardine. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair.
I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate. I also thank him for so clearly articulating his concerns about the implications of housing targets for his constituency. As he might expect, I take issue with a number of the arguments he made, for reasons that I will come to, but no one can be in any doubt as to his commitment to forcefully representing the views of those he represents. I also thank the shadow Minister and other hon. Members for their contributions in what has been a thoughtful and well-informed debate.
I must make it clear at the outset that I am unable to comment on individual local plans or local planning applications, or, for that matter, on how individual local planning authorities may interpret national planning policy. That is due to the quasi-judicial nature of the planning process and the potential decision-making role of the Deputy Prime Minister. I can and will, however, make general comments as they relate to the various matters raised, and I will touch on each of the three specific points raised by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire in his opening speech.
I do not think any Members present would dispute that England is in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis, and we have heard several arguments to that effect. The crisis is blighting the lives of not just those at the sharp end in temporary accommodation, but the many families out there desperate to buy a first home of their own. It is also hampering economic growth and productivity, and consuming ever-larger amounts of public money in the form of the rapidly rising housing benefit bill.
The crisis has many causes, but among the most important is a failure, over many decades, to build enough homes of all tenures to meet housing demand in both rural and urban areas. The Government are absolutely determined to tackle it head on, which is why our plan for change commits us to an ambitious and stretching—I have never been anything other than candid about the fact that it is incredibly stretching—milestone of building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. I gently say to the shadow Minister that it is not enough to will the ends; we have to will the means as well. That is why we have instituted various reforms to date, and we are planning more.
Planning reform is integral to meeting that manifesto commitment, which is why we have already overhauled the national planning policy framework to reverse the anti-supply changes made by the previous Government in December 2023, and to introduce a range of measures that will enable us to build the homes and infrastructure that the country needs.
We believe in a plan-led system. It is through local development plans that communities shape decisions about how to deliver the housing and wider development that their area needs, and those plans must remain the cornerstone of our planning system. However, we are clear that local decisions must be about how to meet housing need, not whether to do so at all. That is why we have restored mandatory housing targets, as the manifesto on which we stood and won a decisive victory last July committed us to doing. That means that local authorities must use the standard method as the basis for determining housing requirements in their local plans.
However, we made it clear that a mandatory method is insufficient if the method itself is not adequate to meet housing need. That is why our revised NPPF implements a new standard method for assessing housing needs, which aligns with our ambitions for 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. We think that the new standard method strikes the right balance. Indeed, we adjusted it from the proposals we consulted on last July in response to significant feedback from experts, developers and local authorities across the country, much of which pressed us on the fact that the formula we consulted on was not sufficiently responsive to affordability demands. The revised NPPF that we published on 12 December contains the adjusted method.
The new method better responds to affordability pressures by using a higher affordability adjustment in its calculation. That recognises the importance of housing affordability in assessing housing needs, and helps direct more homes to where they are most needed and least affordable. It also provides greater certainty to the sector through more stable and predictable housing numbers compared with the previous approach, which, as the shadow Minister will know, relied on out-of-date demographic projections and unevidenced and arbitrary adjustments.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire raised a specific concern about how the standard method translates into local plan making. Although local authorities are expected to use the standard method to assess housing needs, they are able to justify a lower housing requirement than the figure set by the method on the basis of local constraints on land availability, development and other relevant matters such as national landscapes, protected habitats and flood risk areas. Local authorities will need to consider these matters as they prepare their plans, but we expect them to explore all options to deliver the homes that their communities need. That means maximising brownfield land, densifying available brownfield sites, working with neighbouring authorities on cross-boundary housing growth, and, where necessary, reviewing the green belt.
Damian Hinds
Does the Minister accept the point that local councils do not want to end up in legal proceedings? They can cost an awful lot of money, and there is an awful lot of weight placed on knowing that the plan is sound. A council takes a risk by deviating from the standard method. Yes, the guidance says that it can deviate as long as it can prove—well, I am genuinely not sure what the guidance says, but whatever it says is not totally clear to people. It leaves a great deal of nervousness that deviation would leave councils exposed to potentially very high costs, which are ultimately borne by local people. Could the Minister look at clarifying the advice on how one can deviate from the method?
Matthew Pennycook
I will reflect on the concerns that the right hon. Gentleman raises about the clarity of the guidance, but local planning authorities can and do prepare, develop and submit local plans, arguing that those constraints exist and that their housing requirement should therefore be lower than the standard method indicates. They are expected to evidence and justify that approach to planning for housing in their local plan consultation. Ultimately, at plan examination, that will be scrutinised by a planning inspector to determine whether the constraints are justified and whether the plan is sound.
The right hon. Gentleman and others mentioned the balance between rural and urban housing targets. We recognise that the targets we introduced are ambitious and mean uplifts in many areas. However, we believe that the significant and entrenched nature of the housing crisis in England means that all areas of the country, including rural areas, must play their part in providing the homes that their communities need. That will enable us to deliver 1.5 million homes.
I strongly reject the idea that, through the new formula, we are reducing the number of houses that need to be built in urban areas. The new formula directs housing growth to our large urban areas. It does not do so on the basis of an arbitrary 35% urban uplift like the one the previous Government applied to the 20 largest cities and urban centres. Instead, across all city regions, the new standard method increases targets by an average of 20%, and through it housing growth is directed towards a wider range of urban areas—smaller cities and urban areas, as well as the core of large cities. We think that is a better method by which to proceed.
Several hon. Members mentioned the green belt. The manifesto on which the Government were elected was clear that the green belt has an important role to play, and that a number of its intentions, including preventing urban sprawl, have served our towns and cities very well over many decades. The Government will always look to brownfield first; ours is a brownfield-first approach. We took measures in the revised NPPF last year to strengthen that approach to brownfield land. We are consulting on a brownfield passport to make it easier to prioritise and accelerate delivery on brownfield land.
We have also been very clear that there is not sufficient land on brownfield registers across the country, let alone enough that is viable and in the right location, to build all the homes we need, so we need to take a different approach to the green belt to ensure that it better meets the needs of the present generation and future generations. Our changes are intended to ensure that we go from the haphazard approach to release and development under the previous Government—plenty of green belt was released haphazardly—to a more strategic and targeted approach that ensures that, where we are releasing the green belt, we release the right parts of it, such as lower-quality grey-belt land, and that golden rules apply so that communities have the quid pro quo of sufficient affordable housing, access to nature and good infrastructure.
Andrew George
On greenfield development, whether it be in the green belt or outside it, rural housing developments often take place in green locations. In the light of that, will the Minister ensure that the Government strengthen local authorities’ ability to use the rural exception policy? We would rather pay 10 times agricultural value than 100 times agricultural value, because we cannot deliver affordable homes on land at that price.
Matthew Pennycook
I will come on to rural exception sites, but the hon. Gentleman draws attention to an important point. Under the revised NPPF, it will be for local authorities to make these decisions and conduct green-belt reviews to identify the grey-belt land in their areas. The Government will provide guidance and support with the methodology, but ultimately local areas will make these decisions through the reviews they carry out. We have ensured that the sustainability of sites in the green belt is prioritised. No one wants isolated and disconnected development, which is why our policy asks local authorities to pay particular attention to transport connections when considering whether grey belt is sustainably located.
I want to touch briefly on infrastructure. The Government recognise that providing the homes and jobs we need is not sufficient to create sustainable, healthy places. Our communities also need to be supported by an appropriate range of services and facilities, as the right hon. Member for East Hampshire made clear. National planning policy expects local authorities to plan positively for the provision and use of shared spaces, community facilities and other local services to enhance the sustainability of communities and residential environments, taking into account local strategies to improve the health, social and cultural wellbeing of all sections of the community.
The revised NPPF also includes changes intended to ensure that the planning system supports the increased provision and modernisation of key public services infrastructure such as health, blue light, library, adult education, university and criminal justice facilities. Local authorities should use their development plans to address the needs and opportunities for infrastructure. They should identify what infrastructure is required and how it can be funded and brought forward. Contributions from developers play an important role in delivering the infrastructure that mitigates the impacts of new development and supports growth. The Government are committed to strengthening the existing system of developer contributions to ensure that new developments provide appropriate, affordable homes and infrastructure. We will set out further details on that matter in due course.
Before winding up, I want to touch on housing targets and national parks. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire knows I am well aware of the concerns about housing targets in his constituency and the particular challenges of setting those targets for East Hampshire, given the boundary overlaps with the South Downs national park. As part of our package of reforms in December 2024, we set out further guidance for local authorities on that very matter, and we provide flexibility in policy for those areas when calculating housing needs and setting targets.
The right hon. Member knows that this is primarily related to the availability of appropriate data for those areas. Officials in my Department regularly engage with officials from the Office for National Statistics and other stakeholders on a range of matters, including the data and statistics available to make decisions on housing needs. We will continue to do so as we drive forward our planning reforms. Although we expect all areas to contribute towards our housing ambitions, we recognise the unique role of national parks. That is why national policy is clear that within national parks, new housing should be focused on meeting affordable housing requirements and supporting local employment opportunities and key services.
We expect rural exception sites to come forward wherever possible. Policy helps local authorities meet the local housing needs of rural communities, enabling local people, those with a family connection or those with employment connections to live locally and help sustain thriving places. We want to go further in this regard to better support and increase rural affordable housing. We sought views on this issue specifically as part of the NPPF consultation last summer. We are committed to considering further measures to support affordable housing in rural communities as part of the work that is under way to produce a set of national policies for decision making next year.
I thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire once again for giving the House an opportunity to discuss these matters and other hon. Members for taking part. If anyone has particular constituency concerns, I am more than happy to meet them, but I appreciate their putting their views on the record in this debate.
Damian Hinds
We have had a good debate; it has been constructive and thoughtful. I sincerely thank the Minister, who is a thoughtful Minister; he does listen, and he engages very positively. I also thank the Opposition spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), and all colleagues who have taken part in the debate. We all recognise that we need more housing— and we need more housing everywhere. Every part of the country has to play its part. We need a shift to the sorts of homes, of all tenures but including in the open market, that allow first-time buyers and young families to get on the housing ladder. The targets need to be realistic, given the availability of materials and people to build them, and they need to be accompanied by the critical infrastructure and services that people mention all the time at our surgeries.
We also need to make sure that the balance is right between urban and rural areas. I hope the Minister will reflect further on some of what has been discussed today, which is not made as a nimby-type argument, but is about making sure we can maintain our countryside—that is important for town dwellers as well as for rural dwellers—and helping the Government to deliver on their correct objectives on economic growth and decarbonisation. Thank you, Ms Jardine, for presiding over the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered housing targets in rural areas.