New Towns: Laying the Foundations (Built Environment Committee Report)

Lord Doyle Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Doyle (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Andrews and so many other noble Lords in this debate. I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, and the Built Environment Committee for making today’s debate possible. Its report is essential reading for all of us who want to see the Government’s promise of a new generation of new towns delivered, because that commitment to housebuilding in general, and new towns in particular, is both urgent and essential.

I will use my time today to focus on one of the new proposed town locations, that of Tempsford. It is in a part of Bedfordshire that I know well, having been born just down the road in Great Barford. Noble Lords will be forgiven if they are not immediately able to find Tempsford on a map, but its role in the Second World War, revealed in the recent opening of the archives, means that it certainly deserves to be better known. Indeed, the noted local historian Bernard O’Connor has described RAF Tempsford as “Churchill’s most secret airfield”. Between 1942 and 1945, the Special Operations Executive, along with RAF’s 138 and 161 special duties squadrons, operated from Tempsford. It was the primary departure point for hundreds of secret agents and for supplies for resistance movements across occupied Europe. It is particularly notable how many of those agents were women who, like those at nearby Bletchley Park, were unable to tell their own stories, so we should do so now.

Today, Tempsford finds itself at a crucial intersection of future road and rail development to support the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, making it the flagship growth corridor site. It would be a town of around 100,000 people, anchored in a new railway station connected to all points of the compass. As the New Towns Task Force said, it is “unique opportunity” and a

“standalone new town in Tempsford provides an opportunity for exemplar development that could provide excellent housing and employment opportunities for people in the region”.

The Government have said that they want to have at least three of these new towns under way by the time of the next election. Meeting that target, as has already been said, will require a level of co-ordination that, frankly, government is not always used to across so many different disciplines: rail, flood mitigation, utilities, land assembly and master planning. There is a traditional government approach that seems to insist on doing everything sequentially rather than simultaneously. I am afraid that I do not believe that we have time for such an approach. To that end, could the Minister please update the House on what progress has been made on land assembly for this project?

As mentioned, it is right that the new rail station is the anchor to this new town. It is in a unique position, connecting the millions of people who live along the east coast main line to new, exciting opportunities provided by the east-west rail line. It is where scientists from Cambridge will train change trains to meet investors in Leeds, or where families travelling from Edinburgh can connect to visit Universal’s United Kingdom Resort just down the road. Last week, the Government announced very welcome investment for the Wixams railway station to support Universal’s project. Can the Minister update the House on when we might be able to get a similar announcement for Tempsford railway station? There has been some suggestion that, on current plans, work would not start until 2030.

For Tempsford and other 21st-century new towns to be delivered, this Government need to be as bold and decisive as their post-war 1945 predecessor. I have no doubt that Ministers embrace that challenge. I simply urge the Government to hear that the clock is ticking, move at speed and learn the lessons of past Governments’ successes and failures, from London 2012 to HS2. We know what works: publish a single delivery plan, with one named senior responsible owner; align every workstream on one timetable; and confirm the delivery vehicle and early funding. A new town cannot be built by rail planners, flood engineers and landowners all working to different speeds, plans and managers. New towns such as Tempsford need one delivery body, one timetable and one accountable Minister to grip it.

In conclusion, the committee describes itself as a “critical friend” to the new towns programme. I look forward to following its ongoing work and to more debates such as this, because we need this work to succeed. The potential is huge and exciting. Let us get going with this most strategically important site and, in doing so, we can honour the legacy of legendary female secret agents, such as Vera Leigh, Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan, in the names of the glorious parks and boulevards of the new Tempsford. This project can be so much more than simply new homes; Tempsford new town can be at the frontier of an ambitious, better-connected, future-facing Britain.