New Homes Commitment

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I recognise that we cannot look at housing in isolation; we need to get investment in the infrastructure and other factors to allow for growth. It is a good start to have had a £10 billion investment in housing supply since the start of this Parliament, but there is also investment to enable brownfield sites to be built out rather than the—sometimes easier—greenfield sites. We want to see brownfield development and that requires infrastructure, and the money is in place to do precisely that.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, is it not time that we had a meaningful new towns project which would benefit both owner-occupation and social housing throughout the United Kingdom?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I think we need to find ways of coming up with new town projects but to do that we need the infrastructure, the transport, the roads and the rail, and that is why we recognise that a programme just to build homes is not enough. We need to get that in the round, and we are taking it forward as part of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in this Session.