Building Homes
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Matthew Pennycook
That question sits slightly outside the framework, although, as I said, there are targeted changes to support the delivery of new affordable homes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have to do more about the decency of the existing social housing stock. We will be consulting on a new decent homes standard in the new year, as well as introducing Awaab’s law to clamp down on the most severe hazards.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Labour’s new housing target for Harborough is a 40% increase, and the target for Oadby and Wigston has doubled. Yet we can see that the overcrowding problem is worse in urban areas, and the gap between population growth and housing growth is worse in those areas, too. We can see the environmental arguments, too.
However, the Minister has announced today that the new target for London is about 11% lower than the old one. In the original round of numbers, Nottingham was down 21%, Birmingham and Leicester were down 31%, and Coventry was down 50%. Can he tell me what the numbers are now for those midlands cities? Are they all still going down, even as the targets for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston are going up?
Matthew Pennycook
I think the hon. Gentleman slightly misunderstands the situation for urban authorities. The housing targets are going up across metro areas.
Matthew Pennycook
I have been very clear about this. We have dropped the arbitrary 35% uplift introduced by the previous Government, which bore no relation to housing need. Metro area targets are going up. The hon. Gentleman will find out from the specific targets, which have been produced by our redistribution of the formula within that envelope, what the new numbers are for his two local authorities.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Jim McMahon
Again, I ask hon. Members to wait for the spending review on Wednesday, and for the provisional settlement in December. We are under no illusion about the pressures faced by councils on homelessness. In the end, we need to repair the system, which is about providing safe, secure and affordable housing for people to live in. We will do that, but we also recognise that there is a problem today. Further detail on that will follow.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Stretton Hall is one of seven sites that the Government have identified to date that we believe would benefit from support through the new homes accelerator, which is a joint programme between the Department and Homes England aiming to speed up the delivery of large-scale housing developments across England.
Neil O’Brien
Documents from Harborough district council reveal that there are sites with a capacity of up to 16,000 homes around Stretton Hall. The Government’s press release in August said that there would be around 4,000 homes on the site that they are involved in. Will the Minister confirm which Minister visited the site before the announcement? Will he agree to publish the methodology that led to our community being selected, and the list of sites that were considered but not selected?
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have not had the opportunity to visit the site, but I intend to do so in the future, along with the other new homes accelerator sites. On the point of principle, to meet housing demand and housing need in England, every area of the country must play its part. The site in question is currently being promoted in both the Harborough local plan and the Oadby and Wigston local plan, as it crosses the boundary of both local authorities. Although I appreciate that it does face a number of planning and enabling challenges, the Government believe that it nevertheless has the potential to make a significant contribution to housing supply in Leicestershire.