Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what investment they are making in the planning system to ensure that planning departments have the resource they need to address planning application backlogs.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Supporting local planning authorities to attract, retain and develop skilled planners is crucial to ensuring they provide a proactive, efficient planning service for local communities and that new developments are well designed and facilitate local growth.

The government appreciates that planning departments across the country are experiencing challenges with recruitment, retention, and skills gaps and that in many cases these issues are having a negative impact on service delivery.

At the Budget last year, the Chanceller announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-2026.

Our manifesto committed us to appointing 300 new planning officers into LPAs. We are on track to meet that commitment through two routes, namely graduate recruitment through the Pathways to Planning scheme run by the Local Government Association and mid-career recruitment through Public Practice.

On 27 February 2025, the government announced funding to support salaries and complement graduate bursaries. Further information can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement Minister Pennycook made on 27 February 2025 (HCWS480).

On 25 February 2025, the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 were agreed. These regulations increase planning fees for householder and other applications, with a view to providing much-needed additional resources for hard-pressed LPAs.

More broadly, the Department’s established Planning Capacity and Capability programme is also developing a wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that LPAs have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, to modernise local plans and speed up decision making, including through innovative use of digital planning data and software.

Lastly, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes provisions that will allow LPAs to set planning fees or charges at a level that reflects the individual costs to the LPA to carry out the function for which it is imposed and to ensure that the income from planning fees or charges is applied towards the delivery of the planning function.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their policy paper Backing your business: Our plan for small and medium sized business (CP 1358), which regulations they will repeal to help cut the administrative cost of regulation to business by 25 per cent.

Answered by Lord Leong - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

We are working across government and with regulators to meet our ambitious target to reduce the administrative burden of regulation to business by 25%. As a down payment on this work, we announced reforms as part of the Industrial Strategy that will contribute. This included harnessing the potential of new technology to make compliance with money laundering regulations simpler using digital identity verification checks and removing requirements and increasing the permissible size for air source heat pumps. We will continue to work with business and stakeholders to identify further administrative savings. We will set out more detail in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support small housebuilders to build more homes, and according to what timetable.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Small and medium sized housebuilders are essential to meeting the government's housing ambitions and supporting local economies.

The government is acting to support SME housebuilders by increasing their access to land, providing further financial assistance and easing the burden of regulation. Further details can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement I made on 2 June 2025 (HLWS670).

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their policy paper Backing your business: Our plan for small and medium sized business (CP 1358), by what date the administrative costs of regulation for business will be cut by 25 per cent.

Answered by Lord Leong - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

We have committed to reduce bureaucracy for businesses by cutting the administrative costs of regulation for businesses by 25% by the end of this Parliament. We are working with taking a whole of government approach toward achieving this by asking all government departments to work with us to meet this ambitious target.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their policy paper Backing your business: Our plan for small and medium sized business (CP 1358), whether they will publish a detailed plan setting out the process and timetable for cutting administrative costs of regulation by 25 per cent for small and medium sized businesses.

Answered by Lord Leong - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Determining the cumulative administrative costs of regulation that businesses face, has not been done for 15 years. That’s why we are undertaking a baselining exercise to understand the administrative costs of regulation to all businesses, including SMEs. We have considered different analytical options and looked to identify the most proportionate methodology to calculate the baseline for costs.

We are working across government to identify savings to deliver this ambitious target and we will set out our more detail in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their target for the New Homes Accelerator for each year of the current Parliament.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The New Homes Accelerator (NHA) is a collaboration between the government, Homes England, the Greater London Authority (GLA), local authorities, developers, and other key stakeholders. It aims to unblock and accelerate the delivery of housing developments that have for various reasons become delayed, or which are not progressing as quickly as they could be. The NHA is helping to progress large development sites across the country by providing site-specific support and also addressing system-wide constraints.

Since July 2024, the NHA has announced 16 sites for site-specific support, with combined capacity for c. 48,600 homes, that will benefit from government support. To date, through our engagement with statutory consultees and arms-length bodies, we have unblocked nearly 100,000 homes.

The programme is constantly exploring new issues and blockers to address, which will determine the NHA’s level of impact. The NHA continues to work with Homes England, the GLA and other partner bodies to expand the programme’s capacity and impact over this current Parliament.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their target for housing delivery in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

This government is committed to delivering 1.5 million homes over this Parliament as set out in our Plan for Change. These will be high-quality, well-designed homes, supported by the necessary infrastructure, where people can thrive. In January, the Chancellor confirmed that the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor is a key economic priority for the country and we are working with local authorities across the region to help them do their part in planning for ambitious housing delivery.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what budget was allocated to the Office for Place during its existence, and what (1) budget, and (2) Civil Service headcount, they have allocated to the functions of oversight of design quality in new developments now that they have closed the Office for Place.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

We want exemplary development to be the norm and not the exception – this is the focus of teams across the Department. MHCLG’s design and placemaking policy team is comprised of 13 civil servants, including five staff who were redeployed from the Office for Place. The team is working across the Department to embed good design within housing and planning policy, and we will be publishing updated national design guidance later this year.

An additional five staff from the Office for Place were redeployed onto housing delivery to support efforts to improve the quality of new development. We can confirm that all staff who were working directly on Office for Place activities were transferred to MHCLG or their home departments. The Office for Place annual report and accounts are available on gov.uk here.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many new homes are currently being prevented from being built in Greater Cambridge due to water scarcity, and how many of these homes will be built following the introduction of the water credits system.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

No new homes in Cambridge are currently blocked due to water scarcity issues. Our work with the Water Scarcity Group has unblocked over 9,000 homes and over 500,000sqm of commercial space, and in December 2024, the Environment Agency lifted its objections to remaining blocked development following improvements to Cambridge Water’s Water Resource Management Plan and progress made by the Water Scarcity Group.

The Government is continuing to progress work to deliver water savings and develop a water credits scheme, to ensure that development between now and 2032 (when new water resources are delivered) can proceed. Further details will be announced in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many homes they estimate London will contribute to their target of 1.5 million new builds in each year of the current Parliament.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The government has set an ambitious target of 88,000 new homes per year in London through the new standard method and remains committed to working in partnership with the London Mayor, boroughs, and wider stakeholders to achieve a step change in building in the capital.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many homes have been delivered in London over the past five years.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Total housing supply in London amounted to 191,103 net additional dwellings (for the period 2019-20 to 2023-24).

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to change the planning system in (1) London, and (2) England and Wales, to make it easier for small housebuilders to obtain planning permission.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

On 28 May 2025, the government published the Planning Reform Working Paper: Reforming Site Thresholds (which can be found on gov.uk here) which seeks views on taking a gradated approach to the system as a whole – removing and streamlining disproportionate requirements on small and medium sites, while maintaining and strengthening requirements on major development. We are currently considering the responses received to the working paper.

The revised National Planning Policy Framework, published on 12 December 2024, also strengthened the wording around small site allocation for SME housebuilders and includes measures designed to promote mixed tenure development.

Housing is a devolved matter and it is for the Welsh Government to decide what reforms to bring forward in Wales.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many development consent orders they have determined since 4 July 2024.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Since 4 July 2024, the government has made 24 decisions on major infrastructure projects. 21 decisions were signed in the first year of this Parliament, which is more decisions in a single year than any previous government.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they will publish the list of sites for new towns which they commissioned the New Towns Taskforce to deliver.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The Taskforce submitted its report to the government this summer, which includes its final recommendations on potential locations for new towns. The government will take a short period to carefully consider the Taskforce's recommendations and publish both the report and its response in due course.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many asylum claims have been accepted based on religious conversion in each of the past five years in respect of conversions to (1) Christianity, (2) Islam, (3) Judaism, and (4) any other religion.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The requested information on asylum claims being accepted based on religious conversion is not available from published statistics and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

The Home Office publishes data on initial decisions on asylum claims in table Asy_D02 of the 'Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release' on GOV.UK. The latest data relates to the year ending June 2025. Between July 2020 and June 2025, 165,551 people have been granted protection or other leave at initial decision. There is no breakdown by religion available.

All asylum claims are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with the Immigration Rules. This means that religious conversions do not guarantee a grant of refugee status.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what reviews they have carried out into asylum claims based on religious conversions, and whether they intend to publish any findings.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

All asylum and human rights claims are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations, meaning religious conversions do not guarantee a grant of refugee status.

Home Office policy guidance provides a framework for considering asylum claims and assessing credibility. When assessing claims based on religious persecution, caseworkers are expected to ask appropriate and sensitive questions to explore a claimant’s personal experiences and journey to their new faith and gather evidence of current religious practice.

Our processes are underpinned by a robust quality assurance review process. Decision makers and quality assessors must adhere to the interview and decision marking standards, which are shared with caseworkers to improve understanding when receiving feedback.

We have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders to help us to improve our policy guidance, training for asylum decision-makers, and to ensure we approach claims involving religious conversion in the appropriate way.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they assess the credibility of religious conversion in asylum applications.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

All asylum and human rights claims are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations, meaning religious conversions do not guarantee a grant of refugee status.

Home Office policy guidance provides a framework for considering asylum claims and assessing credibility. When assessing claims based on religious persecution, caseworkers are expected to ask appropriate and sensitive questions to explore a claimant’s personal experiences and journey to their new faith and gather evidence of current religious practice.

Our processes are underpinned by a robust quality assurance review process. Decision makers and quality assessors must adhere to the interview and decision marking standards, which are shared with caseworkers to improve understanding when receiving feedback.

We have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders to help us to improve our policy guidance, training for asylum decision-makers, and to ensure we approach claims involving religious conversion in the appropriate way.

Found: Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. 57 Planning and Infrastructure Bill LORD ROBOROUGH BARONESS MACLEAN OF REDDITCH

Found: Planning and Infrastructure Bill 102 LORD ROBOROUGH BARONESS MACLEAN OF REDDITCH 346DD_ After Clause

Found: LORD ROBOROUGH BARONESS MACLEAN OF REDDITCH 346DD_ After Clause 87, insert the following new Clause