Homes and Planning Bill

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Friday 13th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

If one person were housed, would the hon. Member think that a waste of time? Of course I would want to see the approach scaled up, because it is a principle that could be adopted in every single community. We are talking about a potential impact on a high scale.

I disagree with the hon. Member’s point about the ECHR. In any case, that could be ironed out in Committee. As I say, if I need to find alternative routes to achieve the Bill’s aims, I will. If necessary, I will take the relevant provisions out of the Bill rather than allowing progress to be stalled on a good idea that we should pursue—in my view, obviously.

I know that the Government will say that there are already powers in the planning framework and routes to identifying and assembling land for development, but those are not as properly and fully available to community-led projects as they are to larger developers. The community-led homes sector has not found that the Government’s measures have assisted it in achieving the outcomes that it needs.

On holiday homes, clauses 5 and 6 would provide communities with powers of control, to be adopted in areas that wish to pursue this approach. I emphasise that this is driven not by the politics of envy, but by the politics of social justice, as I hope I have already made clear. I spoke recently to someone on the Isles of Scilly who is in his early 50s. His parents separated when he was eight, and since then he has moved more than 60 times on the islands, from garages to winter lets to temporary accommodation. He holds down an important job on the island, as does his partner, who works in the public sector. Those are not unusual circumstances. [Interruption.] I know that some hon. Members think that is funny, but it is a serious issue in our area.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I do not find any of this funny, actually. There are 3,000 people in my city who are on a council waiting list, and we have a council that built less than 40 homes and has not even brought back the homes that we had. I do not find it funny that all we hear is tumbleweed when we ask our Liberal Democrat council to do anything to house people. We need to ensure that people use the rules that they have, so we can get proper housing and so people are not moved 10 times.

[Andrew George]

There are 25,000 people on the housing waiting list in Cornwall, and the surveys that I and others have carried out professionally indicate that that is the tip of the iceberg. There are many people who do not put their name on the waiting list because they know that it is a complete waste of time, as they stand very little chance.

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[Sarah Gibson]

Absolutely. I recognise that this Government are working towards that, which is why I feel very strongly that the Bill is adding to the work that the Government are doing, not detracting from it.

Over the years, we have seen the squeezing of affordable housing. It is what gets removed every time there is an economic crisis or an economic case for its removal—the social housing, the infrastructure and the quality of the housing itself. I particularly welcome the compulsory purchase provisions in the Bill, as they deal with the issues of affordability for housing associations and local government being able to actually provide this housing. Authorities need to be able to secure the land at a value that makes these homes deliverable, rather than allowing the inflated expectations of future development value to consume the viability of the scheme before a single home is built.

We also need to look again at who actually builds the homes. I speak regularly to the social housing providers in my area, and one problem in relying on developers to construct the affordable element of a large scheme, and then asking the housing association to acquire it, is that those homes have not necessarily been built with what the provider needs. The homes may be the wrong type of house or built to the wrong specification, and increasingly they may leave the provider with the additional costs of bringing them up to the standards the provider will shortly be required to meet.

By 2030, social landlords will need to meet new minimum energy-efficiency standards, and providers are therefore being asked to retrofit thousands of their existing homes while simultaneously finding the money to build new homes designed and built by somebody else.

[Amanda Martin]

Is the hon. Lady saying that people who live in social housing should not have those elements in their houses, whether they are retrofit or new build? Yes, those things are expensive, but we should absolutely ensure that everybody has a warm home to live in.

[Sarah Gibson]

As an advocate of the warm homes plan and as an architect trying to ensure this, I absolutely agree that everybody deserves a warm, safe and comfortable home. What the hon. Lady suggests is completely the reverse of what I am saying. I am saying that if the developer provides social housing that lacks those things, it is therefore the social housing provider that has to retrofit the housing to ensure that it is delivering on the promise of the 2030 agreement. It is a real problem that local developers are still putting in gas boilers and the social housing provider is having to retrofit the homes with alternative forms of heating. I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to ensure that our social housing is fit for the future, but getting the developer to build it on behalf of the social housing provider is probably not the best way of doing it.

If we can give social housing providers the capital to commission the homes that their communities actually need, we would also be able to diversify who delivers housing. We need the councils, housing associations, community land trusts, small builders and private developers all to play their part, rather than depending so heavily on a small number of large developers and a single model of delivery.

That is why I also welcome the provisions in the Bill that strengthen the role of community land trusts, parish and town councils and neighbourhood planning. People are much more likely to support development when it is community led: the homes are genuinely affordable; local families can access them; and, as the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) mentioned earlier, when much-needed infrastructure comes with the homes, the development can enhance the existing towns and villages, rather than just being a bolt-on to the side, adding to the pressures of existing services.

Good placemaking is not a barrier to growth; it is one of the foundations of sustainable growth. This Bill begins to reconnect land planning and community delivery. I really hope that even if the Government cannot support the Bill in its current state, they will continue to work with my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives. I congratulate him on bringing this Bill before the House.

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on his laudable Bill, but it is just a sticking plaster on the housing crisis we are experiencing and many of the measures are unnecessary—[Interruption.] I hope I have not offended the hon. Member. I thought I was being quite nice! The measures are unnecessary for councils dedicated to building communities and not just housing. In fact, too many councils led by the Opposition parties are, quite frankly, nimbys and blocking councils.

Milton Keynes is 60 next year, which is exciting for me and the MPs there. It is an example of what can be done when a council is committed to growth through building communities. In fact, everyone who has chosen to live in Milton Keynes is a pioneer—part of building the city that we are still creating. In every new estate, we build the school and GP surgery before the houses, rather than retrofitting them afterwards, and that is paid for by developers. We also build the infrastructure first. We are extending the grid roads, our famous roundabouts and our redways, which means that bicycles and pedestrians do not have to interact with the roads. Those provisions are set out in our council planning. Our community infrastructure—which ensures that communities have places to play, pray and gather—and our mixed housing, including social, affordable, private rent and private ownership, are set out in our “Strategy for 2050” plan. Having a five-year land supply, an up-to-date plan and a strategy that takes us out to 2050 allows us to put in place the things we need.

We are also building culture. Over 100 languages are spoken in Milton Keynes, and each and every one of those communities is celebrated. We respect the fact that diversity increases our innovation and our ability to build this new city. It is of no surprise to any of us—though it might be to others in the country—that we have been shortlisted for the city of culture.

[Amanda Martin]

I congratulate Milton Keynes on being shortlisted. Unfortunately, my city of Portsmouth was not—we were on the long list. [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] Yes, shame. I thank my hon. Friend for talking about the wider plans. My dad helped to build Milton Keynes—he was a gas fitter—and when Galley Hill estate was built, my parents moved there and were able to live in council housing because Milton Keynes had that forward thinking, so I echo her words.

[Emily Darlington]

I am sorry that Portsmouth was not shortlisted. I do not know what the bid was, but I am sure it was a fantastic one and that there will be opportunities in the future for Portsmouth to be city of culture. I want to recognise people like my hon. Friend’s father, who were part of building this new kind of city, and we continue in that spirit. When we built 183 new council homes, we ensured within the contract that local builders, plumbers, electricians and tradies were a part of the process—continuing the strategy of building homes with the people and talent we have in Milton Keynes.

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[Oliver Ryan]

Tory ones.

[Amanda Martin]

And Lib Dems.

[Emily Darlington]

And Reform. Councils from all the Opposition parties are frankly not looking at this issue strategically and building the continued infrastructure. Not everyone likes roundabouts, but I do not like traffic so I will take a roundabout any day.

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[Adam Thompson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. This Government’s drive towards building more homes is incredibly important.

Turning to the parts of the Bill that pertain to the creation of local plans, such plans already allow communities and councils to determine where development should take place, what infrastructure should accompany that development and the mix of the home types that we need to meet local demand. They are built on assessments of local housing need and they are subject to consultation with residents, businesses and community organisations.

I know this because in Erewash my colleagues on the council are currently going through the process of starting a new council local plan. In fact, this week Erewash borough council is publishing its first draft for a consultation to get the views of local residents on what they want to see in their community—indeed, in my community. For the first time, the council will be launching a brownfield land request, asking residents to identify brownfield sites that they believe could be suitable for development. This Government have a “brownfield first” policy. I think the council is doing great stuff in implementing that at a local level by allowing residents to put forward appropriate sites. It takes the conversation away from big landowners and developers and gives everyone the opportunity to chip in.

I want to put something on the record. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) recently talked about fleecehold. I want to talk about a local area in my constituency where this is occurring. Around the time I moved to Erewash, a little over a decade ago, there was a new estate being built just on the outside of Ilkeston called Elka’s Rise. It was a lovely few hundred houses in a great location. Indeed, at one point I even looked at buying a house there myself.

Since the completion of that estate, I have discovered by knocking on doors in the area and talking to residents that there are many issues—many colleagues will have had similar experiences. Residents have told me of a fee—I consider it to be almost a privatised council tax in many ways—that they are being forced to pay annually for the upkeep of space on the estate, whether it is the roads themselves, which have not yet been adopted by the council, despite being in good condition, or, in this case, the creation of a local play park that was never opened. The play park was built on flood land. Residents never got to use the space because it was completely unsuitable and unsafe. Fencing was put around the outside that was not safe. I went to look at the park and the grass was at chest height at one point. It was just dreadful. Yet the residents are being forced to pay for this on an ongoing basis.

I was pleased in recent months to hear about the work that the Government are doing to tackle this fleecehold approach, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister over the coming weeks and months about what more he will be doing to implement changes to address these issues. I was very grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central raised that issue, because I was keen to get that on the record.

I do want to say that local councillors Mark Alfrey and Kate Fennelly are doing fantastic work with the residents. They are doing everything they can to get as much of that land adopted by local councils so that we can take power away from those developers, who are really fleecing the residents.

In the interests of local need, with which this Bill concerns itself, the draft plan has set ambitious goals. Erewash borough council seeks to ensure that of the 6,800 homes that it is expected to deliver under its plan, 1,500 will be available for social rent. More than 20% of those new homes will be provided for social rent—I think that is great. This measure will help us move towards bringing down the unacceptable length of our social housing waiting list and ending the practice of families growing up in temporary accommodation.

I would also like to bring to the attention of the House the decision to create at least one new job for every home built. That will help to tackle youth unemployment and provide real opportunities for young people. It shows, again, the implementation of this Labour Government’s national policies at a local level by a Labour council, which I am incredibly proud of.

[Amanda Martin]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of jobs for our young people. I have worked closely with the construction industry, and I believe that our Government are doing many things to help support that industry, from introducing vocational subjects at age 14 to the Chancellor announcing paternity leave for self-employed men. It means that we can say to our young people, “This is a job and a career for life.” Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Adam Thompson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that fantastic intervention. I know that she is a powerful campaigner for tradespeople and their rights. Indeed, the Chancellor’s recent announcement about paternity leave for self-employed tradespeople is huge. Many of my closest friends who I grew up with are tradespeople. Lots have got young kids with more on the way, and I know that they are over the moon about this, because it means that they will have the opportunity to spend time with their children, which they would not otherwise have had. I thank her again for that wonderful intervention.

There is also a plan in Erewash to regenerate our town centres into mixed-use spaces, breathing new life into our high streets, as has been done to great success in places such as Bristol and parts of Manchester. Again, I think that shows the local implementation of progressive Labour national policy. I am very proud of the work that my colleagues on Erewash borough council are doing to begin building a local plan that is progressive and meets local need right across the board. I am looking forward to seeing how that plan evolves following the current consultation and building a real grassroots swell of support for what the council is doing. Taking people along with us is the most important way to deliver good policy.

That work—identifying that local need, allocating a fifth of those new homes for social rent, regenerating town centres and creating space for employment—demonstrates the powers that local councils already possess, such as the powers they are using to deal with empty second properties. They meet many of the goals set out in the Bill, and they do so using existing legislation.

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[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

A number of colleagues have spoken of their great respect for the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I have personal thanks to give to him, because many years ago—before Brexit, before coalition Governments and long before I had any grey hair—my first work experience in Parliament was in his office. He is a man who is committed to doing his best to tackle the housing crisis, and I have huge admiration for him.

I want to talk about the macro challenge of the housing crisis, which is the real issue that faces us today, but I will start by addressing the point made by the hon. Member about his ambition of having affordable housing secured in perpetuity. I want to reflect on the reforms that this Labour Government have made to right to buy, because they are so important. We are making changes that mean that any new social home built will have a 35-year exemption whereby right to buy cannot be exercised, and the discounts available to people who are seeking right to buy have been significantly reduced. That, by the way, reverses a decision made in 2012 under the coalition Government when those discounts were significantly increased.

As I said, I seek to talk to the big picture. I want us to build homes at scale and to have the greatest possible emphasis on building social and affordable housing. I am sorry that this may upset the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett), but I will start with how we got into this problem and talk a little about the collapse in social housing under the coalition Government. This is not party political point scoring; these are facts.

In 2010-11—the last year of the last Labour Government—the number of social homes completed was 39,000. That is a combination of council homes and housing association homes—homes for social rent. In 2015-16—the last year of the coalition Government—the number completed was 6,500. That collapse in social housing occurred when the hon. Member’s party were in government. I understand that many Liberal Democrat Members played no part in that Government, but we must recognise that the leader of their party, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), sat at the Cabinet table at that time.

It was not just under the coalition Government; it continued through the Conservative-majority Governments that followed. By the time we get to 2021, the net loss of social homes in this country from 2012 was 280,000. As a society, we were not just failing to build social housing but losing it year on year. That is why we have a national crisis and that is why this subject is rightly debated so frequently and intensely in the House of Commons.

[Amanda Martin]

The picture my hon. Friend paints nationally is very stark. In my city, at the peak we had 27,000 council houses, and we have had a loss of 11,000. We now have fewer than 16,000 in operation. Had we rebuilt those homes during that time, the 3,000 people on the waiting list would have somewhere to live.

[Andrew Lewin]

I could not agree more. I know that councils up and down the country have been battling, but it is the national choices made that have put us in this position.

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[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government.

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing fourth place in the ballot, and I thank him for bringing his Homes and Planning Bill before the House. He is a passionate advocate for more social and affordable housing in his constituency. He brings a wealth of frontline housing experience from his time away from the House and he has campaigned tirelessly—I recognise this—over many years for greater control over the number of second homes and short-term lets in the wonderful towns and villages he has the privilege to represent.

[Amanda Martin]

Does the minister agree that if the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) is so passionate about this issue, he should have a conversation with his Liberal Democrat colleagues who run my city council and clearly do not share the same ambition as him?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have always found that Liberal Democrats operate like a sort of franchise system around the country, where responsibility for individual decisions is not taken at the national level. I encourage Liberal Democrat Members to talk to their colleagues in those parts of the country where they are not acting along the lines that they have been advocating for today.