Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Andrew Lewin Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

I spent the last seven years of my career working in the social housing sector, so I should like to think that I have some understanding of the scale of the housing challenge, the mistakes made by previous Administrations, and why now is the time to be bold. We need this planning Bill to be bold, because at present we are witnessing a housing crisis in three acts.

First, according to the latest available figures, private renters across the country spend nearly a third of their household income on housing costs. Private renters in all income quintiles—compared with people living in homes of any other tenure—spend the highest proportion of their household income on rent, and we know that the problem is especially acute in our cities and in the south of England. The affordability challenge is not just a problem for the individual, but a problem for society. Money that would otherwise be spent in the everyday economy is going to private landlords.

That is linked with the second point. The vast majority of private renters aspire to home ownership, but as private rents increase and house prices stay stubbornly high, the dream of home ownership looks ever more distant for those who are not lucky enough to rely on the bank of mum and dad. In my constituency the median house price of £435,000 is nearly 11 times the median income of £40,000.

Thirdly, there is the crisis in social housing. Since the right to buy took effect in 1981, we have seen a net loss of social homes in almost every year. That brings me to an earlier exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) and the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos). This problem was at its worst at the time of the coalition Government. As my hon. Friend said, there was a dramatic cut in the grant for social and affordable housing under that Government, and there was a double whammy because during the same Parliament, the Conservative Prime Minister increased the discounts for Help to Buy. Let me say to the Liberal Democrats that their former leader made a video apologising for university fees, and they may want to consider one apologising for their record on social housing.

To meet this crisis, we need to use all the levers at our disposal to build the homes and communities that the country needs. In the time that I have left, I want to focus briefly on two points. The first concerns clause 46—which has attracted some interest during the debate—and the provision to streamline planning decisions on smaller sites. It is vital that local accountability remains in the planning system, and that is protected through the need to have local plans in every community, all of which will require democratic consent. However, it is equally important that we speed things up so that we do not lose months or years endlessly discussing smaller sites that have already been debated and allocated in a local plan. Aspiring homeowners, hard-up renters and those in urgent need of social housing do not have time for that.

I am very invested in clause 91, which introduces long-overdue changes to the compulsory purchase order process and the removal of hope value. For far too long the losers in our system have been the prospective homeowners, the private renters and the social housing residents, while the winners have been the landowners. As it stands, many local authorities have to pay unrealistic premiums for land based on an estimate of its potential value, or hope value, which has too often made it unviable for councils to build much-needed social housing and infrastructure. That has to change, and the Bill will ensure that it does.

As we have heard in the House today, there are Members who want to find new and creative ways to argue against the need for new housing, but that has failed. The status quo has failed us. If we are serious about tackling the housing crisis, we need serious reform. The Bill will deliver it, and can be the catalyst for change.