Houses in Multiple Occupation

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Lewell (South Shields) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting me this debate.

South Shields is a beautiful constituency, with our gorgeous coastline matched only by our friendly, lovely locals. Houses in multiple occupation are buildings or flats in which two or more households share a bathroom, toilet or cooking facilities. It is important to make the distinction, when discussing HMOs today, that I am not discussing supported accommodation, which provides much-needed care, supervision and support for those in need, nor am I discussing student accommodation or blocks of self-contained flats. This debate is also not about well-managed HMOs, because in South Shields they are not the majority of our HMOs, nor is this about stigmatising residents of HMOs, who, without a room in an HMO, would be homeless and literally have nowhere else to go. It is also not about asylum seekers in temporary accommodation. We have a welcoming community in South Shields, and have never turned away anyone in genuine need or seeking protection from conflict, war or persecution.

The fact that HMOs are used as a substitute for good social housing or supported living environments is a result of the failure of successive Governments to build enough affordable homes. It is a false economy, though, to saturate an area with HMOs instead of focusing on building good-quality social housing. I know the Government are taking steps to address this, but progress is painfully slow.

I have been to visit some of our HMOs in South Shields, and they are absolutely shocking. People living in HMOs deserve better, and my constituents putting up with the badly run HMOs blighting our community deserve better, too. In South Tyneside, we have approximately 60 HMOs, 51 of which are in my constituency. That accounts for 85% of the total across our small local authority. However, since a licence for an HMO is needed only if there are five or more people living in it, we really do not know how many they are. Smaller HMOs are not accounted for in the figures. Answers to written questions to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have also said that the Government have no idea how many HMOs there are, nor do they know how many have been closed due to licences not being properly adhered to.

But I live in my constituency. It is my home, and as all MPs do, I speak with my constituents regularly. We know and we see that the number we have in South Shields is unmanageable. In one street, there are properties housing nearly 100 HMO residents. In some streets, nearly every other property is an HMO. This is heavily concentrated in two parts of my constituency, Beacon and Bents, and West Park. We are all completely fed up of the crime, antisocial behaviour, violence, theft, damage to property and drug paraphernalia on our streets. We are fed up of drug addicts and alcoholics wandering around, exposing themselves and leaving excrement on our streets. We are fed up of the noise and the violence, the general rubbish and the rats, and the decline of our overall environment that is common to some of these HMOs.

I remember talking to one lady who said that she and her neighbours no longer let their children play out in the front garden or street. The last time they did, a drunk with his head split open tried to approach their little girls. This is not the South Shields that I grew up in. Streets that were once lined with grand houses leading down to our beautiful coast and into the town centre now feel unsafe to walk down for me and those of us who are proud to call South Shields our home.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for obtaining the debate. In the town of Bridgwater, we have had an increasing number of HMOs being developed. It leads to an enormous number of vehicles trying to park on a single road, it changes the nature of an area, and the council seems powerless to stop it. Does she agree that local authorities need additional powers to restrict the number of HMOs in any particular area, and furthermore, that permission should be required for HMOs with fewer than five people?

[Emma Lewell]

The hon. Member pre-empts what I am going to talk about later in my speech. I am also going to explain what we actually did in South Shields: residents and I forced our council to do exactly what he suggests.

The character and history of our housing is being demolished before our eyes. Housing is being chopped up by greedy developers who want to make money off the back of vulnerable people. These are streets I have known my whole life, and it is heartbreaking that this has been allowed to happen. It is impacting the quality of people’s daily life, house prices and community cohesion. Residents and I are totally fed up of it. We spent years working together to try to get the council to stop new applications and increase inspections. Every single time, we were tied in knots when it came to the legislation, and were told, “Nothing can be done. It’s just the way it is.” Last year, on 3 November, I presented a parliamentary petition on behalf of the people of South Shields demanding action, and that the council use the powers that it had to stop the proliferation of HMOs. I also asked in that petition for the Government to strengthen legislation in relation to the monitoring of HMOs, so that the badly run ones could be closed down quicker. Two days later, the council decided to implement what we were asking for: a borough-wide article 4 direction. That meant that regardless of the size of a property, planning approval would be needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way in a second, but let me briefly mention resources, which are really important.

It is vital that councils have the capacity to take action where needed. That is why we have provided £18.2 million in 2025-26 and £41.1 million for 2026-27 to support the new enforcement responsibilities that local authorities have taken on under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. We plan to establish a more sustainable funding system for enforcement in the private rented sector over the longer term based on future database revenue fees, but, again, I want to understand the challenges that particular local authorities are facing in that respect.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me just give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields before I come to the hon. Gentleman.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I do not have that information to hand. I am more than happy to follow up in correspondence with my hon. Friend, as I said. I will bring that data, and any further data we have available, to any meeting that we might have on this subject.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I suspect the answer to the hon. Lady’s question is “very few indeed.”

The issue in my Bridgwater constituency is that Hinkley Point C—a nuclear power station—is being constructed a few miles away. Many thousands of good workers have come to the town—their number will peak at around 12,000 in the next couple of years. The local council needs the power to restrict the number of HMOs in any particular street or district. Clearly, there is a housing need, so one understands why landlords convert those houses, but the resulting economic pressures bring a change upon the nature of certain areas. Councils need the power to restrict the concentration of HMOs.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Councils have that power. I do not know off the top of my head whether the hon. Gentleman’s local authority has consulted on and put in place an article 4 direction, but if it has not, I strongly encourage him to make that case so that his local authority makes full use of its powers.

This is the crucial point. Are the powers in place inadequate—in which case let us have that conversation among hon. Members—or are individual local planning authorities unable or unwilling, for whatever reason, to exercise properly the powers that they have? If that is the case, we need to understand what more they need in the way of resources, support and guidance to be able to do so.

Let me briefly touch on social and affordable housing. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields rightly said, the ultimate solution to ensure that we have enough housing supply in any given area is to build enough homes of all tenures, including social and affordable homes. She has welcomed our new £39 billion 10-year social and affordable homes programme, the largest long-term investment in social and affordable housing in recent memory. Our ambition is to deliver around 300,000 homes over the lifetime of that programme. As she knows, our target is for at least 60% of the homes delivered to be for social rent, to provide the genuinely affordable homes that families need in her area and others.

We are also taking decisive action to reinvigorate council house building, including a new 10-year housing rent policy, and we have reinstated rent convergence. That will strengthen councils’ capacity and confidence for building new homes. We are taking action to reform the right to buy, including returning right-to-buy cash discounts to between £16,000 and £38,000. Again, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields knows, we will go further in implementing the next phase of reforms through our Social Housing Bill, which is making good progress in the other place. Its measures include allowing councils to keep 100% of the receipts generated by right-to-buy sales, with increased flexibilities in how they can be spent.

We are already seeing many the fruits of many of the reforms that we have put in place. Data released just this morning by Homes England and the Greater London Authority in respect of affordable housing starts and completions shows that starts are up 26% and completions are up 8% on 2024-25, and we are delivering the highest number of social rent starts since 2010-11.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields mentioned the national scheme of delegation. We are modernising how planning committees function, and we have been very clear about the case for doing so. We want to ensure that in exercising their democratic oversight, planning committees are focused on the applications that require member input, not on revisiting applications and decisions that have already been taken.

We published a working paper on this in December 2024, and we carried out extensive engagement following that. We formally consulted twice on the reforms, once in May 2025, on the principle of a two-tier system with some decisions delegated to planning officers, and once in March 2026, on the draft regulations and guidance. We are to debate those guidelines next week.

I will gently push back on my hon. Friend’s contention that local voices and objections are cut out. Nothing in those regulations will stop local residents objecting to applications or registering their discontent, but we do think that on a certain set of applications, it is right that expert planning officers make the decisions.

I also just make the point that schemes of delegation are in place across most local authorities in the country. The problem is that there is huge variation, which is creating issues in the planning system. We want to streamline that with a simple set of rules across the country and a national scheme.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am happy to sit down and run my hon. Friend through the instrument in lots more detail than I can give from the Dispatch Box, but it is the case that the national scheme of delegation does not specify HMOs in particular. However, development not covered by the HMO permitted development right will fall into schedule 1 of the regulations relating to the national scheme of delegation, where those decisions will be delegated to expert planning officers. As I said, we want to ensure with these reforms that planning committees, and their valuable time, are focused on the most controversial applications where their democratic oversight is best placed.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous with his time. One reason why so many HMOs are required is the lack of social housing, certainly around Bridgwater. I have had developers approach me who have completed a private scheme, and they want housing associations or a charity to take those social houses off their hands, but they have not got the funds to do it. I have raised this with the Minister before, and he told me that he set up a register to match housing associations with developers who have social housing to effectively dispose of the units. Could he update us on how successful that register has been?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The register was successful in its aims in terms of providing operators with a chance to submit uncontracted, unsold section 106 units. Roughly over 4,000 units were put into that clearing service, which closed on 1 June. Through the policy intervention we made, we encouraged local authorities to consider how best to get those units moved, cascading to market sale in instances where they felt that they needed to do that. But that small number, which is far below the estimates we heard from some quarters, is a sign that some of the problem is working itself out. We are providing registered providers of affordable housing with greater financial capacity through our rent settlement, rent convergence and all the interventions we are making. Those measures are allowing them to buy more section 106 units and get those stalled schemes moving.

To conclude, local planning authorities already have powers to restrict the proliferation of HMOs. They already benefit from or can deploy licensing powers to ensure that HMOs are safe and well managed, and they do have, we believe, robust powers to ensure that landlords of HMOs comply with all relevant regulations.

As I said, I am very interested to hear from hon. Members about particular cases where they think that their local authority is not able to enforce the regulations that already exist, and of instances of actors circumventing that system—I was very interested in the example that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford gave. Those are the types of things we want to work through. If it transpires through those examples that the regulations are lacking in some way, we will take that into account. I have made it very clear that we keep the regulation of HMOs under review to ensure that the system works in the way that we want to see it work.

Question put and agreed to.

Representation of the People Bill

Ashley Fox Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly]

I value the contribution of people in this country whether they are or are not able to vote, but again, that does not address the point. I am going to move on now, because it is clear that Labour Members either will not or cannot address it. They do not seem to know whether they are giving votes to children or stripping childhood from 16 and 17-year-olds.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir James Cleverly]

I will give way, but then I will move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Does my right hon. Friend notice the inconsistency in the Government’s plans? They propose to lower the voting age to 16, but they do not propose to allow those same 16 and 17-year-olds to stand for Parliament, presumably because they are children.

[Sir James Cleverly]

I have tried on a number of occasions, but I have not received an answer either the Benches opposite or from the Benches to my left.

Grenfell Tower Annual Report

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

It is emotional to see the tower coming down slowly, brick by brick, but it is important for the community, and for all concerned about what happened, to know that the memorial commission is working with the community to secure a design for the memorial, which will be a lasting testament to what happened on that fateful night, and will honour the memory of those who lost their lives and their loved ones. My hon. Friend is quite right: nine years is a painfully long time to wait for justice. It is important, in such a complex investigation, that the police are given the time and resources they need to investigate properly, but we will of course encourage them to do that work as quickly as they can reasonably be expected to. We all expect them to bring to justice those who bear culpability for the deaths that night.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I welcome the funding that the Secretary of State has announced to support the memorial commission. We have a shortage of skilled builders, plumbers, electricians and other construction workers in this country. Is he confident that we have a sufficiently trained workforce to carry out all the remedial works in the timescale that he has outlined? If not, what additional steps can the Government take to ensure that the works are completed on time?

Local Government Finance

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

The Secretary of State and I will have had long experience of working with Morgan McSweeney during the many days he spent as head of the Labour group at the Local Government Association. I think that influence is reflected in the very political speech we have just heard from the Secretary of State. Despite its political excellence, I am struggling to reconcile his speech with what is actually in the finance statement he has laid before the House to agree this afternoon. We have a high level of agreement that local government touches all our lives in our communities. We recognise its huge potential to develop our economy, improve public health and give children a great start in life, and we know that the average local authority in this country delivers over 800 different services. They are there for us literally from cradle to grave, and are led by democratically elected councillors who run budgets that are bigger than those of many Government Departments, in organisations that are more complex than many a FTSE 100 business.

However, having served—like the Secretary of State—as a councillor under the last Labour Government, we see a swift reversion to type. Announcements of funding for social housing may arrive towards the end of the decade; funding for schools from VAT on fees for private education amounts to a real-terms cut in state school funding; and at the heart of what the Secretary of State has set out is a massive diversion of funding away from the legally enforceable statutory duties placed on councils by this Parliament and towards generalised poverty as a driver of those allocations.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that the Labour Government have abolished the rural services delivery grant, a decision that has cost Somerset council £4.1 million and has cost other rural counties many millions of pounds—rural counties in which it is more expensive to provide services? Does he agree that this is Labour diverting money from rural areas that are desperately in need to Labour strongholds in the north?

[David Simmonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. The analysis produced by the County Councils Network makes a comparison between the funding pressure on statutory services facing the urban councils that are the beneficiaries of the Government’s largesse, which totals £180 million a year, and the budget gap facing rural areas as a result of this Government’s decision, which is a £2.7 billion black hole.

Pride in Place

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The opportunity to invest through this in local community services and youth services is absolutely huge, and putting local mums in the driving seat is always a good thing.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that south Bridgwater has been included in this programme. These funds come on top of the £23 million allocated to Bridgwater under the last Government’s town deal. Parts of Highbridge in my constituency are equally deserving of funding, so can the Minister advise whether there will be any further rounds of allocating funding in this Parliament?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I think the hon. Gentleman is asking me to do the Chancellor’s job, which I shall not be able to do. We think that this is an exciting way of investing in our communities, and that there is a huge opportunity for us to leverage in additional investment. We are very keen to talk to social impact investors and philanthropists about how we can invest. There is also a lot of interest among the business community—local businesses and business improvement districts—in bringing this together. If we get this right and the funding in place leverages in additional funding, we will have shown that this is a way of operating that we can then roll out across the country.

Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Evans]

My right hon. Friend is spot on. That is why I wanted this debate, and many colleagues are here to raise that exact point.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that in the south-west the house building target for Somerset has risen by 41%, but in nearby Bristol, recently controlled by the Labour party, it has gone down by 11%?

[Dr Evans]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising yet another point. I am sure we could go round the House and get examples of city areas having housing targets go down, whereas countryside areas have them go up. We know we need more houses, and everyone must take their fair share, but we have brownfield sites that need redevelopment and already have the infrastructure in place. The last Government chose to prioritise those sites for housing, because they are connected and have the amenities that the local population needs. That makes a lot of sense. I look forward to this Government explaining their decision.

Neighbourhood plans were brought in under the Localism Act 2011, to give local communities the chance to shape what their community looks like.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate. It is really timely, not least because the Planning and Infrastructure Bill continues to make progress down the other end of this place. I hope that it continues to receive the scrutiny that such a huge piece of legislation requires.

Neighbourhood plans were designed to give local people a meaningful say in shaping development in their communities; as democratically elected Members of Parliament, we must never forget that. They are a crucial tool for ensuring local input and accountability. There has to be a place for local voices when it comes to planning. Even where there are no parish councils, as in my constituency, local residents expect a voice; they expect to be heard. Just the other week, I was out on site at Barr Lakes common with a group of residents regarding a specific planning application.

I fear that the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill risks undermining progress by centralising decision-making power and reducing the influence of local councillors and neighbourhood forums in planning decisions. That is why the funding for the NALC is so vital. If the Bill is allowed to pass, the resulting democratic deficit will risk elected councillors having only a limited role in scrutinising developments and—this is really worrying—denying them a meaningful voice in deciding applications, including those guided by neighbourhood plans. If neighbourhood plans are to remain relevant, the Bill must ensure that they have real weight and that local representatives retain genuine decision-making power.

We all know that neighbourhood plans are crucial in helping communities to protect valued local green belt. Many people in this place will know that I bang on a lot about the green belt and I am happy to continue to do so, because it is vital to the integrity of the communities I represent. We are not anti-housing, but I want to see housing that is not only in the right place but has the right infrastructure, and housing that meets the needs of local communities. It is local residents who understand the environmental and social importance of making sure that spaces are developed appropriately. Often, they understand that so much better than central planners here in Westminster and in Government.

The Bill risks expediting development and sidelining the protections provided by neighbourhood plans. The threat of piecemeal “grey belt” erosion will just grow further if we do not firmly embed green-belt protections in planning reforms. We are seeing that in my constituency, particularly down at Chapel Lane. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that neighbourhood plans can effectively safeguard the environment, which I think we care about on both sides of the House; to prioritise brownfield development as a first step, which I thought we all broadly agreed on as well; and to respect the clear wishes of local residents—and that is the bit where I feel there is an increasing divide in this place.

That is evident as I look around the Chamber: it is Members from Opposition parties who have come to speak in the debate and raise local issues. Apart from the Minister—and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, but of course he is not allowed to speak—there is nobody on the Government side of the Chamber. The Minister is a good man, so I do not want to refer to him as Billy No Mates, but he is a little bit lonely sitting there on his own early on a Wednesday morning.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that probably half of Labour Members are pleased with the enormous reductions in housing totals in their urban constituencies and those who represent rural constituencies are just too embarrassed to show their faces?

[Wendy Morton]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The west midlands is heavily dominated by Labour MPs, but none of them are here today. Their housing targets have come tumbling down. My constituency is not technically a rural constituency; actually, I have challenged the Government to define whether my seat is rural or not, and there seems to be some ambiguity. Those of us on the periphery of the conurbations, where the green belt provides huge protection from urban sprawl, are really concerned about the Government’s approach.

The Government’s approach to housing targets is deeply flawed, as we have seen. Targets are imposed from the top down, with insufficient regard for local circumstances or infrastructure capacity. We need to see planning reforms that give neighbourhood plans real power, to help to balance that important housing supply with local realities. I have spoken a lot about the need to continue championing brownfield sites, and when it comes to neighbourhood plans, that must be seen as a credible alternative, but we need sufficient brownfield remediation funding to make that happen. Otherwise, it is almost unfair on developers, because if they are facing a choice of brownfield or greenfield development, often it is so much cheaper and quicker to develop that housing by going down the greenfield route, as we all know.

There must be adequate funding, and in the west midlands, under the leadership of the previous mayor, Andy Street, we absolutely demonstrated what can be done. He worked with Walsall council on the development of the Caparo and Harvestime sites, showing that these sort of town centre and urban edge sites can be delivered. That has to be a win-win. If we are serious about regeneration, let us develop the brownfield sites; then we will get footfall back into our town centres and communities working together again, and there is often some infrastructure in place. It just seems to be common sense, but we seem to be failing in that regard now.

One of the biggest concerns of local people is about infrastructure: “Where am I going to send my children to school?”, “Where’s the nearest school?”, “Where’s the nearest hospital?”, “Where’s the healthcare?”, “Where are the jobs?”, “Where’s the transport?”—do not worry, I am not going to talk about Aldridge train station today; I will save that for another day. This is about having joined-up thinking. We had an opportunity with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to really make a difference, but I think that opportunity is gone. We need to build communities and houses, but we need to do more than that. We need to build sustainable neighbourhoods. We need to take communities with us, not leave them behind. Otherwise, I fear that we are not creating communities; in the worst-case scenario, we are creating the sink estates of the future. They have no heart and no soul, and they are not really homes; they are just houses plonked in an open space.

To me, all politics is local. It centres on the people we represent. Some of us will have friends or colleagues who serve on parish councils, district councils or county councils. We choose to serve here, but we must never, ever lose sight of the importance of that local voice.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for securing this debate.

The Localism Act 2011 gave parish and town councils the ability to produce neighbourhood plans, which formed policies to make decisions on planning applications alongside a wider local plan. That was strengthened by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which gave greater weight to such plans when it came to planning decisions. That is because Conservatives believe that planning decisions should, to the greatest extent possible, be made with the consent of local communities. We believe that local residents know best what they need. Neighbourhood plans are an important way to allow residents to shape development in their area in a way that reflects local needs and priorities.

There are several such neighbourhood plans in effect in my constituency, in Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge, in Nether Stowey, in Puriton, and in Wembdon. There is even a referendum on a neighbourhood plan in Cannington going on tomorrow. I am sure there will be many hundreds of people in Cannington watching this debate at this very moment. I urge them to turn out and vote tomorrow. Neighbourhood plans are particularly important in my constituency, where Liberal Democrat-led Somerset council says it will take at least another four years to come up with a local plan that applies across the whole county. I would like to criticise it, but I understand it is fairly normal for a unitary authority to develop a new local plan.

The previous Government provided funding for groups that wanted to create their own neighbourhood plan. It is very disappointing that the Government have now stopped that funding with no warning at all. Will the Minister explain the rationale for that decision? It is the latest in a series of decisions by the Government to take planning powers away from local people and give them to the Deputy Prime Minister. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, for instance, seems designed to allow central Government to impose huge amounts of building in rural communities, especially those that do not vote Labour. A crucial element of the Bill is to reduce the power of planning committees, which will mean that there is less democratic accountability for development. No doubt the Minister will disagree with me, but I wonder whether he will reflect on why Somerset has had a 41% increase in its house building target while Bristol has had an 11% reduction.

I am not against development. We need houses so that our children can afford a place of their own, but they need to be supported by the right infrastructure, such as GPs, schools, transport links and parks. I want us to build beautifully, and in line with the character of the local area. According to a report by the University of Reading, almost 90% of neighbourhood development plans seek to improve the quality of development in their area. That is often done through policies and guidelines to influence new building design or alterations to existing buildings. My message to the Government is simple: we must support local people to properly engage in the planning process and have their say over development in their communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing the debate; thanks to the way he set us off, this has been an excellent way to start the parliamentary day. Throughout his time in Parliament, he has been—and will remain, no doubt, for the rest of his time here—a champion of neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood planning and a consistent advocate for a locally led planning system.

The interest from hon. Members shows that, with many neighbourhood plans having been developed across England—indeed, with interest from beyond England; I was flicking through my notes to try to identify what I might have missed there—neighbourhood planning is a topic of interest across the House. Likewise, the future role for neighbourhood plans in the planning system will be closely watched by communities who have invested time and energy to participate in neighbourhood planning. Once we get beyond the politics, we are at risk of one of the most dangerous things in this place: vicious agreement. It is no secret that we as a Government believe in a plan-led system. The plan-led approach is and must remain the cornerstone of our planning system.

The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) talked about the neighbourhood plan referendum in Cannington tomorrow. I want to underline for any Cannington residents watching that the best way of allowing communities to shape development in their area is to have an up-to-date local plan that ensures the provision of supporting infrastructure so that the development proceeds in a sustainable manner, in exactly the way the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) described.

We have to end the uncertainty that plagues development across so much of the country by putting local plans back in their proper place as the foundation of the planning system. I hope I can give a degree of comfort to the hon. Member for Bridgwater and the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is not as they characterise it. The foundation of the planning system is those local plans and those local communities. We have talked about democracy and local say, and they are the anchor for that.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

If neighbourhood plans are as important as the Minister says, why are the Government withdrawing funding?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman runs a paragraph or two ahead in my speech; I promise I will address that point shortly. I was talking about local plans, but I will turn to neighbourhood plans shortly.

To help us achieve our ambition of universal coverage of up-to-date local plans, which I think is a shared ambition, not least because of comments made by hon. Members today, we intend to introduce a new system for plan making later this year. In February, we responded to the plan-making consultation, which confirmed our vision for that new system. We will provide further details soon, in line with our commitment to provide a reasonable familiarisation period.

On neighbourhood plans, evidence shows that they work best where they build on the foundation of the local plan to meet the priorities and preferences of the community. In a planning system that is all too often antagonistic, neighbourhood planning can bring the community together in support of development, often resulting, as the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth said, in more housing for the area and additional benefits to the local community. If we are to hit our target of building 1.5 million homes within this Parliament, the community support that neighbourhood planning attracts will be a very important component. I can give assurance of that.

Churches and Religious Buildings: Communities

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Glen]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point. Every Member present today will have a vivid portrait in their mind of an impact that a church makes in their community. It is quite different in different places, and evolves according to the needs of that community. I will not go through every single church that I have visited over my 15 years as Salisbury’s MP, but the range and depth of their impact is considerable.

Andrew Rumsey, the Bishop of Ramsbury in the diocese of Salisbury, is, coincidentally, the co-lead on church buildings for the Church of England, which has 16,000 buildings, 42 cathedrals and 300 major parish churches. Of those, 12,500 are listed. That is nearly half of grade I listed buildings in our country. Contrary to elsewhere in Europe—France, Germany and Italy, for example—there is no central church funding for building works. While it will always be right that people look to the local community to raise funds, we have to examine what we have done in the past and what we might do in the future, given that churches and church buildings are a delivery vehicle for community services alongside local authorities, and how we can embed that understanding in public policy so that churches are supported and become a sustainable force into the future.

The first point I want to make is about the listed places of worship scheme. The hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant) gave an assurance of continuity for one year, which I suspect is related to the spending review. On 11 June, we will have some clarity over what is happening on a multi-year basis—that cannot come soon enough. The point has been made about the 260 buildings that are in progress and outside the cap. The Government need to address that. Typically, this excellent scheme, which Gordon Brown set up in 2001, was underspent— I remember being Chief Secretary and seeing that the line was £42 million, and it was usually in the 20s. That money will be netted off at the end of the year, but I respectfully say that this is so valued that the Government must reconsider stopping those 260 buildings and putting them at risk of not achieving what they need to complete the works so that we are not left with a deficit.

In my constituency, I think the figure in the last year was £93,855. That is a considerable amount of money, and it makes a lot of difference on individual projects. That will have covered 15 or 20 projects.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Church of St Mary Magdalene in Stockland Bristol in my constituency has been planning since 2019 for extensive repairs and to turn the church into a community hub. Due to the changes in the listed worship scheme, it finds itself £300,000 short. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an enormous sum for a small community to raise?

[John Glen]

It is, and I wish St Mary’s parishioners well in all their endeavours. There is scope for the Government to come out of this in a very positive way in June by looking back over what they can do to put this right.

For my second point, I want to spend a few moments reasserting the impact that church buildings have on local communities. The hon. Member for Battersea mentioned “The House of Good” report. One of my constituents, Luke March, has been working for 10 years as chairman of the National Churches Trust, which put that report together, and it makes for interesting reading. We are talking about enormous support for communities, working with local authorities. The National Churches Trust report talks about how the care for those in need is worth twice as much as the total spend on adult social care by local authorities. There is a risk—I recognise this from my ministerial experience—that we say, “Well, this is going to happen anyway,” so we can bank that, and then worry about our overall budget. The Minister must recognise—he will know this from his own constituency—that there is often a synergy between statutory-funded local authority provision and the provision of churches working together. We need to look at embedding that understanding in policymaking.

The hon. Lady mentioned the value of church buildings as a source of encouragement and fun, through arts and cultural experiences. I massively recognise that at Salisbury cathedral: the flower festival this week, Sarum Lights, the number of visitors to evensong, the “From Darkness to Light” services—all of those things. Sixty-two per cent of church spaces are useful for leisure-time music performances, and they are used as such. Then there is the other side: the food banks, warm spaces, or acting as a venue for Alcoholics Anonymous, debt counselling, grief counselling, youth clubs and parish meetings.

Last year the independent Khan review looked into social cohesion and resilience. As the Minister will know, it understandably focused on the financial vulnerability of councils, but I reinforce the point that churches can surely be an effective and investable vehicle to deal with some of those deficits. Putting right the issue with the grant scheme can give more security to more buildings going forward. In its report, “Pillars of Community”, the Centre for Social Justice asserts that 12 out of its 29 policies for community thriving are supported by the presence and role of churches.

My third and final point is about capital grants. There is a considerable precedent here, although, as a former Chief Secretary, I feel anxious about that constant demand for more money. I recognise that, but we did find money from 2014 to 2018 for the first world war centenary cathedral repairs fund, which benefited 57 Anglican and Catholic cathedrals. The roof repair fund gave £55 million over a similar timeframe and was administered by the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The heritage stimulus fund gave grants for programmes of major works as part of the culture recovery fund after covid in two tranches in 2021 and 2022.

The public finances are clearly challenged, but there is enormous willingness in many communities where the Government are doing something to match that funding. There is an enormous opportunity for a multiplier effect. It is usually easier to secure capital funding than revenue funding. A Chancellor is always looking for small items, or good news stories, as George Osborne did back in the day, so I urge the Minister, when he plans his budget and finalises what is happening in these final weeks, to recognise that this would be a great opportunity to find a capital grant scheme for match funding from philanthropic and charitable giving that would be really popular and welcomed across the House.

I will not detain colleagues for much longer, but I want to emphasise that we must fully acknowledge the enormous contribution that our church buildings make and the value-add that they provide—spiritually, socially and in looking after the most vulnerable people. I call on the Minister to take to heart the cumulative effect of all that he will hear this morning and reflect on the impact of church buildings, which is felt across our country. There are just four weeks until the spending review on 11 June. There is time for a late addition and to put a few things right; this would be a great opportunity to do so.

I also want to give thanks to all those church leaders—not only in the Anglican Church, but in all denominations—who do so much to achieve positive outcomes for people in our communities. They do so alongside their formal ministry of preaching the gospel, but the impact they have, and what they speak of Jesus Christ to their communities, is instrumental in the mission they have. I hope that we and the Government can acknowledge that and assist them in the maintenance of this vast estate of church buildings, which is so important to our country.

Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 General Committees

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for his intervention. However, if the Government’s White Paper sets out their expectation for two-tier areas to reorganise, those two-tier areas do not have a choice. They either get on that train and do what the Government are telling them, or they wait by the sidelines and get forced to do it by the Government. This is definitely a top-down approach, not bottom-up.

The decision to delay elections should not be taken lightly. Other Members have touched on this, but nine councils have asked for delays in elections because the Government are making them reorganise. What happens if they are delayed for longer than 12 months? When we were last in government, three areas were done over three years, so the Government are very ambitious in doing nine.

If we are to believe what is in the news about a 15% reduction in the civil service, how will the MHCLG cope and get those nine councils done within a year? As has been alluded to already, how will the MHCLG get consensus within the local area, and how will it take those councils through that process of reorganisation? The process should be thought about over a longer period of time, rather than rushed through over 12 months. I have concerns that some of these elections, which we may agree today should happen in a year, will actually need longer.

I also have concerns about what the Boundary Commission will do with these delayed elections, and its capacity to draw up new boundaries for whatever authorities come forward. We have touched on the half a million population figure; but I have seen very little evidence to show that that is an appropriate figure for a new authority. The Minister’s own authority is well below half a million people, so I do not understand where the Government have got that number from—I think they have just plucked it out of thin air.

Lastly, it has been suggested that, when we go through this process, there will be loads of money for local government, as local government will save millions of pounds. I ask the Minister to comment on this: Somerset council has gone through reorganisation to a unitary structure; it has asked the Government to increase council tax bills by 7.5%, which was accepted, yet it is still in financial difficulty. So if reorganisation is the answer to all of local government’s problems, why do we have a council that has just gone through the process still asking for extra money, and still in financial difficulty?

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I think my hon. Friend will find that the problem, of course, is that Somerset is run by the Liberal Democrats, and run very badly.

[Lewis Cocking]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Ashley Fox Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Bill is about speeding up planning processes, judicial reviews and the development of critical infrastructure. Although some elements of the Bill are positive, others risk undermining the long-term success of any development. The Bill gives the Secretary of State power to decide the consenting route for individual projects, bypassing local input and oversight. That is combined with the overall reduction in local democratic control by transferring significant powers from local councillors to planning officers.

Currently, planning committees are the place where elected officials can reflect local concerns and represent their communities in decision making. By shifting more power to unelected officers, we risk alienating the public and further eroding trust in local democracy. That is especially important given the shift towards creating larger unitary authorities. We see that already in Somerset, where my constituents have seen Sedgemoor district council, a small but effective planning authority, replaced by a larger but less effective unitary council. That may be connected with the fact that Somerset is run by the Liberal Democrats. If local decision making becomes more detached, how can we be sure that developments will reflect the needs and desires of the people who will live with them?

[Gideon Amos]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that when the Conservative leaders of the district council endorsed the unitary council, a poll was taken of the people of Somerset and they voted against it, but the Conservatives pushed it through?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but the Liberal Democrats have been responsible since 2022 for the mess that has become Somerset. I am in favour in principle of building more houses, but it must be done in a way that brings local communities with us. We must ensure that new developments are accompanied by the right infrastructure —schools, health centres, roads, and a proper number of green spaces in between. When the Government announced their new housing targets, it became immediately apparent that the bulk of the increase would be in rural areas, so while Somerset as a whole has seen an increase of 41% in its housing target, the City of Bristol has seen its target reduced by 11%. Why is that? If it is related to the high number of Labour councillors in Bristol, and the very small number of Labour councillors in Somerset, we should be told.

The Bill also proposes a new nature restoration fund, which developers can pay into to offset environmental impacts, rather than conduct individual environmental assessments. Although I can see the logic of that move in some cases, I have concerns about the impact in Somerset. Given the network of waterways across the Somerset levels, the environmental impact of any individual site has the potential to spread to a much wider area than in much of the rest of the country. It is for such reasons that local accountability is so important, and by shifting the planning system to make it too top heavy, the Government risk unintended local consequences.

On compulsory purchase powers, the Government argue that streamlining the process will allow housing and infrastructure projects to progress more quickly. I am concerned about the abuse of power, particularly in relation to agricultural land and green spaces. By simplifying land acquisitions and reducing protections for affected landowners, the Bill could pave the way for large-scale developments that displace communities, damage the environment and undermine agricultural interests. The Government have already done great damage to the farming community in Somerset with their family farm tax and the closure, without notice, of the sustainable farming incentive. The proposal seems like another Government scheme to impoverish our farmers.

Although the Government’s aim to address the housing crisis and accelerate infrastructure development is important, the Bill raises significant concerns. It risks undermining local democracy, environmental protections and citizens’ ability to hold developers and the Government to account.

If we are to build a sustainable future that is responsive to the needs of our communities, we must approach this Bill with caution. That is why I shall seek to improve it before we give it a Third Reading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Government certainly recognise the ongoing challenge posed by the reduced appetite of registered providers of social housing to buy affordable homes delivered under section 106 agreements. As I hope my hon. Friend is aware, the Homes England section 106 affordable housing clearing service was launched back in December alongside the revised national planning policy framework, with the aim of supporting buyers and sellers of section 106 homes to find each other more effectively. We are calling on all developers with uncontracted section 106 affordable homes, as well as providers and local planning authorities, to engage proactively with that new service. We will consider what further measures may be necessary to address the problem, informed by data from that service.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Private developers in my constituency have obligations to build social homes under section 106, and they are ready to do so. The difficulty they face is that there is no social landlord available to take those units. When I raised this issue with the Deputy Prime Minister in October, she said that she was aware of the problem and was working to tackle it. Will the Minister update the House on the progress made?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman heard my previous answer, but I have just made it clear that we acted on 12 December to establish a matching service. I would advise him to ask the developers whether they have taken advantage of that service. We want to learn lessons from the data that comes out of it to see whether we need to take further steps. We think that the matching service will allow registered providers and developers trying to offload section 106 units to come together to see if agreements can be reached.