New Homes: Target

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am pleased to tell the noble Lord that I have been given the buying and selling process in my portfolio very recently. I have been looking at it in great detail, and I had a meeting with developers yesterday as part of the New Towns Network on how we improve the buying and selling process. A great deal of work is going on in my department and with financial institutions to make sure that we make this process work for first-time buyers and others in the housing market.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, there are more than 250,000 empty homes in this country, and that number is rising. What are the Government doing to tackle that scourge of empty properties, as surely it is the quickest way of tackling some of the housing crisis that we face?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right to raise the issues around empty properties. Our Government have been working to make sure that we give councils the powers that they need to drive forward work on empty properties as quickly as possible. We will enable that with new powers for local councils through the planning process to make sure that they can add into the planning process dates for when completions are due.