New Homes: Target

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is essential that the local government reorganisation and devolution process does not hold up the production of local plans. My Government have made that absolutely clear and are following up with councils that have delayed local plans. Where the new strategic plans are being made, they can be made in spite of reorganisation, and the data used for them will be transferred as soon as the reorganisation arrangements are complete.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the Minister about what the Government are doing, but we have a country with the number of planning permissions granted in the past 12 months at the lowest level since 2013 and construction costs rising by up to 40%. How are the Government now going to deliver the at least 1 million homes that the previous Tory Government did in their last term, let alone the promised 1.5 million in the next 3.5 years left in this Government?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

On buildout rates—the number of planning permissions in place that are not built out—I think we can look to the previous Government for the answer to that question. We are changing incentives in the housing market, giving local authorities the tools that they need to speed up delivery, requiring developers to commit to delivery timeframes and giving councils the power to refuse to consider applications from developers that consistently fail to build out quickly enough, as well as exploring a delayed homes penalty. As well as all the positive-side and demand-side incentives that we are putting in place, I think that will make the biggest change to housing delivery that we have seen in many generations.