Housing and Planning: Policy Changes

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what changes they plan to make to housing and planning policy.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, and I draw attention to my interests in the register as I am a serving councillor on both Stevenage Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

Thank you. The Government will meet their manifesto commitment to deliver 1 million homes over the course of this Parliament. This is through the regeneration of places, including ambitious plans in Cambridge, London and Leeds. We are consulting on permitted development rights and local plans, increasing funding to unblock the planning backlog and launching the Office for Place to lead a design revolution. The system, enhanced by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, will therefore ensure that development is sustainable and welcomed by its communities.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this announcement—slipped out today after the Commons has gone into Recess—only serves to reinforce the impression of a Government in chaos over the multiple layers of housing crisis our country is now facing. With over 1 million people on social housing waiting lists and 7,000 social rented homes built last year, does the Minister really think that a few flats built over chip shops is going to solve the problem? It is like putting a sticking plaster on a severed limb. Estimates are that we need to build 300,000 homes a year, and we are nowhere near that. Ministers are still ignoring the fact that scrapping local housebuilding targets has sent construction into a nosedive; no reviews, press releases or empty promises can hide that. Can I therefore ask the Minister if the Government have produced an impact assessment of the effect of their proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, including the scrapping of national housebuilding targets? If so, what was the finding of that assessment for housebuilding numbers? We need bold action to get Britain building, and that starts with restoring housing targets.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

With regard to the impact assessment, I will have to get back to the noble Baroness with a response in writing. However, regarding housing supply, we are on track to deliver our target of 1 million homes this Parliament, and we are already almost 70% of the way there. Housing supply has been at a 30-year record level, with the three highest annual rates of housing supply having all come since 2018. More than 2.2 million homes have been delivered in England since 2010, and we remain committed to our target of delivering those 300,000 homes a year. The £11.5 billion affordable homes programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and to buy.