New Homes: Target

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I can give the noble Lord that assurance. We are determined to make sure that, as we go through the process of building the 1.5 million homes, enough social and affordable housing is included in that target. He will know that I take particular care to not conflate the terms “affordable housing” and “social housing”; they are different things. We have to make sure that we do our best in that regard. From the £39 billion that we have allocated for affordable housing, 60% will be for social housing.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, local planning departments are often cited as a blockage to building more homes, yet fewer than 40% of those local authorities are operating with an adopted plan. As the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill moves through Parliament, what action are the Government taking to ensure that local government reorganisation, with its many new structures, planning powers and inevitable changes of political control, is not used as a delaying tactic to produce an up-to-date plan, which strong anecdotal evidence suggests is happening?

[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.