Oral Answers to Questions

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

We are bringing forward the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, as the hon. Member knows, and we have set mandatory targets. Unlike the previous Government, we believe that infrastructure has to come through this process, and we are working across Government to ensure that. We are already pushing further on section 106 notices in our work with developers. We are telling them that we want the houses, need the infrastructure, and want them to do this properly.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

2. What steps she is taking to ensure that new homes are sustainable.

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

10. What plans she has to build more sustainable housing.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

The Government are committed to ensuring that the 1.5 million new homes that we will build during this Parliament will be high-quality, well designed and sustainable. We intend to amend building regulations later this year as part of the introduction of future standards that will set more ambitious energy efficiency and carbon emissions requirements for new homes.

[Cameron Thomas]

I thank the Minister for his response. While visiting the Netherlands with the Environmental Audit Committee, I saw the benefits of long-term, joined-up, strategic planning. In Rotterdam city centre, rooftop gardens provide mental health benefits and allotment space, while at ground level, sunken community spaces and underground car parks mitigate flooding. The Tewkesbury garden town will bring 4,000 new homes to my constituency. Will the Minister meet me and stakeholders who support the garden town, so that we can set the standard for development across the country?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The approach of the Netherlands, not least to spatial planning and design standards, has much to commend it, but we would need a stand-alone debate to do that subject justice. As for the Tewkesbury garden communities, they are precisely the kind of sustainable and infrastructure-led development that the Government want to see more of, and that we are backing through legislation and policy. I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Member and local stakeholders to discuss what more might be done to deliver on the aspirations set out in the Tewkesbury garden communities charter, which was published last year.