Planning Reform

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

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

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the Government’s ongoing efforts to overhaul the planning system.

As the House is fully aware, England remains in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis. It is a crisis, first and foremost, that is blighting countless lives, not least those of the more than 170,000 homeless children living in temporary accommodation today, but it is also hampering economic growth and productivity by reducing labour mobility and undermining the capacity of our great towns and cities to realise their full economic potential. In grappling with this crisis, the Government have never been under any illusions, either about the monumental scale of the task before us or about the challenges that must be overcome and the pitfalls that must be avoided if we are to succeed. However, we remain absolutely determined to tackle this task head-on and make tangible progress towards a future in which all our people have a decent, safe, secure and affordable home in which to live.

We have committed ourselves as a Government unashamedly to an incredibly stretching house building target of 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. In the face of a housing crisis of such severity, anything less would have been a dereliction of duty. Progress towards that ambitious target of 1.5 million new homes was always going to be slow in the early years of this Parliament; after all, the Government inherited a housing market downturn, one that was exacerbated by the conscious and deliberate decisions of Ministers in the previous Conservative Government to make a series of anti-supply changes to national planning policy, including the abolition of mandatory housing targets. Such is the protracted nature of the development cycle that the corrosive impact of those changes is still in evidence today.

However, on taking office, this Government acted quickly and boldly to put in place the foundations of a revamped planning system that will facilitate the delivery of high and sustainable rates of house building in the years ahead. In December last year, we revised the national planning policy framework, reversing the previous Government’s anti-supply changes, implementing a new standard method aligned to our more ambitious national housing target, and releasing more land into the system through a modernised, strategic approach to green-belt land designation and release. In March, we introduced our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill to further streamline and speed up the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, and I am delighted that that Bill will receive Royal Assent before the House rises on Thursday.

Over recent months, we have carefully considered the extensive feedback we have received on a range of policy propositions, from a brownfield passport to reforming site size thresholds. As a result, I am today setting out details of the next phase of this Government’s planning reforms. That next phase consists of action on two main fronts. First and most significantly, we are today publishing for consultation a fuller and more definitive overhaul of the national planning policy framework. This wholly restructured framework maintains and builds on the initial revisions we made in December last year. It includes a range of new measures to support key economic sectors and incorporates new clear and rules-based national policies for the making of both plans and decisions.

As a result of the not insignificant risk and uncertainty that such an approach entailed, we took the decision not to proceed with statutory national development management policies at this stage. Instead, we have chosen to realise their benefits swiftly through agile national policy changes, while leaving open the possibility of a future transition to statutory NDMPs should it be required. The new decision-making policies in the framework published today are therefore designed to make development management more certain, consistent and streamlined; to standardise policies that apply across the whole of England; and to reduce duplication and avoid unjustified local deviation from national policy in local plans.

As well as setting out national planning policy in a clearer and more comprehensive manner, we are proposing a number of substantive reforms to boost housing supply and unlock economic growth in the years ahead. These include a permanent presumption in favour of sustainable development, building on the proposals outlined in our brownfield passport working paper to make development of suitable land in urban areas acceptable by default; a default yes for suitable proposals for development of land around rail stations within existing settlements and around well-connected stations outside settlements, including on green-belt land, to ensure that sufficiently dense development comes forward around existing transport infrastructure; and a targeted series of changes to drive urban and suburban densification, including through the redevelopment of corner and other low-density plots, upward extensions, infill development and residential curtilages. We will also take action to secure a diverse mix of homes. There will be stronger support for rural social and affordable housing; clearer expectations will be set for accessible housing to meet the needs of older and disabled people; and more flexibility will be provided on the unit mix of housing for market sale where local requirements for social and affordable homes have been met.

In addition to these and other important policy changes on matters such as design, vision-led transport and climate change mitigation and adaptation, the revised framework delivers on various commitments made either at this Dispatch Box or in the other place. As a result, it now includes a clear requirement to incorporate swift bricks into new developments; the application of new national standards for sustainable drainage systems; explicit protection for our precious chalk streams; and, as a result of sustained advocacy by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), recognition of the importance of providing new, improved, accessible and inclusive facilities for children’s play.

Taken together, these changes represent the most significant reform to national planning policy since the original NPPF was introduced more than a decade ago. The proposed framework is the culmination of a sustained effort over the first 17 months of this Parliament to revamp our planning system so that it meets housing need in full and unleashes sustained economic growth. We look forward to receiving feedback through the consultation.

Further revisions to the NPPF are not all we are announcing today. The second main front on which we are acting is support for small and medium-sized house builders. As a Government, we are clear that ramping up housing delivery requires us to diversify the house building market. Integral to such diversification is not merely arresting, but reversing, the decline of small and medium-sized enterprise developers that has taken place over recent decades. Building on the steps we have already taken to better support SME house builders to access finance and land, we are today announcing a series of policy and regulatory easements to help them thrive and grow.

In May, the Government published a working paper seeking views on a new medium threshold for development of sites up to 1 hectare with between 10 and 49 homes, noting that over 80% of such sites are developed by SME builders. Having reflected on the useful feedback we received, we have decided to go further. While the 10 to 49 unit threshold will apply, we propose to increase the size of sites covered by the new medium category to up to 2.5 hectares, thereby increasing the number of SME house builders being supported.

To support development activity on this new category of site, we are proposing limiting information requirements to what is necessary and proportionate. We are also setting a clear expectation that local planning authorities allocate 10% of their housing requirement to sites between 1 hectare and 2.5 hectares, in addition to the existing requirement to do so for sites under 1 hectare, to better support different scales of development. Without compromising building and residents’ safety rules, we are using the consultation to ask the technical questions necessary to determine whether to exempt this new medium category of development from the building safety levy, and we are exploring further the potential benefits and drawbacks of enabling developers of medium sites to discharge social and affordable housing requirements through cash contributions in lieu of direct delivery.

Finally, having considered carefully the responses to the consultation undertaken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs earlier this year, I can confirm that the Government will exempt smaller developments of up to 0.2 hectares from biodiversity net gain and introduce a suite of other, simplified requirements to improve the implementation of BNG on small and medium sites that are not exempted. DEFRA will also rapidly consult on an additional targeted exemption for brownfield residential development, testing the definition of land to which it should apply and a range of site sizes up to 2.5 hectares.

This Government promised to get Britain building again, unleash economic growth and deliver on the promise of national renewal. While there is more that needs to be done to transform the failing housing system we inherited, the further changes to regulation and policy we have announced today are integral to our plans to improve housing availability, affordability and quality in this Parliament. They will not be without their critics, both in this House and in the country, but in the face of a housing crisis that has become a genuine emergency in many parts of England, we will act where previous Governments have failed to ensure that a decent, safe, secure and affordable home is the right of all working people, rather than a privilege enjoyed only by some.

I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the shadow Minister for his questions. I appreciate that he has not had a huge amount of time to look over today’s announcement, but he has completely misunderstood one of the primary thrusts of the changes we are making, which is to double down on a brownfield-first approach. Through the draft framework, we are introducing a presumption in principle for development in urban areas. We want to make clear in principle what forms of development are acceptable in different locations. Building on our brownfield passports, that will mean that, in practice, the development of suitable urban land will be acceptable by default. That is a doubling down on a brownfield-first approach.

The shadow Minister raised concerns about the green-belt. As ever, this Government are committed to protecting the green-belt, which has served England’s towns and cities well over many decades, but we did introduce—[Interruption.] I am more than happy to have a debate with Opposition Members. We replaced the haphazard approach to green-belt release under the previous Government with a more strategic and modernised approach. All the draft framework does is build on that approach in a specific form by allowing development to proceed in the green-belt on well-connected stations.

I should say that well-connected stations are precisely defined as the 60 highest travel-to-work areas based on gross value added. However, as with all the policies in the draft framework, we are consulting on whether that is the right number or whether it should go higher or lower. There are appropriate densities in the framework for all stations across the country and higher densities for specific well-connected stations in those areas.

The shadow Minister asked me what we are doing on rural affordable housing. We want to see greater support for social and affordable housing in rural areas. The new framework—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, the framework makes it easier for rural exception sites to come forward through clearer national policy; makes it far easier for rural authorities to require affordable housing on smaller sites, including by removing the need for legislative designation; and removes the first homes exception sites as a stand-alone form of exception site, to avoid driving up land prices and crowding out wider social and affordable tenures.

Finally, the shadow Minister critiques this Government’s record on housing supply, and it is true that net additional dwellings in 2024-25 stood at 208,600, but in attempting to castigate this Government for that figure, he betrays his ignorance of the development process. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of new homes completed in 2024-25 are the result of planning applications submitted in the last Parliament. In criticising those numbers, he is rebuking his own Government’s record. He is right to do so because, as many hon. Members know, the previous Government, in abolishing mandatory housing targets, have torpedoed housing supply in this country. We are turning things around, and the draft framework will help us to do just that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. I commend him for his work on bringing the planning system up to date, which can be quite a technical process, and on the landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will receive Royal Assent later this month. I welcome the fact that the Minister has listened to many people from across the sector before making some of the changes, including the default yes on development around train stations and the national standards for drainage.

We must remember that many children do not have access to a play space, so the inclusion of measures on play spaces is vital. It is easy for us to get caught up in the technical aspects of planning, but we have to remember the 170,000 children stuck in temporary accommodation this Christmas; if we do not get moving on this, they will still be there next year. That means building more homes, including social homes. I heard what the Minister said about NDMPs. I am hopeful that that will be kept under review, so that we can look at planning decisions and speed up planning reforms.

I have raised accessible housing with the Minister before; in particular, housing should be delivered in line with the requirements of approved document M4(2) and M4(3) under the Building Regulations 2010. Will there be a target for these new homes? What discussions has he had with advocacy groups and disability groups to make sure that those homes are fit for purpose for everyone?

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee, who makes a very good point. The Conservative party does not want development on the greenbelt, and it does not want urban and suburban intensification; in short, it does not want homes brought forward in the volume required to meet housing demand across the country.

My hon. Friend asks a specific question about accessible housing. The changes we are making through the draft framework will set new, higher requirements for authorities to deliver more accessible housing. They include proposals for 40% of new builds to meet mandatory accessibility standards, and proposals to ensure that local plans provide for wheelchair accessible homes. I stress that that is a minimum, not a target. It will drive up the provision of accessible housing overall—I note that some local plans at present have 0%—while ensuring that different levels of local need are met.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Although I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement, I fear that it represents an unprecedented removal of power from local people and local government by a Government who appear to have given up on sustainable development as a driving force behind decision making. The cost-benefit statement reads like it was written in the Treasury. It sees only the benefits of development, and none of the costs to communities or nature.

Under the new framework, sustainable development is no longer the pre-eminent principle. The framework means widespread development in the greenbelt. The presumption has so many holes in it that buildings put up for any purpose, including under permitted development, will now be green-lighted for development across the open countryside. Lorry parks in green fields will be green-lighted. The framework rewrites and overrides the policies in local plans. For many authorities, the value and purpose of all the expense that they went to in writing a local plan will be called into question.

I have only one minute, which is simply not enough time to debate the most significant rolling back of planning controls for decades, so will the Minister hold a debate on the framework in Government time, so that all hon. Members have the chance to debate it? The framework will have much more impact than the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which recently went through Parliament. Will the Government upgrade the framework’s wishy-washy mention of chalk streams, and recognise them fully as irreplaceable habitats? Will the Minister reverse the abolition of BNG for 0.2 hectare sites, and go with the 0.1 hectare limit that environmental non-governmental organisations call for? Will the Government increase their target for social and council-rent homes from 18,000 per year to the 150,000 per year that we Liberal Democrats wish to see, or at least to the 90,000 per year that Shelter wishes to see? Finally, will the Government go further and ensure that the 1.5 million permissions for homes are subject to real “use it or lose it” powers before new homes are created?

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I have a little aspiration that we will finish this statement by half-past 3, so short questions and short answers would be very helpful.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. I am very pleased, as I know my constituents will be, to hear about the swift bricks. Ours is a city of nature lovers, and I know that people have been very concerned about BNG, which has been mentioned. I would like to understand a little more about how it has been determined that 0.2 hectares is the right area, particularly in relation to natural capital.