Rural Housing Targets

Charlotte Cane Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a district councillor.

Everyone deserves a decent home and should be able to find that home near family, friends and work, but young adults in rural areas do not have that opportunity. The Campaign to Protect Rural England reports that in the five years to March 2023, rural homelessness increased by 40%. From my work as a district councillor, and indeed from my MP casework, I know that much existing rural housing suffers from damp, is poorly insulated and relies on oil or bottled gas for heating.

The Liberal Democrats know that development can benefit rural communities, but only if those communities are fully involved in the decisions about that development. We welcome the priority given to housing. As well as building more houses, we must ensure that they are high-quality homes. The Conservatives let developers get away with building to poor standards and without the GPs, schools and community infrastructure that are so badly needed, especially in rural areas. They also let developers off the hook for leaving land for housing unbuilt and new homes empty.

Liberal Democrats would build 150,000 new social homes to tackle the housing shortage crisis, and give renters a fair deal by immediately banning no-fault evictions and creating a national register of licensed landlords. We welcomed those measures in the Renters’ Rights Bill. We want housing development that is community led, by integrating infrastructure and public services into the planning process. With proper community engagement, local amenities such as GPs, schools and public transport will be built alongside the new homes.

We believe that local authorities should have greater powers to build their own homes and hold developers to account. Local authorities, not central Government, are best placed to know what developments are needed in their area. In my Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency, Bottisham parish council has been exemplary in working with developers to identify sites to deliver affordable housing and maintain a strong sense of a village community.

Land for housing is in limited supply, yet land with planning permission is often banked by developers. The Government must unblock the thousands of permitted homes that are not being built, and allow councils to buy land at current use value, rather than an inflated hoped-for value, so that more social and affordable homes can be built.

None of this housing should come at the expense of our environment. The Government must deliver house building and protect our environment. South Cambridgeshire district council has an excellent record on that, with Cambourne and Trumpington Meadows in Cambridge both delivering housing and open space for wildlife and recreation, in partnership with the local wildlife trust. In my constituency, the development of Waterbeach also has green space at its core.

For the planning process to be run effectively, our local authorities need strong planning departments, which takes money. As well as the Government providing more funding, local authorities should be able to set their own fees, so that they have the capacity to consult appropriately and assess each case fully and promptly.

Finally, houses do not build themselves, and we do not have enough qualified construction workers. Further education colleges need sufficient long-term funding to set up the courses to train those workers, and we need to look at the qualifications required to teach the courses. Some older, experienced construction workers are not eligible to teach because they have older qualifications. We need to review whether their existing qualifications and experience are sufficient, or they can be fast-tracked to achieve the new qualifications, so they can teach the next cohort of bricklayers, plumbers and other construction workers.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing up an important point about apprenticeships. In my constituency, where there is a tradition of service in the construction sector, there is a shortage because there is better pay for those outside the sector. Does she agree that if there is to be a change, with maybe a three-year apprenticeship, there needs to be a better pay structure, to incentivise people into the construction sector?

[Charlotte Cane]

I agree with the hon. Member, and we need to look at the salaries for the trainers as well.

We stand ready to support the Government to get more houses built, including in rural areas, but the planning reforms must work with local communities, not cut them out of the process. Local authorities must be resourced and empowered to ensure that developers build the houses, with adequate GPs, schools, shops and other infrastructure, and green space for people and nature at the heart of all developments. We must ensure that most of those houses are the social and truly affordable homes that so many people in rural areas desperately need.

New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill

Charlotte Cane Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for introducing the Bill. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Just after the general election, Ministers made the shock decision that the Sunnica solar farm in Ely and East Cambridgeshire would go ahead, despite the planning inspector’s recommendation that it should not. The farm will cover a vast area of our green space, using up prime farming land—land that could be set aside for the benefit of nature, and land that we might have used to build much-needed new homes. No sooner had that solar farm got permission than the lovely glossy leaflets for the next one came through the door about the next consultation, on an even bigger solar farm across my constituency, and others. Yet, as we have heard, we have acres and acres of roof space that we could put solar panels on. Why are we not doing that?

A couple of years ago, I was on a planning committee visit to a new housing estate that was being built, and I noticed that there was just one, or sometimes two, solar panel on each roof. I said to the developer, “Why just one or two? That’s hardly making a dent in things.” His answer was, “That was all we were required to do.”

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I am a councillor on Mid Sussex district council. Some four years ago, I was sitting in training on a cross-party basis with Conservatives, Greens, Independents and Liberal Democrats, and we asked our planning officers, “Why can’t we mandate that all new builds have solar panels on the roof?” We were told that we were not allowed to, because it was not in the NPPF as it stood at that time. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to make the case for house building and tackle the housing emergency, we need to be able to convince the public that we are building high-quality houses that are fit for a climate crisis and that are energy efficient to reduce bills?

[Charlotte Cane]

I entirely agree. We had a similar frustration when looked at revising our local plan, because we wanted to put things in about energy efficiency.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils’ brilliant new joint local plan proposes that new homes should be net zero, with solar being the obvious way of delivering that, but that ambitious plan is now sat with the Government inspector, and we are in his hands. Does my hon. Friend agree that local authorities should be empowered to deliver on their net zero ambitions?

[Charlotte Cane]

I agree, because we were advised that we could not do what we wanted with our local plan, as it would have gone beyond the national planning policy framework. The local community want to do it, so we should be empowered to do it.

I entirely support the Bill, because it would make so much sense to everybody if we were to make sure that all new builds had adequate solar panels on them or, where appropriate, an alternative form of green energy production, so that people end up with houses that are not destroying the climate and where they can actually afford their fuel bills.

It is quite a long time ago now, but I remember when I bought my first house. I had carefully planned out all the costs to determine whether I could afford the mortgage and everything else, and then the winter came, I started getting my fuel bills and I thought, “Oops, this is a bit difficult.” I do not want that to happen to people. I want them to move into their new house and have low energy bills.

It is not in this Bill, but the Government have the power to do this: we must make retrofitting solar panels a good deal easier. It must be made easier for people to get the connection certificates they need, because that is a problem, and I am already getting casework about it. I commend Cambridgeshire county council, because it has a scheme whereby local people can register to join in with a group purchase, on which the county council does the due diligence. That means that people know that the supplier and the contractor are good, responsible, reliable people and they also get the discount of bulk buying. I commend the council on that scheme.

The Bill is a brilliant start to making sure that this country can get to net zero and that people have warm homes that they can afford to heat.