Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I rise to speak about an issue that goes to the very heart of the responsibilities we have as parliamentarians: namely, the duty to protect the most vulnerable people in our society from exploitation, neglect and harm.

In 2016, I had the honour of being drawn in the private Members’ Bills ballot. I sat on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for some 14 years prior to the last general election, and at the time we were conducting an inquiry into homelessness in England. I was shocked by the treatment that single homeless people received from local authorities and the public sector in general, so I had the privilege of sponsoring the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—it took 18 months to be enacted—to transform how we prevent and respond to homelessness in this country. It was built on the very simple but powerful principle that early intervention, dignity and support can change lives. To date, my Act has prevented 1.6 million people from becoming homeless.

In 2022, the Committee undertook an inquiry, at the behest of several Birmingham MPs, into what can only be described as the wild west situation in supported housing in Birmingham. When we went there, we were shocked: we saw whole streets where rogue landlords had bought up three-bedroom houses, extended them to the side, to the rear and upwards, and converted them into eight single-room properties, with a small shared kitchen and bathroom.

More shocking than that was the fact that these landlords were not providing any support whatsoever to the vulnerable people living in their properties. These houses could have housed someone who had been a drug addict next door to a drug pusher, and a lady fleeing domestic violence next door to someone convicted of domestic violence. There was no regulation at all. To be fair to it, Birmingham city council had introduced a voluntary scheme, but unfortunately the rogue landlords were the ones who would not register. Before I go on, it is very important that I pay tribute to the wonderful charities up and down the country that provide not only a home, but support for vulnerable people.

Having been drawn in the private Members’ Bills ballot in 2022, I took the step of introducing what is now the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023. This House and the other place took vital steps when they supported the Act. I worked with charities such as Crisis, and the Act was born out of necessity, with mounting evidence in too many cases that supported housing was failing the very people it was meant to help and that rogue landlords were getting away without proper regulation.

I think it is fair to say that I have been patient, given that the Act was passed in 2023 and, in 2026, it still has not been brought into operation. I know that the Government have consulted on it, and I welcome the fact that they continue to commit to implementing it, as they set out in their recent response to the consultation, but the time for consultation and delay must now be over. We have to get on with this, because every single day, vulnerable people are being exploited by rogue landlords. The need for action is urgent and immediate, because while we continue to talk about the issue, rogue landlords continue to operate. While we delay, vulnerable people continue to suffer and public money continues to flow into the hands of those who exploit those in need, rather than support them.

Supported housing should be one of the great strengths of our social system. It provides accommodation alongside care, support and supervision for people who are literally rebuilding their lives. Let us not forget that these people may have experienced homelessness, may have fled domestic abuse, or may be living with complex needs. The good charities assess those people’s needs just after providing a roof over their heads and supply a network of support; the rogue landlords pop along once a week and say, “Everyone all right? Yes? See you next week.” That is the extent of the support that these people receive.

As Crisis has set out, when it is delivered well, supported housing can provide high-quality transitional homes that help people to move on from homelessness and rebuild their independence. Emmaus UK’s recent “Rebuilding Lives” report reinforces this, showing how good supported housing not only offers shelter, but provides purpose and opportunities for training and work, which are key ingredients in helping people to regain stability and confidence.

When it works well, supported housing is transformative. It provides a pathway to independence and access to employment, it helps people to rebuild relationships and move on to settled homes, and it saves the public purse billions by reducing demand on health, criminal justice and emergency services. However, when it fails and rogue landlords take control, we have seen individuals punished for daring to get a job, because if they do so, they lose their housing benefit and the landlord cannot charge the earth in rent. Those rogue landlords refuse to provide even basic support and, as I have said, they sometimes house people literally next door to the very people they are fleeing.

Over recent years, we have seen the rise of rogue operators in the exempt accommodation sector. Crisis has documented how those providers exploit gaps in regulation, particularly in non-commissioned accommodation, where oversight is at its weakest. They have entered the market not to deliver support, but to maximise profit. That is because exempt accommodation allows providers to charge higher rents through housing benefit, recognising that supporting vulnerable people comes with additional costs. The fundamental flaw, as Crisis has highlighted, is that there has been no consistent, enforceable mechanism to ensure that the support justifying those higher rents is delivered, and there is no single regulator responsible for overseeing that support. The result is that in some cases, we are rewarding exploitation.

We have heard deeply troubling accounts from residents. Crisis has reported people being forced to share basic facilities with literally dozens of others, living in properties that are plagued by damp, mould and vermin, and experiencing intimidation and abuse—I have spoken to tenants who were abused and forced to move from one property to another. Some have even been forced back into homelessness to escape these conditions. Others have been charged additional fees for support that does not exist—charges that eat into their already limited incomes and push them further into poverty. Heaven help those vulnerable people if they dare to get a job, because the reduction in housing support means that, in most cases, the rogue landlord kicks them out. These findings are echoed in wider evidence from the sector, including the collapse of providers such as Prospect Housing, where residents were charged for inadequate or absent support.

To be absolutely clear, this is not an isolated problem. While I remember visiting cities such as Birmingham where the issues with supported housing have been most prominent, Crisis and other organisations have identified similar patterns across London, the midlands, the south-east and beyond. Rogue providers are expanding, exploiting inconsistencies in oversight between local authorities and adapting their business models to stay one step ahead of enforcement.

Local authorities are responsible for assessing eligibility for housing benefit and verifying that support is being provided, but as Crisis has highlighted, they face significant barriers of limited resources, inconsistent powers and legal constraints. There is also evidence that some councils struggle to proactively verify whether meaningful support is being delivered at all. Other regulators exist, but none has comprehensive responsibility for the support element of exempt accommodation. Guidance such as the national statement of expectations sets out a vision, but it is not legally enforceable. Voluntary standards exist in some areas, but compliance is optional. In short, the system has allowed far too many providers to slip through the cracks.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, and I want to reiterate his point. I have an extraordinary situation in Worcestershire, where many of my housing officers are not in the borough or even in the region that they serve. I find it extraordinary that I get regular interventions from the police telling me where supported housing has cropped up in my own patch, and yet my housing teams do not even know that it exists in the local authority area. Is it any surprise that the people there are often living in squalor—to the extent that some of my most vulnerable residents have chosen to live in tents in parks, rather than be in that supported accommodation?

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. Clearly, if people are living in tents or are homeless on the streets, they are not getting the support they need to rebuild their lives, which is the key.

I introduced the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 to provide the framework we need to bring order, accountability and integrity to the sector. The Act enables the introduction of national supported housing standards—clear benchmarks for what good provision looks like, covering both accommodation and support. It establishes a licensing regime, empowering local authorities to approve, monitor and, where necessary, shut down providers that fail to meet the standards. The Act requires councils to develop local strategies, ensuring that supported housing provision is aligned with genuine local need, rather than driven by profit. That issue has been highlighted by Crisis and Emmaus UK research. Crucially, the Act allows for the linking of enhanced housing benefit to compliance, ensuring that public money supports only those providers that meet the required standards. The reality is that the system is costing the taxpayer a fortune, and it is going to rogue landlords.

The Government’s recent response to the consultation provides much-needed further detail on how the measures will be implemented, and I welcome the commitment to a national licensing system, the introduction of national supported housing standards and the application of a fit and proper person test for those managing schemes. I hope that we can ensure that some of the weasel ways that some rogue landlords use to get around things can be corrected. These are supposed to be not-for-profit organisations, but often a person will buy a property and rent it to a registered charity, which then pays rent to the landlord. Although the charity is not making a profit, the owner of the property is making a fortune. I hope we can correct that particular area.

I also welcome the decision, strongly supported by Crisis, to make eligibility for enhanced housing benefit contingent on a scheme holding a licence. That gives the system real teeth, removing the financial incentive that has driven rogue providers into the market, but I must express my concern about the timeline. The Government have indicated that implementation will begin in April 2027, four years after my Act received Royal Assent. I welcome the commitment, but we have pointed out that there must be no further delay, given the scale of harm that has already been caused since the Act was passed. During that time, the harms we sought to address have escalated. We must continue to ensure that these people do not continue their profit making. Every month of delay allows rogue landlords to operate unchecked. Every delay means more vulnerable people placed in unsafe conditions. Every delay represents a failure to deliver on the promise we made on a cross-party basis in this House. We must ask ourselves: how many more people will suffer before these powers are brought into force?

We must also recognise that regulation alone is not enough. The problem in this sector has been exacerbated by years of under-investment in support services. Crisis has made it clear that the growth of poor-quality, non-commissioned provision is closely linked to the decline in funding for support and the absence of a dedicated national funding stream. Housing benefit can cover higher rents, but it cannot fund support services. That creates a perverse incentive, in that providers must house people with support needs to qualify for higher payments, but there is no dedicated funding to meet those needs. Some providers go to great lengths to bridge this gap, relying on charitable funding or volunteers. That has been highlighted by Emmaus, and its model demonstrates the value of meaningful activity, work and community. Others, however, pass the costs on to the residents, charging additional fees that push people further into poverty. If we are serious about making this system work, we must address that imbalance.

The Treasury’s ongoing review of homelessness spending presents an opportunity to align funding with the new regulatory framework. As Crisis has argued, this must include a reset and an increase in funding for support services, including approaches such as Housing First and floating support. I urge the Government—they have not only a majority on their side, but support across the House on this issue—to really get on and do it.

We must ensure that local authorities have the resources they need to implement licensing and enforcement, the new burdens placed on councils must be fully funded if the system is to succeed, and we must ensure that, as we tackle rogue provision, we do not inadvertently increase homelessness. The Government’s commitment to produce guidance on rehousing residents affected by scheme closures is welcome, but I would caution that guidance alone is not enough. Local authorities must be supported financially and strategically to prevent homelessness and to take a proactive, co-ordinated approach.

We must also listen to those with lived experience. Evidence from residents, including the testimonies gathered by Emmaus, consistently shows that good supported housing is about more than accommodation. It is about meaningful support, opportunities for training, work and a sense of community and belonging. It is about rebuilding lives. We must ensure that these voices are at the heart of the new system shaping national standards, informing local strategies and holding providers to account. Ultimately, that is what this Act is about: it is about people—people who have already faced significant hardship and who deserve better from us.

The Act represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset the system, drive out rogue landlords, raise standards and ensure that supported housing truly supports those in need. We should just look at the success of my first Act—the Homelessness Reduction Act—which, I say again, has prevented 1.6 million people from being made homeless. That is why we must implement the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act, and we must do so with urgency.

In closing, I ask the Government simply to bring forward the regulations and the guidance, ensure that the April 2027 timetable is met without further delay, provide the resources needed for effective implementation, and ensure that no further delays stand in the way of protecting vulnerable people. Let us honour the intent of this House, let us deliver on the promise we made in 2023, and let us never again allow vulnerable people to be treated as commodities in a broken system. The time for action is now. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Government are focusing on precisely that. That is why we have further strengthened national planning policy in respect of previously developed land—that is out to consultation at the moment, as the hon. Gentleman knows—and why our new homes accelerator is doing what is needed to unblock permission sites across the country. I refute the idea that house building is collapsing. We are dealing with the legacy of the previous Government’s decisions, including the abolition of mandatory housing targets, but starts are up, and applications are coming through the system.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to help improve the private rented sector for tenants.

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

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October last year. As per the road map we published in November, we intend to implement the new tenancy system it provides for on 1 May, at which point, among other things, section 21 no-fault evictions will be abolished, rental bidding wars will be prohibited, and the practice of landlords demanding large amounts of rent in advance from tenants will be banned.

[Chris Bloore]

The Minister knows that the Renters’ Rights Act will be transformative, especially for my constituents, but will he reassure me that the Government recognise the urgent need to improve safety and standards in the private rented sector, and will he act to drive down rates of non-decency?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I can provide my hon. Friend with the assurance that he seeks. Whether in the PRS or in the social rented sector, landlords should address non-decency wherever it exists. We are giving landlords until 2035 to implement our new decent homes standard, but we have made it clear that they should not wait until then to improve their properties. We are acting in other ways to ensure that private tenants have safe, warm and decent homes, including by introducing new minimum energy efficiency standards for the sector, strengthening local authority enforcement in respect of unremediated hazards, and applying Awaab’s law to the PRS through the relevant provisions in the Act.

New Towns

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) on securing this debate and on her tireless advocacy for her community.

Sixty-two years ago, Redditch was selected as the west midlands’ second mark two new town after somewhere called Telford—a deliberate policy decision to relieve the post-war housing crisis gripping Birmingham and the wider conurbation. Unlike the first generation of new towns, Redditch was not built on empty land. It had over 800 years of history and an existing population of around 32,000. Planners therefore faced a unique challenge: how to expand a living town, not replace it. That is why Redditch matters so much to this debate. It is a story of ambition, achievement and unfinished business that offers powerful lessons about what worked, what was not sustained and what we must do differently today.

Redditch was not simply given a population target and left to chance. The Redditch development corporation, led by chief architect Brian Bunch and his team, delivered an innovative masterplan, published in 1967, that was built around bead-like districts along key transport routes. Each neighbourhood was designed to be largely self-contained, with schools, shops, churches and green space, with the preservation of green corridors between communities and a plethora of roundabouts. The aim was to integrate old and new and bring together town and country. MPs in this place later praised the generous landscaping and planting of open areas—amenities far beyond what normal local authority budgets could have delivered.

Redditch also pioneered something radical for its time: a new town designed around public transport rather than the private car. Three million trees were planted, roads were banked to reduce noise and pedestrians were separated from fast-moving traffic. Those were not luxuries; they were choices about quality of life.

Within two decades, a town of 32,000 had grown into a community of more than 70,000, eventually reaching around 90,000 by the end of the century, with many families escaping overcrowded terraces and slums in Birmingham. The estates that emerged—Church Hill, Matchborough, Winyates, Greenlands and Woodrow—were planned communities where working families could own their own homes and raise children with access to schools, parks and services within walking distance. Arrow Valley country park remains one of the great successes of new town planning: 900 acres of protected green space at the heart of Redditch. Historic sites were preserved, too: the Forge Mill needle museum and Bordesley abbey anchor centuries of history within a modern town.

In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Kingfisher shopping centre and Forge Mill national needle museum. Thousands lined the streets in Milward Square as she unveiled Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics celebrating Redditch’s needle-making heritage. They show astronauts and needles side by side, symbolising past and future. The chair of the development corporation, Professor Denys Hinton, said at the time that it marked

“the completion of an enterprise of which everyone can be proud”.

Redditch was not just a new town; it had manufacturing at the heart of its DNA. In the early 20th century, it produced 19% of the world’s needles—not cottage craft, but precision metalworking at scale. Those skills fed into bicycle, motorcycle, spring and defence manufacturing. Royal Enfield, BSA, aerospace components—Redditch had industrial DNA. During the second world war, High Duty Alloys employed 13,000 people, producing aircraft for Rolls-Royce and others. Post war, those same skills flew in Concorde and British defence systems.

The development corporation understood that. The new town was deliberately planned around a manufacturing-led economy. It was not a dormitory suburb, but a place with skilled local employment. For a time, that promise was kept. The landscaping and design principles established by Hugh Wilson, Lewis Womersley and their teams proved durable, but something fundamental changed when the housing corporation was wound up in 1985. Housing targets were met, but the commitment to self-sustaining local economy faded. Cheap imports hollowed out traditional industries. Over time, Redditch increasingly became a commuter town for Birmingham.

Between 2007 and 2017, the UK lost 600,000 manufacturing jobs. Redditch, with twice the national average employment in manufacturing, was hit harder than most. Today, manufacturing output has declined even more where employment remains. Skill pathways have narrowed. The defence and aerospace sector survived, but at a fraction of its former scale. Even core services have faced sustained pressure. The Alexandra hospital has lost services, including paediatric and maternity services, undermining public confidence and reminding us that infrastructure, once built, still requires long-term support.

Underpinning all that are social pressures: drugs, crime and child poverty. Over half of Redditch households experience at least one form of deprivation. Neighbourhoods built as modern housing for working families, like Greenlands and Woodrow, are now designated as areas of such concentrated deprivation that they qualify for £20 million of targeted regeneration funding. I welcome that investment, but it should give us pause. This was not the future the planners envisaged.

Redditch teaches us that new towns worked when they combined five key things: a clear social purpose, long-term institutions, integrated employment, infra- structure built up front, and community cohesion by design. Redditch achieved all those things between the 1960s and 1980s. We lost momentum when that comprehensive approach was abandoned. The lesson is not that new towns failed; it is that when we stopped thinking long term, stopped planning for jobs and stopped backing places with sustained investment, we broke that model.

As we debate new towns, we must ask: are we prepared to commit to the same level of ambition that created Redditch, or will we settle for piecemeal fixes to the decline that has already set in? My constituents are proud of Redditch’s new town heritage, but pride alone will not secure its future. To honour that legacy, we must renew it with long-term investment, integrated planning and the political will to see that through. That is not nostalgia; it is hard-headed realism about what works and what my constituents deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for taking the decision to invest £20 million through the Pride in Place scheme in my constituency. For 14 years, two communities—Woodrow and Greenlands —have been forgotten, while inequalities in health, jobs and skills have risen. Does the Minister agree that the right people to decide where that £20 million will go are those who know their communities best?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I thank my hon. Friend for his enthusiasm. He is absolutely right: we are putting right the neglect and decline that we saw after 14 years, where communities had been held back because the last Government failed to invest. We are putting communities at the very heart, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the House to unlock the potential to change our places.

Local Housing Need Assessment Reform

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) and congratulate him on securing this important debate.

I am afraid this is just another example of the two-tier society that this Government are presiding over. We have had two-tier taxes and two-tier justice and now we have two-tier targets. That is the reality, and it militates against the basic British principle of fairness. I will go through the numbers in a second, but Labour’s own council leaders have called the Minister’s targets unrealistic and impossible to achieve. The leader of West Lancashire council used exactly those words: “impossible and unrealistic”. The targets are unachievable.

I am in no way, shape or form a nimby. Unlike 15 of the Minister’s colleagues in the Cabinet, I have never objected to any developments in my constituency as a Member of Parliament or as a member of the public. I am absolutely on the side of young people who want to get on the housing ladder and those on lower incomes seeking affordable homes. The only way to deliver that is to deliver more homes. I am not against the Minister’s 1.5 million target, but it will be very challenging. We should look at the data: over the last 10 years we were in office, average net housing additions were 207,000 a year. That was the highest level for 50 years—even higher than in the 1970s, because we were knocking down an awful lot of houses back then.

The targets have been driven by the change from assessment of housing formations to a measure of stock already delivered in an area, with a multiplier on top for affordability, but they are totally unfair. London has seen an 11% decrease in its target, Leicester a 32% decrease and Birmingham a 38% decrease. Coventry has seen a 55% decrease in its housing target, yet the neighbouring authority of North Warwickshire has had a 123% increase. That is despite the fact that North Warwickshire, like my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said of his authority, has over-delivered on its housing targets. Nuneaton, another bordering authority that is over-delivering, has had a 75% increase in its housing target compared with Coventry.

I am trying not to be too parochial but in my neck of the woods, York, which has been under-delivering massively against its housing target for years and years, and had not had a local plan since 1956—it has just got one in place, thank God—has seen a 19% increase, yet neighbouring North Yorkshire, which is my local authority, has had a 199% increase, despite significant over-delivery.

Of Members who have spoken in the debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has had a 100% increase in his area; the hon. Member for Horsham a 48% increase; the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) a 63% increase; the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) a 72% increase; and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) a 66% increase. I like the Minister and we get on very well, but his authority in Nottingham has had a 32% decrease. How can that be fair? It is against the basic principle of fairness. Yes, there is a 50% increase in delivery across the board, but why have some targets been decreased and others massively increased? That is simply unfair.

Those are not anecdotal cases. Based on information from the House of Commons Library, across the board, mainly rural areas are seeing an average 71% increase and urban areas an average 15.6% increase. On top of that there is the duty to co-operate and strategic planning, which is likely to see even more houses going into rural areas. There is no justification for that unfairness. It also sits against the principle that the Government say they adopt, as we did, of a brownfield-first approach.

Brownfield development is the least controversial approach, and it is what we would all like to see, but it is complex and costly, particularly in a world of increased costs of delivery. Over the past few years, developers have seen a 40% increase in costs of building. On top of that is the building safety levy, the Building Safety Regulator, biodiversity net gain, the future homes standard, section 106, the community infrastructure levy and the remediation of brownfield sites. Those things, and the Government’s policy on grey belt, will mean that more and more development will be pushed from urban areas into greenfield and green belt.

What the Government are doing with the national planning policy framework cannot be divorced from the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the Trojan horse that they called grey belt. What they sold to the public as being a few former garage forecourts or wasteland is far from that. It is greenfield and green belt. The Minister cannot shake his head. There used to be protections between villages to stop them merging, and they have gone. There used to be protections to stop villages merging into towns, and they have gone. This is not about grey belt; it is a fundamental change to green belt.

Of course, this is not about targets. It would be pointless to have this debate and just talk about targets—we have to talk about delivery. The 1.5 million homes are a huge ask. The reality is that to hit that target for England, for the rest of this Parliament, delivery will need to hit not 207,000 a year, which we averaged, but 375,000 a year. That is a 180% increase—a doubling.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I congratulate you, Mrs Hobhouse, on your chairmanship and the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing the debate, which has been well-mannered and thoughtful on all sides. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is giving a fighting and boisterous speech, but I remind him that we both stood on manifestos that contained numbers of new homes that we would build. In fact, his party’s number was bigger than the Government’s: it was 1.6 million. If we are going to talk about facts and how we deliver these things, let us talk about sense and pragmatism, and not rhetoric, because, unfortunately, what he is saying now is not what he said at the election.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Good for the hon. Gentleman for reading our manifesto—not enough people did, I am afraid. He is right: we did set a more ambitious target, which I am not against. As I said right at the start, I am in no shape or form a nimby. However, I am for honesty and fairness. The point is that the housing targets have been moved away from certain types of area where people tend to move. They tend to move from rural to urban to take their first job or start their first business, as I did, but the targets are going from urban to rural.

The Minister faces many challenges alongside the huge number he has set himself. The Office for Budget Responsibility and Homes England have said that the number targeted is impossible. Let us see. I wish him well for delivery, although not on the skewed figures that we have discussed today. There are real challenges here, as the Minister knows: things such as the Building Safety Regulator; the skills issue; small and medium-sized enterprises, which build a far smaller proportion of homes than they used to; and making sure that we get first-time buyers on to the housing ladder.

We have tabled a number of amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that will solve all these problems, and I very much hope that the Minister will look at them. One of them proposes no solar on any best and most versatile land. I am sure that the Minister will look at that, because it would potentially leave space for more British farmland to produce fantastic food. We have also tabled amendments on protected landscapes—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has a significant section of protected landscape in his patch, which is bound to constrain supply, but no recognition has been made of that—and on ensuring that there is no plus or minus beyond 20% in any of these targets, which would be fairer. We will also seek to amend the national scheme of delegation, which disgracefully removes votes from councillors, and restore the protections for the green belt. As some in this excellent debate have said, we need a better mix that is more suited to demand in local areas.

I very much hope that the Minister will support those amendments, but, because I feel that he will not, I will make one plea to him: please, look at the Building Safety Regulator. There is a queue of 18,000 homes with planning consent that are waiting six months or more for an answer from the Building Safety Regulator. That is a huge bottleneck in supply. I hope that the Minister will at least touch on that point.

High Street Rental Auctions

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) for securing this debate. It is an important debate, because when we talk to people in towns such as Burntwood in my constituency, they see their town centre—their high street—as a physical representation of how well the economy is doing. For obvious reasons, much of the conversation in politics at the moment is about growth, which the Government have placed at the heart of what they want to do, but the line about growth being felt everywhere needs to be demonstrated through a revival of our high streets and town centres.

I look around at hon. Members present in this debate, and we are town MPs by and large. It is town centres that have really struggled over a number of years of Government inaction, as well as the bluff and buster about levelling up that failed to do anything. When I talk to my constituents about what levelling up means, it is very difficult to tie down, but if growth is to be felt everywhere in the country, it needs to come back to those high streets and town centres.

I am pleased that the new Government are giving councils the powers to act on the issue and revitalise our high streets, such as the power to take an empty shop and get a business in there, so that somebody can visit and buy something, or they can spend their time and invest themselves in their town. Within that, I am particularly pleased that Lichfield district council is an early adopter and will be acting quickly to use those new powers to ensure that landlords are leasing those properties in Lichfield city centre and Burntwood.

Lichfield is lucky to have a thriving city centre, and we are fortunate to have great cafés and a wonderful set of pubs and restaurants, including the only Michelin star ever awarded in Staffordshire. Although my constituents are happy to have that café culture, they would also like to go into town and buy more than a vape. They are happy to support charity shops, but they would also like something that did not have the word “charity” before “shop”. Hopefully, the introduction of this new policy, as well as the district council following it through, will change the economics to support those traditional retailers, such as clothes retailers, to come back to our cities so that people can patronise those shops.

Up the road in Burntwood, it is a different story. Burntwood is a town of around 35,000 people. It developed from a number of villages growing into each other during the last century, but it has been starved of investment for decades. The town centre in Burntwood, which is almost ready to go, is great and there are wonderful businesses at Sankey’s Corner, but it has not had the investment to make that really kick on. This new Government policy is a wonderful opportunity to ensure that, where there are great shops, the gaps in the middle are filled.

People in Burntwood are sick and tired of being told to wait their turn. For too long, under the previous Government, that was the policy for such places: “Wait your turn. Keep bidding for these £20 million pots, and one will come to you eventually, but we can’t tell you when. It might come down the line”—but it never came. People in the town do not want to wait for a handout. They do not want someone to ride in on a white charger and say, “I am bestowing upon you your £20 million. It will solve everything for you!” That is not how our economy works. We do not have a planned economy in the UK—it is not Soviet Russia.

We want to support genuine, real local businesses to start up and deliver services for our residents. I looked forward to coming to this debate to discuss this issue and say how important this policy is for councils to make sure that people have venues to access.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) on securing this excellent debate. The good people of Lichfield and Redditch share a lot of common themes, particularly the pride in our town centres and high streets. My businesses, like those of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), have spent so much money on doing up their shops, and they have worked with the Redditch business improvement district and the council to do all they can to bring people in. They have been let down because we do not have the powers to support them by closing those vacant shops and getting more people in. I strongly welcome these powers, but does he agree that we can make the difference that our high streets and towns deserve if the Government work together with our excellent councils—such as the newly Labour-elected Redditch borough council, which is about to reopen the outdoor market for the first time in five years under the leadership of Councillor Joe Baker—instead of pitting town against town?

[Dave Robertson]

I thank my hon. Friend from the end of the railway line for his intervention—it is a long railway line and the busiest outside London. He is right that towns should never be pitted against each other. Far too often, even in my constituency, which has two towns of around 35,000 people, it is sometimes felt that one of them gets the cheese and one of them does not. That is unfortunate for the town that is considered to have got the cheese, because everyone deserves the support, but it is really unfair for the town that feels like it does not have it. Every single town deserves that kind of town centre; every single high street deserves that vibrancy. They deserve to thrive, and the people who live there deserve to have that centre—a place they can invest themselves in in their local area.

On that basis, I am very happy to support the policy that the Government are introducing. However, that absolutely cannot be the end of this. I will keep fighting for Burntwood town centre. I will keep fighting for high streets, and not just in towns—I could get on to village high streets, but somebody will punch me in a minute. I will continue to fight for more for Burntwood and continue talking to developers, working with the council and working with any stakeholder that I can to drive investment into our town centres. This is a great start from my Government, but there is always more to do.

Responsibilities of Housing Developers

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

Absolutely; my hon. Friend makes an excellent intervention. All too often, we see little pockets of development taking place on the outskirts of relatively small towns, without due consideration of the wider challenges with traffic congestion on highways, schools, doctors’ surgeries and indeed the retail offering. Crikey, how many huge developments do we now see taking place where no thought is given even to having a local corner shop within easy access of the residents? Masterplanning and properly considering the impact of these developments on communities such as mine are vital.

That brings me to the next issue, which is that when a development has gone through the planning consent process and been built, and residents start moving in and to reside in the development, there is a challenge around how the site is maintained. I will use the example of the Miller Homes development in Eastburn, which is just next to Silsden and Steeton in my constituency. Miller Homes had completed the development, and then all residents were expected to pay a levy charge to a maintenance company, for the maintenance company to then use that money to instruct a contractor that would carry out any maintenance of the grassed areas or hedging within the development. What we were finding was that a resident had no control, necessarily, over how much levy they were paying that maintenance company, but neither did they have any control over the quality of the work being undertaken or over how regularly grass was being cut or hedges were being maintained. The system was not working.

I have had many meetings with residents on the issue. I have written to Miller Homes; I have also written to the management company dealing with the matter, because I feel that the situation is geared up for it to be able to make too much profit, and the quality of the service delivered for residents in Eastburn is so much less sufficient. In effect, those who have contacted me are trapped: they are paying for a service that they are not receiving and they cannot escape the situation without moving entirely. That cannot be fair. Better regulation of maintenance levy money for carrying out works on the ground and having a proper quality of work being carried out need to be looked at.

As I have said many times in this place, local people are not opposed to new housing, but they want guarantees that services and infrastructure will be upgraded to accommodate the new influx of people. We should be encouraging our housing sector to see the benefits of extra engagement and extra investment in order to open up public support so that more developments are able to take place further down the line. We must also convene developments and developers that work collaboratively with communities, so we can ensure that local communities are getting what they want. Based on the ambitious targets that the new Labour Government have released for increasing the number of houses and on their willingness, effectively, not to take into account local consideration and local consultation, I fear that there will be a dramatically negative impact on many small communities.

I will give a further example. In the village of Addingham in my constituency, people went through a very long process of negotiating their neighbourhood plan. They came to the conclusion that over the next 15 years Addingham would be able to accept about 75 new homes being constructed. Bradford council, which is Labour-controlled, comes along and effectively says, “No, no: we are going to ignore what you have spent the last God knows how many years developing, and say that another 181 new houses in Addingham would be far more appropriate.” That goes against all the work that the local community had done and against any need assessment that had been properly established for that community to grow. I urge the Government to ensure that they always take into account local need and local assessments, as well as the negative impacts on local communities.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I would like to make two quick points. Constituents of mine who live in the Brockhill area have been waiting 20 years for roads and areas of grass to be adopted, for upkeep discussions to happen and agreements to be made. That has happened under both blue and red local administrations, so I do not think this is a party issue. This is about a system that has been failing residents for a very long time.

Secondly, at the last election the Labour party proposed 1.5 million houses, but the hon. Member will remember that his party’s manifesto proposed 1.6 million houses. When we are talking about building houses that people need, we should also have honest discussions about the fact that homes will need to be built.

[Robbie Moore]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but he started off by saying, “I’m not going to make this political,” and then went on to make a very political point.

I secured this debate to raise the concerns that residents have been raising. I robustly say to this new Labour Administration that communities like mine in Keighley, Silsden, Addingham and Ilkley, across the Worth valley, are fed up of having housing development after housing development approved by our Labour-controlled local authority without any due consideration of the negative impacts on our communities and infrastructure. There will be impacts, for instance, on our community’s ability to get a doctor’s appointment and on the development of our proper road infrastructure. This is political if Labour’s ambitions are to effectively get rid of the green belt and open up the grey belt when there is no due consideration of the local impacts that that will have.

My constituents and people across the country will want to hear from the Minister what plans the Government have to address the concerns that I have raised. The public must have confidence in the housing process. Otherwise, they will resist new developments, and quite rightly so. If the Government are truly ambitious in their plans to build new homes, they must tackle the issues that I have raised before the impacts are exacerbated and have negative consequences on, I suspect, most of the constituencies of hon. Members speaking in today’s debate.

It concerns me deeply that the rhetoric from the Government now seems to be that we need to loosen the housing and planning systems even further, yet we have heard no comments so far from the Government that address the existing concerns about the current system and the services and infrastructure being put in place. As I said, no one can object to the right houses for the right people in the right places—that is why local consideration is so important. If we want to achieve that, we must ensure that our developers behave responsibly and do not damage the vital link of trust between them and the public. Towns like Silsden in my constituency, villages like Long Lee and, indeed, the whole of the housing market rely on it.