Social Housing Bill [Lords]

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for council and social housing. The scale of the housing crisis in our communities today represents, in a crowded field, the most consequential and damaging retreat of the public realm in the UK, and a dereliction of its most basic duties. Everyone deserves a safe, comfortable and stable home where they can put down roots, so it is very welcome that, through this Bill, our national politics begins to recognise that the provision of things that people cannot live without cannot be left to private markets, which respond to demand, not need—and those will never be the same thing in a deeply unequal society like ours.

The consequences of the failure to understand that fundamental economic reality are writ large across our nation. More than 130,000 households are trapped in temporary accommodation; many of them are stuck in bed and breakfasts and hostels, which are no place to raise a family. Frankly, it will remain difficult to talk seriously about national pride while 170,000 kids are homeless in this country, and are left without the space to learn, play, grow and simply enjoy their childhood. The human cost, measured in the futures and happiness of a generation, is proof enough of the urgent need for a change in direction.

The choice before us, then—our new Prime Minister is absolutely right on this—is whether we continue with a model that provides unsuitable accommodation at extortionate prices, or put the public back in the driving seat. I welcome the attention in the Bill to retaining the social housing stock we already have. For far too long, we have lost social homes faster than we have built them. Putting a firm stop to that trend, alongside the Prime Minister’s commitment to a new generation of council homes, puts us in a position finally to get the housing crisis under control.

I remind the House that in six years—at a time of shortages, debt, constraints and even greater competing demands on public expenditure than we face now—the post-war Labour Government oversaw the construction of more than 800,000 council houses, some of the best ever to be built in this country.

Now is the time to recognise once again that the only way to get high-quality homes that those on waiting lists can actually afford is to directly plan and deliver council housing for people on low incomes, and that only the Government on behalf of the people can mobilise the patient capital capable of realising all the wider benefits that decent homes for all will secure for our society. With fresh leadership in the Department, I look forward to supporting this important legislation to ensure that we deliver the quality social homes that our communities need.

Draft Nature Restoration Levy regulations 2026

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 General Committees

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I will try to keep my questions brief. I want to be clear from the outset: I am not here to oppose the principle of the regulations—indeed, I agree with the Minister that they must work for the sake of nature restoration. However, some serious concerns have been raised with me about how they are drafted, perhaps because they have not gone through a formal consultation process.

I will focus on one key point. As I understand it, there is no third-party oversight to ensure that the levy is calculated at the right amount to secure the objectives of the environmental delivery plans, although I understand that there is third-party oversight within comparable regulations for the community infrastructure levy. That matters because I understand that a key element of the primary legislation is that the overall improvement test should be based on whether the EDP, if delivered in full, would secure an overall improvement in the environmental feature in question. Although the EDP might be sound, if the nature restoration fund levy amount is not set at an appropriate level there is a risk that the overall improvement test could be null and void because there would not be the right amount of funding.

I also understand that the regulations allow the Secretary of State to change the levy rate at any time without notice. That presumably creates considerable jeopardy for developers who do not have a legal route to exit once they have committed. It would also seem to create an avenue for a lot of political pressure to be brought to bear to reduce the amount of the levy—possibly to improve the viability of certain development schemes. I would welcome the Minister’s response to those concerns and encourage him to consider how they might be addressed before the regulations come into effect.

Representation of the People Bill

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Our democracy is precious but faces significant challenges, and if we want to protect our system, it must change with the times. The turnout for the 2024 general election was far too low, at below 50% in the poorest areas. Property ownership was still dictating representation, with renters voting at a rate of 38%, and owner-occupiers at a rate of 71%. The delta between younger and older voters is still too high. Expanding participation and trust in politics is an issue of equality, but also one of social, economic and generational fairness, and I am proud of the Government’s efforts to address that in the Bill.

No Member who has spoken today is under any illusion about the limited trust in our current political system, and the bandwidth of that system to enable meaningful democratic participation, especially among those who need it most. MPs elected with increasingly fractured minority votes, and a Parliament that is sometimes unrepresentative of the voting intentions of the country, repel the trust, participation and engagement that our elected representatives in government need. It is not a party political point to state that; this is about every person stepping up to participate and seeing their vote reflected in this place. When MPs and Governments are enabled with a low share and turnout of the vote, increasingly fewer people see their ballot as meaning anything in this place. If that is their first experience of voting, they are far less likely to vote again.

I believe that the Government can give us a route that starts from the first principles of enabling a system to become fairer and more representative and that sustains public confidence through an independent national commission. That is not something that the Government will do today, but they ought to do in the future so that the next Parliament does not start from scratch on long overdue reform to our electoral system.

New clause 68, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), to which I have added my signature, requires registration officers to accept postal and proxy vote applications that are received after the deadline when there is proof of timely posting. That is a meaningful effort and step to prevent people from losing their votes after having made reasonable steps to submit it. It is not reasonable for voters to lose their say in an election because of the potential—and quite common—unreliability of the postal system, and the new clause would empower returning officers to count the votes of people who have made an effort in good faith to vote.

Sadly, we see amendments from Opposition parties that would limit postal voting, such as Reform’s new clause 108, which would have created serious issues, especially in Scotland. For example, when the last general election was called, the last Tory Prime Minister called it for the first Thursday of the Scottish school holidays, and under new clause 108 thousands of people would have been made ineligible to vote through no fault of their own.

In the last wheeze of parliamentary effort, amendments have been proposed to stop votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. I have to thank Conservative Members, because their arguments have only compounded my belief that this is the right step for the Government to take. It is ludicrous that amendment 6 and subsequent amendments link the voting age to the age that people can buy alcohol as a way of getting around the Government’s manifesto commitment in the Bill to extend the franchise. Perhaps Members would have been persuaded to support the amendment if we were to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote if they then went to a licensed restaurant for a sit-down meal accompanied by an adult. Sadly, that seems to have been omitted in the amendment.

If there is a serious concern about where we draw the line on the age of capacity, I make the principled point that allowing 16-year-olds to vote so that they can have their democratic say in how the taxes that they contribute are spent and how the conditions of their labour are regulated is a far more rational place to tie that milestone than whether they would be able to have a pint at 8 o’clock while watching the Scottish premiership. The Government is right on this principle and I am glad that we will be able to achieve this milestone today.

Opposition Members have made a lot of references to vote rigging. I find that ludicrous, principally because when votes for 16 and 17-year-olds were passed in Scotland it was with cross-party support, including from the Scottish Conservatives, and because engagement has been increased among 16 and 17-year-olds ever since. I cast my first vote aged 16 in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. I was not grateful for the Government of the day. I went out and enthusiastically voted for the SNP—a ludicrous proposal considering how much time I spend in this place opposing SNP measures. I voted because it was the right thing to do and it was recognised by the Scottish Parliament. I am glad that we have that cross-party consensus today: even if it is a majority and not the unanimity that we had in 2016, it is going to get this over the line.

Sadly, the Conservative and Reform amendments have been about restricting political participation; comparatively, what we have heard from Government colleagues has been about expanding political participation. I hope the Government will go further and set up a national commission, but I look at this Bill as the first stage of our political reform agenda.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

A political system, even one with regular elections, is not really a democracy if rich individuals and corporations are able to use their wealth to buy access and influence, and shape decisions in a way that ordinary citizens will never enjoy. That is what new clause 25, tabled in my name, seeks to address.

The British people will never be able to trust the fact that we are genuinely representing their interests if those with deep pockets can wield disproportionate political power. Unless we use this Bill to drain the influence of money from our politics, that doubt will continue to rot away at the foundations of our democracy, driving more and more of our constituents to disbelieve that Parliament is here to serve them, and meaningful engagement with politics in our country will continue to sink to ever more dismal depths, until no Government have the mandate to legitimately call themselves representative.

The amendment in my name focuses on a specific aspect of this problem that is particularly pernicious and should be banned in its own right: developers donating to political parties to weight the planning system in their own favour. What gets built and where shapes our daily lives like nothing else, and the decisions made through our planning system are often the most tangible touchpoints with democracy for local communities. Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke about the urgent need to put agency and power back in the hands of the people, but in recent years the near universal experience of those engaging with the planning system as ordinary citizens is that their hopes and concerns are dismissed and trampled on by decision making that overwhelmingly favours the interests of speculative developers.

This is not an accident. Developers are among the biggest donors to political parties, and the successive waves of planning deregulation that have served to silence and curtail community participation in planning decisions have allowed these businesses to make vast sums of money throwing up expensive housing that most young families could never hope to afford, while providing as few amenities as they can get away with and destroying our countryside in their pursuit of profit. Our constituents are not daft. They can see the depressing results of the triumph of speculative developers’ interests all around them, and they can also see those same developers and their lobbyists donating huge sums to political parties. The public can read the reports of exclusive fundraising events and access for those able to pay thousands for dinners with Ministers, and they can put two and two together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

What consideration did the hon. Member give to extending his proposed amendment to trade unions, which—a neutral observer might conclude—gave very large sums of money to the Labour party precisely to influence the Employment Rights Bill that it has now turned into law?

[Chris Hinchliff]

As we have heard many times in today’s debate, there is a vast difference between trade unions—which are made up of millions of members making small contributions that are collectively donated to the Labour party, which they support—and corporations and rich individuals seeking influence and to further their own vested interests.

To continue where I left off, what confidence can the British people have that the houses that will be built in their area will meet the actual needs of local families and enhance the beauty of their communities, when the developers throwing up sprawling, characterless, rip-off estates across the country are able to buy seats for a quiet chat with Ministers, during which they can lobby them? It is time to ban developers from donating to political parties, to wash away the stain of undue influence, and to deliver a housing and planning system that puts people before profit.

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

The Representation of the People Bill makes much-needed changes that I am very pleased to support. The Bill, and the Government amendments we are discussing, show that this Government are taking protecting our democracy seriously.

Government new clause 72 would introduce a ban on donations using cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is unregulated and untraceable money, and we are right to take it out of our democracy. The amendment would place a moratorium on those donations—a non-permanent ban—until regulation can be put in place, but I have heard some very compelling arguments today for introducing a complete ban. Any hostile foreign actors wishing to disrupt our democracy are able to fund that disruption through cryptocurrency donations. There is no way to trace them, and any political party that takes crypto donations should take a long, hard look at itself. There is clearly a risk that they are taking money from those bent on harming our country.

Government new clause 116 would put a cap on donations from overseas electors, so that those who do not live in or contribute to this country cannot unduly sway our elections. Our democracy is not the business of individuals and organisations that are based abroad. British democracy should be in the hands of the people who live here and contribute, not those of rich individuals who choose to live elsewhere. That should be something that all parties can agree on, but sadly, it is not. I know that some parties have benefited from foreign donations a little more than others, and perhaps do not want to bite the hand that feeds them. I congratulate the newly elected hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is not in his place again—because he is never here, is he? He never engages properly with legislation—not only on winning the most pointless by-election in history, but on the fact that his party broke the UK record for the single largest individual political donation by a living person. Some £9 million was donated by one person, a Thailand-based businessman, in one donation. With foreign friends like that, no wonder the hon. Member for Clacton has no need to spend time in his constituency. The new clauses I have spoken to will strengthen our democracy.

Votes at 16 have also been discussed today. The Conservatives say that 16-year-olds are not mature or wise enough to vote. I disagree; I do not think there is a clear correlation between age and wisdom. All of us in this Chamber speak to people of all ages. Some of the best questions I have ever been asked and some of the best suggestions I have ever heard have come from the 16 and 17-year-olds at the local schools and colleges I have visited.

I think the most compelling argument for votes at 16 is that it gets people in the habit of voting. Most 16 and 17-year-olds will still be at school, at college or in some sort of training. Voting is a way to show people how elections work. I know adults who have never voted simply because they did not understand how it worked. I have had to talk them through it, saying, “You go with your ID. You will have a list, and you will mark a box with a cross. No, you do not tick it. That would make too much sense.” If we get people involved in democracy at a younger age, they are more likely to be lifelong voters, and that is really important.

However, this Bill does not address the most pressing issue for our democracy, which is the glaring problems with our current voting system. It is clear that first past the post simply does not work anymore. That is why I am calling for a national commission on electoral reform. I know that the new clause has been ruled out of scope today, so I will not speak any further on it, but if anyone would like to talk about the problems with first past the post and the potential for a new voting system, please do get in touch. It is one of my favourite subjects.

I want to speak briefly against new clause 67, tabled by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes). I am puzzled by the idea that leaflets in other languages are somehow detrimental to our democracy. I used to live in Spain, and I was in a minority among Brits, because I actually spoke Spanish. Some Brits are eligible to vote in local elections in Spain, and yes, they absolutely should be able to speak Spanish, but I know from experience the difference between being able to understand a language and being able to understand the political nuances, the history, and the code used in political text, which can be different. We want to expand participation in our democracy, so I think it is perfectly fine to have leaflets in different languages. I note that only 0.3% of people in Britain do not speak English. It is a tiny minority of people. Unfortunately, this place is yet again being used to whip up culture wars that have no basis in reality.

National Planning Policy Framework

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on council and social housing. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) on securing this very important debate.

On a personal basis, a debate on national planning policy feels like a very fitting bookend to the outgoing Administration. The issue of what gets built where defines our daily lives like no other issue, and I have found my first two years in this place defined by those debates. Without wanting to cast myself as a latter-day Cassandra, I shared early on my view that, try though Ministers might, there would be no appeasing the developer lobby—no amount of deregulation will ever satisfy them—and so it has proven, with the clamour for relaxed fire safety standards and the weakening of environmental policies, and for there to be less opportunity for ordinary people to influence decisions in the planning system, as loud as ever.

However, my views on the subject have changed. Today, I am not joining this debate to raise a series of detailed concerns about the latest redrafting of the NPPF—although I do still have such concerns, especially in relation to possible changes to the sequential test on surface water flooding and limits being imposed on local authorities to pursue more ambitious policies on climate and nature restoration. The point I really want to make today is that I believe we have reached a point where national planning policy is completely broken and the NPPF is beyond reform. After decades of deregulation, the genius of Labour’s post-war democratic settlement has been degraded and reduced to a system of fiendishly complex processes, combined with overwhelmingly negative outcomes, which, for all the world, seems to have been designed by an evil genius to drive all those involved mad.

When Lewis Silkin created the planning system that rebuilt this country from the ashes of world war two, he described the distinctly Labour vision for a policy that would meet “actual needs, democratically expressed.” Yet what the NPPF has achieved for years—I am afraid the latest iteration will be little different—is almost the precise opposite of Silkin’s idealism. Pretty much ever since the first version of the NPPF in 2012, what we have seen is the proliferation of speculative development across the country, with democratically produced local plans ridden roughshod over and housing built first and foremost for profit, not for people.

In fact, a national planning policy framework is not even an accurate name for what we have. There can be no plan-led system when national policy introduces the overwhelming likelihood of caveats to local plans through an ever stronger and equally inaccurately named presumption in favour of sustainable development, which in reality functions as a passport to permission for all but the very worst speculative schemes. This is not planning in any reasonable sense of the word—it is merely reacting.

Under the NPPF system, more and more of the initiative, the influence and the advantage lies with the vested interests of land promoters and major developers, whose private profit will never accord with the public good. And thus we have a national system in which the notion of affordable housing is a running joke, and in which the environment that politicians so often protest their love for is repeatedly trashed as a secondary matter compared to the unequally distributed benefits of growth. It is a national planning policy framework that overwhelmingly produces outcomes that lock us into car-dependent, unsustainable lifestyles, with polluted air that chokes the lungs of our children and costs the NHS billions, and utterly fails to secure public consent for the development we very desperately require to meet the needs of those stuck in temporary accommodation and in cramped, crowded and unsanitary conditions.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise to the Minister; I am hopping between two different debates in two different Chambers. I told my constituents that I would make this point about planning policy in my area, which has fought for decades to protect the green belt. The introduction of the concept of the grey belt means that developers are now turning green belt into grey belt by dumping, cutting down trees and despoiling the area, and then applying for planning permission for development. The concept of grey belt has undermined all that we have spent decades campaigning for.

[Chris Hinchliff]

I agree with those concerns. As I understand it, many of the applications for grey belt are in fact on greenfield sites, and that needs to be addressed.

For all its labyrinthine processes, the NPPF makes a mockery of local democracy, which breeds disillusion and contempt for politics in this country. The system we have created through the NPPF traps communities in a never-ending cycle of adversarial confrontations with corporations that see our local landscapes as easy pickings and cream off much of the wealth of new developments, while leaving the public to carry the majority of the costs. The section 106 mechanism they rely on is not only obscure, but demonstrably incapable of securing the investment in the infrastructure—GPs, schools, sports grounds and public transport—necessary to keep pace with population growth, when hundreds of new houses are bolted on to towns that have already seen almost all their facilities closed.

The housing the NPPF produces is often both miserabilist and identikit. It is seemingly designed to erase local identity and shorn of local traditions, with no space for community and with a built environment that is best described as unhappiness given physical form. All in all, the damage that successive iterations of the NPPF have done to our country is difficult to forgive. Now is the time to consign the NPPF to the dustbin of history where it belongs and start afresh instead of making further amendments.

The one positive note I can strike is that it is not difficult to imagine something far, far better. We need to return to Labour’s democratic principles, stop treating the public as a problem to be silenced and embrace them as a source of optimistic solutions for meeting the needs of the future. It is time to replace the constant nonsense that traduces our constituents as nimbys, and to put power in their hands so that they can decide where and how to meet the housing needs of their communities in a way that expresses their hopes and priorities for the future. It is time to bring back architects in every local planning authority, working with each community to shape plans for future development on an appropriate scale for each settlement, and with a renaissance in the local vernacular that strengthens and reinvigorates the culture and identity of each unique town, village and city. In short, it is time to ditch the NPPF and build a new system that puts power in the hands of the people and allows planners to genuinely plan with communities.

Draft Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 General Committees

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. This is a hugely consequential instrument. Little democracy remains in our planning system, and this legislation will cut the amount down further. We are elected to this place to serve the public, not treat them as a problem to be silenced.

The measures will mean that individual councillors lose the ability to directly call in planning decisions completely, and that democratically elected councillors get to publicly scrutinise and vote on planning decisions only in exceptional circumstances, even for schedule 2 applications. With no committees for the vast majority of decisions, they will also mean that the public lose their chance to speak for a few minutes in front of those deciding on what gets built and where in their local area. In effect, in many circumstances, they will render our constituents and their locally elected representatives bystanders in the future of their own community. The measures seem to directly contradict Labour’s historic mission to redistribute power, not to mention the current drive for devolution and putting decision-making power back in local hands.

Streamlining our processes, in my view, cannot justify to my constituents the loss of their voice through these measures. I fear that the case for these changes relies overwhelmingly on anecdote and the belief that locally elected councillors are too responsive to the hopes and concerns of those they represent, and that by taking councillors out of the equation, more planning applications will be approved in spite of the public’s hopes and concerns.

It is not a lack of planning permissions that underpins our decades-long failure to address our nation’s housing needs, however, and these measures will do nothing to build the hundreds of thousands of council houses we need. Whitehall is also not the best place to define which planning decisions are important enough for local democratic scrutiny; it is our local councils that have the knowledge and understanding of their communities needed to inform that choice.

I absolutely accept that years of incoherent tinkering have created a planning system that is no longer fit for purpose. It is procedurally complex, it does not secure public support for future development, it does not build the affordable homes we need, and it is producing poor-quality, unsustainable outcomes—but making more decisions behind closed doors will not remedy any of that.

Some may argue that this measure represents a shift towards a rules-based planning system by taking democratic discretion out of the equation, but the irony is that it is the decades-long deregulation of our planning system and the ever-growing focus on developer-led, speculative applications for building new housing that make the application of discretionary scrutiny essential. If we wanted a truly rules-based system, we would focus on reform that puts powers in the hands of local communities to decide for themselves through a genuinely co-designed local plan where, how and in what way their housing needs could be met.

To conclude, this is a bad piece of legislation that will do nothing to help our constituents off housing waiting lists or to secure public consent for development in this country. It will hang like an albatross around the Government’s neck. The public anger about and resistance to damaging and speculative plans put forward by profiteering land promoters and developers will not disappear if this legislation comes into force; it will simply be redirected to target the planning officers who will have to enact it, the Members of Parliament who allowed democracy to be quietly killed off in a Committee Room, and Labour Ministers every time a councillor has to explain to their residents that they can no longer publicly scrutinise and challenge inappropriate development because this Government abandoned their own best traditions and stripped them of their rights.

All that the statutory instrument will achieve is more polarisation and yet further erosion of trust in our political system, so I urge the Committee to reject these proposals. I urge the Government to choose a different course that recognises communities as a positive force to be empowered and that focuses on securing the highest-quality development plans to win genuine social licence to build, rather than trying to silence opposition to the development of unhappiness given physical form, which has already done so much damage to our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the comments that I have just made. The impact assessment for the Act was published on the basis of a particular scenario, which we have modified. We need to update the impact assessment and we will do so in due course so that he has a better sense of the impact.

The impact is tangible and real, in terms of what can go through schedule 2. We also anticipate that it will mean less time and resource spent on preparing for committee meetings for smaller applications in schedule 1, so it will speed up the decision-making process more broadly and free up important officer time to focus on larger applications that have a real impact on housing delivery.

Several hon. Members mentioned councillors’ ability to call in applications, which we are removing. The regulations do not require local authorities to put every schedule 2 application through the gateway test. It will be for individual local planning authorities to put in place their own arrangements for how the consideration of cases for referral to committee will operate in practice. In other words, it will be open to individual LPAs to triage their schedule 2 applications in ways that are appropriate for them so that only certain schedule 2 applications are considered by the nominated officer and member. Under those arrangements, it would be open to a local planning authority to include a mechanism for councillors to ask for applications that fall under schedule 2 to be considered under the gateway test, and if they meet that test they can be looked at by committee.

[Chris Hinchliff]

Is that not potentially reintroducing the same level of discretion and difference across the country if local planning authorities choose to use those powers in different ways?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I do not believe so, because local planning authority schemes must adhere to planning regulations and meet the gateway test—in the sense of what can pass a committee—and the statutory guidance to which they must have regard. In a sense, we want to ensure that applications passing through the gateway and considered by committees are larger, complex and more controversial cases, and that less significant applications are determined by planning officers.

That leads me to the legal obligations on officers. In a sense, the question has been put to me, “Can we trust local planning officers to make these decisions?” I must make it clear that officers working for local authorities are bound by strict requirements in the way they make decisions on applications. They must, by law, take all material considerations into account, including relevant parts of a local plan—that is why having an up-to-date local plan in place is so significant—and national planning policy. The law also requires their decisions to be rational. Planning officers’ actions must adhere to codes of conduct, be they those of the local planning authority or of the professional institutes to which they belong. Taken together, we think that these measures provide strong safeguards to underpin the integrity of decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure that housing associations improve the quality of social housing.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

22. What steps he is taking to improve standards for social housing.

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

Alongside our commitment to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, the Government are determined to drive a transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of social housing. To that end, we have begun the implementation of Awaab’s law, introduced a new, modernised decent homes standard, updated minimum energy efficiency standards and directed the Regulator of Social Housing to set new standards relating to the competence and conduct of social housing staff.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Social landlords are held to regulatory standards that are overseen by the regulator. I am sorry to hear about the experience of John and Barbara and others. If the hon. Lady would like to write to me with details about the case, I will happily look into it.

[Chris Hinchliff]

More social housing is essential but, as Members across the House will know, increasingly distant housing associations are often far too quick to put up fees and far too slow to tackle damp, mould and disrepair. What more will the Minister do to ensure that future public funding comes with clear strings attached to require better standards for our constituents?

[Matthew Pennycook]

Registered providers of social housing, whoever they are, must address non-decency wherever it exists and must do so in a timely and professional manner. Where there are concerns that an RP is not delivering against the required regulatory standards, as I just mentioned, referrals can be made to the regulator, and the regulator has robust enforcement powers that allow it to take effective action when serious failings are identified.

Foreign Financial Influence and Interference: UK Politics

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I am completely disappointed with myself for not wishing the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) a happy birthday today. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] That is why his question was allowed to be a little bit longer than usual, but hopefully it will not be next time.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I welcome this statement. The public must have confidence that political decisions are made in their interests, not those of wealthy donors. Nowhere is that more important than in relation to the housing crisis, where there are also significant concerns that vested interests are seeking to exert significant influence on policy making. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss my proposed amendment to the Representation of the People Bill to ban developers from donating to politics and restore trust in our planning system?

[Steve Reed]

I am more than happy to make sure that my hon. Friend gets an appropriate meeting. I also belatedly wish the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) a happy birthday.

New Towns

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

The Government’s determination to deliver a new generation of new towns, with everything residents will need for a thriving and fulfilling life, offers a much more hopeful solution to the housing crisis in this country than the proliferation of overpriced and characterless bolt-on estates thrown up by profiteering developers in recent years. As Ministers press on with those plans, I would like to highlight some of what can be learned from the radical and transformative history of previous such projects.

The development of new towns in this country grew out of the garden city movement. The very first and best garden city in the world is Letchworth Garden City in my constituency—I will not take any interventions on that. The principles on which Letchworth was founded offer several lessons that I believe should inform the plans for future new towns.

First, the land on which those towns will be constructed, and the large rural green belt that the residents will need for healthy recreation and supply of food, should be brought into common ownership. That was always central to securing Ebenezer Howard’s vision of the best of countryside and city life, and it means encouraging industry to access cheap sites, keeping housing affordable by capturing rising land values, and using ground rents to fund community assets. To this day, the fact that Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation continues to have a substantial property portfolio allows it to invest in and subsidise many facilities that enrich life in the town, including the Garden City Greenway, the Broadway cinema, and Standalone farm. So lesson No. 1 is that the development corporations for the next generation of new towns must be empowered to purchase all the land that they need at current use value, through compulsory purchase orders if necessary.

Secondly, we must always remember that garden cities were never just about the supply of housing. From the outset, Letchworth was always envisioned as a way of bringing employment and industry to a depressed rural economy. In short, new towns need a purpose, not just a housing target to hit. Communities thrive and grow around the industries that define them, and without that, new towns will never escape the dismal fate of becoming little more than a commuter dormitory. As we build the new towns of the future, we must be clear from the outset about what the economic anchor institutions of those communities will be. Whether they are new university towns, born, as Cambridge was, of the desire of scholars to set up a fresh seat of learning to rival those of the past, or new industrial sites for green technology, we must ensure that there is a clear economic identity defining future new towns.

Thirdly, in an era in which a tiny proportion of our homes are designed by architects—the Royal Institute of British Architects has estimated that just 6% of homes are—we should strive to match the optimism of the garden city movement, which sought to prove that beautiful, bright and well-built homes could be made affordable for ordinary people. To this day, the arts and crafts-inspired architecture of Letchworth makes it an incredibly special place. As we build the next new towns, we should suffuse them with the same values, and the same determination to provide genuinely affordable homes, alongside constant proof that life is beautiful. That means commissioning architects to shape unique and inspiring local vernaculars that create a special identity for each town. It means embracing aesthetics and ornamentation, as well as functionality, and it means patient public capital investment over the long term, above all in a high proportion of desperately needed council homes for social rent.

In the context of the Office for Environmental Protection’s warning that we are largely off target for the UK’s environmental commitments, it is absolutely crucial that future new towns follow the garden city model of development in harmony with nature. Letchworth was built without cutting down a single mature tree, and there is no reason why we cannot do the same now. Similarly, we must match the importance given, in garden city principles, to a well-protected green belt. Green belt secures permanent and easy access for the inhabitants of new towns to the peace and joy of the countryside next door that is teeming with wildlife.

Finally, while not all of Ebenezer Howard’s vision ultimately came to fruition—like all towns, Letchworth faces its own challenges today—the strength of community that Letchworth continues to foster, nearly 125 years after it was founded, should shape the policies that we pursue as we support the new towns to come. From Decarbonise Letchworth to the Wilbury community café and the Friends of Norton Common, the ordinary residents of Letchworth are a constant source of energy, passion and determination to tackle the challenges that we face as a society, from environmental collapse to loneliness and the cost of living. The Labour Government should foster and embrace these grassroots movements by combining new towns with a new drive to put power back in the hands of ordinary people.

To give new communities the ability to shape their lives and their area in a way that meets their hopes for the future, we need a new charter of community rights. Fortunately, the amendment that I tabled to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to do just that has recently been re-tabled in the other place, providing the Government with an excellent opportunity to rectify their oversight in failing to adopt the charter when I first brought the proposal to this House.

Designed to put power back in the hands of ordinary people, the charter for community rights offers a starting point for restoring popular agency in our democracy, which I believe is an essential ingredient to getting new towns right. We are talking about the right to a clean and healthy environment, to a healthy home, to play, to grow food on public sector land, to roam and swim, to participate in decisions shaping communities, and to challenge local decisions. Adopting the charter for community rights is the final ingredient in ensuring that this Government’s new towns are genuine communities, capable of nurturing social life and cohesion from the outset. That should be an objective that we can all share.

National Plan to End Homelessness

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I think I have responded a number of times on our ambitions for social housing and mixed communities. On section 21, the right hon. Member will have noted that we are investing more in this year to help councils respond to the crisis that we face now, as well as having long-term objectives.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s work on this important subject. Just after we came into office, Ministers committed from the Dispatch Box to a revolution in council house building. I have welcomed and noted the Minister’s statements on social housing, but she will be aware that there are growing concerns around an increasing corporate ethos in housing associations, many of which have a mixed record at best. I have heard directly from constituents about the stark contrast in security of tenure between when they were living in a council house home and now, when it is owned by a housing association. Given that Shelter estimates that nearly 400,000 people are currently homeless across the country, will the Minister set out what the Government will do to deliver that council housing revolution in constituencies such as mine?

[Alison McGovern]

Housing associations will have heard the comments that my hon. Friend has made. I am sure that they all aspire to treat their residents with the utmost respect and care, but they will have heard what he has said and will want to ensure that they fulfil that ambition.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon]

No I do not—not fully; I will return to that answer in more detail in a couple of moments.

As a prime example of what more could have been done, the Bill could have addressed the democratic deficit it creates. It strips powers away from elected councillors and gifts them to unelected planning officers, as well as giving more powers to the Secretary of State. That, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg when we consider the clear contempt shown for local democracy as the Government prepare to cancel yet another round of local elections. The Bill also fails to support both those building and buying homes—no amount of centralisation in the Bill will counter the Chancellor’s failure to meaningfully support growth and cut costs. This is despite clear warnings from the Home Builders Federation that the Government must provide help for first-time buyers and reduce taxes on new homes if they are to achieve anything close to the tally of 1.3 million homes by the end of the decade that was predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility in March.

Let me turn to nature—something I know many MPs have received emails about. The Bill still lacks the clarity and the answers that nature lovers seek to legitimate questions about how we reconcile the delivery of new homes and infrastructure with the need to protect our natural environment. This is most evident when we consider the Government’s focus on removing legal protections on green-belt land. Ripping up the green belt is not the answer, which is why my colleagues and I have called for the swifter redevelopment of brownfield sites. This is not least because, according to CPRE, in a substantial number of local authorities there is enough brownfield land with planning permission to meet the targets set by the Government’s standard method for calculating housing need for at least the next five years. This is something that the Bill and this Government have failed to explore. Across two Secretaries of State, several junior Ministers and almost a year of parliamentary time, the Government have pushed these measures through using their majority, but without using their common sense.

Many provisions in the Bill still leave the market, home buyers, developers and local communities wanting. The triple blow—with a Chancellor running our economy into the ground while hiking taxes and a Government cutting demand-side policies to support first-time buyers—has left the country without a clear pathway to the lofty promise of 1.5 million homes. Don’t just take my word for it: throughout this process, the OBR, the Home Builders Federation, the National Federation of Builders, Britain Remade, the Countryside Alliance, Professor Paul Cheshire, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and many more industry experts and organisations, have raised concerns, either about the Bill or about the Government’s ability to meet their housing target more widely.

The Government had the chance to fix this Bill, to support infrastructure projects, to back community voices and to deliver the homes that the British people need, but they have not done so. The Housing Minister recently declined to rule out further planning legislation in this Parliament. If that comes to pass, let us hope that next time, he and his colleagues listen to industry, the voices in this House and our local communities, and do what he knows to be right.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I am not certain whether I or the Minister will be more relieved at the conclusion of debates on this legislation. I welcome the fact that the Minister has tabled an amendment to the remaining proposal from the other place; I support Government amendment (a), and welcome the additional parliamentary scrutiny it brings. Once again, this legislation is in a better place than it was the last time it came in front of us, and I welcome the fact that Ministers have committed to environmental delivery plans being initially focused on nutrient neutrality and that further EDPs will be preceded by a statement in this House presenting the evidence for them.

I want to reflect briefly on further evidence that has come before us since our last debate on the Bill. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published an assessment of England’s biodiversity that found substantially more indicators of our nature in decline than going in the right direction. The Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit, published its report on environmental sustainability and housing growth in which it called for an end to “lazy” narratives and scapegoating of nature. New polling has also found that more than two thirds of voters think politicians are out of touch with the public’s values on nature.

We are still a long way from a planning system that delivers genuinely affordable homes and social justice, values democracy and reverses the decline of England’s nature. I hope that, with the conclusion of this Bill, we can move forward to some more positive progress.

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

When the Bill was presented to the House, the Liberal Democrats outlined three main concerns: accountability to Parliament, accountability to communities and accountability for our environment. Lords amendment 33 would address—to an extent—accountability to local communities and the importance of their role in planning, but it does not go as far as we would like. We are disappointed with the thrust of the legislation, which takes powers away from planning committees and gives them to the Secretary of State. We continue to oppose that measure, but we welcome the Government’s compromise in the form of amendment (a), which gives Parliament some say over those regulations. We will not oppose it.

Planning committees are important to all the key aspects of planning, including national policy statements for the biggest projects in the country, and I recognise that the Minister has reached agreement with the Chairs of the Select Committees on how national policy statements will be drafted. Planning Committees are also important to nature. Local people know their natural and local environment best and are best placed to understand it and make decisions about it. Lords amendment 33 would therefore be particularly important.

The Liberal Democrats are bitterly disappointed that the Conservatives did not support our efforts and amendments to include in the Bill statutory protection for chalk streams. I urge the Minister to follow up on his commitment to ensure that chalk streams appear in the national planning policy framework, and in its glossary, as an irreplaceable habitat. It is really important that these vital habitats, which we must protect, are established as an irreplaceable habitat. The UK has 85% of the world’s unique chalk streams.

As I said, local communities know their environment best, and they are best placed to help deliver on the environmental delivery plans. We are concerned that the environmental delivery plans are being given to Natural England, which will act as a decision maker, fee taker, and judge, jury and executioner—without necessarily leaving a role for some small companies such as those in my constituency that have been delivering phosphate credits successfully and enabling development to go forward. I hope that the Minister and the Government will enable a continuing role for small and medium-sized enterprises in this field. It is vital that it is not just left to the monolith of Natural England to deal with that—in part because it is not very good at it. In 2022, it committed to releasing 40,000 homes with phosphate credits in the first year of its activity, but so far it has delivered only 4,000 homes under that programme. It is not necessarily most practical to assume that Natural England will dig us out of this crisis.

The Liberal Democrats want to work constructively with the Government. We want environmental delivery plans to succeed, and to deal robustly with nutrient neutrality and phosphate pollution. We want to see the pollution in the Somerset levels and moors special protection area dealt with successfully through an EDP, but that must involve local communities and local companies and businesses, which are already doing really strong work in this field.

This is not the Bill that we would have introduced. We believe that what is needed to build the homes the country needs is a massive council home and social home building programme. We propose 150,000 homes per year, with that being the focus of delivery, without watering down the planning process or the planning system, or removing the rights of communities as the Bill sadly does. However, we will work constructively with the Government on the Bill’s implementation. We are pleased to have won, through my noble Friend Baroness Parminter in the other place, an amendment to the Bill, via the Government, on the mitigation hierarchy so that nature is placed at the top of the tree in such decisions. We welcome the changes to the Bill so far and will not seek to divide the House on the motion.