Affordable Rural Housing

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I call Olivia Bailey to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in a 30-minute debate. I call Olivia Bailey.

[Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of affordable rural housing.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I am delighted to have secured this important debate, and I look forward to hearing from my colleagues and my hon. Friend the Minister over the next 30 minutes.

My Reading West and Mid Berkshire constituency boasts the very best of the English countryside. We have many beautiful rural villages and hamlets, many nestled in the north Wessex downs national landscape, formerly known as an area of outstanding natural beauty. They are villages full of families who have lived there for generations, but unfortunately villages now under threat due to a lack of affordable housing. There are many barriers to affordable housing in those villages: some are a consequence of the national landscape designation, but others are a consequence of a lack of political will. In west Berkshire people have been let down by Conservative and then Liberal Democrat administrations that offer warm words about the future of our villages, but are unwilling to take the action necessary and do the hard work to secure not massive developments in our villages, but small developments, with the support of the community, of houses at an affordable price.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

May I just check that the Member has sought permission to speak?

[Olivia Bailey]

indicated assent.