Homes and Planning Bill

Emily Darlington Excerpts

Friday 13th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Gibson]

I do recognise that, but we are still nowhere near the levels we were at when councils were actually building. That is important, because for too long—even under this Labour Government—we have assumed that the answer to the housing crisis is more planning permissions, in the hope that the market will deliver, when we know that it will not.

That is why I welcome the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George). It recognises something that we have forgotten in housing policy: land, planning and delivery cannot be separated from one another. As the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) mentioned, we can have planning applications, but delivery is a different issue. As an architect, I have spent most of my adult life trying to deliver buildings and actually get things built on the ground. One of the problems that I repeatedly see is land passing from one developer to another while the planning application process takes so long. With each of those transactions, the price increase on the land and the hope value built into the assumption that planning permission will ultimately be granted mean that, by the time planning permission is secured, the price paid for the land and the expectations on that future development have created so much pressure that almost everything else gets squeezed.

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a good case for development corporations. Does she agree that spatial development strategies—there was an announcement on them yesterday, I think—are a good step forward in doing the strategic planning that she is asking for, and that I think we all agree is needed?

[Sarah Gibson]

Absolutely. I recognise that this Government are working towards that, which is why I feel very strongly that the Bill is adding to the work that the Government are doing, not detracting from it.

Over the years, we have seen the squeezing of affordable housing. It is what gets removed every time there is an economic crisis or an economic case for its removal—the social housing, the infrastructure and the quality of the housing itself. I particularly welcome the compulsory purchase provisions in the Bill, as they deal with the issues of affordability for housing associations and local government being able to actually provide this housing. Authorities need to be able to secure the land at a value that makes these homes deliverable, rather than allowing the inflated expectations of future development value to consume the viability of the scheme before a single home is built.

We also need to look again at who actually builds the homes. I speak regularly to the social housing providers in my area, and one problem in relying on developers to construct the affordable element of a large scheme, and then asking the housing association to acquire it, is that those homes have not necessarily been built with what the provider needs. The homes may be the wrong type of house or built to the wrong specification, and increasingly they may leave the provider with the additional costs of bringing them up to the standards the provider will shortly be required to meet.

By 2030, social landlords will need to meet new minimum energy-efficiency standards, and providers are therefore being asked to retrofit thousands of their existing homes while simultaneously finding the money to build new homes designed and built by somebody else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on his laudable Bill, but it is just a sticking plaster on the housing crisis we are experiencing and many of the measures are unnecessary—[Interruption.] I hope I have not offended the hon. Member. I thought I was being quite nice! The measures are unnecessary for councils dedicated to building communities and not just housing. In fact, too many councils led by the Opposition parties are, quite frankly, nimbys and blocking councils.

Milton Keynes is 60 next year, which is exciting for me and the MPs there. It is an example of what can be done when a council is committed to growth through building communities. In fact, everyone who has chosen to live in Milton Keynes is a pioneer—part of building the city that we are still creating. In every new estate, we build the school and GP surgery before the houses, rather than retrofitting them afterwards, and that is paid for by developers. We also build the infrastructure first. We are extending the grid roads, our famous roundabouts and our redways, which means that bicycles and pedestrians do not have to interact with the roads. Those provisions are set out in our council planning. Our community infrastructure—which ensures that communities have places to play, pray and gather—and our mixed housing, including social, affordable, private rent and private ownership, are set out in our “Strategy for 2050” plan. Having a five-year land supply, an up-to-date plan and a strategy that takes us out to 2050 allows us to put in place the things we need.

We are also building culture. Over 100 languages are spoken in Milton Keynes, and each and every one of those communities is celebrated. We respect the fact that diversity increases our innovation and our ability to build this new city. It is of no surprise to any of us—though it might be to others in the country—that we have been shortlisted for the city of culture.

[Amanda Martin]

I congratulate Milton Keynes on being shortlisted. Unfortunately, my city of Portsmouth was not—we were on the long list. [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] Yes, shame. I thank my hon. Friend for talking about the wider plans. My dad helped to build Milton Keynes—he was a gas fitter—and when Galley Hill estate was built, my parents moved there and were able to live in council housing because Milton Keynes had that forward thinking, so I echo her words.

[Emily Darlington]

I am sorry that Portsmouth was not shortlisted. I do not know what the bid was, but I am sure it was a fantastic one and that there will be opportunities in the future for Portsmouth to be city of culture. I want to recognise people like my hon. Friend’s father, who were part of building this new kind of city, and we continue in that spirit. When we built 183 new council homes, we ensured within the contract that local builders, plumbers, electricians and tradies were a part of the process—continuing the strategy of building homes with the people and talent we have in Milton Keynes.

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend paints a utopian picture of Milton Keynes. She is such a strong advocate for the city and for municipal planning across the board. On the anniversary of the creation of Milton Keynes—she looks well for 60, by the way—perhaps she could remind the House under which Government Milton Keynes was designated a new town, and also which Government it was that installed the priorities and principles of new towns into what is now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government?

[Emily Darlington]

I will not take the bait on how old I am, because one never asks a lady how old she is, but I am not 60. But my hon. Friend is absolutely right that Milton Keynes is the epitome of a Labour Government’s dream, not just in the fact that it is a city built on opportunity, bringing people together and building communities as well as housing, but in that it also houses another amazing Labour Government initiative—the Open University—which shows that every single person has an opportunity to succeed.

[Caroline Voaden]

It is great to hear about Milton Keynes building infrastructure and having dedicated cycle lanes. That is so much easier in a new town, where that can be done through urban planning, and we are absolutely in favour of that.

The hon. Lady talks about how important it is for local areas to build. South Hams, which I represent, has built its required number of houses year after year after year under Liberal Democrat leadership, but, because of inward migration, we have more than 4,000 second homes there—the fourth-highest concentration in the entire country. The Devon Housing Commission says that inward migration from outside Devon is a massive problem. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has put forward a Bill that would help us to curb the second homes issue. It may not be a problem in Milton Keynes, but it is a particular issue that we are dealing with in certain parts of the country. That is why building and building and building is not the solution when we have massive inward migration from people wanting to retire to a beautiful part of the country.

[Emily Darlington]

I was just coming on to explain how second homes are an issue in Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes is not immune to the second homes issue, but, in fact, our issue is a little bit different—everything in Milton Keynes is a little bit different. Our new homes are marketed in the middle east because of our prized location in being able to access London, Oxford, Cambridge and Birmingham, as well as fast trains to Manchester and Liverpool. Those homes are occupied only in the summer and remain empty for the rest of the year. Despite doubling the council tax for those homes, that remains an issue. I want to continue to have a conversation with the Minister about what more we can do to tackle that issue so that those new homes go to families.

There are other, even more pressing issues in Milton Keynes that the Government could help with, which would help to fix the housing crisis. The Minister will not be surprised by my raising some of these issues, but I would appreciate it if he could address some of them in his response.

First and foremost, rough sleeping in Milton Keynes used to be the highest that it had ever been. As the deputy leader of the council, I was able to bring it down to some of the lowest levels, and I am really pleased that the approach we have taken in Milton Keynes is now the national approach. We have done No Second Night Out in Milton Keynes for more than three years, and it has led to a significant decrease in the number of people sleeping rough, but, unfortunately, issues still need to be resolved to make our dream of ending rough sleeping. Some of those issues have been taken up by the Prime Minister, who has committed further funding beyond this Christmas and will allow some proper infrastructure around supported housing to be built right across the country.

We have to talk about how the local housing allowance does not respond to local rents. That is important in a city such as Milton Keynes, where private rents are about the same as those in many areas of London. We also need to talk about local councils building council housing again. The Government have rightly done quite a bit to support registered providers, but that does not deal with housing revenue account debt or the fact that many local councils have not been able to access the £39 billion in Homes England funding. How are we ensuring that council homes are being built by councils? We need to look at the impact of right to buy and the wall put up by the Thatcher Government between a council’s general fund and the HRA budgets, which makes no sense when temporary accommodation comes out of the general fund and council homes come out of the HRA.

The other big issues that we need to solve in the housing crisis include service charges for leaseholders. I really welcome the Minister’s efforts to deal with this issue, because it is not only pricing people out of purchasing, but trapping people in homes, as they can no longer sell them because of high service charges, and they are therefore building up debt. There are also the service charges for freeholders. That is an issue, because when we build new houses and estates, we see fleecehold being used more and more to continue to game cash from residents, instead of handing over roads and parks to the local council. The Minister will be aware of how much that impacts Milton Keynes, and how important it is for my residents, and I hope he will talk about some of his work and thinking on this.

Although the hon. Member for St Ives—he is now back in his place; he just did a tour—is identifying some real issues, we cannot look at these things in isolation, and this is really a sticking plaster for a housing crisis for which we need an overarching plan. We need councils to use the powers they currently have, and to stay up to date with their five-year land supplies and local plans, so that planning inspectors are not coming in and forcing them on councils. The power stays local when the local behaves properly, and that is what we need to get across to councils that have still not put such measures in place. Those councils—Milton Keynes is surrounded by many of them—that refuse to build, or build only on the borders of Milton Keynes, are not taking this issue seriously.

[Oliver Ryan]

Tory ones.

[Amanda Martin]

And Lib Dems.

[Emily Darlington]

And Reform. Councils from all the Opposition parties are frankly not looking at this issue strategically and building the continued infrastructure. Not everyone likes roundabouts, but I do not like traffic so I will take a roundabout any day.