Planning and House Building

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I am grateful for the contributions of all 39 right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken today, and I do not for a minute underestimate the insight and the wisdom that I have heard, not least that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) in his very kind but entirely unsolicited testimonial during his remarks.

I hope that we will not lose sight of where we have come from, because this Government have delivered more than one and a half million new homes since 2010. We have built more than 241,000 in England in the past year alone. This year, we will announce a £12.3 billion package of affordable homes, which will see more than 50% of them delivered at discounted rent. We will take no lectures from representatives of the Opposition: we built more council homes in one year than they built in the entire 13 years. In Wales, they managed to build just 12 council homes last year—not even enough homes for a Welsh rugby team.

We can be rightly proud of our success, particularly as it has been achieved despite a slow and outdated planning process. We are determined to deliver on our manifesto commitment and deliver 300,000 new homes each year by the mid-2020s in the areas that really need them to meet that most fundamental Conservative value to own our own home and to have a stake in the country and the future of it. We want more people, especially younger people, to realise that aspiration. We also want to enhance our environment, protecting our green belt, increasing biodiversity and safeguarding our precious green spaces.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

In that spirit, will my right hon. Friend, as he looks at the consultation responses, make a commitment to giving a measure of consideration to those of us in constituencies such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), where we have had national infrastructure like HS2 forced through us, and take that into account when it comes to further development land that is required?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I shall certainly look very closely at the representations on the consultation that he makes.

The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear that we have to be bold in our vision for the future of planning in our country. That is why we have put forward two sets of proposals for consultation to address our needs both in the short term and the longer term. The first, on changes to our current planning system and local housing need calculations, closed last week. The second, on our White Paper “Planning for the Future”, which sets out our long-term ambitions, closes on 29 October.

Our long-term proposals will create a reformed system that not only delivers the homes that we need but puts communities at the heart of a process that encourages more local community involvement, fairer contributions from developers, more beautiful homes and communities, and stronger environmental outcomes.