Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Stafford Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

1. What plans she has to support councils with house building targets.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)]

The Government are supporting local planning authorities to facilitate the delivery of more high-quality, well-designed homes, but we know that capacity is a problem with councils and that is why we have also announced a £46 million package of investment to support capacity and capability in local planning authorities, including 300 new planners and support to local authorities with delivering their local plans and green belt reviews. We will also make changes to planning fees so that councils can recover the costs of planning applications.

[Gregory Stafford]

In Waverley and East Hampshire, housing targets from this Government are doubling. When my constituents move into those homes when they are built, the infrastructure and services are simply not there. By “services”, I do not mean a phalanx of civil servants to help them move house; I mean the schools, play areas, supermarkets and road networks. Will the Secretary of State come to my constituency of Farnham and Bordon to see where we need that infrastructure, so that she can understand the implications that her housing targets have for my community?

[Angela Rayner]

We know that we need infrastructure as part of our planning reforms and the mandatory housing targets that we have put forward, and this Government will make sure that that infrastructure is there. I would say to the hon. Gentleman that it was his Government who allowed speculative housing developments, who failed to meet their housing targets and who left people without the houses they desperately needed.