Business of the House

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We welcome the pupils of Hillington Primary School to our proceedings this morning. I hope that they think the Chamber this morning has been as well-behaved as they have.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

If my right hon. Friend would like to visit the beautiful constituency of Stafford, he will see that we are contributing greatly to house building in the UK, with a rate more than double the national average. However, developers are taking advantage of rules about councils falling very briefly below the five-year land supply to put in developments that are unwanted by local residents and environmentally unsound, particularly in the village of Penkridge. May we have a debate on the way in which developers are taking advantage of loopholes in planning legislation, and on how we should abide by the plans that have been put in place by our councils, in consultation with residents, and not see these unwanted, unplanned-for housing developments springing up simply because the developer wants to put them there?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point about housing. We too often speak simply about volume. Of course, the Government have a very clear record in that regard, with 220,000 homes built in the last year for which we have records—the highest number of each of the past 31 years, bar one. None the less, he is absolutely right that quality of development, in the right place, is absolutely key to getting our housing policy right. I would perhaps point him to an Adjournment debate to discuss this and make his points to the relevant Minister. He is no stranger to that, as I believe he has an Adjournment debate next week on the issue of precious metals.