Building Homes

Joe Powell Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Joe Powell, another Select Committee member.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement and especially welcome what the Minister said about affordable homes, given the dismal numbers that were provided under the Conservatives. Those 1.3 million people on the waiting list deserve a voice in our planning system too, and I only wish the Opposition would recognise that.

What approach will the Minister take when there are multiple local plans, for example the London plan and the London borough plans? How will the targets be worked out between those different plans?

[Matthew Pennycook]

As my hon. Friend may know, the new method produces a figure for London of nearly 88,000. That is more than double recent delivery, and it constitutes the biggest proposed percentage increase against delivery in any region in the country by a significant margin. We expect London to step up and improve its housing delivery record. As for my hon. Friend’s specific question, it will be for London and the Mayor to consider how the aggregate local housing numbers are distributed across the whole of London. Because there is a spatial plan in the form of the London plan, the targets for individual London boroughs need to be viewed in that context. The same cannot be said for other parts of the country.