Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

Debate between John Grogan and Laurence Robertson

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I welcome her support.

Guidance on the provision of affordable housing requires councils to assess the need based on local circumstances, but such housing is not being delivered in practice. The housing White Paper outlines that that the Government intend to amend the policy framework to introduce a clear policy expectation that housing sites deliver a minimum of 10% affordable homes, but that is not sufficient to address the issues that the planning system is failing to sort out, particularly for first-time buyers. As I see it, it will still be producing the wrong types of housing—perhaps large three-bedroom houses, but also four and five-bedroom houses—when many areas, including my own, need affordable two-bedroom houses. Such homes are more likely to be within the price range of younger people, thereby addressing the problem that the Government identified in the first place: a fall in ownership among young people.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

In support of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, does he think it significant that the Campaign to Protect Rural England estimates that just over 10% of all the houses built on the green belt since 2009 are actually affordable?

[Mr Robertson]

I was not aware of that figure, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention.

I was speaking about home ownership among young people, but the provision of two-bedroom houses would also help older people who are perhaps looking to downsize after retirement, which would free up larger houses. Yet that is not happening at the moment.