Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I will be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss housing targets in Coventry. In the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill we have set out the measures under which local areas will have more power to ensure that the right housing is built in the right places. I am happy to discuss that with her.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

In Yorkshire, there are tens of thousands of families desperate for affordable housing. CPRE, The Countryside Charity, says that there are 115,000 potential brownfield sites in our county alone, and tens of thousands of more are land banked, with planning consent already given for housing. Yet there is executive housing popping up like mushrooms in a forcing shed all over my constituency on the green belt. Is the Minister happy that her legacy will be a Government that poured cement and tarmac all over Yorkshire’s green and pleasant land?

[Rachel Maclean]

I think that this Government will be extremely proud of our legacy of delivering affordable homes and homes for first-time buyers all over the country. We need a locally led planning system; that is why we are delivering measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to require more infrastructure and a brownfield-first approach, backed by billions of pounds-worth of funding.