Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Joe Powell

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Nothing symbolises the drift and decline of the past 14 years more than the appalling state of planning and infrastructure in Britain: a housing crisis that has forced children to live in overcrowded and unsafe homes; an energy crisis that has left us dangerously exposed to shocks in the global energy market; and a litany of infrastructure failures. It is not just the reservoirs or the £120 million spent on the Tory bat tunnel for HS2, but the promised 40 new hospitals by 2030—a claim now exposed as fiction with funds not allocated, many schemes not new hospitals, and a tiny fraction due to complete on time. I can see in my constituency the direct impact that that failure, especially on housing, has on my residents. I admire the commitment of the shadow Minister, who has just left his place, to the spreadsheet that he has been quoting from throughout the debate. He seems to have missed the line in the spreadsheet that states the number of times the previous Government hit their housing target—precisely zero.

There are nearly 3,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and more than 2,000 in temporary accommodation. Behind those numbers are stories of daily struggle, like Sansha and her five children who live next to Grenfell Tower. Her son is in a wheelchair and awaiting open-heart surgery for his life-limiting condition. They live on the top floor, and the lift frequently breaks. There is no heating, no reliable hot water and just one working bathroom. They have been waiting more than three years for a move to a suitable property.

Then there is Lacey, whose six-year-old daughter has autism—and has tried to jump out of a window twice. Despite repeated safeguarding warnings, the family remains in overcrowded and unsafe housing. Then there is another resident I met recently who spent more than 15 years out of the borough with her children before moving back. There are more than 164,000 children living in temporary accommodation in England, the highest number on record. Instead of tackling the root causes, as the Bill seeks to do, we poured money into managing the problem.

[Joy Morrissey]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about temporary accommodation and the lack of housing availability. But why have the housing targets for London, which has some of the highest levels of unmet social housing accommodation need, not been raised to deal with overcrowding?

[Joe Powell]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. The housing target for London is 88,000. She will know well that the previous target was never remotely close to being hit under the previous Government. With targets not being hit, we are interested in net new dwellings: affordable and social housing for the people I am most concerned about in my constituency. That is what the Bill will help to achieve.

I am delighted that we finally have a Government who have the ambition to tackle the problem. On energy, I am pleased that the Bill will deliver faster and more certain planning consent for critical infrastructure, including upgrading our electricity networks and maximising new clean energy sources. The Bill will move us on decisively from the era of the onshore wind ban, plummeting investment, and reliance on Putin and his fossil fuel oligarchs. If we are serious about speeding up delivery, however, we must address the capacity crisis in planning departments, so it is welcome that the Government have committed to 300 new planners. What assessment has been made of the total need for planners across the country to get to the level of approvals we need to meet our housing targets? Can the planning fee reform in the Bill support that recruitment through full cost recovery? We know that planning reform must be matched by the people and resources needed to make it work.