Housebuilding Targets

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is quite right to point to that as an issue. We have set up the housing acceleration unit in the department, which I mentioned earlier, to help with that. We want to be quite clear within the National Planning Policy Framework that, where sites are allocated, they should be built out as quickly as possible. There will be follow-up where that is not the case.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand the point the noble Baroness is making. It is important that consumers are reassured that, when they purchase a property, they are going to receive it as purchased. There is a long-standing property law, caveat emptor, which means it is for the buyer to check out these issues and make sure, through their legal advice, that they are getting what they pay for. I will take back the issue about consumer protections and see if there is anything further that can be done.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, what are the assumptions about the average time it will take before the welcome new numbers of planning officers are in place?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend is right that there is no planning officer tree out there that we can go and pick planning officers from—I wish there were. Highly skilled planners are fundamental to running a proactive, efficient planning service for the communities they serve and ensuring that new developments are well-designed and facilitate local growth. We have set up a scheme with the Local Government Association to make sure that we are recruiting and training 300 graduate and apprentice planners, and encouraging some of the planners who have stepped out of the public planning sector to come back in wherever possible. That has proved successful so far, and we hope we will continue to increase recruitment at a level that will support planning for local authorities.