Housing: Planning Laws

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend, and for her contribution to our debate on housing last week. She will be aware that there was a manifesto commitment to safeguard the green belt. The planning policy indicates that the green belt should be developed only where all other opportunities have been explored, such as brownfield sites and building at higher densities in urban areas. However, we go on to say that if at the end of that it is necessary, we will develop in the green belt. Some areas of green belt do not live up to their name; they are sometimes very unattractive pieces of land. We are consulting on local authorities in the White Paper; if it is necessary for them to encroach on the green belt, they should make complementary provision elsewhere to replace the amenity that has been lost.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

I refer to my local government interest in the register. Apparently there are currently between 500,000 and 600,000 planning consents for houses, many granted years ago. What action will the Government take to ensure that these are used? Further, while I welcome today’s announcement by the Prime Minister that the Government will not cap housing benefit in the social housing sector, and the recent announcement of £2 billion for all of 25,000 extra homes over the next four years, will they remove the cap on council borrowing for new building, and if not, why not?