Housing: Local Plans

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the local plan is paramount— the noble Lord, along with many people in this House, was instrumental in getting broad, cross-party agreement on the neighbourhood planning scheme. That will remain the case, but the National Planning Policy Framework will provide an overlay of the number of houses that need to be built in conformity with the national plan. I do not see any consistency there—it is something that we will watch like hawks—but the local plan is paramount in terms of the needs of an area. Related to that are the housing delivery plans, on which we consulted widely and for which there was significant support, as the noble Lord will know.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Minister will be aware of the hundreds of thousands of approved planning applications for housing across the United Kingdom where not a single brick has been laid by developer or builder. What is the benefit to local communities if the result of the test is just speculative, unsuitable developments that fail to meet local plans, fail to address local needs or have any connection with local demands?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord will have heard me just say that the local plan will remain paramount. He will also have heard me say that, last year, we had record delivery of housing—only one year in the past 30 was better than that. Last year, permission for 304,000 homes was given in the rolling year to 31 March 2017. That is the challenge we have. The noble Lord is right about some speculative building. He will know that we are looking at that and remember our response to it in the Housing White Paper—it remains very much business that we want to attend to. In the meantime, we should realise that we are making progress. We should not be complacent—there are challenges, which I freely acknowledge—but, against the backdrop of the challenge we have of 300,000 houses per annum, we will be treading on some toes to achieve it. I am sure that we will have widespread support for doing that.