Building Homes

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declared interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. Indeed, I am glad that the Minister has seen for herself the scale and the quality of the developments taking place in Cambridgeshire. Among those building out on those sites, one of the principal difficulties is that the Section 106 agreements for the delivery of affordable housing are not often able to be supported by contracts with registered providers.

Has the Minister seen the report from the Home Builders Federation today, which says that there are 17,000 such affordable homes that are not contracted for by RPs? Will she respond to that report? The Home Builders Federation is asking for a Written Ministerial Statement that would encourage local planning authorities to use cascade mechanisms under the Section 106 agreements to promote the delivery of those affordable homes. Will she and other Ministers direct Homes England to step in and take over these contracts, and themselves maintain the delivery of affordable homes?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for that question, because in a housing crisis where we have so many people in need of affordable homes, it has been such a shame that Section 106 homes that could have been funded were unable to be picked up because of the lack of capacity within affordable housing providers.

The Government have been very aware of the problems affecting the sale of Section 106 affordable housing. Alongside the National Planning Policy Framework, Homes England also launched a new clearing service to help unblock the delivery of these homes. This is a great role for Homes England to fulfil. The Government are now calling on all developers with uncontracted Section 106 affordable homes to proactively and pragmatically engage with this new service. We hope that this will be able to unlock some of the stalled Section 106 affordable homes which we know are there, waiting for those families who are desperate for housing. I hope that this service will take things forward.