House Building: London

Debate between Louie French and Rachel Blake

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr French]

I am going to make a bit of progress, because I have been up and down quite a lot, and I am not fit enough to keep doing it.

Under this Labour Government, more and more first-time buyers are unable to afford a home, and they are the primary market for new builds in London. Over 3,700 new homes are sitting unsold. This is not a market where developers will build more. The Labour Government were wrong to slash first-time buyers’ stamp duty relief, costing first-time buyers up to £11,250 more in taxes. That is why the Conservatives’ plan to abolish stamp duty is the right one, and the Labour Government must rule out further market-suppressing tax rises.

Developers also face excessive policy costs—section 106 payments, community infrastructure levy payments, mayoral community infrastructure levy payments, carbon offset levies, biodiversity net gain requirements and the new building safety levy. The collective cost of those demands makes it too expensive to build. To make matters worse, on top of the burdensome London plan, the well-intentioned post-Grenfell Building Safety Regulator is now delaying building in the capital. It has rejected 70% of building safety designs, and some completed projects have had to wait 18 months for approval before people can move in.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I have listened carefully to his analysis of the problem—I have waited to hear the full analysis—and I would be grateful for some reflection on why the deregulatory proposals he is making were not brought forward under the previous Government when there was clearly an opportunity to do so.

[Mr French]

I appreciate the argument the hon. Lady is trying to make, and I am about to come on to some suggestions to hopefully help the Government.

The mayor has had strategic planning powers in the capital for nine years, and he was awarded £9 billion of affordable homes money by the previous Government. We have to be clear about where blame in the capital lies.

[Rachel Blake]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s argument about strategic planning, but I believe every Member present, including myself, has substantial experience in bringing forward new genuinely affordable homes. We all know that it requires finance and real delivery focus, particularly in local authorities. Can the hon. Gentleman reflect on his time in local government and how many genuinely affordable council homes were brought forward in that period? Obviously, the ability to deliver from a council setting is a key part of solving this important challenge for London.

[Mr French]

Again, I appreciate the point that the hon. Lady is trying to make. I have already outlined the Bexley position in response to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), so I do not need to go back into that—Bexley has been delivering affordable homes.

What can be done now? I am afraid that the recent measures announced by the Government and the Mayor of London—without consulting London’s 32 boroughs—to unlock house building are too little, and potentially too late. They will give developers only temporary, targeted relief from the community infrastructure levy on brownfield sites, but not from the more expensive mayoral levy. The changes to the affordable homes targets do not go far enough; at 35%, demand is still placed on industrial and public land, acting as a blocker on these sites that could host thousands of homes. While a temporary fast-track route for homes that provide 20% affordable housing is welcome, it is a minor amendment to a system that has ultimately failed.

More concerning are the proposals to give the Mayor of London the power to call-in applications for 50 homes or more and for developments on green belt and metropolitan open land. It is undemocratic to withdraw planning powers from local communities. It will backfire, eroding the little remaining public trust in the Greater London Authority, and it will confirm to outer Londoners that Labour’s plan is not to unlock building on well-connected brownfield sites, but to concrete over our precious remaining countryside.