Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the hon. Member for his kind words; I have great respect for him too. He makes an interesting point, but it is a wider issue than that. It is about appropriate development in the right place, followed up by infrastructure.

I agree that brownfield sites are usually in the centre of towns. As I said on Second Reading, we are all fed up with driving past sites with all the hoarding up. The sites have planning permission: either they have gone through the planning committee, and the local council has said, “Yes, we will give permission based on these circumstances,” or unfortunately it has not, but permission has been won on appeal. It creates a certain feel in a town centre when someone goes down and sees all the hoarding up on the brownfield sites.

In the heart of my constituency, in Cheshunt, we have a care home waiting to be built. It is a long-overdue facility in the local community that we really want to see built, but it has been left empty for years and years, and we just see the hoarding up. It creates a real sense of loss of pride in a place when someone goes down to the town centre and sees site after site like that. We have sites in Hoddesdon that got planning permission in 2014 and have only just started moving through this process.

Lots of things affect house build-out rates, but this Government could do much more to give powers to local councils to get these brownfield sites off the ground, because there are thousands of sites across the country that have planning permission but remain unbuilt.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

Can the hon. Gentleman give us an example of the powers he has in mind that councils do not currently enjoy, but should?

[Lewis Cocking]

I know that the Minister has a lot of expertise in this area. One example is that when standard planning permission is issued, a developer might get three years to build. As we have seen in my local area, that does not necessarily mean that something gets built; it just means that they have started on site. That could be digging a hole or building the first wall; nothing is actually produced at the end of it. I would like councils to have a “use it or lose it” power, which would mean that someone cannot necessarily finish building just because they have started digging on site.

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is a very interesting line of argument. Is it now the Conservative party’s official position that “use it or lose it” powers should be introduced for brownfield sites?

[Lewis Cocking]

I think we have to explore all options. I want to protect as much of the green belt as possible. We all have brownfield sites in our constituency that we want used to meet the social housing targets and bring down waiting lists.

Unfortunately, the Bill talks about stopping the right to buy. I just want to put it on the record that if we do that, the people who bought those houses will still be in them. Those people, and the waiting lists, will not magically disappear if we get rid of the right to buy.

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[Patrick Spencer]

We would not argue against that statement one bit. I am not trying to expunge social tenants from rural England. Suffolk is not just a load of farms and tractor driving; we have a lot of working-class towns. We need social housing, but we are talking about the future of social housing, the future of our economy and the future of our dynamism. We have always moaned jealously about the French, the Germans and the Americans for having dynamic economies with engines of prosperity outside the capital city, while we are stuck with a unimodal economy that is so rooted in London—it is crazy that I am making the Prime Minister’s arguments for him from the Opposition Benches, but anyway.

Surely this is an opportunity. If we are going to build 50,000 to 100,000 or 150,000 homes, and if we are going to tackle the 1.3 million people who are stuck on the waiting list for social houses, why do we not make sure that that is aligned with our responsibility for economic growth? We are all bored with hearing from experts, friends and family members about the lack of joined-up policymaking across Government. This Bill, which is not an inconsequential Bill but is one piece of a wide patchwork of legislation, is a good example of how we can align with a wider economic agenda that we can all get behind.

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is a pleasure to continue our proceedings and to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. After the Opposition’s—to put it candidly—languid approach in our previous sittings, I welcome the fact that they have clearly woken up and are now fully participating in the debate. Partly for that reason, we had a remarkably productive first day in Committee on Tuesday. Our debates on many of the clauses and amendments were predictably spirited; nevertheless, they remained civil and, in the main, constructive. I hope we can proceed in that vein today.

Before I respond to the new clauses, I will make a general point—a point that the shadow Minister is clearly struggling to grasp. Our ambitions to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation will benefit from the Bill, but they are not entirely dependent on this one piece of legislation. The supply statistics speak for themselves. Let me give the statistics from 2024-25. Overall social and affordable house building: 64,921, the highest level since 2014-15. Social housing on its own: 12,267, the highest level since 2012-13. Council-delivered homes: 10,600, the highest level since 1991-92. That is this Government’s record on social and affordable housing—and, by the way, this was all prior to the initial allocations from our social and affordable housing programme, which have now been made. We have increased supply, we will increase it further, and the Bill will make a material impact on doing so.

I turn to new clause 1. As the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington is fully aware, we are committed, in line with our manifesto, to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, to prioritising the building of new social rented homes and to supporting councils and housing associations to make a greater contribution to affordable supply. In the 27 months for which we have been in office, we have faithfully sought to honour those commitments. We have made the biggest long-term investment in social and affordable housing in recent memory, an investment that was topped up in yesterday’s Budget by a further £1.5 billion pounds, as the hon. Member rightly recognised. We are vigorously prioritising social rented housing, we are rebuilding the capacity of councils and housing associations to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, and we are reinvigorating council house building.

In his more generous moments, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson acknowledged the transformative impact of what this Government have done on social housing supply. I understand—indeed, I welcome and embrace—his encouragement and support for raising our ambition further. However, given the nature of our inheritance from the Conservative party, with social housing supply averaging a historical low of fewer than 8,000 units per year from 2013 to 2024, following the purposeful and deliberate pivot to affordable rented tenures, a target of 150,000 new social homes per year is not currently realistic. A statutory requirement to produce a strategy for delivering such volumes within 12 months of Royal Assent is not a proposition that we can support.

I say gently to the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington that his party continues wildly to underestimate the costs of supplying social housing on the scale that he proposes. The Government’s estimate of the grant funding required to support the delivery of 150,000 social homes is in excess of £20 billion per year. For obvious reasons, the hon. Member’s party has escaped the kind of scrutiny to which the Government and the official Opposition are subject, but if his party wants that 150,000 figure to be taken seriously it will have to set out a credible funding strategy. To date, it has not done so.

[Gideon Amos]

We shall certainly be setting that out prior to going into government. The Minister makes an extensive argument that 150,000 is not the right target. Shelter and the National Housing Federation say that a minimum of 90,000 are needed per year. What is the Government’s target?

[Matthew Pennycook]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, because we have had this debate many times, to date we have not set a national social and affordable housing target. That is because, as I have explained on numerous occasions, social and affordable homes come through grant funding and through the section 106 process; it is for local authorities to set out the needs for their particular areas as part of local plans. As he knows, through the NPPF we have strengthened some of the expectations in that area.

I turn to the hon. Gentleman’s new clause 4. The Government have already taken several steps to rebuild the capacity of councils to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, including the fundamental reform of the right-to-buy scheme at the heart of the Bill, as well as a 10-year social housing rent settlement, and social rent convergence.

In the Budget yesterday, it was confirmed that preferential borrowing rates for council house building will remain in place until at least March 2028 to support councils to borrow more cheaply for house building. There are no current restrictions exercised by central Government on the amount that councils can borrow via their housing revenue accounts for house building purposes. Councils are now free to borrow in line with the prudential code, which requires them to demonstrate that any borrowing is affordable, prudent, sustainable and proportionate. Those are precisely the types of test that the hon. Member’s new clause envisages. They are essential to ensure that local authority finances are managed sensibly and sustainably while ensuring sufficient flexibility to meet local housing targets. As such, in our view it is not necessary to accept the new clause as there are no restrictions to remove.

I turn to new clause 34, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Orpington. The Government are strongly committed—as was the previous Government, as several hon. Members have fairly pointed out—to a brownfield-first approach, including for the development of social housing. Let me be clear. I say this on every occasion I can: once permissions are granted, we expect to see them built out as quickly as possible. Opposition Members will not have to wait long for the build-out transparency package, on which we consulted some time ago, to be brought forward.

On 17 August, the Government published a new national planning policy framework that makes it clear that authorities should plan to meet as many of their development needs as possible on brownfield land. To strengthen support for the development of brownfield land, the new NPPF encourages higher densities in sustainable locations and greater intensification of urban and suburban sites. It also introduces a presumption that development inside settlements should be approved unless any adverse effects would substantially outweigh the benefits of doing so.

Furthermore, through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, the Government have committed to make regulations requiring strategic planning authorities to have regard to the desirability of prioritising development on previously developed land. That arose from a challenge we received from the Opposition during the passage of the Act. Taken together, those measures demonstrate the Government’s strong and continued support for brownfield development in national policy.

On social housing in particular, national planning policy reflects our commitment to the delivery of social rent homes. It requires local planners to set out minimum proportions of social rent required on new development. As everyone knows, the NPPF is a material consideration of critical importance in planning decisions and local plans are required to be prepared with regard to it. It is therefore the right place to set clear expectations for how and where development should come forward. A requirement to produce a separate brownfield land social housing development strategy would be unnecessary and duplicative, as existing policy and relevant plans already sufficiently achieve its aim.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, policy in this area is already aligned; we do not need a separate brownfield land strategy. Such strategies are, as I have previously dubbed them, the last refuge of an Opposition scrabbling around for meaningful policy amendments to a Bill. For those reasons, and having given those assurances, we cannot accept the new clauses.

[Gareth Bacon]

This is starting to become quite fun. I do not accept the Minister’s comments. We will seek to divide the Committee on new clause 34 at the appropriate moment.

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[Gareth Bacon]

I rise to speak to my new clause 53. Many people in social housing have come into their new home after a past marred by hardship and a lack of safety. When tenants finally have a roof over their head and a place to call home, they must not be left to face unsanitary or unsafe living conditions because of their property owner or manager. That is why we tabled new clause 53, which the hon. Member for Ealing Southall was absolutely correct to describe as a probing amendment. It would add an extra layer of protection for tenants and a fresh route to direct accountability for registered providers.

The new clause would enable tenants of a registered provider to request an inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing, giving tenants new powers to ensure that their home is not just four walls, but a sanctuary. It is vital that social housing tenants be able to make the most of the regulator’s functions and that the regulator be not just a bureaucratic machine, but a voice for the vulnerable.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Members for Taunton and Wellington and for Orpington for tabling and speaking to their new clauses. This Government are determined to ensure that social housing tenants live in safe and decent homes, and that they are listened to and have access to redress when things go wrong. However, I am not persuaded that these amendments are necessary.

In the spirit of cross-party generosity, I will say that the powers taken under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 under the previous Government did not do all bad things; there were some good things that the previous Government did, and we should acknowledge them. The Act provided the powers for that regulatory framework, which provides strong mechanisms for tenant voice and regulatory oversight.

In 2024, the regulator introduced a new proactive regulation regime and has since begun inspecting all large landlords at least once every four years. The regulator issues a consumer grading after those inspections, so that it is clear to tenants and the public how well the landlords are performing. In addition, the regulator retains the ability to engage with landlords outside these routine inspections if concerns are raised.

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is always very generous with his time. Does he believe that the Regulator of Social Housing has enough powers to deal with the issues that he describes? That is just me, in a good spirit, asking a genuine question about how he thinks it is operating.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am always open to evidence that it does not have sufficient powers. My judgment is that it does, and that the consumer ratings it hands out—we are getting a steady stream of them now—really do have an impact in driving improvements in landlord behaviour.

Central to the regime is the regulator’s independent and risk-based approach. That allows the regulator to target its engagement and interventions to areas where there is the greatest risk of harm to tenants. It is worth clarifying that tenants and other members of the public can refer matters to the regulator where they believe that a registered provider may not be meeting the outcomes of the standards, and the regulator may take those concerns into account as part of its wider regulatory activity, including inspections. However, in our view, introducing tenant-triggered inspections risks cutting across that approach by potentially diverting regulatory resource away from higher-risk providers or issues, while undermining the regulator’s ability to act independently. Our view is that the existing framework already ensures that tenants’ concerns can inform regulatory action, by allowing the regulator to determine where intervention is most needed.

On new clause 53, which the shadow Minister made clear is a probing amendment, I would have particular concerns about introducing a mechanism whereby the regulator would inspect individual tenant’s dwellings. Although individual tenants can escalate issues to the regulator, as I have made clear, it considers performance against the regulatory standards at a landlord level and seeks assurance that the landlord is delivering the outcomes set out in the regulatory standards.

The regulator directly inspecting individual homes would move away from its co-regulatory approach and would require significant additional resource. In addition, tenant views already play an important role in the existing regime, and the regulator draws on a range of sources as part of its inspections, including through the landlords complaints process, the Housing Ombudsman and direct referrals. The existing framework ensures that tenants already play an important role in the system, without the need for a statutory mechanism to trigger inspections.

For those reasons, I respectfully ask hon. Members not to press their new clauses.

[Gideon Amos]

I wish to press new clause 3 to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Gideon Amos]

The new clause stands in my name and in the name of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. The run-up to Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day is the appropriate time to consider and take account of the needs of service personnel and veterans under the Bill. About 3% of rough sleepers are veterans, according to the No Homeless Veterans campaign. Government research found that 2,180 veteran households were assessed as at risk of experiencing homelessness. One of the most significant reasons for that is post-traumatic stress disorder, which obviously affects many veterans, and one in three veterans are also disabled.

The new clause would require the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the provision of social housing for former members of the armed services. To anticipate the point that this is simply a review, surely no group can be more important to review the performance of social housing for than our veterans and those who have put their lives at risk for our country.

I shall speak now to new clause 12, which also stands in my name and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, rather than having to sit down and stand up again—a great tradition in this House. New clause 12 is on reviewing access to social housing for rehabilitated offenders. There has been a staggering 26% year-on-year increase in the number of households requiring homelessness support due to leaving care, custody or hospital.

When it comes to rehabilitated offenders, the last thing we want are offenders whose rehabilitation is not sustained or supported due to their having nowhere to live. One in 10 of those sleeping rough were recently discharged from an institution. That is a massive number. We need to do better by those who need that support. One in six prison leavers had no fixed abode on their first night in 2025-26. About 1,000 a month were released to rough sleeping in 2024-25, up about 40% in a year. I therefore respectfully submit both new clauses to the Committee for consideration.

[Matthew Pennycook]

As the hon. Member set out, new clauses 5 and 12 would require the Secretary of State to publish reports on access to social housing for former members of the armed forces and for former offenders, respectively.

We want to ensure that the social housing allocation system works fairly and effectively. Current and former members of the armed forces community benefit from strong protections within the allocations framework, including receiving the highest preference where they have a housing need. Where local connection or residency tests apply to determine who qualifies for an allocation of social housing, legislation exempts the armed forces community, regardless of when they last served. That ensures that they are not disadvantaged when applying for social housing due to the mobility required by service life. New clause 23, which we debated on Tuesday, will also ensure that veterans do not face local-connection barriers when seeking homelessness assistance.

Statutory guidance is in place on improving access to social housing for members of the armed forces. There are not specific protections in the system for former offenders, who will have their housing need considered in the same way as other groups. They may fall within other existing statutory reasonable preference categories—for example, where they are homeless, need to move on welfare grounds or need to move because of medical or other relevant needs. Work is already under way to update statutory guidance on social housing allocation to ensure that allocations reflect local need and effectively support vulnerable households. Our call for evidence on this issue recently closed, and we are now working with partners to prepare updated guidance. We plan to consult on that updated guidance next year.

With that comprehensive review already under way, we do not consider that there is a need to conduct separate reviews for specific groups such as former members of the armed forces or former offenders. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington is sufficiently reassured to consider withdrawing the new clause.

[Gideon Amos]

New clause 5 is not a burdensome amendment; it is a review of access to social housing for former service personnel. I hear what the Minister says about the Government keeping these matters under review, but surely a Social Housing Bill should commit to supporting our veterans and armed service community in this way. I will press the new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Gideon Amos]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause relates to the requirement for wheelchair-accessible social housing. Social tenants are worse served now than they were in terms of access to wheelchair- accessible housing. In 2022-23, a third of wheelchair users in the social sector were placed in homes that were neither accessible nor adapted, according to Age UK.

The planning system is also something of a postcode lottery. Only 170 out of 311 local plans set targets for wheelchair user homes. Nationally, one wheelchair-accessible home is planned per 538 people; the south-west plans one per 810 people; London plans one per 210 people; and the north-west plans one per 2,006 people. The NPPF does not require any M4(3), which relates to homes that are wheelchair-accessible under the building regulations. It leaves it to local plans to assess need, and we have already seen how this is something of a lottery.

London already has a 10% requirement in its local plan, which proves that 10% is achievable. The Minister may say that this is a matter for devolution, so that local communities rather than central Government can decide, and that councils are free to follow that example. However, we say that a minimum floor of 10% is reasonable, and it has been considered by a previous Government. We respectfully submit that 10% of new social housing should be wheelchair-accessible.

[Matthew Pennycook]

New clause 6, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, seeks to ensure that at least 10% of new social housing dwellings meet the M4(3) wheelchair-accessible standard in the building regulations. I very much commend where he is coming from with the new clause.

The Government recognise the importance of increasing the supply of housing for older people and those with disabilities. The hon. Gentleman is right that for many years it has been something of a postcode lottery. That is why the new national planning policy framework recognised the need to drive up, through planning policy, rates of M4(2) requirements, and we have set a minimum floor of 40%. It is also why, when it comes to M4(3), the NPPF requires plans to set out the proportion that should be delivered to that standard to meet or exceed identified need. In our view, that is a significant step forward in ensuring that more wheelchair-accessible housing is delivered. However, we recognise that M4(3) is a specialised product for wheelchair users, with levels of need differing considerably between local areas.

Our approach acknowledges that local authorities are best placed to assess accessible housing needs in their areas and to set out appropriate exemptions. A blanket 10% M4(3) requirement would risk undermining policies set at a local level. To support the locally led approach, we have committed to producing guidance to assist local authorities in assessing the housing needs of disabled people, to ensure that assessments of need are robust and consistent. Social and affordable homes programme funding can also be used to support the delivery of much-needed new supported housing, including new accessible homes.

In our view, national policy remains the most effective route through which planning reform should be pursued. Imposing such a requirement in legislation rather than in policy, as this new clause seeks to do, would be unduly rigid, could limit an authority’s ability to respond to local circumstances and could constrain growth. We therefore think it is right to continue addressing these matters through planning policy and guidance.

For those reasons, I kindly ask the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington to withdraw the new clause.

[Gideon Amos]

I hear what the Minister says, but we have had these expressions in guidance and policy before, and we are still a long way from having suitable provision for wheelchair-accessible homes. With the leave of the Committee, I will therefore press new clause 6 to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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My intention is to press new clause 7, but not new clause 9, to a vote.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington for tabling new clause 7, which I will start with. He is absolutely right to draw attention to overheating, and I assure him that the Government recognise the scale of the challenge it presents.

Overheating in homes is already a severe public health issue, and one that will grow only more acute in the years ahead, for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has rightly stated. We know there are health risks and implications for excess deaths for particularly vulnerable populations. We take it extremely seriously, and we agree that new homes should protect everyone from the risks of overheating. That is why part O of schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 requires that new residential buildings in England are built to mitigate the risk of overheating. The Government continue to keep these requirements under review, and a full technical review of part O is currently under way to ensure that the framework remains effective and proportionate. These requirements already apply to newly built social housing, ensuring that residents benefit from the same standards of overheating mitigation regardless of their tenure type. The accompanying statutory guidance, approved document O, sets out how these requirements can be met.

The new clause would require active cooling, such as air conditioning, to be installed wherever an indoor temperature of 21°C cannot be maintained. Conversely, part O assesses the risk to health posed by overheating through an evidence-based methodology and does not rely on a single prescribed temperature threshold. Part O also prioritises passive measures, such as shading and natural ventilation, which help to prevent homes from becoming too hot in the first place. In many cases, overheating can be effectively mitigated through passive measures alone, so part O helps to create homes that are resilient to hot weather while limiting energy use, carbon emissions and energy bills for residents.

[Gideon Amos]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister’s flow. To clarify, the new clause proposes active cooling only where that temperature cannot be achieved otherwise. The priority of passive measures would continue with this new clause.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that clarification. I was going to say that part O does not prohibit any form of active cooling where designers can demonstrate that it is appropriate.

As I say, part O encourages passive design measures before relying on mechanical systems. In many cases, as I have said, overheating can be effectively mitigated through passive measures. Mechanical cooling, such as air conditioning, can be used to mitigate overheating where all reasonably practicable steps have been taken to minimise it through passive means. For those reasons, we think that the new clause would likely increase the unnecessary use of mechanical cooling, with associated costs for both developers and residents. I therefore ask the hon. Member kindly to withdraw the new clause.

New clause 9 concerns zero-carbon standards for new social housing. The Government fully recognise the importance of ensuring that new homes, including social housing, support our legally binding net zero target. We share the hon. Gentleman’s ambition to deliver homes that are energy efficient, low carbon and fit for the future. That is exactly what the future homes standard will achieve. The reassurance that I was going to give him in my intervention was that that is not affected by the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday of an effective moratorium on major new regulations, setting aside the qualifications that he set out at Dispatch Box with regard to building safety issues.

The Government legislated for the future homes standard in March, and it will come into force for non-higher-risk buildings from 24 March 2027, and for higher-risk buildings from 24 September 2027. It will apply to all new homes, including social housing. Homes built to this standard will have high levels of energy efficiency, use low-carbon heating and, in most cases, generate renewable electricity on site. These homes will also be zero-carbon ready, meaning that they will produce very little carbon and will become zero carbon once the national grid is fully decarbonised, without requiring further retrofit.

That is the really important point: we are retrofitting homes that have been built over recent years—at great cost—because of a previous Government’s decision to remove the required standards that were in place. We could go into that and the costs that that entails, but they are outside the scope of the Bill. We are ensuring that the new homes that come forward, once the standard is in place, are zero-carbon ready, so they will not require further retrofit.

The Government have also worked carefully to set a standard that delivers substantial carbon savings while remaining proportionate, technically feasible and deliverable at scale. In our view, introducing further new standards would risk creating a separate and potentially inconsistent regulatory regime for social housing, as well as additional cost and delivery pressures for the sector. Although I agree with the objective behind the new clause, I consider that the future homes standard already provides the appropriate means of achieving its aims. For those reasons, I respectfully ask the hon. Gentleman not to press new clause 9 to a vote.

[Gideon Amos]

On new clause 7, the cool rule, I appreciate that, as the Minister points out, there is no prohibition on active cooling being used in new homes, but the fact is that we need to secure cooling. We cannot just leave it so that only the most luxury accommodation has cooling in the extremely hot summers that we are having. Just as we have habitable standards for space, daylight and heating, we need a statutory standard for cooling. If it does not come today, I believe it will come, so I wish to press new clause 7 to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

New clause 10 seeks to prevent local planning authorities from agreeing to any reduction in the number or proportion of social homes required through a planning obligation or condition. The Government are committed to strengthening the system of developer contributions to ensure that new developments provide necessary affordable homes and infrastructure, and we have already taken a number of steps to that end.

The new NPPF, published on 17 August, seeks to promote greater clarity on expected contributions at the plan-making stage, and to reduce cases of unnecessary site-specific viability assessment by clarifying when it may be appropriate at the decision-making stage. That certainty will help to minimise lengthy negotiations over developer contributions, including affordable housing, on specific sites. At the same time, the framework will retain flexibility for cases where negotiation is genuinely needed to enable sites to come forward.

We are also acting to minimise friction and reduce the complexity involved in the negotiation of section 106 agreements, which are, and will remain, an essential mechanism for delivering social and affordable housing, but which in recent years have become synonymous with inefficiency and delay. The new NPPF formally introduces the category of “medium development”—sites of up to 2.5 hectares with between 10 and 49 units. It also provides the basis for the use of model obligations, as policy DM6(4) states:

“Where national model planning obligations are relevant to the development, they should be used unless there are strong reasons for using a different planning obligation.”

Following that, we launched a consultation on four standardised planning agreements for medium-sized sites, which will be expected to become the default for relevant applications in future. The consultation closed on 20 October 2026, and we are considering the responses received.

The proper process for modifying or discharging planning obligations is set out in section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. I know that the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington knows this; he has great experience in this area from before he came to the House. As set out in my letter to the Planning Inspectorate earlier this year, attempts to revisit fundamental issues of viability or planning obligations through section 73 applications should be carefully scrutinised and supported by robust justification, with due weight given to the impact of any reduction in affordable housing delivery and to the wider merits of the scheme.

[Gideon Amos]

I am grateful to the Minister for engaging on all these amendments, including this one. My question is whether he and the Government recognise that, as in the example I cited, most authorities in southern England cannot meet the five-year housing supply because of the standard method, and that, as a result, social and affordable housing is being removed from planning permissions. Are the Government concerned about that? Are they doing any assessment of how much this is happening?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am going to be careful, because—as the hon. Gentleman will be fully aware—given the role of Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in the planning system, I obviously cannot comment on particular local plans or applications, and I do not know the specific circumstances of the case he cites.

I make the general point—picking up on something that I think the hon. Member for Orpington mentioned earlier—that when we arrived in office, house builders across the country were telling us that the planning system was, in the main, probably the biggest barrier to house building they faced. Following the reforms we have made to national planning policy, they no longer say that; as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington rightly highlights, viability is the chief concern at the moment. Viability pressures are acute across the country, and in certain parts they are particularly severe—London is a good example—so they are bearing on schemes and what they can bring forward.

If I am honest, I struggle to see the direct link between the standard method, the five-year housing land supply and the housing delivery test concerns that I know the hon. Gentleman has raised in the past, but he and I could have a wider discussion on that outside the Committee. I am trying to remain focused on the intent behind the new clause, which concerns planning obligations and conditions.

Let me just set out the Government’s position on section 73. Alongside ongoing work relating to the implementation of section 73B of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, the Government intend to undertake a wider review of the statutory framework for modifying or discharging existing planning obligations, and we will provide further details about this in due course. I hope that will reassure the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington on section 73B, but I am clear that our intention in reviewing this matter is not to allow developers to more easily reduce planning obligations already entered into, including for affordable housing.

The Government have also acted to deal with the detrimental consequences of a declining market for section 106 affordable homes. We have already taken a number of steps to support demand for section 106 units, not least spending review measures designed to rebuild the capacity of registered providers. As a result, we are seeing tentative signs of improvement in appetite for acquiring section 106 homes.

However, despite that positive shift in sentiment post spending review, we know there are still housing schemes where developers remain unable to secure an RP buyer for the affordable homes set out in an original section 106 agreement, and where local planning authorities and developers have not discussed or reached agreement on variations to planning obligations, with the result that many of these sites are stalling.

It is for that reason that we made it clear in a written ministerial statement on 28 January that we expect all local planning authorities to take advantage of existing planning flexibilities to renegotiate section 106 agreements, and to allow the tenure of homes to be varied to secure a buyer where affordable homes secured in section 106 agreements remain uncontracted or unsolved. As the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington will know, this can be effected by a deed of variation that makes amendments or revisions to existing section 106 agreements, either by agreement of the parties to the section 106 agreement, or by formal application under section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

To pick up directly on new clause 10, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, our concern is that it could create unintended consequences that may be contrary to our shared objective to boost the supply of social and affordable housing. Notwithstanding his concerns, which I recognise, it is important that the system retains sufficient flexibility for local planning authorities to respond to significant changes in site or economic circumstances after planning permission has been granted, such as a recession or a similarly significant economic change. We are concerned that new clause 10 could unduly restrict that flexibility, which could—this is the ultimate point—cause sites to stall and subsequently reduce overall housing delivery, including overall social and affordable housing delivery.

I suspect that I will not have convinced the hon. Gentleman entirely, but I hope he agrees that, as it stands, the system carefully balances the need for that flexibility with trying to ensure that we maximise the amount of social and affordable housing supply that can be secured. We should avoid legislation that imposes, in our view, an unreasonable degree of rigidity, while obviously continuing our efforts to increase affordable housing delivery overall. On that basis, I hope he might be persuaded to withdraw the new clause on this occasion.

[Gideon Amos]

I appreciate the Minister’s correct analysis that there is a balance to be struck with individual sites, and I accept that. There is a direct link between the standard method and the loss of social housing. The standard method, having been introduced, means that most local plans now cannot meet their five-year housing supply, which means that most of them are no longer effective.

Therefore, if a developer presents an inspector with a site that has both social housing and private housing, the inspector will be forced to conclude, on the section 73 application to amend the plan, that there is no longer an exception that justifies social housing, because all the sites have to come forward, and they all have to be market housing. That is the effect of imposing the standard method and rendering so many local plans no longer effective.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am not responding to the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I want to make an offer to him, because he will know that I am genuinely interested. He will know that we have tried to strengthen national policy on rural exception sites through the NPPF, so I am very interested in whether he thinks there are particular reasons why that strengthening will not have the desired effect, or whether there are other barriers to bringingforward those sites. We want more of those sites to be brought forward, precisely for the reasons that he has set out.