Homes and Planning Bill

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Friday 13th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

I entirely agree. Although I have highlighted rural and coastal areas such as my own, I am well aware that London and many inner urban areas also have an issue with the proliferation of second homes.

In fact, that brings me to what I was hoping to talk about some moments ago: the clauses of the Bill itself. The first four—the community-led homes element of the Bill—are simply a logical extension of community rights relating to assets of community value. The powers would simply extend those rights to the identification of land or buildings either in or adjoining a community. That would enable a local community organisation to advance a project to deliver affordable homes for local communities.

I declared an interest as having been a professional in this sector in the past, and I am still a volunteer in it; I therefore have some experience of being involved with local communities that wish to address their local housing needs. This is the opposite of the nimby: the yimby. This is, “Yes, please, in our backyard; we would like affordable homes,” not more unaffordable homes, which is what the planning system seems to deliver for many local communities in areas like mine.

How can we deliver more affordable homes? The way to do it, if all potential development sites are taken, is to undertake a call for land. In many of the cases in which I was doing that, through community land trusts or parish and town councils, there would be no response: the price available for affordable housing on rural exception sites was significantly more than the agricultural value currently available to the landowner, but less than might be available to that landowner—easily by a factor of 10 or 100—if the land were to get planning permission for unaffordable, open-market housing. Landowners therefore would not come forward with sites to deliver affordable housing. The purpose of the first four clauses is to give communities the powers—as a community right—to identify that land. That would strengthen the ability of communities—through parish and town councils, community land trusts and other community-led organisations—to meet unmet local housing need, including through the delivery of in-perpetuity social and affordable housing.

The Bill contains a number of safeguards. The local authority must be consulted, and land made available would have to be at a scale commensurate with the moderate growth of the community. Provisions would prevent the expropriation of private gardens and similar land, there would be a vacancy and utilisation test, and powers would be exercised only as a last resort, after a call for land and all other measures had been pursued.

The planning background to the Bill is that in places such as Cornwall we have for decades followed the policies of successive Governments in meeting very high house building targets. Indeed, Cornwall has been one of the fastest growing places for housing in the United Kingdom—almost trebling its housing stock in the past 60 years—and yet the housing problems of local people have got significantly worse. One of the lessons that one learns from this is that pursuing a policy of a means to an end rather than an end in itself—that is, the building of homes, rather than meeting the need—has been an abject failure. This Bill would put need first, rather than simply building homes.

Cornwall has had its house building targets significantly increased—almost doubled—as a result of the Government’s changes to housebuilding targets. That has resulted in the counter-productive outcome that sites previously identified for affordable homes—rural exception sites on the edge of towns and villages—have, as a result of planning appeals, had those permissions changed to now deliver unaffordable homes. In other words, all the affordability has been stripped out of the development, and planning inspectors have been obliged to permit those homes to be delivered purely as open market homes.

The reason that the planning inspectors have said this is the case—[Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering at me; I am very happy to take an intervention from him if he wishes. Planning inspectors have said that because local authorities have had the rug pulled from underneath them, they are no longer able to demonstrate that they have a five-year supply of land. It takes two or three years for a local authority to go through the process to identify sites. Cornwall had identified a five-year land supply at a prior stage, but when the Government announced the new figures, it immediately no longer had that.

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

To clarify for the hon. Gentleman, where an adopted up-to-date local plan was in place at the point we introduced the new national planning policy framework, its housing need requirement remained as per that adopted plan. Transitional arrangements were put in place. Yes, as the system progresses, local authorities will have to plan on the basis of the new standard method, but it is not the case to say that when we changed the NPPF in December 2024, immediately across the country those new targets kicked in everywhere.

[Andrew George]

In that case, the Minister has not explained that to his planning inspectors. If he looks at the appeal reference APP/D0840/W/25/3367358 for land east of Meneth, Bonallack Lane, Gweek in my constituency, he will see that Inspector Harrington was very clear on 23 February 2025 that a location that previously had permission for an all-affordable rural exception site was converted to an open market site, purely as a result of the lack of a five-year land supply. I think the Minister needs to look at this again. We need additional tools to address the housing need of local people because the current tools are simply not working; indeed, they have been undermined by the Government’s own policy.

The problem with the house building target approach is that it is built on a delusion that private developers will collude with Government in driving down the price of their finished product. We have found over a decade—certainly in Cornwall—that developers will only deliver their homes at times when the market is buoyant, and they will not collude with Government in order to achieve those outcomes.

I know the Government have a series of concerns with the Bill and, in the interests of time, I will quickly rattle through them. They say there is a risk it is not compatible with property rights under the European convention on human rights. I do not think that applies as far as the powers of my Bill are concerned. In any case, there would be other measures that we could introduce that would resolve these issues and provide additional safeguards.

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[Ben Maguire]

I would be pleased if the hon. Gentleman brought that data to the House. I must admit that I am struggling with some of the opposition to the Bill from Labour Members. We have heard that it is not radical enough, and that we need to build more homes. The hon. Gentleman said he wanted data; well, I have a stat: between 1961 and 2011, Cornwall’s population almost tripled, and during the 2000s, Cornwall built 770 homes for every 1,000 new residents, which was double the national average of 377 at the time.

We are not short of homes or houses in Cornwall. We have record—[Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) chuntering from a sedentary position; I am happy to give way. We are not short of residential properties, which are being built every year, but, as I highlighted in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, many of those homes, once built, are rapidly turned into second homes and holiday lets, and the local authority has no control.

I warmly welcome the measures in the Bill. I thought there was consensus in the House on giving local areas the choice and the powers to make decisions for certain parts of the country—for example, towns and villages in my North Cornwall constituency such as St Minver Lowlands, which has 71% non-first homes, or St Merryn, which has 60% non-first homes. Other Members have highlighted the impact on community life, school staffing, nurseries and other local facilities. I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s attempt to take forward this legislation to give local people, local authorities and local areas decision-making powers where there are far too many second homes compared with affordable first homes for local people. We should give those areas the right to choose and the power to balance the market.

As my hon. Friend said, we are not against second home owners, and we are certainly not against holiday let owners—they are an important part of the accommodation mix for the tourism industry in Cornwall—but may I humbly suggest that if the proportion gets to over 70% it is possibly too much? Despite the massive house building numbers I mentioned, Cornwall’s housing register list has over 25,000 families who cannot find a safe and warm place to live. I suggest that in those specific areas we give local people, local authorities and local councils the chance to decide how many and where any holiday lets and second homes might be appropriate.

My hon. Friend, along with some Government Members, touched on the council tax loophole, whereby if holiday homes can be easily flipped to holiday lets, they qualify for business rates and, often, small business rate relief, so they do not pay double council tax and they pay no business rates at all. In fact, they do not pay any tax, full stop. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that loophole which, as I understand it, can be backdated several years.

On infrastructure, Cornwall is, as has been mentioned, very good at meeting our house building targets, and we have built thousands of homes. Unfortunately, as I have explained, they do not always end up in the hands of local residents, as they should. But in Cornwall, as well as a housing crisis we now have an infrastructure crisis. In my town of Bodmin—the largest in my constituency—the surgery is operating at 160% of capacity, yet we cannot get a new surgery building past the local integrated care board. We have part but not full funding, and yet by 2030 Bodmin will see 3,500 more homes built. Unless new homes come with infrastructure, we are storing up enormous issues for our local residents.

I would really welcome the Housing Minister explaining the very ambitious house building targets. As I say, if those houses are for local residents who really need them, I am fully supportive, but I have highlighted the issues around those arbitrary targets.

[Matthew Pennycook]

As has been mentioned—I say to the hon. Gentleman again—one of the most effective ways in which communities can shape development in their area is to have up-to-date local plans in place. Cornwall’s local plan was adopted in 2016 and, again, the infrastructure funding statement alongside that, which is so important, is out of date. Cornwall is now taking steps to get an up-to-date plan in place, but it is very late in the day.

[Ben Maguire]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. He knows as well as I do that it takes years to put together neighbourhood plans, and lots of those were disregarded when the new legislation came forward. I hope that he will say something on that. As we move forward with our Cornish devolution deal, perhaps something can come with that.

I want briefly to take the rare opportunity to praise the Conservative Government—I am not often found doing so in the House, and I will have to caveat this carefully. Just before the general election—I leave it to hon. Members to consider the cynicism of this and how likely they felt it was that they would be returned to enact the measures—they proposed much of what my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives does in his Bill in requiring planning permission when a residential property is turned into a holiday let. I must admit that I am extremely frustrated and disappointed to see the Labour Government not taking that on.

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[Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)]

It is important to remember that the last time this country consistently built the number of houses that we, across the House, agree we need was the 1960s, when councils were building houses. If the new Labour Government, who have had two and a half years to get this right, are still going to blame the Liberal Democrats’ small part in a coalition, in a fairly powerless time, some 10 years ago, then they really need to look forward and concentrate on what they can deliver.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that, last year, this Labour Government delivered the highest number of council homes since records began in 1991-92?

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

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government.

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing fourth place in the ballot, and I thank him for bringing his Homes and Planning Bill before the House. He is a passionate advocate for more social and affordable housing in his constituency. He brings a wealth of frontline housing experience from his time away from the House and he has campaigned tirelessly—I recognise this—over many years for greater control over the number of second homes and short-term lets in the wonderful towns and villages he has the privilege to represent.

[Amanda Martin]

Does the minister agree that if the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) is so passionate about this issue, he should have a conversation with his Liberal Democrat colleagues who run my city council and clearly do not share the same ambition as him?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have always found that Liberal Democrats operate like a sort of franchise system around the country, where responsibility for individual decisions is not taken at the national level. I encourage Liberal Democrat Members to talk to their colleagues in those parts of the country where they are not acting along the lines that they have been advocating for today.

[Ben Maguire]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am just going to make a bit of progress. I am happy to give way later.

As the hon. Member for St Ives knows from our recent discussions, despite agreeing with the Bill’s overarching intention, namely to support the housing needs of local people, the Government unfortunately cannot support it for the reasons I will set out in as much detail as I can in the time available to me. However, I want to reiterate from the outset that the Government recognise the acute need for social and affordable homes in rural and coastal communities. We understand and appreciate fully that many local authorities want more tools to bear down on excessive concentrations of second homes and short-term lets within them.

As the hon. Gentleman set out in opening the debate, the Bill contains essentially two measures: one relating to land for affordable housing, and the other concerning planning controls in relation to second homes and short-term lets. I do not intend to exhaustively detail the Government’s position on each individual clause in the Bill. Instead, I will set out our position in respect of each of these measures, starting with land for affordable housing.

Clauses 1 to 4 extend provisions around assets of community value and the community right to buy, so that they can apply to land for affordable housing. Clause 1 is the core operative clause in the group and we understand the intention behind it. We all want suitable land to provide affordable housing to meet identified local need. However, extending the assets of community value regime to allow vacant, substantially unused or materially underused land to be nominated because of its potential for affordable housing is not, in our view, a proportionate means of achieving that objective.

The new community right to buy, enacted through our English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, was carefully designed to balance the legitimate rights of property owners with the ability of communities to protect buildings and land that are important to them. Bringing potentially much larger quantities of land within the assets of community value framework could, in our view, increase interference with property rights in an unjustifiable way.

[Andrew George]

On the franchise point, the Labour party seems to franchise different approaches with both the local Labour party member who delivered the petition in favour of the Bill, and the Welsh Assembly. The Minister heard what I have to say on the issue: these proposals could be improved and streamlined in Committee. If he wishes, we could find another route for that and deliver the second half of the Bill in Committee.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I have a huge amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman, but when a Bill is this flawed—I will come in detail to how it is flawed in several other respects—it is too much to ask the Government essentially to redesign it in Committee, with all the capacity that would require. I will come to what the Government are doing on these issues in due course.

The community right to buy already provides for a 12-month moratorium and a right of first refusal. Extending those effects across a wider class of land might also increase compensation claims against local authorities, including claims arising from delay to a sale or diminution in value following listing. Although the Bill now includes additional evidential requirements and chief planning officer scrutiny, those safeguards do not resolve our fundamental concern about the implications arising from expanding the purpose and reach of the regime.

The national planning policy framework already provides strong support for community-led development, including community-led exception sites, and the August 2026 revisions strengthened and clarified that support. Members are saying that such things are not working, but that measure was introduced only a few months ago. Our considered view is that those changes need time to embed before further primary legislation is considered.

Clauses 2 and 3 concern the identification of land in neighbourhood development plans, and the acquisition of land required to enable affordable housing respectively. Again, we understand the intention behind the clauses, but they seek to add further statutory processes and powers where relevant ones already exist—several hon. Friends made that point in their speeches. Clause 4 seeks to provide a safeguard in respect of the new provisions in clauses 1 to 3, in the form of a limit of one hectare of land for every 1,000 people in an adjacent settlement over each five-year period, thereby aggregating land listed as an asset of community value identified in a neighbourhood plan or authorised for compulsory acquisition. I understand fully why the hon. Member has included that clause in the Bill, and I commend his efforts to try to tweak it to reassure the Government about the effects of clauses 1 to 3, but I am afraid it does not resolve our fundamental concerns about those provisions.

[Andrew George]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way, although I can already feel Madam Deputy Speaker’s glare.

[Andrew George]

Unless I am wrong, I will not be given the opportunity to wind up this debate, but on that point, the Minister needs to accept that there are thousands of communities around the country where, irrespective of the Government’s tools—those are all welcome in their own right—if there is a call for land for affordable homes, because of the frailties of the way humans operate, they will not get any offers of land. There have been dozens of cases where there is simply no land available for affordable homes because people want an open market.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am more than happy to have a conversation with the hon. Member about public land and what more can be done in that area. As I said, we strengthened rural exception site policy in the NPPF. I am interested—I have made this offer to him previously, and I make it to other hon. Members—to know why rural exception sites in particular parts of the country are not coming forward at the scale required. On the safeguard, in our view a national hectare-to-population formula risks imposing an arbitrary constraint that may bear little relationship to local need or the characteristics of a particular site. The requirement for population figures, land management, aggregation, record keeping and avoidance also demonstrates the administrative complexity of the model.

[Caroline Voaden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will make a bit of progress. The established planning system is the appropriate framework for assessing housing need, land supply, site suitability and the scale of development in the light of local circumstances. The Government therefore do not believe that the additional statutory ceiling is justified.

I will now turn to clauses 5 and 6 individually, starting with clause 5. I recognise the concern that has given rise to this provision. Excessive concentrations of short-term lets and second homes can impact the availability and affordability of homes for local residents to buy and to rent, as well as local services, and we agree that local authorities need effective tools to manage those impacts.

However, we believe the clause is problematic for the following reasons. First—I say this gently to the hon. Member for St Ives—the proposal appears to misunderstand the effect of the use classes order. The order is permissive: it provides that a change of use within the same use class is not development, and therefore does not require planning permission. However, it does not provide that a change between different use classes will necessarily require planning permission. The introduction of new use classes C5 and C6 would not therefore automatically mean that a change to or from those uses is a material change of use requiring planning permission, and whether a particular change of use is material would still need to be considered on the facts of the case.

It would also provide for a C5 second home use to cease automatically when a property is sold or otherwise subject to a relevant . A future owner wishing to use it as a second home would need planning permission for that use. Again, this requirement would be subject to specific carve-outs, such as a transfer between spouses or civil partners.

The important point here is that planning use classes run with the land or building and are not based on ownership. Automatic reversion on sale would cut across that established principle and create complexity for property owners, conveyancers and local planning authorities. Furthermore, the proposed exemptions would be at odds with the current functioning of the order and wider legislative scheme.

[Andrew George]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way a final time.

[Andrew George]

Has the Minister raised this matter with the Senedd? Has the Minister considered what is known as the St Ives clause in neighbourhood development plans, where permissions can be granted for accommodation only where it is specified that they cannot be used for non-permanent occupancy? This already exists in planning law. I am afraid that whoever is advising the Minister is not advising him correctly, because this can be done. It has been done in Wales, and it is being done here as well.

[Matthew Pennycook]

What can I say to the hon. Gentleman? He has expertise in this area, but I think it is slightly rich of him to say that the expertise available to Government, including legal expertise, is wrong on this point. The Welsh Government do have a particular approach, as I have heard mentioned several times today; that does not need to contend with the 90-night short-term let limit in London, which creates additional legislative complexity in England. We are engaging with the Welsh Government, who are due to publish their final impact evaluation on a series of measures, including on planning use classes. As I have said many times in this House, we continue to give serious consideration to what further powers local authorities need in order to bear down on excessive concentrations of second homes and short-term lets.

As I was saying, the clause does not propose that C6 short-term uses would revert to C3 at the point of sale, nor does it propose an alternative method to facilitate the return of existing short-term lets for use as primary dwelling houses. There is therefore an asymmetry in the proposed clause. This could most negatively impact the place most in need of properties reverting from a short-term use to a sole or main residence use.

It is also not clear how the proposed new C3 dwellinghouses definition would interact with existing C3(b) and (c) use classes, which include up to six residents living together as a single household where care may or may not be provided to residents.

[Markus Campbell-Savours]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am not going to give way. I can feel your glare, Madam Deputy Speaker. I feel it in every debate, but I can feel it more intensely now. I can see that you wish me to make progress.

[Markus Campbell-Savours]

Will the Minister consider whether that really was a glare? [Laughter.]

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way.

[Markus Campbell-Savours]

The Minister is spelling out quite clearly how the use of planning to control the number of short-term holiday lets is complicated and difficult. I view using the planning system on these sorts of issues as a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Will the Minister confirm whether, as the Government consider ways of controlling the number of holiday lets, they will consider a licensing system, and whether a cap could be applied to such a system?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Look at what is being done across the rest of the world under different regimes: some use licensing alone, some use planning alone, and some use both planning and licensing. We are reviewing what further powers local authorities might need and considering all options. As I have said, I am more than happy to continue to engage with hon. Members across the House on this point.

We share the ambition of improving access to housing for local people, but changes to the use class system must be judged by whether they would achieve that objective in practice. We are not persuaded that the approach proposed in clause 5 would work.

Recognising the underlying pressures, the Government have taken action, including abolishing the furnished holiday lettings tax regime, legislating for a national registration scheme for short-term lets, and preventing landlords from evicting tenants simply to convert a home into a holiday let. Any further planning changes will require careful consideration alongside those measures.

I will turn briefly to clause 6. It is right that communities should be able to respond to the effects of second homes and short-term lets through the plan-making system. However, the clause largely restates powers that are already available to local planning authorities and qualifying bodies. Neighbourhood plans can already include policies relating to second homes and short-term holiday lets, and local plans can also introduce principal residence or principal occupancy policies. Indeed, clause 6(4) explicitly recognises those existing powers.

The clause therefore largely sets out an approach that the existing planning system already enables. For that reason, we do not believe that the case for further statutory provision has been made, and nor are we persuaded that prescribing matters that plan-making bodies must take into account when preparing such policies via a separate statutory provision would improve the operation of existing plan-making powers.

I thank the hon. Member for St Ives once again for bringing forward the Bill, and I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. There have been some great speeches from my hon. Friend the Members for Erewash (Adam Thompson), for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) and for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington). A number of issues have been raised that are well beyond the scope of this particular Bill, including the housing revenue account, rough sleeping, and fleecehold leasehold. I am more than happy to sit down with hon. Members from across the House to discuss those matters.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

No, I will conclude.

The Government commend the motivation behind the Bill. We want to see more social and affordable homes come forward in rural and coastal communities, we want to empower communities to shape their local areas, and we recognise the important contribution that community-led housing can make to meeting local housing needs.

We simply disagree that the measures in the Bill, which is problematic in a number of respects, are the right way to achieve those objectives. Taken together, its measures would add considerable prescription and complexity to the planning and land system. In a number of cases they would duplicate functions that can already be exercised through the existing planning framework, while in others they risk constraining the flexibility that local authorities and communities need to respond to very different local circumstances.

For the reasons I have set out, the Government are unable to support the Bill, but I very much look forward to having an ongoing constructive dialogue with the hon. Member for St Ives and other right hon. and hon. Members on the matters raised in the debate, with a view to realising our shared aim of supporting the housing needs of local people.