Oral Answers to Questions
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(2 days, 1 hour ago)
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Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The Government do not collect data on how much land within green belts has been formally identified as grey belt by individual local authorities. It is for local authorities themselves to determine whether land in their areas constitutes grey belt, either through plan making or through looking at specific applications. On 27 February 2025, the Government updated green-belt planning practice guidance to support a consistent approach to assessing green belt to identify grey-belt land.
Mark Pritchard
Is the Minister aware that speculative developers want to build 800 new houses in Albrighton, in my constituency, inside the green belt and outside the local plan? Let me be clear: the constituents I met in a public meeting on Friday are not against housing—they are just against housing at the wrong scale and in the wrong location. This is not about nimbyism, but about protecting nature, open spaces and the green belt. On consultation, nearly 4,000 signed a local petition against these flawed proposals. Does the Minister accept that Shropshire’s green belt needs to be protected from this destruction?
Matthew Pennycook
I am aware of the case. My understanding is that Shropshire council refused planning permission for the development on the basis that the land was not grey belt and therefore building on it would constitute inappropriate development in the green belt. In general terms, when it comes to determining whether a site is classified as grey belt, the relevant inspector will, at appeal, consider relevant legislation; national planning policy, including the national planning policy framework; planning policy guidance; and any other relevant local development plan policies and material considerations.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The new national planning policy framework, published on 17 August, includes a number of new policies designed to increase densification inside settlements, including by encouraging the upward expansion of existing homes and the creation of new dwellings in existing plots.
Bradley Thomas
I just heard the Secretary of State say that there should be a brownfield-first approach, but what is going on in Bromsgrove, and in many other constituencies, is contradictory: an 85% increase in the housing target in a constituency that is 90% green belt. I challenge the Secretary of State to think again and prioritise urban densification, which is fundamental to the redevelopment of towns, cities and urban centres that are in desperate need of renewal. Why does she not just admit that she has got this wrong and change tack?
Matthew Pennycook
We have not got it wrong: the new NPPF does prioritise urban development and densification. As I have made clear to the hon. Gentleman a number of times, local authorities can justify a lower housing requirement than the figure set by the standard method on the basis of local constraints, such as land availability. It is for local planning authorities themselves to determine whether there are exceptional circumstances that justify the release of green belt, and we fully expect them to first demonstrate that they have fully examined all other reasonable options for meeting identified need for development, including making as much use as possible of suitable brownfield sites and underutilised land.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
The gate streets in Gloucester city centre are in urgent need of regeneration. Does the Minister agree that one way to breathe more life into our city centre is to convert the empty upper floors of shops into good-quality housing? What steps are the Government taking to unlock those opportunities?
Matthew Pennycook
The Government are undertaking a number of pieces of work to look at what more we can do to revitalise our high streets. The Secretary of State and I are looking specifically at what more we can do to arm local authorities with the powers they need to bring empty homes back into use.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Planning permissions for new homes, of which there are already around 1.5 million, are one thing, but getting those units built is another. With Savills reporting that two thirds of London boroughs have seen net zero new housing starts under the Mayor of London, what proposals do the Government have to ensure that units with permission actually get built, rather than concreting over our green belt?
Matthew Pennycook
The shadow Minister is absolutely right that house builders across the country face challenges with viability, not least owing to the implications of the ongoing conflict in the middle east. London has a number of challenges particular to itself that the rest of the country does not face; that is precisely why we brought forward an emergency package with the Mayor of London, specifically to get those stalled sites in the capital moving.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Local planning authorities are expected to plan effectively for infrastructure provision through local development plans and infrastructure funding statements. To support them, the Government have strengthened national planning policy in respect of community facilities and public service infrastructure, and we provide direct financial support for essential infrastructure in areas of greatest housing demand through land and infrastructure funding programmes.
Ben Maguire
To protect its profits, Wain Homes is now backing out of £350,000 of promised infrastructure funding in my town of Bodmin. But with more than 3,000 homes to be built by 2030, Bodmin now faces an infrastructure emergency. Just last week, the Prime Minister said:
“Cornwall lacks a basic level of infrastructure, which in turn harms growth and holds back…life chances”.—[Official Report, 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 27.]
Will the Minister please consider greater control over infrastructure levies, like that enjoyed by other local authorities, as part of Cornwall’s bespoke devolution package?
Matthew Pennycook
My colleagues on the Front Bench will have heard the hon. Member’s request on the devolution offer that needs to be made to Cornwall. He cited a case where the developers backed out of their commitments: specifically on developer contributions, I should say that communities rightly expect necessary infrastructure to be provided and any commitments made to be met. Section 106 planning obligations help, obviously, to mitigate the impacts of a development proposal. They are legally binding and enforceable. If he wants to write to me with the particular circumstances of the case, he is more than welcome to do so.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
A development of 1,500 properties is proposed for near Weelsby Woods, which is a designated nature corridor in my constituency. Within that, there are no designations of social housing, no suggestion of doctor’s surgeries and no consideration of the potential road congestion. All the while those 1,500 homes are promised, 2,000 sit empty in the town centre. Is any action being planned for empty town centre homes?
Matthew Pennycook
As I just said to a previous question, we are looking at what more we can do to give local authorities the powers they need to bring empty homes back into use. My hon. Friend will understand that I cannot comment on specific applications being made, but councils can, through section 106 agreements, seek to negotiate with developers to bring forward the necessary infrastructure and amenities, and affordable housing, on particular sites.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
My constituents and people across this country are fed up with more and more housing being built without the proper infrastructure in place first. There is nothing in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 about forcing developers to put schools and GP surgeries in place at the same time as new developments. Will the Minister look again and commit to listening to existing residents about bringing changes in legislation, to ensure that there is infrastructure first?
Matthew Pennycook
I welcome the shadow Minister to the Front Bench on a well-deserved promotion.
The previous Government had 14 years to resolve this problem; they did not do so. I say to the shadow Minister honestly—he knows this full well as a former local councillor—that there is no single, simple answer to the problem of getting the necessary infrastructure in place. As I said, we have strengthened national planning policy to ensure that community facilities and public service infrastructure are brought forward. Again, we are strengthening developer contributions. We directly finance land and infrastructure. There is more to be done, and we will do it.
Lewis Cocking
Well, the Government have had two years—that will not wash with my constituents, who have seen thousands of new homes built with no new infrastructure. Healthcare services are of particular concern: when there is new housing, that makes it much harder for everyone to see their GP. This Government are taking on more political control of the NHS, so can the Minister tell me what discussions he has had with the Department of Health and Social Care about ensuring that new healthcare facilities are in place when there is new housing?
Matthew Pennycook
The shadow Minister raises a justified point, in that in some cases securing the necessary public service infrastructure is about ensuring that the buildings are brought forward through the relevant developer contributions and other infrastructure funding streams. In some cases, there are other issues, such as workforce challenges in particular. We regularly speak to colleagues in other Departments, including the Department of Health and Social Care, to ensure that we get that infrastructure up front and alongside development.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The national planning policy framework contains strong protections for the green belt, making clear that inappropriate development in it should not be approved unless justified by very special circumstances. It is for local planning authorities themselves to set and review green-belt boundaries in accordance with national policy in the NPPF.
Monica Harding
The Government changes to planning rules are of considerable concern to my constituents and are leading to speculative applications everywhere. Theoretically, the changes could mean that the whole of my constituency, which is 50% green belt and has seven stations, will be concreted over. My constituents are certainly not opposed to growth or house building, but they do not want to be ignored. The long-standing right of councillors to call in applications has been removed, which runs counter to the new Prime Minister’s values on devolution. That is why I wrote to the Secretary of State on 28 July. I have not had a reply to my question, so will she meet me to answer these questions directly?
Matthew Pennycook
I fully appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns about inappropriate development around stations, such as Hersham and Claygate in her constituency. It is right that we seek to promote good development around well-connected stations, outside of settlements or on green-belt land, as those are some of the most sustainable locations for new homes in the country. However, the new NPPF makes clear that development proposals around such stations should not prejudice any proposals for long-term comprehensive development in the same location, and must also be of a scale that can be accommodated, taking into account existing or proposed availability of infrastructure.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
We recognise that many councils are facing significant financial pressure on their HRAs. The Government have already taken a number of steps to rebuild the capacity of councils to borrow and invest in new and existing homes, including fundamental reform of the right to buy scheme, a 10-year social housing rent settlement and social rent convergence. We will continue to explore further ways in which we might support councils to expand their stock of social homes, including low-cost borrowing options.
Jayne Kirkham
This Government have committed to council housing and taken steps to boost it, which is fantastic. Cornwall council’s housing revenue account has struggled to build because it has had to invest in repairs, meaning that it has had to reduce the amount of funds available annually for new homes. Of course, another of the barriers to delivering new council homes is debt; over £90 million of it is the result of self-financing arrangements dating back to 2012. If that debt were reduced, Cornwall council and others could do more. Will the Government consider options to write off HRA debt, or at least provide lower-cost financing such as that made available to registered providers through the National Housing Bank?
Matthew Pennycook
As I made clear, we have already acted to build capacity in the sector, and will continue to explore further ways in which we might increase the headroom available to councils and housing associations, not least through low-cost borrowing options. With regard to the HRA, we remain of the view that the principle of self-financing is the right foundation, but as I said, we are fully aware of the impact of HRA debt on many councils’ ability to build more and will continue to explore ways in which we might further support them.
Dame Meg Hillier
My right hon. Friend is aware of the challenges with housing in my constituency and across London. Every home built that provides a foundation for people’s lives saves the state money as well, given the temporary accommodation costs that are saved when people are able to get that foundation in life. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to talk to Treasury colleagues about how to look at those maths, to make sure we understand that tackling issues with debt can save money in the long term? I recognise that it might be a long haul, but will he promise to start?
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of building more homes in London—I am acutely aware of the housing delivery challenges that the capital is facing. It is really important that a big proportion of those homes are social rented homes and council-delivered social rented homes. I am really pleased that in the early years of the social and affordable homes programme, 30% of the funding will go to London. That will allow London to deliver at least £6 billion of initial allocations, over half of which will be for council housing. However, there is more we need to do in this area, and I am more than happy to have a discussion with my hon. Friend outside the Chamber about what that is.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Councils such as Dorset sold their housing stock many years ago. Their social housing is entirely operated by housing associations; they therefore have no HRA, making it more expensive and complex to influence the social housing network in their areas and support constituents living in poor-quality, overcrowded social homes. What additional measures are being considered to make sure we do not end up with a two-tier system between those with an HRA and those without?
Matthew Pennycook
We have made changes to help more councils access an HRA, raising the threshold from 200 homes to 1,000 homes to provide support in that area. Over time, we want to see a deeper partnership and more working between councils and local authorities, but we are giving consideration to what more we can do to ensure there is sufficient public control of private registered providers in an area to meet housing need. We may discuss this issue further on Second Reading of the Social Housing Bill on Thursday.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The average house price in my constituency is 12 times average household incomes, so the desperate need for more social housing is plain for everyone to see. Westmorland and Furness Council does now have a housing revenue account, inherited from the previous Barrow borough council, but it is unlikely to spend any of that money—unlikely to build council houses—while the right to buy remains unfettered. If council houses are built in the lakes and the dales, they will be sold, and they will become Airbnbs and second homes before the year is out. What will the Government do to encourage the likes of my local authority to build with confidence that people can have affordable homes that they can guarantee will remain so?
Matthew Pennycook
As the hon. Gentleman is hopefully aware, we have already taken action to reduce maximum right-to-buy cash discounts. Through the Social Housing Bill—as I mentioned, it has its Second Reading on Thursday—we are taking further action to increase eligibility and banning the right to buy on new build social homes for 35 years. I hope he can get behind that Bill on Thursday and support it.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The definition of “reasonable walking distance” is set out in the glossary of the national planning policy framework. For the purposes of policies relating to land around well connected stations, the glossary makes it clear that it should be considered to be about 800 metres, or about 10 minutes’ walk time if topography, route availability or quality, or physical barriers
“would prevent or discourage walking from up to 800 metres away.”
Saqib Bhatti
This policy has created a huge amount of consternation in my constituency, and it puts a huge amount of green-belt land at risk, especially in historical, beautiful villages such as Hampton-in-Arden, because there is one way in and one way out. There is a small GP surgery, and a school with just one form entry. My constituents fear that they will be overwhelmed and their green belt will be overrun. Would it not be better for the Minister to focus on growing housing in places like Birmingham, which needs more housing, and on ensuring a brownfield-first, infrastructure-first approach?
Matthew Pennycook
We need more housing in all parts of the country. We do have a brownfield-first approach, and we do want to see infrastructure delivered in a timely manner alongside housing developments, but it is absolutely right that we focus development within reasonable walking distance of train stations within settlements, or well connected stations outside settlements, including those in the green belt. As I have said, these are some of the most sustainable locations for new housing in the country. We have defined well connected stations by the 80 travel-to-work areas of the country, and we have also linked minimum density requirements to service frequency. There is a link between the number of trains that a station receives per hour and the amount of development that we want to see. However, I am more than happy to speak to the hon. Gentleman about the particular issues in his constituency.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I recognise the strength of feeling in the House on this matter. I want to ensure that every opportunity is taken to retain homes in the social housing sector. Although housing associations remain independent organisations that are responsible for their own asset management decisions, I can assure my hon. Friend that we are exploring what further steps could be taken to protect much-needed social housing stock.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Secretary of State on her return to her position, and to welcome her to her place. What steps is she taking to proactively protect the green belt?
Matthew Pennycook
As I have said, there are strong protections in the national planning policy framework. It is for local authorities to decide whether exceptional circumstances exist for the release of green-belt land, and whether very special circumstances exist that would outweigh the harms involved when it comes to inappropriate development. Those safeguards remain. We are committed to preserving England’s green belts, which have served our towns and cities very well over many decades.
Gareth Bacon
I agree with the Minister’s last point, but I am not too sure that I believe the preceding point. If the Government are serious about protecting the green belt and generating new housing, one of the best ways of doing both would surely be to ensure that planning permissions are actually built, but according to the Local Government Association, there are up to 1.4 million housing units that have been granted planning consent over the past decade and have not been completed. The Government may claim that they are serious about solving this problem, and point to their planning reform working paper, entitled “Speeding Up Build Out”, but that paper was published in May last year and requires primary legislation for it to have any effect at all. If the Government are serious about protecting the green belt and getting homes built, where is the legislation?
Matthew Pennycook
The shadow Minister, for whom I have a lot of time, knows full well that development can stall at particular sites for a variety of reasons, not least the viability pressures that we discussed earlier. We are taking action to get sites moving, and the NPPF strengthens expectations in this area. On the specific matter that he raises, primary legislation is not needed. Primary legislation was taken through by the previous Government, and we have a plan to switch on the necessary secondary legislation to ensure that we have transparency over build-out rates. He does not have long to wait for that to come forward.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
Matthew Pennycook
I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend. I think that the matters in question will fall to another Minister, thankfully, but I am more than happy to join that meeting if housing issues are involved.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Matthew Pennycook
Places for People will no doubt have heard the concerns the hon. Gentleman has raised today. Social housing providers are regulated on the basis of consumer standards, and they are inspected on that basis. We have introduced Awaab’s law, which provides that landlords have to fix hazards within specified time limits. If he wants to write to me with further information about the development in question, I will be happy to look into it.
Chris Ward (Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven) (Lab)
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Matthew Pennycook
Homeowners should not be expected to shoulder the financial consequences of defective work. However, the case of Goodrich Mews is a challenging one, in that the legal liability appears to now lie with the resident management company. My hon. Friend knows that I have been looking into the matter for her, and I am more than happy to meet her again. I believe that my office has been seeking further information from hers, which we would be grateful to receive.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Increased energy costs, increased material costs, the increased cost of employing people, particularly young people, the increased cost of bureaucracy and business taxes are all pushing up the cost of building and squeezing the viability of projects. Does the Secretary of State not realise that her Government’s policies are making it harder for young people to get on the housing ladder, or does she simply not care?
Matthew Pennycook
Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he does not agree with minimum energy efficiency standards? Is he saying that he does not agree with a modernised decent homes standard? These measures are driving up the quality and the safety of homes, and we can do that while increasing supply.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Matthew Pennycook
It is not a blanket policy; it relates to well-connected stations. I have set out the definition, with appropriate minimum densities to go with it.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
Empty shops that are rundown because of absentee landlords are a blight on our town centres, but Labour-run Erewash borough council is fixing the problem through clean-up orders, such as the one served to the Burton building in Long Eaton—as soon as it was renovated, new businesses moved right in—but clean-up orders can be very time-consuming, so what more can the Government do to tackle absentee landlords and bring shops back into use?
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Last week, at the successful Reform conference, I launched a series of bold planning proposals that will make it easier to regenerate our town centres and easier to build on brownfield sites, by making it cheaper and faster to get planning consents. Will the Secretary of State consider those proposals? They have been well-received by the industry. I urge her to consult and to meet me.
Matthew Pennycook
We take the hon. Gentleman’s planning policies about as seriously as the country took his conference.
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
I welcome the £14 million of funding released this month to create opportunities for young people in my constituency. The money will train them in jobs for construction in net zero sectors. Does my hon. Friend agree that the approach that the Government have taken to empowering and funding local stakeholders to grow local economies should be adopted by the SNP Scottish Government?
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s plans to deepen devolution, but can the Minister reassure me that they will mean no alteration to the commitment to a Cambridge development corporation?
Matthew Pennycook
The Government remain fully committed to delivering nationally significant growth in Greater Cambridge. As my hon. Friend is well aware, we have established a centrally led urban development corporation to take it forward in partnership with local leaders.
Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)
When the Prime Minister was campaigning to be the MP for Makerfield, he said that all of the £39 billion affordable housing fund should be dedicated to building council homes. Will the Secretary of State explain to the 3,180 families in temporary accommodation across Manchester and Tameside, many of them in Gorton and Denton, why the Government have now backtracked and are instead continuing with the lack of ambition we had under Keir Starmer, rather than building as many secure, truly affordable homes as possible?
Matthew Pennycook
There is no lack of ambition when it comes social and affordable housing from this Government. At least 60% of that historic £39 billion will go to social rented homes. We have delivered the highest number of council homes since records began in 1991-92. We are taking a pragmatic approach. There are social homes ready to be built by housing associations, but we will ensure that more of the funding goes to councils for direct delivery.
Al Carns (Birmingham Selly Oak) (Lab)
Community-led housing plays a vital role in meeting our housing targets. In my constituency, the Stirchley Co-operative Development has built 39 social and affordable homes, but delays and cost overruns by the housing association have pretty much dropped everyone into despair. Will the Minister meet me to bring a resolution to the issue?
Matthew Pennycook
I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend about the issue.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
The Home Secretary will potentially soon be asking the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to use a Crown development order to approve planning in Linton-on-Ouse for an asylum centre. I ask the Secretary of State to reject that as undemocratic, and to ensure that the application goes through the locally elected North Yorkshire planning authority.
Matthew Pennycook
It will depend on whether the application in question meets the criteria to allow it to proceed down the Crown development route. Obviously, the applicant is separate from our Department; we are the stewards of the process and will make the determination on the basis of those criteria.
Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s focus on social and affordable homes. In South East Cornwall we really need first homes, not just second homes, as local people face an affordability crisis that is particularly acute among younger people. Cornwall is well placed and eager for a strategic place partnership with Homes England, so will the Minister meet me and other Cornish MPs to discuss that as part of a future devolution deal?
Matthew Pennycook
I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend and other colleagues.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I recently met a homeless man at the homelessness charity the Matthew 25 Mission, who said that he had been “dumped” in temporary accommodation in Eastbourne by Brighton and Hove city council without the support that he needed. The previous Minister promised that she would review the out-of-area placement guidance for local authorities on this matter, so will this Minister meet me to discuss the progress of that review?
Damien Egan (Bristol North East) (Lab)
With the Kingswood area of my Bristol constituency currently being targeted by landlords of houses in multiple occupation, can the Minister set out the Government’s current thinking on how powers to restrict HMOs can be made more effective?
Matthew Pennycook
There is a variety of practice in the country, and we want to better understand whether local authorities are making full use of existing powers, but I reassure my hon. Friend that we keep the matter under review. We have to ensure that we are regulating HMOs properly.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The Government want Buckinghamshire council to develop 91,000 homes, but 2,890 of those are basically to be adjacent to Northamptonshire, and it will be my residents in Brackley who are affected by that. They are going to have none of the help in developer contributions or a proper say in the matter, so will the Minister meet me to discuss this concerning issue for my constituents?
Matthew Pennycook
That is precisely why we have introduced strategic cross-boundary planning through spatial development strategies—[Interruption.] The hon. Member says that it is not working, but it is not in place yet. We passed the Planning and Infrastructure Act last year, and it will be in place in short order. I am more than happy to have a conversation about it with her.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Yesterday I visited the Shri Guru Ravidass Sikh gurdwara in my constituency, where I was told about the weekly drop-in they run to help rough sleepers without the right to stay in this country and advise them on how to reconnect with family and go home with dignity. Would the Secretary of State congratulate the work of the gurdwara and tell us how we can further help those kinds of organisations?
Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)
Despite what we have heard from the Minister, colleagues have been talking about the issue of developments near railway stations. That has a practical consequence for the rural village of Long Buckby in my constituency. Land that is currently in open countryside, beyond the village boundary, will now be designated as a priority area. That gives no consideration to the distinction between a rural village and an urban area. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the issue in detail?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister meet me and the leader of City of York council? The fair funding formula is not working for our city because it does not use the lower-tier data with regard to the indices of deprivation, meaning that we are the worst-funded local authority. Can we have that meeting?
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
Despite swift action from Dacorum council to tackle a 6-acre unauthorised development in the Chilterns landscape, it had to choose between occupation and restoration, as tackling both would potentially have dragged the case out for years. What are the Government doing to help councils with powers to ensure that these cases can be tackled sooner?
Matthew Pennycook
I think the hon. Lady is referring to unauthorised development. We have strengthened national planning policy in respect of intentional unauthorised development, making it harder to grant permission after the fact where there is evidence that development was carried out intentionally without permission. However, it has become evident—we have had a meeting on this subject—that we are seeing the prevalence of a more structured pattern of unauthorised development, and we are working across Government to see what more action might be taken to bear down on that.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his support for the new towns programme. We will bring forward final decisions in short order, responding to the consultation that we undertook earlier this year, and those proposed seven new town sites.
Large-scale Development Masterplans
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(6 days, 1 hour ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) on securing this important debate. I commend her for the compelling argument she makes about the importance of planning effectively for large-scale residential developments to ensure that they are well-connected, well-designed, sustainable and attractive places where people want to live, with all the infrastructure, amenities and services needed to sustain thriving communities.
While I note my hon. Friend’s comments, both today and previously, in respect of the BL1 green-belt site in Lightwood that is identified in the draft local plan, I know she is cognisant of the fact that I cannot comment on specific local plans, sites or planning applications, due to the quasi-judicial nature of the planning process, but I will make some general points that I hope will be of use.
I start with plan making. The plan-led approach is, and must remain, the cornerstone of our planning system. The benefits of an up-to-date local plan are significant and well known across the Chamber. Local plans are the best way for communities to shape decisions about how to deliver the housing and wider development that areas need. They enable local areas to set the strategy for future growth and the approach to protecting and enhancing the environment, and they provide the certainty and confidence required to bring development forward across the country.
In the absence of an up-to-date local plan, there is a high likelihood that development will come forward on a piecemeal and speculative basis, as my hon. Friend mentioned, with reduced public engagement and fewer guarantees that it will make the most of an area’s potential. That is why the Government remain determined to drive local plans to adoption as quickly as possible in order to achieve our ambition of universal plan coverage and to ensure that plans contribute positively to increasing rates of house building and infrastructure delivery.
My hon. Friend will know that the emerging Stoke-on-Trent city council local plan is undergoing the regulation 19 consultation, and I encourage her and her constituents to engage meaningfully with that process, if they have not already done so, to ensure that any specific concerns are understood by the authority even at this advanced stage. Anyone who has submitted a representation during the consultation on the draft plan may make a request to be heard by the inspector during the examination.
Once submitted for examination, it will be for the independent inspector to examine the plan and the proposed site allocations to ensure that they are legally compliant and sound. Of course, it is for the inspector to ensure that the plan is in conformity with national policy, which has always been clear that local plans should identify the infrastructure necessary to support the delivery of the local plan, providing certainty and better outcomes for communities, businesses and developers.
I want briefly to mention the interaction between design guides, codes and masterplans and local plans. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that local planning authorities can identify and prioritise where design guides, codes and masterplans are produced and can make provision for their adoption as supplementary plans. There is no requirement for them to be adopted as part of the development plan, but where they are incorporated into development plans, they are afforded more weight on that basis.
It is important that for those key sites where a local authority wants to see a masterplan in place, they are incorporated into plans. They can also be produced as part of the development management process to support the delivery of larger site allocations. In the new national planning policy framework that we published on 17 August, we included new policy—policy L1, for those who are interested—which encourages the use of masterplans, where appropriate, to optimise the use of site allocations. We included this in response to consultation feedback.
My hon. Friend made a number of specific points in the context of her concerns about the BL1 site about large-scale residential development and the importance of master planning to ensure the best outcomes for communities, and I very much agree with her about the benefits. Delivering at scale does provide opportunities for comprehensive development where homes, infrastructure, green space and community facilities can be planned together from the outset. National planning policy has long required local plans to take this joined-up approach, including by setting out the infrastructure needed to support growth and clear expectations for the quality of places to be created. That includes using design tools such as masterplans and design codes where they are needed.
In response to the specific points my hon. Friend raised, the new NPPF that we published on 17 August has strengthened national planning policy in this area for future plans and sites, including by introducing a definition of what is called a strategic site—a site of at least 1,500 dwellings, most often to be delivered in multiple phases, and that has significant infrastructure requirements. Through that NPPF, we have set clear expectations that such development should come forward in suitable locations, be supported by necessary infrastructure and facilities, address strategic environmental opportunities and—I quote from the glossary—“require a masterplan.” Going forward, we require a masterplan for any strategic site of over 1,500 units to be taken forward. To my hon. Friend’s point on accessibility, the new NPPF also strengthens expectations for a mix of homes and tenures on strategic sites.
While it will principally shape future plan making and future site allocations, it does, I hope, demonstrate this Government’s direction of travel, ensuring that large-scale developments are planned comprehensively, supported by timely infrastructure and capable of being well-designed, sustainable places even where a stand-alone masterplan is not in place. However, I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns in the context of her draft local plan being assessed under the old framework, not the new one.
I want to touch briefly on design and infrastructure. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of providing a long-term vision to guide the delivery of well-designed, large-scale development. Again, national planning policy is clear that local authorities should identify in their development plans where masterplans are necessary to achieve positive design outcomes and that they should use masterplans, where appropriate, to optimise the use of both allocated sites and smaller windfall sites. It also requires that masterplans reflect a clear understanding of local character and the wider context of an area, and should be informed by effective community engagement.
We are not complacent; we want to build on what is already in place. Our draft planning practice guidance on design and placemaking, which we consulted on between January and March this year, will go even further to support local authorities to prepare effective masterplans in collaboration with communities and key stakeholders.
A chief concern that my hon. Friend raised was infrastructure, the provision of which, as she made clear, communities across the country rightly expect to be delivered alongside development, rather than being an afterthought. We have been clear that while we need to build many more homes, they need to be supported by the right infrastructure to ensure that we are creating functioning places where people want to live and work.
The new NPPF has strengthened existing national policy to ensure that developers and local plans deliver much needed affordable homes and the infrastructure required to support new development such as schools and GP surgeries. Through the new NPPF, we have placed a greater emphasis on up-front clarity on expected developer contributions, reducing the risk of lengthy negotiations and again providing greater certainty for communities.
More widely, our new NPPF supports the provision of new community facilities and public service infrastructure, particularly where new development would have a significant impact on the number of people needing to use those services. The NPPF is also clear that, in planning for new community facilities and public service infrastructure, authorities should engage proactively with local communities and the relevant service providers, taking into account relevant strategies to improve health, address inequalities and foster social and cultural wellbeing for all sections of the community.
At the same time, the Government are backing delivery centrally with the launch of a new national housing delivery fund. That includes about £5 billion of capital grant funding to address viability challenges across the country, including through remediation of brownfield sites and the provision of unlocking infrastructure. The fund is designed to deliver a range of interventions, including large strategic schemes as well as faster, smaller sites and viability gap projects. Its aim is to accelerate housing delivery, increase supply and support our ambition to build 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. It sits alongside the £16 billion of financial capacity that we have available to us through our national housing bank.
On landscapes and green places, again, it is important for me to say to my hon. Friend that the NPPF highlights the importance of conserving and enhancing landscape character, the natural beauty of the countryside and higher quality agricultural land. Local plans may designate land as local green space where that would safeguard green areas of particular value to the local community. We have also introduced a new requirement for plans to set standards for green infrastructure, defined as a multi-functional network of green and blue spaces.
The Government are obviously also committed to the ongoing protection of England’s green belts, which have served England’s towns and cities well over many decades. We have not shied away, however, from the fact that we do need to take forward a more strategic, targeted approach to green-belt land designation and release where that is necessary; but when local authorities have to release green belt under exceptional circumstances, we expect them to prioritise previously developed and lower-quality grey-belt land within the green belt.
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate and bringing this important issue to the House’s attention. I am passionate about well-designed masterplans, which can really reduce opposition to development by convincing people that the development coming forward is infrastructure-led, well designed and sustainable. The Government are committed to delivering the right homes that people need while ensuring that development is supported by the appropriate infrastructure, working in tandem with local areas. We have, as I set out today, taken bold steps to reform the planning system and to drive wider changes across the housing market to improve supply, quality and fairness. I look forward to working closely with colleagues to build a housing system that is both fair and sustainable, and to drive up the quality and indeed coverage of masterplans, particularly on strategic sites across the country.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Nature Restoration Levy regulations 2026
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 week ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 18 June.
When it comes to development and the environment, this Government have been clear that we want to unlock a win-win for the economy and for nature. To that end, we legislated through the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 to introduce a nature restoration fund that will unlock and accelerate development, going beyond simply offsetting harm to unlock the positive impact that development can have in driving nature recovery. The purpose of the NRF is simple: to end the current suboptimal approach to discharging environmental obligations, in which developers are required to pay for localised and often costly mitigation measures, only to maintain the environmental status quo; and to replace that with a more strategic approach that will streamline delivery of new homes and infrastructure, while efficiently delivering improved environmental outcomes by leveraging economies of scale and reducing need for costly project-level assessments.
As hon. Members are aware, the core principles and purpose of the NRF were subject to extensive scrutiny by both Houses. Relevant clauses of the original Bill were strengthened in a number of important ways during its passage to provide further reassurance that the fund will deliver the improved outcomes for nature that are at the core of the model. It would not be appropriate to relitigate the lengthy debates that took place in the Bill Committee, but I take this opportunity to emphasise that strong safeguards were built into the 2025 Act to ensure that the fund will restore, not harm, nature. Those include a binding overall improvement test, monitoring and back-up measures, remedial action and the ability to amend or revoke plans if necessary.
Shifting to a strategic approach requires positive planning, which is why the creation of environmental delivery plans sits at the heart of the model. EDPs will be developed by Natural England, the Government’s adviser in respect of the natural environment, and will demonstrate how the proposed package of conservation measures delivered by the EDP will materially outweigh one or more impacts of development on a protected site or species. Those conservation measures will then be deployed by Natural England where they will have the greatest environmental benefit.
Each EDP will be subject to public consultation, providing an opportunity for stakeholders to scrutinise the evidence presented by Natural England before an EDP can be made. At the conclusion of that process, the Secretary of State will consider whether the EDP meets the overall improvement test established under the Act before they formally make the EDP. Where an EDP is in place, developers will have the option to pay the nature restoration levy to discharge the relevant environmental obligations that the EDP covers. That levy is the subject of the draft regulations that we are considering.
The draft nature restoration levy regulations set out how the levy mechanism will work in practice. They will provide the statutory framework for key elements of the levy’s operation, including how liability to pay the levy may be assumed, imposed or transferred, and they explain how the amount of the levy will be calculated, when payment will be due, and the enforcement mechanisms available to Natural England when obligations are not met.
The purpose of the nature restoration levy is to enable the delivery, management, maintenance and monitoring of the conservation measures identified in the relevant EDP. The draft regulations therefore provide clear safeguards to support the effective delivery of such measures. They ensure that payments from developers are sufficient to meet the costs of the relevant conservation measures, are properly recovered in a timely manner, and are aligned with the commercial realities of development. Levy rates will be set through individual EDP charging schedules, which will form part of the EDP, which is consulted on. Those charging schedules will be based primarily on the cost of delivering the conservation measures needed to materially outweigh the development impacts.
At times during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act, concerns were expressed that funds collected through the NRF might be diverted to pay for other, unrelated priorities. I assure hon. Members that the draft regulations will ensure that levy funds can be used only for the delivery of the conservation measures set out in the relevant EDP and for the administrative expenses connected with that EDP. Clear reporting requirements on how levy receipts are spent will further enable the NRF to operate transparently and with appropriate scrutiny. I stress that levy receipts are subject to a statutory ringfence and must be used to deliver the EDP for which they were collected. Only costs reasonably attributable to that EDP can be funded through levy income.
I am also aware of concerns regarding the potential impacts of EDPs on development viability. I want to make it clear, however, that we have put in place important safeguards to protect developers who choose to use the NRF from unjustified costs. Public consultation and rigorous Secretary of State scrutiny of each EDP will ensure that proposed levy rates are carefully considered before any EDP is made. It is also worth reiterating—we debated this issue at length in Committee—that in almost all cases EDPs will be voluntary and developers will have the option to meet obligations through existing routes if they do not believe that discharging their obligations through the NRF represents good value for money.
Although the levy regulations are a key part of the new system, we recognise that users will need proper support to navigate the NRF. I am pleased to say that initial guidance has now been published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Natural England to support the implementation of the first EDPs. The guidance sets out the key steps for NRF users and explains the core operational processes that will underpin the NRF system. We will continue to work with stakeholders to identify further areas where guidance might assist as we work to roll out the NRF.
To conclude, the regulations will support the effective implementation of the NRF by ensuring that the levy operates effectively, transparently and fairly so that we can build the homes and infrastructure our country needs while improving our natural environment for future generations. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank both my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire and the shadow Minister for those questions. Let me deal with them each in turn. It may be useful if I set out in plainer terms how an EDP will be made and how the levy will be set.
The shadow Minister asked first about Natural England capacity. We debated that at length during the passage of the Bill: we believe that Natural England is the appropriate delivery body for the NRF, given its internal expertise and ability to operate effectively across the whole of England. It is also worth saying that when carrying out its functions under the nature restoration fund, Natural England remains bound by its wider statutory duties and general purposes, as set out in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2026. Those include promoting nature conservation and protecting biodiversity.
We think that Natural England is the appropriate body. It will be supported to take strategic action to deliver the conservation measures set out within individual EDPs, using income from the nature restoration levy. This is a really important point: the levy is based on full cost recovery. As I made clear in my opening remarks, the levy can be used to support administrative duties tied to the EDP, but is primarily to fund conservation measures that EDPs will bring forward, on a full cost-recovery basis. The regulations also enable targeted use of levy funding to cover management, maintenance and other things. That will enable Natural England to build and maintain the capacity and capability needed to design, implement and monitor EDPs effectively.
The important point to convey to the Committee is that each EDP will be subject to public consultation. In line with the commitment we made in the other place, we have been working for many months with Natural England and DEFRA on the first EDP, which deals solely with nutrient pollution; we thought that was the best constraint to take the first EDP forward on.
In bringing forward an EDP, Natural England will have to project and estimate the maximum amount of development that that EDP can cater for and set a levy rate based on what is necessary to deliver the conservation measures required to discharge and meet that overall improvement test; I will come back to that in a second. Natural England will set a levy for each individual EDP. That will be subject to public consultation. Environmental groups, local residents, local authorities and developers will each have a say on the particular levy being consulted on. That gives the public a chance to have input into what is taken forward.
David Simmonds
The Minister has helpfully set out how we expect the EDP process to work in practice. When he was talking about how it would be financed, he described what could be extensive and lengthy public consultation, requiring expert input in designing habitats and so forth. Clearly, that will come at a significant cost. Will the cost to Natural England of administering the scheme be paid for out of the levy income itself or is there a separate funding mechanism that will enable Natural England to carry out that work?
Matthew Pennycook
That is an appropriate question. The shadow Minister may recall that during the passage of the Bill we committed to some upfront funding for Natural England. However, we have come to the regulations before us: the point is that the levy is designed to operate on a full cost-recovery basis. Rates are required to reflect the cost of delivering the necessary conservation measures, as well as covering the costs of monitoring and maintenance activities. Some of the levy can be used on the cost of setting up and consulting on an EDP but it is primarily for bringing the conservation measures forward.
The shadow Minister also asked about payments in lieu—off-site payments, as I took it. The regulations do not provide for that. That is not the assumption that we are working on.
I come back to what an EDP means in practice. Let us take the case of nutrient pollution, which will be the first we consult on. Natural England will have put together a suite of conservation measures across a designated area that it can call on to ensure that the overall improvement test is met. As I said in my opening remarks, each individual developer can still decide to discharge relevant environmental obligations under current arrangements if they do not feel that the levy rate provides value for money. However, we hope that the workings of the EDP will show that it is a very effective, efficient way to discharge those obligations. We hope that more developers will come in.
As the levy payments come in, Natural England will begin to draw on the suite of conservation measures available to it. We are taking forward separate regulations on the prioritisation of conservation measures: as part of an EDP, Natural England will have to set out in general terms a prioritisation and sequencing of conservation measures. Those are not mutually exclusive; some might be relevant and used in different instances. This is about what it brings forward to meet those requirements. As more developers come within the given area where the EDP is operating, Natural England will be able to leverage economies of scale. That is the big win here: allowing those economies of scale and that strategic approach. The regulations are not designed for payments in lieu.
I hope that I have dealt with the cumulative impact. When it comes to individual planning applications, developers will have to indicate that they wish to discharge their obligations through the EDP. At that point, there will be a commitment to pay on the part of Natural England. The developer can then use that commitment to take that through the relevant planning process. The planning process may not be successful, but if it is, the liability to pay is ensured and there will be payment into the scheme.
In terms of cumulative impact, a particular developer may seek to discharge its obligations on a site-by-site, project-level basis, using EDPs only on some sites in the catchment—again, we would hope not; we want as many developers to be using EDPs as possible. That is probably unlikely if developers see that EDPs are working for them as an efficient way to discharge the obligations. I am sure that developers will start to make better use of the scheme.
Let me address the points that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire raised, including on changing the levy without consultation. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 sets out the circumstances where reconsultation on an EDP is required, such as where new conservation measures are proposed or the amount of development coverage is increased. There are a couple of scenarios where that might work. Say the projected development of homes or infrastructure increases; there might be a need to amend the EDP. Alternatively, additional conservation measures might be required.
Under the powers in the Act, the Secretary of State may direct Natural England to reconsult when there are changes to the EDP’s charging schedule. That allows the levy rate to change to meet the cost of the EDP, in line with the overall improvement test, but it does not require reconsultation in all circumstances. We would not want a wholesale public consultation on minor changes to the levy rate; when there are significant changes, the Secretary of State has the power to do that. The levy rate for developers is set at the point where Natural England accepts the commitment to pay. If the levy rate subsequently needs to be increased to ensure that the required conservation measures can be delivered, the new rate will take effect only for future requests made to the EDP.
In terms of independent oversight, EDPs will not be black-box exercises; as we said, they are subject to public consultation. In the very near future we will launch the consultation on the first EDP, which is on nutrient neutrality. Before an EDP can take effect, local authorities, environmental groups and others will have a chance to scrutinise it in its entirety. Natural England must then consider the consultation responses before finalising the EDP and the Secretary of State retains statutory oversight through the approval of the EDP itself and whether it meets the overall improvement test. I do not want to relitigate the extensive debates in Committee, but that overall improvement test is the test that must be met. In the case of the first EDP that we bring forward, it will be the DEFRA Secretary of State who makes the judgment on whether the EDP is to be made following consultation.
I have covered whether the levy funds are not required to meet costs in full. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire raised the absence of a legal route to exit a commitment if circumstances change, but we have designed the draft regulations to accommodate the changing circumstances that developers might face. The regulations allow for levy-related commitments to be cancelled in specified scenarios, ensuring that the system can respond when a development does not proceed as anticipated. That reflects a proportionate approach to provide certainty for Natural England in delivering the necessary conservation measures, while recognising that plans can change over the lifetime of a development.
David Simmonds
I want to test the Minister’s thinking on that point. As constituency MPs, many of us have heard about section 106, where a significant number of contributions may be attached to school places, road improvements or whatever it may be. When the money is not spent within a specified period of time, the developer can reclaim it so that it cannot be redirected to other purposes, depending on what is in the agreement.
Another challenge is what happens when developers in a new town, for example, prefer to pay the levy, but the total of all the payments exceeds the value of the work that Natural England is undertaking because of the extent of the development, so something else needs to be substituted. Will the Minister set out briefly how the Government propose to address such issues so that the legislation does not, in practice, turn out to be a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare for many of the communities involved?
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the shadow Minister for his question. That brings me back to my point about how the levy is set and how it is tested through public consultation. It will be for Natural England to judge the quantum of development to be taken forward and to divide the individual charge on a per-hectare or per-dwelling basis in the most appropriate way. However, at the point when the developer seeks to discharge its environmental obligations through the use of the levy it will have consented to pay that levy amount.
We will test the levy amount through public consultation, but the test of whether the levy is set effectively is that it allows for the conservation measures to be deployed. There is a statutory ringfence on the funds, so it is not as if the funds could be diverted to other uses. As we made clear repeatedly throughout the passage of the Bill, EDPs will be based on the best scientific evidence available and on all the expertise in Natural England to allow it to judge whether it has the levy rate right. As I said, that will be tested in consultation. To answer the shadow Minister’s point, I should say that the value should not be exceeded.
I think I have responded to all the points. I thank Members for their questions. To be clear, this draft statutory instrument sets out a framework for the nature restoration levy and provides Natural England with the tools it needs to implement the nature restoration fund effectively. The draft regs are a necessary precursor to that first consultation, which as I have made clear will concern nutrient pollution only. That is the commitment that we gave.
We will return to the House with an evaluation of how that consultation worked before we proceed, although Natural England and DEFRA are working on the early stages of the EDPs for other interventions—great crested newts are a priority for colleagues in DEFRA. I hope that the draft regulations will be welcomed by the Committee and I commend them to it.
Question put and agreed to.
Social and Affordable Homes Programme: Council House Building
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Everyone deserves to live in a decent, safe, secure and affordable home. Yet far too many families in need of one are languishing on local authority waiting lists and almost 180,000 children are growing up in temporary accommodation, including over 100,000 in London. That is why this Government committed in our manifesto to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, and to supporting councils and housing associations to make a greater contribution to affordable housing.
After years of marginalisation, we are once again asserting the necessity and the value of social rented homes. They are a crucial national asset to be proud of, to invest in, to protect and to maintain. Under the leadership of the new Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), the Government are also determined not only to build upon the steps that we have already taken to reinvigorate council house building, but to decisively raise our ambition to ensure that we build council houses on a scale not seen in decades.
To kickstart social and affordable house building across the country, we have delivered the biggest boost to grant funding in recent memory through our new 10-year £39 billion social and affordable homes programme. The core strategic objective of the programme is to maximise supply, particularly of social rent homes, with a target to deliver at least 60% of the homes under the programme as social rent, in line with our manifesto commitment to prioritise this tenure.
Taken together with the steps that we have taken to rebuild the sector’s capacity to borrow and invest in new and existing homes and to establish an effective and stable regulatory regime, this unprecedented funding will enable councils, housing associations and other social and affordable housing providers to step up and deliver at scale and pace.
On 25 August we announced initial allocations of funding from the social and affordable homes programme so that we can start to deliver the significant increase in supply that it will facilitate. We also took the opportunity to set out how the programme will evolve over its 10-year lifetime, reflecting the emphasis that the new Prime Minister has placed on increasing council housing delivery and deepening devolution through a major transfer of powers, resources and functions from central Government to elected mayors and local authorities in regions across England.
As a Government, we remain committed to a renewed partnership with the sector. We call on providers of all kinds, developers and local leaders to help us successfully deliver the programme.
Reinvigorating council house building
Direct council delivery of social rent homes has a range of benefits, including democratic accountability, the ability to tailor provision to meet local housing need, and the creation of public assets that generate rental income that is reinvested in local housing to sustain and support communities.
It is also the case that the last time we built social housing on the scale that is now required, councils were the driving force, delivering tens of thousands of social homes each year until building rates fell off dramatically from the early 1980s onwards as a result of the constraints and restrictions created by the introduction of the right-to-buy scheme.
Housing associations and other providers will continue to play a key role in the delivery of social and affordable homes, and we want to encourage greater partnership working between councils and housing associations, but we are also determined to enable councils themselves to once again build at scale. We know that hundreds of councils share our ambition to secure the future of council housing.
The Government have taken a number of steps over the past two years to reinvigorate council house building. These include fundamental reform of the right-to-buy scheme; enabling councils to retain 100% of receipts from right-to-buy sales; a 10-year social housing rent settlement at CPI+1%; social rent convergence; the extension of the preferential Public Works Loan Board borrowing rates until the end of March 2027; an increase to the threshold for when a council must open an HRA from 200 to 1,000 homes; and funding to increase skills and capacity within councils to build. These changes are already bearing fruit with councils in 2024-25, delivering the highest number of social homes since the current reporting period began in 1991-92.
However, we need to go much further. As a first step, we will make sure that councils are able to access more of the funding available through the social and affordable homes programme. As we do so, we are urging councils to make timely and effective use of right-to-buy receipts, which can now be combined with grant secured through the programme, and unspent section 106 affordable housing contributions. Every pound that can be used for council house building is a step closer to more safe, secure and affordable homes for families across the country.
As a Government, we will continue to explore further ways we might support councils to expand their stock of social homes, including low-cost borrowing options, and to make use of existing powers such as those that enable the removal of “hope value” from the assessment of compensation in compulsory purchase cases where the public interest justifies this. We will be engaging intensively with councils over the coming months to explore these and any other constraints to building at scale.
Investment to strategic partners
As part of the initial social and affordable homes programme funding allocations announced on 25 August, we confirmed the first strategic partnerships designed to support providers who have asked for greater certainty of funding for the duration of the programme and are in a position to quickly begin delivering large numbers of new social and affordable homes.
In response to the opening of bidding, we saw an extremely large number of applications and unprecedented appetite for support on the part of providers. We thank everyone who applied for responding to our call to arms and submitting ambitious bids.
From an extremely competitive field, funding has been awarded to the highest quality bids as assessed by Homes England. This means that across England—excluding London—33 providers will receive funding totalling £9.58 billion to invest in new social and affordable housing. Nearly two thirds of the homes built by strategic partners through the programme will be for social rent.
For the first time ever, three councils will also be awarded strategic partnership status with Homes England—Cambridge city council, Eastleigh borough council and Newcastle city council—demonstrating how councils are stepping up to meet our bold ambitions.
The total funding of £9.58 billion includes an estimated £2.45 billion for delivery in six established mayoral strategic authority areas outside London, supporting the individual priorities of mayors who set the strategic direction of the programme in their areas.
Investment through continuous market engagement
The £9.58 billion of funding allocated through strategic partnerships will deliver tens of thousands of social and affordable homes across the country in the coming years, but with £39 billion of funding available over the lifetime of the programme there is over £16 billion of funding outside London and around £5 billion in London still yet to allocate. This includes funding in each year of this spending review period—2026 to 2030—and significant sums in the second half of the programme.
In allocating this funding, the Government intend to prioritise social rent homes, and in particular council homes so that we can achieve the Prime Minister’s ambition to deliver the biggest council house building programme since the post-war boom ended in the early 1980s. That said, funding will also be available for other providers, and we call on partners to come forward with strong bids in respect of specific sites.
In calling on councils to come forward with bids for new council homes, we will look to raise the cap on funding for acquisitions so that councils can buy more homes while they increase their capacity and capability to deliver homes directly. We are also reinvigorating our existing skills and capacity programme, re-branding it “Capacity to Build” and providing it with an extra £46 million to be invested over the next three years to give councils access to the skills and support they need to deliver ambitious house building plans. In the later years of the social and affordable homes programme, marked by a deepening of devolution and significantly more unallocated funding, we will look to ramp up rates of council house building even further.
London
In the early years of the programme, London will receive 30% of the funding, and up to £11.7 billion overall across the lifetime of the programme. As such, we have confirmed that the Greater London Authority intends to offer allocations of at least £6 billion to providers of social and affordable housing operating in the capital to support house building efforts there and address the city’s acute need for new social rented homes.
London is already showing what can be achieved through fuller devolution when it comes to council house building. With half of all council homes built in 2024-25 coming forward in London, we expect over half of all the delivery in London through this funding to come from councils.
Devolution
We have seen in London what can be achieved when local leaders have the powers, capability and long-term certainty to shape housing investment. We want more mayors to have the opportunity to reach that position.
We therefore intend to ensure that as the programme progresses more funding will flow directly to established mayoral strategic authority areas outside London, building on the strategic direction they have set to ensure that decisions about social and affordable housing investment are made locally. As mayors are given more power over grant-funded delivery, the Government will work closely with them to maximise council housing delivery.
To pave the way for this future transfer, we want to support and empower mayors to quickly increase the capacity and capability of their authorities to deliver housing and regeneration schemes. As such, dedicated delivery expertise will be made available to individual established mayoral strategic authority areas as part of the Government’s commitment to establish joint delivery units between mayors and Homes England.
The approach we take to the programme will be consistent with the commitments made in the Cabinet statement on rewiring the state, including in respect of funding mayors through retained taxation rather than grant.
Supporting job creation through investment in social housing delivery
Alongside its social and wider benefits, the programme supports economic growth via job creation. Every home built through grant funding provided through the programme will support jobs directly and indirectly through construction and supply chains.
We want to maximise the impact of the programme on the employment market and wider economy. For partners delivering through the programme, we ask all providers to consider what more you can do to support young people into employment, creating clear opportunities through the investment being provided.
The Government have been driving innovative training programmes, including directly in the house building sector, through skills development in modern methods of construction. We will continue to explore how we can build on the progress made to date to support young people into employment, focused on addressing skills shortages and training.
Facilitating the delivery of section 106 homes
Section 106 agreements are, and will remain, an essential mechanism for delivering social and affordable housing. They account not only for a significant proportion of affordable home completions, but for a significant share of total new home delivery. Without them, the development pipeline as a whole is at risk of contracting sharply.
In addition to delivering grant funded homes, we need all partners to maximise homes built through section 106. To speed up the process of drafting and concluding new section 106 agreements, we have launched a consultation on a standard section 106 template for medium sites which would be expected to become the default for applications in the future.
We also published the national section 106 affordable housing engagement guidance. This guidance has been developed jointly by the National Housing Federation, the Home Builders Federation, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Local Government Association, with their members, and we thank all those who have contributed to its development. The guidance establishes a shared framework for section 106 delivery and sets out the principles of effective engagement between developers, registered providers and local planning authorities. The Government strongly encourage partners across the sector to make full use of it.
[HCWS299]
Revised National Planning Policy Framework: Further Planning Reform
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
This Government have acted with ambition and urgency to tackle the acute and entrenched housing crisis in England, including by means of a bold overhaul of the planning system. In December 2024, we revised the national planning policy framework, reversing the previous Government’s anti-supply changes; implementing a new standard method aligned to our more ambitious national housing target; and releasing more land into the system through a modernised, strategic approach to green-belt land designation and release.
In December 2025, our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Act received Royal Assent, enabling us to speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure. Once we have switched on the Act in its entirety, we estimate that this single piece of legislation could boost GDP by up to £7.5 billion over the next decade.
In the same month the Act received Royal Assent, the Government launched a consultation on a fuller and more definitive overhaul of the NPPF. The wholly restructured framework that was proposed maintained and built upon the initial revisions we made in December 2024, included a range of new measures to support key economic sectors, and incorporated new clear and rules-based national policies for the making of both plans and decisions.
Under the leadership of the new Prime Minister, the Government are more focused than ever on building the homes our country needs and delivering good growth in every postcode. Following extensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders and detailed analysis of the large number of responses to the consultation undertaken between 16 December 2025 and 10 March 2026, we published a new NPPF and the Government response to that consultation on 17 August. Alongside the publication of the new framework, we also took the opportunity to progress complementary reforms to further improve the functioning of the planning system.
National Planning Policy Framework 2026
The new framework published on 17 August sets out national planning policy in a clearer and more comprehensive manner and incorporates a number of substantive reforms designed to boost housing supply and unlock economic growth in the years ahead.
The new decision-making policies in the framework, which have been separated from those relating to plan-making, will make development management more certain, consistent and streamlined; standardise policies that apply across the whole of England; and reduce duplication and avoid unjustified local deviation from national policy in local plans. To ensure that the decision-making policies in the framework had an immediate impact, they took effect on the day of publication—17 August 2026.
Many of the reforms contained in the new NPPF reflect the proposals set out in December last year, but a number of key changes have been made in light of feedback received through the consultation. These include:
Clarifying policies throughout the framework: including setting out more clearly the respective roles of different types of plans and what needs to be considered in decision making—for example, how transport impacts, pollution, heritage, protected landscapes and safety for women and girls should be reflected in planning decisions.
Increasing the ambition of the “default yes” for development around well-connected stations: expanding the scope of the policy to the top 80 travel to work areas by gross value added, as opposed to the top 60 TTWAs proposed in the consultation.
Updating policies to support increased densities: supporting more types of development within the curtilage of residential properties and ensuring that extra floorspace rather than just extra units are supported—giving more flexibility to expand accommodation of all types.
Tailoring minimum densities to maximise overall supply: by adjusting our approach to minimum densities around rail stations and ensuring local areas maximise densities where they can be supported, we have maintained an ambitious approach, while avoiding unviable requirements in areas that cannot support them.
Requiring flexibility when applying parking standards to large retail and similar redevelopment schemes: making it easier to regenerate sites.
Recognising the role of strategic sites: by creating a consistent and distinct category of sites comprising around 1,500 units or more, with policies tailored to support them where relevant.
Revising policy on local standards: by maintaining that quantitative standards in development plans should be limited to matters where local variation is justified and setting out clearly the circumstances in which local standards for energy efficiency and internal layout may be justified.
Providing clearer support for telecommunications development: ensuring schemes can come forward in appropriate locations, including where this can improve connectivity for rail users.
Updating policies which safeguard against the loss of facilities: ensuring that key facilities such as public houses are not lost where that can reasonably be avoided.
Strengthening policy on protected landscapes: reinserting text to make clear that major development should be refused other than in exceptional cases. Landscape and scenic beauty in protected landscapes will also remain protected by statute.
The Government remain committed to tackling childhood obesity, as set out in our “10 Year Health Plan for England”. In response to feedback about its operability, we have removed a reference to “fast food outlets” from the framework, but will explore whether other land use planning approaches, including changes to the use classes order, could be made to address the issues raised by the consultation.
Statutory consultee reforms
Statutory consultees play an important role in the planning process by providing expert advice on matters ranging from transport and heritage to the environment and sport. However, where referrals are unnecessary or advice is delayed, the system can slow decision making and hold back the delivery of homes and growth.
That is why, in November 2025, we launched a consultation on reforms designed to ensure that statutory consultees provide timely, proportionate and relevant advice on planning applications. Following careful consideration of more than 1,600 consultation responses, on 17 August we published a Government response1 and set out a package of reforms that will streamline consultation requirements while maintaining important safeguards.
The response to the consultation confirms that Sport England will be retained as a statutory consultee, but the range of planning applications on which it must be consulted will be narrowed to ensure its advice is focused on the cases where it adds most value, ensuring it continues to be consulted on development that leads to the loss of playing fields for housing or commercial development, and substantial sports or school development on playing fields.
The statutory consultee status of the Gardens Trust and Theatres Trust is being removed, but a new notification requirement is being introduced to ensure these bodies can continue their important role in the planning process. We are proceeding with the proposals on which we consulted to reform four of the national statutory consultees that receive the highest volume of planning applications: Active Travel England, National Highways, Historic England, and the Mining Remediation Authority.
We are also maintaining the moratorium on new statutory consultees, ensuring that the planning system remains targeted, proportionate and focused on supporting growth. Together, these reforms will reduce unnecessary bureaucracy, help local planning authorities reach decisions more quickly, and ensure statutory consultees can focus their expertise on the proposals that matter most. Regulations will follow in due course to enable implementation of these reforms.
Housing delivery test
To return to a regular publication timetable and ensure that scores reflect the most up-to-date information on housing delivery, the Government published housing delivery test results for 2024 and 2025 on 17 August.2 Alongside these results, the Government also published an updated housing delivery test rule book.3
Mayoral planning powers
The “Rewiring the State” Cabinet statement4 published on 31 July 2026 commits the Government to delivering good growth in every part of the United Kingdom, with places able to set their own ambitions and integrate services to meet people’s needs.
In England, this requires a fundamental rewiring of the way our country works, surrendering power that for too long has been held in Westminster and Whitehall, and returning it to people and the places where they live, work and invest. Local leaders know what it will take to drive growth in their areas, creating jobs and attracting investment that speak to the strengths of their region.
An effective planning system is integral to meeting housing need, speeding up infrastructure delivery and enabling our towns and cities to realise their full economic potential. While the Government have an essential role to play in setting the framework of national planning policy, standards and regulation, it is local leaders, including mayors, who should be overseeing the strategic direction of development in their areas.
For over two decades, London has set the long-term frameworks for its housing delivery, infrastructure provision, growth and environmental resilience through a statutory spatial strategy, yet to its detriment most of the rest of England is not covered by a strategic plan. That is why our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 included provision for spatial development strategies—high-level spatial frameworks, aligned with devolution geographies, that identify broad locations for growth and development, and the necessary infrastructure needed to support it.
To ensure mayors have the tools they need to effectively deliver SDSs and drive forward housing and regeneration in their areas, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 gives them new powers over development management. These include powers to call in planning applications of potential strategic importance; to proactively grant planning permission through mayoral development orders; and to raise funds for infrastructure through the introduction of a mayoral community infrastructure levy.
We are determined to activate these mayoral planning powers as quickly as possible and on 24 August we published a consultation on the regulations needed to bring them into force. By early next year, we want the powers that will enable mayors to call in applications of potential strategic importance and to make mayoral development orders to be in place. In using these powers, we expect mayors to work in close partnership with local planning authorities in their areas to deliver the housing, infrastructure and good growth that local communities need and deserve.
1 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforms-to-the-statutory-consultee-system/outcome/reforms-to-the-statutory-consultee-system-government-response
2 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-delivery-test-2025-measurement
3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-delivery-test-measurement-rule-book/housing-delivery-test-measurement-rule-book
4 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rewiring-the-state-cabinet-statement
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National Planning Policy Framework
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) on securing this important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank all hon. Members who have participated in this wide-ranging debate, and the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) and the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) for their contributions. The degree of praise that I received from Opposition Members is slightly damning of my chances in any upcoming reshuffle, but I thank them for their kind words.
Members raised a wide range of concerns and asked many questions. In the time available to me, I will respond to as many as possible, but I will concentrate on those relating to the national planning policy framework. Issues such as the national scheme of delegation of planning functions—our modernisation of planning committees—are outside the framework, but I am more than happy to have a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) and others about them.
The national planning policy framework sets out the Government’s planning policies for England and how they should be applied. It makes it clear that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. Accordingly, it provides a framework within which locally prepared plans can provide for homes, commercial development and supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner. As hon. Members know, the framework must be taken into account in preparing local plans and is a material consideration in planning decisions.
The Government’s manifesto included a clear commitment to immediately update the NPPF. Within three weeks of taking office, we consulted on changes to the framework, finalising them in December 2024. Among the many changes made in the initial revision of the framework were the restoration and raising of mandatory housing targets—the Conservatives abolished them when they were in government, which contributed to the low number of net additional completions in our first year in office— a new standard method for assessing housing need, which is aligned to our 1.5 million new homes target; greater support for social and affordable housing provision; a strengthening of policy relating to brownfield land development; a modernised strategic approach to green-belt land designation and release; and support for key economic sectors and clean energy infrastructure.
As hon. Members know, in December 2025, we published a fuller and more definitive overhaul of the NPPF for consultation. The proposed new framework represented the culmination of a sustained effort over the first 17 months of this Parliament to revamp our planning system so that it meets housing need in full and unleashes economic growth. It represents the most significant reform to national planning policy since the original NPPF was introduced more than a decade ago.
The new NPPF that we consulted on is wholly restructured. It maintains and builds on the initial revisions that we made in December 2024. It includes a range of new measures to support key economic sectors. As hon. Members have noted, it incorporates new, clear, rules-based national policies for plan and decision making. The proposals will make the NPPF easier to navigate for communities, local authorities and developers alike.
The new decision-making policies in the framework published in 2025 are designed to make development management more certain, consistent and streamlined; to standardise policies that apply across the whole of England, particularly where we have national standards in place and do not need that degree of local variation any longer; and to reduce duplication and avoid unjustified local deviation from national policy in local plans as they are being prepared. To ensure that those changes made an immediate difference, the Government proposed that the new national decision-making policies effectively override conflicting policies in local plans from day one.
As part of that overall change to the framework, we also proposed new polices to boost housing supply and unlock economic growth in the years ahead. They include, as has been noted, a permanent presumption in favour of suitably located development; the establishment of in-principle support for suitable proposals that develop land around rail stations within existing settlements, and around well-connected train stations outside settlements, including on green-belt land; and policies designed to drive urban and suburban densification to secure a diverse mix of homes, including stronger support for rural, social and affordable housing and setting clear expectations for accessible housing to meet the needs of older and disabled people. Our proposals also include policies that embed a vision-led approach to transport, further embedding the changes that we made in December 2024; policies that better address climate change mitigation and adaptation; and policies designed to ensure that we are better conserving and enhancing the natural environment, including changes to reflect local nature recovery strategies, to recognise landscape character and conserve and enhance existing natural features, to incorporate swift bricks, and to provide guidance on sites of local importance for nature.
Andrew George
The Minister says that the purpose of the policy is, among other things, to drive the desperate need for affordable homes. Does he accept that, in rural areas, he is also driving affordable homes off rural exception sites and making them unaffordable? The setting of targets means that local plans are no longer viable and appropriate, and therefore developers can come in and simply insist that their developments should be permitted because they are delivering the housing numbers.
Matthew Pennycook
We have had this debate many times. I will come on to housing targets and the fact that if there is an up-to-date local plan in place, the housing targets do not need to be immediately revised. On the specific point about rural affordable housing, the framework makes it easier for rural exception sites to come forward through clearer national policy. It makes it far easier for rural authorities to require affordable housing on smaller sites, including removing the need for legislative designation.
We have received over 20,000 responses to the consultation. We have made very good progress in analysing the responses and making final policy decisions, but unfortunately, as a result of the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 22 June that he was resigning as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party and the associated constraints on Government business in the period ahead of the summer recess, including the prohibition on initiating new policy commitments, it has not been possible to respond to the consultation and publish the final framework before the summer recess. We will seek to do so in due course.
The issue of flooding, which was raised by the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills, is of particular concern in her constituency, as she made clear. The NPPF outlines a sequential approach to flood risk management, requiring inappropriate development to be directed away from areas at highest risk and providing strong safeguards where development is necessary in those areas. In plan making, a sequential approach should be employed. That involves applying the sequential test and, if needed, the exception test. In decision making, where necessary, planning authorities also apply the sequential test and, if needed, the exception test to ensure that flood risk is minimised and appropriately addressed.
Tessa Munt
I wonder how the High Court came to its decision over the site in Yatton. What the Minister says sounds good to me, but it can be swept away because the NPPF is what the judge decreed was the way to go and, because there is a need for homes, the sequential test can be completely ignored.
Matthew Pennycook
That is not quite my reading of the Yatton judgment. The judge confirmed that even if a site fails the formal sequential test for flood risk, elements of the exception test remain valid material considerations that can outweigh flood risk under the tilted balance in paragraph 11(d). The High Court made a judgment in that case on the application of the policy, but it applies, as I have set out—[Interruption.] I will give way briefly, but I do want to cover the other issues raised in the debate.
Tessa Munt
Will the Minister meet me and those in my constituency who are particularly concerned about this to discuss it?
Matthew Pennycook
If I remain in post after the summer recess, I will be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady.
Where the sequential and exception tests have been applied as necessary and are not met, the framework is clear that development should not be allowed. I want to push back gently on the assertions made by the hon. Lady and the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, that we have weakened the sequential test. We have not weakened the sequential test in any way. We have clarified through changes to the PPG the triggers for the sequential test as well as its application, but we have not weakened it. If it is found necessary to build homes in areas of flood risk, the statutory guidance accompanying the building regulations promotes flood-resilient building work in flood-prone areas through approved document C, and the framework makes it clear that developments of all sizes should use sustainable drainage techniques where the development could have drainage impacts.
The draft NPPF that we have consulted on includes a dedicated chapter on planning for flood risk and coastal change. This seeks to clarify how existing policies should operate and aligns the NPPF with recent updates to planning guidance. It also included policies incorporating a new requirement that sustainable drainage systems should be designed in accordance with the national standards for sustainable drainage systems to provide a consistent basis for improving their design.
On the presumption in favour of sustainable development, we are trying to drive up the coverage of up-to-date local plans. Several hon. Members have spoken today who represent areas that do not have up-to-date local plans and five-year housing land supplies. We are making great progress in driving up plan coverage. Over 60% more local plans are at examination now than at this time last year, but it will take time to boost coverage. It is important, where policies are not up to date or where there is an insufficient supply of land, that there is a fallback to encourage planning permission to be granted, and that is what the presumption provides for.
However, the NPPF we published in December 2024 not only improved the operation of the presumption by clarifying the circumstances in which it applies, but introduced new safeguards to make it clear that its application cannot justify poor-quality development. Under the revised draft presumption published for consultation last year, the default support in principle is turned off in certain situations, including where the development would conflict with sites allocated for specific uses or would use parks and open space or land identified for flood risk management. It would also be disapplied where development does not achieve acceptable standards in relation to harm to nature, heritage assets, flood risk, design and being an effective use of land.
I have only a short time available to me and a wide range of other issues were raised. I will touch on each briefly. On our housing target and the standard method we have introduced, in our view the new method better responds to affordability pressures by using a higher affordability adjustment in its calculation. That recognises the importance of housing affordability in assessing housing need and helps direct more homes to where they are most needed and least affordable. It also provides greater certainty to the sector through more stable and predictable housing numbers, compared with the previous approach that relied on out-of-date demographic predictions and unevidenced and arbitrary judgments.
On brownfield, grey-belt and green-belt land, the hon. Member for Orpington knows full well that we strengthened the policy in the December 2024 NPPF on brownfield land. We have gone further in the draft framework that is out for consultation. It is not the case that there is enough brownfield land, particularly not viable land in the right locations on brownfield land registers across the country. In certain exceptional circumstances, local authorities need to release green-belt land. We ask them when they do so to explore all options in maximising brownfield land, working with neighbouring authorities and where necessary reviewing their green belt.
The definition of grey belt is set out in the glossary of the NPPF. There is no confusion about what it means. Where grey belt is being brought forward, it cannot fundamentally undermine the policies of the green belt across the wider plan area; we included that safeguard in the framework.
On train stations, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) was right that we want more development to come forward in sustainable locations around train stations. We obviously took a different approach to all stations, as opposed to well-connected stations, where we are looking for higher minimum densities to come forward. I must be clear that the proposals do not grant automatic permission on suitable sites or remove appropriate local oversight of the development control process. They add weight to what needs to be considered as part of an overall planning judgment, as is the case with all material considerations.
I will not dwell on rural or urban housing targets. I have said before and say again that across city regions the new standard method increases targets by 20% and, through that, housing growth is directed to a wider range of urban areas and smaller cities as well as our larger city areas.
I commend the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills and the Backbench Business Committee for giving the House an opportunity to debate these important matters. Over the past two years, the Government have sought to revamp the planning system to ensure that it will facilitate the delivery of high and sustainable rates of house building and high-quality infrastructure in the years ahead. To the point on infrastructure, the new NPPF strengthens expectations in that area as well.
More needs to be done to transform the failing housing system we inherited, but the revised NPPF we published in December 2024 and the wholly restructured framework we will publish in due course are integral to our plans to improve housing availability, affordability and quality in this Parliament. I thank all hon. Members for their considered contributions today and wish them all, and you, Sir Desmond, an enjoyable and productive summer recess.
Local Planning Authority Capacity
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
It is essential that local planning authorities have the resources and skilled planners they need to provide a proactive, efficient planning service for local communities and support housing delivery, economic growth and the provision of infrastructure. Yet we know that planning departments across the country are experiencing challenges with resourcing, recruitment, retention, and skills gaps, and that in many cases these issues are having a negative impact on service delivery.
That is why the Government are investing heavily to boost local planning department capacity and capability. At the autumn Budget 2024, the Chancellor announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-26. At the Budget on 26 November 2025, the Chancellor announced a further £48 million of investment over three years to support local planning authorities to attract, retain and develop skilled planners over a sustained period.
However, we recognise that more must be done to better resource LPAs and drive better outcomes including faster determination times, improved service standards and stronger performance across the planning system. To address local planning department underfunding, we included in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 powers that allow the Secretary of State to delegate planning-fee setting to local planning authorities, enabling them to recover costs and reinvest to provide a more efficient and responsive planning service.
To inform the implementation of this local variation model, the Government consulted earlier this year on a new national default fee schedule, based on 90% of estimated costs, and the wider framework for local fee setting.
I am today publishing the Government’s response to that consultation, which can be found on gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/fees-for-planning-applications. The response confirms that the Government will proceed with a national default fee based on 90% of estimated processing costs, providing a significant uplift in resources for local planning departments and establishing a robust national baseline ahead of the introduction of local fee setting powers. The regulations required to increase national planning application fees have been laid today.
The national default fee will remain in place and apply to all LPAs, unless an authority chooses to vary from the default fee for any or all application fee categories to reflect their own costs. Regulations and guidance for local fee setting will be taken forward in due course.
To justify a variation in fees, LPAs will need to evidence that the national schedule does not cover their costs. Having considered the feedback received, we have decided that LPAs should be able to set planning fees up to a maximum of 30% above the national default fee. This strikes an appropriate balance between supporting local flexibility and cost recovery, while providing applicants and developers with greater certainty about the extent of local fee variation.
We recognise that a small number of LPAs may face exceptional cost pressures that cannot reasonably be addressed within this limit. Where this the case, LPAs will be able to consult the Secretary of State with a view to providing robust evidence to justify a proposed fee level above the 30% cap. The operation of the cap, including the use of the approval mechanism and intervention powers, will be subject to further policy development and set out through future regulations.
Taken together, these changes will enable LPAs to secure the funding necessary to strengthen their capacity, invest in skilled staff, and deliver a more efficient, high-quality planning service, helping to unlock growth and accelerate the delivery of new homes.
It is vital that increased fees translate into improved performance. We will continue to monitor the speed and quality of LPA decision making and will take action where performance does not meet expectations. We also intend to review the performance regime to identify opportunities to strengthen it further and drive sustained improvements.
Finally, we intend to undertake a further consultation before the end of the year on the detailed design and implementation of the proposed planning-fee surcharge, including how it should operate in practice and be linked to improved performance of statutory consultees.
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Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024: Implementation
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The leasehold system is blighting millions of lives. The leasehold system is a barrier to a fair and efficient modern residential property market. The leasehold system is an anachronism in the 21st century. That is why this Government made a clear and unambiguous commitment in their manifesto to act where previous Governments had failed and finally bring it to an end.
To bring the feudal leasehold system to an orderly end in this Parliament, we must stop it perpetuating itself. To do so, we will legislate through our forthcoming commonhold and leasehold reform Bill to reinvigorate commonhold through the introduction of a comprehensive new legal framework and make it the default tenure by banning the use of leasehold for new flats—complimenting the ban on new leasehold houses already on the statute book.
In the commonhold future that is on the horizon, existing leaseholders will not be left behind. We will put in place measures that enable more existing leaseholders to take control of their buildings and more easily convert to commonhold as and when they judge the time is right for them. And we will continue to strengthen protections for existing leaseholders in the here and now.
Implementation of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is an integral part of the Government’s ambitious leasehold and commonhold reform agenda. Bringing the various provisions of the Act into force is essential both to providing immediate relief to existing leaseholders currently suffering as a result of unfair and unreasonable practices and to facilitating a rapid reduction in the prevalence of existing leasehold by enabling leaseholders to covert to commonhold in practice.
The Government have already made significant progress when it comes to commencing provisions in the 2024 Act. On 24 July 2024, we brought into force provisions relating to rent charge arrears, building safety legal costs and the work of professional insolvency practitioners. On 31 October 2024, we brought into force further building safety measures. On 31 January 2025, we commenced provisions to remove the two-year qualifying rule in relation to enfranchisement and lease extensions. And on 3 March 2025, right to manage provisions (expanding access, reforming its costs, and voting rights) came into force.
Today, I am setting out details of the next phase of the 2024 Act’s implementation.
Leasehold enfranchisement: valuation rates and non-litigation (process) costs
Our forthcoming commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will include a new and improved process for commonhold conversion, one which brings it into line with wider enfranchisement processes and will make conversion possible if at least 50% of qualifying leaseholders agree.
However, to ensure more leaseholders are able to convert in practice, we need to implement measures in the 2024 Act that will make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold (known as “enfranchisement”), as well as implement mandatory leasebacks, address development value as a barrier to enfranchisement, and legislate to cap ground rent at £250 which will further reduce the cost of enfranchisement for many leaseholders with ground rent.
We have been constrained from implementing the 2024 Act’s enfranchisement measures to date by the fact that legislation contains a small number of specific flaws. These include a loophole in the new valuation process which means that some people could avoid paying the correct price for their lease extension or freehold acquisition, thereby compromising the integrity of the amended method, and an omission that would deny tens of thousands of shared ownership leaseholders the right to extend their lease with their direct landlord, given that the providers in question do not have sufficiently long leases to grant 990-year extensions. The King’s Speech 2026 confirmed that fixes to these flaws will be included in the forthcoming commonhold and leasehold reform Bill.
To ensure that we can commence the 2024 Act’s enfranchisement provisions as soon as possible following Royal Assent of the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, the Government need to have determined the prescribed rates that will be used to calculate the enfranchisement premium and to have confirmed their approach to the recovery of non-litigation (process) costs. To inform final decisions in respect of both matters, we are today launching two technical consultations.
The first consultation, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/leasehold-enfranchisement-valuation-rates, concerns valuation rates. The new method for calculating the price of a statutory lease extension or freehold acquisition provided for by the 2024 Act removes the requirement for marriage value to be paid, caps the treatment of ground rents in the valuation calculation at 0.1% of the freehold value, and allows Government to prescribe through secondary legislation the two rates used to calculate the enfranchisement premium.
Within the parameters defined by the 2024 Act, the consultation seeks evidence and views to inform the setting of both the deferment and the capitalisation rates. Our aim is to set rates that reasonably find the present value of the “reversion” and “term” elements of the premium while providing simplicity, certainty and stability for those involved in enfranchisement claims.
The second consultation, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/leasehold-enfranchisement-process-costs, concerns non-litigation (process) costs. At present, leaseholders are forced to pay their landlords’ process costs when extending their lease or buying their freehold. The 2024 Act ends the recovery of non-litigation costs by landlords with a small number of exceptions, as recommended by the Law Commission, to account for low-value claims, failed claims and where there are leaseback arrangements in place.
The consultation seeks evidence and views on the amount of the landlords’ process costs that should be payable by leaseholders where one of the exceptions in the 2024 Act applies and also on the merits of a new exemption (subject to future legislation) designed to support resident-led management organisations, and possibly some other organisations, which might otherwise be unable to fund the costs associated with an enfranchisement claim.
Both consultations will run for 10 weeks. While each is technically complex and demands a degree of specialist knowledge, we strongly encourage input from all parties affected, including individual leaseholders and freeholders, so that the Government’s final decisions on valuation rates and non-litigation (process) costs are informed by views beyond simply enfranchisement professionals.
I want to reiterate that no amount of litigation will deter the Government from progressing their ambitious leasehold and commonhold reform agenda. We robustly defended the challenges brought to the enfranchisement provisions of the 2024 Act last year and warmly welcomed the High Court’s judgment which comprehensively dismissed them. We will defend any appeals just as tenaciously.
Regulation of leasehold: service charges, litigation costs and insurance costs
The forthcoming commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will contain a number of provisions that provide existing leaseholders with greater rights, powers and protections over their homes, not least the abolition of leasehold forfeiture and its replacement with a modern, proportionate lease enforcement system that addresses breaches fairly, with appropriate safeguards and judicial oversight. However, providing urgent relief to existing leaseholders struggling with the cost of living requires us to switch on a number of remaining measures from the 2024 Act.
The “Strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services” consultation undertaken last year sought views on measures contained in the 2024 Act to drive up the transparency of service charges and reform the litigation costs regime, as well as a number of further reforms outside the scope of that Act including mandating reserve funds, introducing mandatory qualifications for managing agents and improving the section 20 major works regime. We received a very large number of thoughtful and detailed responses to it from leaseholders, landlords, managing agents and representative organisations. The insight provided has been invaluable in shaping our approach.
Having considered carefully the feedback received to this consultation, as well as the separate consultation undertaken in respect of permitted insurance fees, we are today publishing a Government response to those proposals in the consultation relating to part 4 of the 2024 Act, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/strengthening-leaseholder-protections-over-charges-and-services-consultation.
That response confirms that the Government will now proceed to implement measures to drive up the transparency of service charges, including standardised service charge demand forms, an annual report and enhanced leaseholder rights to obtain information on request, and reform the litigation costs regime by requiring court or tribunal approval for the recovery of litigation costs through the service charge and giving leaseholders a new right to enable them to recover landlord costs in certain circumstances. We will also look to introduce a transparent and fair permitted building insurance payment. These measures will work in tandem to help leaseholders better understand what they are paying for and empower them to challenge charges where they believe them to be unreasonable.
This impactful package of reforms will be laid in Parliament later this year through a minimum of five complementary statutory instruments, at least two of which will be made under the affirmative procedure. We will provide a separate response in due course in relation to the further reforms consulted upon that are outside the scope of the 2024 Act, including those that concern the regulation of managing agents.
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Social Housing: Awaab’s Law
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Every social housing tenant has the right to live in a safe and decent home, receive services that meet their needs, and have their complaints promptly addressed. Yet far too many still live in social homes that are not well maintained or managed and struggle to secure adequate redress. That is why the Government are acting to drive a transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of social housing.
Awaab Ishak was just two years old when he died in December 2020 as a result of a severe respiratory condition due to prolonged exposure to mould in the social home his family rented from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. Awaab’s death was wholly avoidable. His parents raised concerns about their living conditions time and time again, but their landlord failed to take any action to treat the dangerous mould present in their home.
In the wake of his untimely death, Awaab’s parents, Faisal Abdullah and Aisha Amin, tenaciously and courageously fought to secure justice, not only for their son but for all of those who live in social housing. I pay tribute to them once again for their passion and persistence.
In response to their campaign, new powers were introduced through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 enabling a new legal duty to be placed on social landlords to investigate and address serious hazards within clear and enforceable timeframes.
Awaab’s law is vital legislation that empowers social tenants to hold their landlords to account using the full force of the law if they fail to investigate and fix hazards within their homes within set timescales. It also allows tenants to access the Housing Ombudsman if their landlord does not adhere to strict timelines for action.
While progress is also dependent on a more fundamental change in the culture and values of social housing providers, Awaab’s law will play an integral role in ensuring that all social landlords take complaints about hazards seriously, respond to them in a timely and professional manner, and treat tenants with empathy, dignity and respect. It is also the Government’s sincere hope that, over time, it will build trust between landlords and tenants.
Per the written ministerial statement made on 6 February 2025 (HCWS423) the Government are implementing Awaab’s law through a phased approach to ensure this landmark reform will be effective, proportionate and of lasting benefit to social housing tenants.
Phase 1, which came into force on 27 October 2025, introduced a requirement for landlords to respond to damp and mould hazards that pose a significant risk to health within set timescales, alongside a requirement to respond to all types of emergency hazard within 24 hours.
As promised, we have taken a “test and learn” approach to implementing this policy. Working closely with social landlords, tenants, regulators and representative bodies, we have closely monitored and evaluated the impact Awaab’s law is having in practice and the effectiveness of the processes put in place to implement it. This has provided invaluable early insights into the operation of the requirements and has enabled us to refine the policy to ensure that it is proportionate, effective and deliverable.
Today, I am confirming the next phase of the implementation of Awaab’s law. From 30 November 2026, we will extend the requirements to the following significant hazards: excess cold and excess heat, falls, structural collapse and falling elements, fire and explosions, electrical safety, and hygiene. We are also publishing new guidance to support social landlords as they prepare for Awaab’s law to apply to expanded range of hazards.
In addition to expanding the range of hazards within scope of Awaab’s law, we are making changes to ensure that the policy works as effectively as possible.
Clarifying thresholds for the types of hazards covered by Awaab’s law
We have updated the definitions of “emergency” and “significant” hazards that fall within the scope of Awaab’s law to help landlords make their assessments. This will support more consistent application of the requirements and help tenants more easily identify when landlords must act.
Avoiding duplication with existing fire safety rules
Where fire risks relate to parts of buildings that are already covered by existing fire safety legislation—communal areas, for example—these will be managed under those rules rather than being duplicated under Awaab’s law.
We will continue to take a “test and learn” approach as phase 2 is implemented. Building on the evidence gathered through phases 1 and 2, we remain committed to extending Awaab’s law in 2027 to the remaining hazards as defined by the HHSRS (excluding overcrowding).
[HCWS222]
The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(2 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Given the heatwave that we are experiencing, I am happy to give blanket dispensation on the jacket rule, so Members can take them off if they so wish.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. The order was laid before the House on 4 June. It will establish a centrally led urban development corporation in greater Cambridge, pursuant to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, which provides that the Secretary of State may designate an urban development area only when they are of the opinion that it is expedient and in the national interest, and following a public consultation.
As the Committee will be aware, the economic growth of Cambridge over recent years has been a phenomenal success. It now has arguably the most intensive and innovative science and technology cluster in the world, with more than 5,000 knowledge-intensive firms based in and around the city, employing tens of thousands of skilled workers and generating in excess of £18 billion in annual turnover. However, the supply-side constraints that are evident across the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, from infrastructure deficiencies to housing affordability, are particularly acute in greater Cambridge. Its continued position as a world-leading centre of innovation, its ability to make an even greater contribution to the UK economy, and the quality of life experienced by its existing residents are all dependent on removing those constraints.
Local institutions and leaders have worked hard to support the rapid growth of greater Cambridge over recent years. Over the past two years, the Government have intervened alongside local authorities and the greater Cambridge shared planning service to address pressing constraints such as water scarcity. Such action has helped to unlock more than 9,000 homes, 500,000 square feet of commercial space, and a new cancer research hospital.
It is widely accepted, however, that delivering development at the scale and pace necessary to realise the full potential of greater Cambridge is beyond the capacity and powers of existing institutions. It was for that reason that, between 4 February and 1 April this year, we consulted on proposals to establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation—a centrally led urban development corporation with the legislative powers, focus and resources to unlock the area’s full potential. I once again thank all the organisations and individuals who took the time to engage with the process.
The prevailing theme among responses was that infrastructure delivery in greater Cambridge has been slow and piecemeal, or has failed to keep pace with historical population and employment growth, and that that was having a detrimental impact on residents’ quality of life, constraining the region’s ability to scale its globally significant innovation economy, and reducing business and investor confidence. Individuals and organisations widely reported that greater Cambridge has lacked a strategic, co-ordinated and long-term approach to the rapid delivery of primary infrastructure. Complex governance, fragmented decision making and uncertain long-term funding were identified as obstacles to delivering at the scale and pace required.
While fully acknowledging the strong local efforts that have been made and the excellent performance of the greater Cambridge shared planning service, the consultation confirmed the Government’s belief that the scale and complexity of the development challenges faced by greater Cambridge required a bold and long-term approach, and a genuine step change in how infrastructure is planned, co-ordinated and delivered; and that the establishment of a centrally led development corporation, combining responsiveness to local priorities with national leadership and influence, would be the most effective way to unlock nationally significant growth at the pace and scale required.
The development corporation established by the order will unleash ambitious and high-quality sustainable growth in greater Cambridge to the benefit of its existing communities and the country as a whole. Once established, the corporation’s boundary will align with the current combined administrative areas of Cambridge city council and South Cambridgeshire district council. This broad development area will underpin the corporation’s ability to deliver its objectives and make effective use of its powers, enabling the scale of growth necessary to deliver on both local and national interests.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
The Minister is always very generous with his time. He has just explained the boundaries of the development corporation. Cambridge is going through local government reorganisation. How will that affect the order and the boundaries that he has just described?
Matthew Pennycook
That is a very good question. In short, although I am more than happy to expand on this response, the development corporation’s boundary does not pre-empt or prejudice the outcome of the recent consultation on local government reorganisation. The Government would, of course, consider, through due process, any changes to the development area that are deemed necessary as a result of any local government reorganisation but, as I say, that does not pre-empt or prejudice what we are taking through by dint of this order.
The Government have worked hard to sustain a constructive relationship with local leaders and key partners. We want the development corporation to be a joint national and local endeavour that combines local insight and input from local democratically elected representatives with national leadership powers and investment. As such, the democratically elected leaders of Cambridge city council, South Cambridgeshire district council and Cambridgeshire county council, as well as the democratically elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, will be invited to join the board. The Government also recognise that input from residents and communities will be integral to the success of the development corporation. That is why it will be asked to create exemplary engagement structures to enable broader community participation, including from residents, community representatives, and town and parish councillors.
The order will establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation as an independent corporate entity, allowing it to be granted infrastructure, financial and land assembly powers in due course. The powers and functions order, which my officials are preparing for consideration later this year, will equip the development corporation with planning powers, including the ability to determine planning applications above a minimum threshold of 250 homes, and non-residential applications above 5,000 square metres. Our intention is that the development corporation will eventually take on plan-making powers. However, we believe the optimal way to kick-start growth in the plan-led system is to take a phased approach. As such, the development corporation will exercise plan-making powers only once the draft local plan has been adopted. The Government are clear that adoption of the draft local plan should not limit or delay future ambition for growth and, subject to its adoption, successor plans will be expected to build positively on the draft local plan’s foundations to support continued growth.
The development corporation will also be granted development management powers for strategic sites within its boundary. Only applications for sites of strategic importance will be determined by the development corporation. The vast majority of planning applications will continue to be determined by the greater Cambridge shared planning service. The Government recognise and accept that almost all strategic residential developments will be of over 1,000 houses, flats, or houses and flats. However, to account for the possibility of residential development prejudicing the delivery of sites of strategic importance, residential thresholds will be set at a minimum of 250 houses, flats, or houses and flats. Any application that is determined by the development corporation will still be considered against national and local policy, and subject to public consultation as normal. That combination of powers will provide the development corporation with the tools, certainty and investment needed for sustainable infrastructure-first growth. The model will form an exemplar for integrated powers and funding, and set the standard for housing development elsewhere in the country.
The order will establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation as an entity accountable to the Secretary of State and set out the geographical boundary in which it may operate. The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation will focus on the delivery of strategic, nationally significant growth within its boundary. It will work collaboratively with local authorities both within and bordering its development area, as well as with transport bodies and utility providers, to unlock development opportunities and boost economic growth.
I extend my sincere thanks to local leaders and their officers in greater Cambridge for their hard work and ongoing constructive collaboration in pursuit of our shared objective of supporting ambitious and high-quality sustainable growth in Cambridge and its environs. I also thank Peter Freeman for his continued leadership of the Cambridge Growth Company and commend the CGC for everything it has done to date to help to facilitate the delivery of new homes, infrastructure, and commercial and laboratory space. I hope that hon. Members agree on the value of establishing the development corporation. I commend the order to the Committee.
Matthew Pennycook
That was a long list of perfectly reasonable and fair questions, which I will seek to answer in turn. If I miss any, hon. Members are more than welcome to intervene on me.
I will begin with the questions from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. The order establishes, as a corporate body, a centrally led urban development corporation, not a mayoral development corporation. The sitting Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will have representation, with a seat on the board, but the mayor and his area will not be controlling this development corporation; it is very different from the mayoral development corporation model. I think the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has designs on a mayoral development corporation for Peterborough, but that would be a delivery vehicle very different from the one we are establishing here. The mayor will, however, have representation on the board along with other local authority leaders.
The shadow Minister asked me about the planning committee modernisation statutory instrument that we voted on today. That will apply to local authority committees in the ways we discussed when we considered that instrument in Committee. As I said in my opening remarks, we expect the vast majority of planning applications still to be determined by the greater Cambridge shared planning service. I will come on to why we have taken the development management powers we propose to in the functions order that will follow in the months to come, and why we have chosen the 250-home threshold, but planning committees are a local planning authority designation. The development corporation, as an entity and delivery vehicle in itself, will take particular development management powers to determine specific sites, which I will come on to in a moment. The same goes for conditions that would be associated with a planning permission.
We think those development management powers are important to accelerate strategic growth in an integrated and co-ordinated way. The decision to grant development management powers to the development corporation for strategic sites reflects the need to balance local and national planning merits to facilitate nationally significant growth in the area. I bring us back to the objective of the development corporation to facilitate nationally significant growth, which local leaders—they have made great efforts over recent years—are quite clear that they are not able to do. When it comes to some very serious constraints—the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire mentioned water scarcity—local leaders have not been able on their own to remove some of these barriers. That is what the development corporation is for.
Development management powers will be granted for sites of strategic importance. We will define what “strategic importance” means at a later date, but as a proxy for a definition of strategic sites, the development corporation will use the minimum thresholds that we outlined in the Government response to the consultation on 3 June. We gave a flavour in the consultation of the type of sites we have in mind. I think we listed seven sites, which are major sites already identified in the local plan. I hope that gives the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire a sense of the type of strategic sites that we are talking about.
We need the threshold because the development corporation can delegate decision making to the greater Cambridge shared planning service, but that service is unable to reverse-delegate the determination of planning applications to the development corporation. As such, we judge that if the threshold for residential development were set at a level higher than 250 homes, the development corporation would be unable to exercise development management powers for any application that fell below that threshold, even if the application could prejudice the delivery of a strategic site.
That is the central objective of the 250-home threshold. We do need the development corporation to have the ability to move in and determine an application on a site that might impact the delivery of a strategic site. As I said to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire and the Committee, we will come back and define a “strategic site” in more detail as we take forward the functions order later this year. To reassure him, that functions order will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure; we will have a chance to debate and vote on it in the House. [Official Report, 8 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 422.] (Correction.)
The shadow Minister raised a point about boundaries. Again, this is all outlined in the 3 June Government response to the consultation: 42% of respondents to the consultation agreed with our proposed boundaries—the Cambridge city council and South Cambridgeshire district council administrative areas—23% felt they were too small, and 33% felt they were too wide. We recognise that there is a wide range of views about what the precise boundaries should be, but we judge that the boundaries as consulted on are a broad development area that will allow and underpin the development corporation’s ability to deliver its objectives and make effective use of its powers, enabling the scale of growth that is necessary to deliver on both local and national interests.
As set out in the consultation, the proposed boundary encompasses the land required to support strategic infrastructure, providing a sufficiently broad geography to maximise funding opportunities and enable land value capture to support social and environmental projects. Aligning the boundaries with those of Cambridge city council and South Cambridgeshire district council will simplify the governance arrangements in this area—that has been a real source of challenge over recent years—and enable the development corporation to support the delivery of the draft local plan.
I am glad that the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire mentioned the draft local plan. We are working very closely with the shared planning service and democratically elected local leaders. We want to see that draft plan adopted. On the Secretary of State’s powers as they apply to the development corporation and its ability to take planning powers in the future, we do want it to have those powers; we think that is absolutely necessary to set out a spatial plan for the years to come. This development corporation will exist for at least 25 years, perhaps longer, but we want to see that local plan in place in the first instance, and the Government are doing what we can to support that process and help the authority get the plan in place.
On local government reorganisation, to add briefly to what I said in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Broxbourne, proposals for reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough were received in November 2025 and recently went out to consultation. As I said, the development corporation’s boundary, established by this order, does not pre-empt or prejudice the outcome of LGR in that regard.
I push back quite strongly on the challenge from the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire that we have not outlined in any way the objectives of the development corporation. If he reads the Government response to the consultation, published on 3 June, he will see exhaustive explanations of why we think the development corporation is necessary and the sort of capacity, powers and ability it can leverage in on private finance, land assembly and all these matters to meet the shared objectives for the area. We will build on that with the functions order—we will detail precisely how the planning powers and the development management powers will come through—but to assure him, the development corporation will have powers to directly plan, fund and deliver essential infrastructure to support regeneration, including utilities such as water. Targets for the development corporation’s objectives will be set across the development corporation’s corporate plan, framework document and development plan, and in individual business plans for all projects. We will have a chance to scrutinise those documents, among others.
I hope that I have responded to all the points raised by hon. Members. I think this is a fairly straightforward and simple instrument, which establishes the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation as a legal body and sets the geographical boundaries in which that development corporation will operate. I commend the order to the Committee.
Question put.