Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Nesil Caliskan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

I think the real risk in imposing some of the changes that the new clauses seek to bring forward is that we do not see development of any kind coming forward. I make that point merely to say that while we have got a clear commitment to increasing the volume of social and affordable housing, we need to see homes of all tenures come forward. That may not be in the very short term, and it is certainly not a panacea, as I think the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington has in the past accused me of suggesting, but increasing housing supply of all tenures over the medium to long term will help with affordability. We have much to do in the short term to boost social and affordable housing, but we do want to see sites come forward. We would not want to prohibit sites from coming forward at all, as would happen if some of these changes were made.

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

Let me emphasise the point around viability and the impact of a precarious economic situation on developers’ ability to build. Does the Minister agree that the challenges for the private sector that he has set out also apply to local authorities? In estate renewal in London, for example, many have had to relook at the viability of that and have seen delays for a number of years because markets have changed and the land analysis has altered. It is a changing picture depending on the moment in time, and one that it is inextricably linked to the economic picture at the time.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right. If we are having a mature conversation about this, we have to recognise that economic circumstances can change and that the costs that developers are having to deal with—build material costs have increased significantly, particularly in London—are factors they do have to weigh in their judgments. On the other side of the coin, it is important, in strengthening the section 106 system, that we are ensuring local authorities can negotiate robustly on those agreements and that we hold developers to the commitments that they make. The Government’s intention is to do both.

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[Ellie Chowns]

I am delighted that the hon. Member agrees. We can all agree that there is a crisis in affordable and social housing. Unless we set targets to tackle that at every level of housing planning, we will be guaranteed to fail to create the affordable and social housing we need.

[Nesil Caliskan]

Does the hon. Member recognise that targets were in place for a number of years, and that in most cases local authorities failed to meet them, not because of a lack of trying, but because market circumstances meant that viability did not work and planning permissions could not get through, and for a variety of other reasons? Targets do not, in and of themselves, drive delivery in the numbers we need in this country.

[Ellie Chowns]

I recognise that multiple factors drive the delivery of social and affordable housing—and, indeed, the achievement of any targets so to do—but what the hon. Member said is a bit inconsistent, because the Government have just introduced huge new housing targets based on an argument that we have to have targets for particular numbers in particular locations, no matter how well suited or otherwise they might be to the circumstances of the local planning authorities. Members cannot argue that housing targets are really useful at the level of overall numbers but not useful in relation to affordable and social housing, which is the point of crisis.

The Minister said, in his response to a previous new clause that I spoke to, that we need to recognise that building any sort of housing is helpful. I kind of get his point; I think he is trying to make a sort of “trickle up” point—that people can trickle up out of the most affordable housing and into more expensive housing, and that vacates the cheaper housing—but the fundamental problem is that we have nowhere close to enough genuinely affordable housing, by which I mean social rented housing, being built.

This is therefore a very reasonable amendment, simply asking that, at every level of housing plan—local and national—targets are set. It does not say what those targets should be; it just says that each plan should set a target for affordable housing and social housing.

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[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, which is actually exactly the same point that the hon. Member for Barking made, essentially—

[Nesil Caliskan]

It was a very good point!