Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes]

I will briefly, but he will let me finish this point. The proposals have been put forward by all parties to ensure that the legislation is better and more efficient, but fundamentally serves the people who send us here and who want to see differences in the way in which their country is run. We argue that this legislation does not do that, we argue that this is a massive centralising overreach advocated by the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, and we stand fundamentally against it.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

rose—

[Paul Holmes]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) first because he is a sparring partner from the Public Bill Committee—I hope he does not have another quote—and then I will give way to the hon. Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

Now, for the first time in history, there is no incentivisation in our housing system for first-time buyers, because measures including the stamp duty relief and some of our Help to Buy measures were scrapped by this Government. This is the first time that we have had that situation. We could have done more, but I am very proud of the last Government’s record on housing. The Minister and the Government need to look at our record on first-time buyers and private buyers, because if they emulated some of our incentivisation methods, we would have a better success rate than the just over half of those 1.5 million homes that independent experts are now claiming they will be able to deliver.

[Rachel Taylor]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the entertainment he provided throughout the Bill Committee’s proceedings, and for his generosity in the Tea Room. Talking about reflection, however, would he agree that when one looks in the mirror, one does not always like what one sees? The Minister has reflected on many of the proposals that were brought forward in Committee and he has clearly decided that those things would be better left in the national planning policy framework, as opposed to being in this legislation. Would the hon. Gentleman also agree that we do not have more young people buying and owning their own homes now than we did in 2010, and that the reason for that is—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Lady will have the opportunity to contribute later. Interventions really do need to be shorter than this.