Housing Provision in Stafford

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) on securing this debate. As you know, she always speaks with force and passion on behalf of her constituents, and has done so again today on this important matter.

I appreciate fully the concerns that my hon. Friend expresses on behalf of residents in Eccleshall. I assure her that the Government want to see more plan-led development, and development generally, to provide all the infrastructure, amenities and services necessary to sustain thriving communities. Without doubt, much more remains to be done, but I trust she recognises that the Government have already taken decisive steps to deliver on those objectives.

My hon. Friend will appreciate that I am unable to comment on her local development plan or on individual planning applications within her constituency, due to the role of Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers in the planning system. I will seek to respond to the points she has made in general terms.

Let me start by addressing the concerns that my hon. Friend expressed about local development plans. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of areas having up-to-date local plans, and the detrimental impact on individuals and communities where that is not the case. Local plans are the best ways for communities to shape decisions about how to deliver the housing and wider development their areas need. We want more people involved in the development of local plans. The plan-led approach is, and must remain, the cornerstone of our planning system, but a locally led planning system only operates effectively if coverage is extensive.

As my hon. Friend will no doubt be aware, we inherited a system where less than a third of local plans were up to date. We are taking decisive steps to progress towards our ambition of universal local plan coverage, both in providing local planning authorities that are striving to do the right thing with financial support and intervening where necessary to drive local plans to adoption as quickly as possible.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the length of time that it takes to progress and adopt a local plan—on average, seven years. Slow progress in the preparation of local plans means that those areas are at greater risk of speculative development and that those local plans are out of date more quickly upon adoption, which creates uncertainty for communities and holds back development where it is needed. That is one of the many reasons why we intend to introduce a new, faster and clearer process for preparing plans. That new system will set a clear expectation that local plans, as well as mineral and waste plans, are routinely prepared and adopted in 30 months. Other aspects of our reforms will support that aim, such as the introduction of gateways, shorter, simpler and more standardised content focused on the core principles of plan making, and a series of digital transformation initiatives.

The new system will help us to deliver and maintain universal coverage across England, supporting the Government’s wider commitments to deliver the development the country needs. It is our intention that a package of plan-making reforms, enabled through provisions in the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act 2023, will commence later this year. I understand that Stafford borough council has chosen to introduce its next local plan under the new local plan-making system that we intend to put in place, and my Department will continue to engage with it to that end.

Where plans are not up to date and local planning authorities are not delivering in line with the needs of their communities, it is right that development can come forward outside of the plan; the homes our country needs cannot be put on hold. However, we have been clear that that is not a passport to poor-quality housing. That is why we added new safeguards to the presumption in the revised national planning policy framework that we published in December last year. The absence of an up-to-date local plan does not remove the need for local planning authorities to consider the use of conditions or planning obligations to make otherwise unacceptable development acceptable. That can include the provision of necessary site-specific infrastructure at appropriate trigger points in the development, and local planning authorities have enforcement powers to ensure compliance with any such provisions.

My hon. Friend asked me, very reasonably, what can be done about multiple applications and whether they can be considered in the round. I again stress the point that local development plans are the most appropriate way to consider applications in the round, in terms of allocating appropriate sites to come forward, and local plans do have an element of sequencing to them in what development they expect to come forward during the whole life of the plan, but for specific applications, it might be worth stressing that other proposed developments can be a material consideration in the determination of an individual planning application, although that is always decided on a case-by-case basis.

As my hon. Friend made clear, communities across the country, including in Eccleshall, want to see infrastructure provision delivered as early in the development process as possible, rather than being an afterthought that comes right at the end. The national planning policy framework sets out that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the provision of supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner. The revised NPPF, which was published last year, will also support the increased provision and modernisation of various types of public infrastructure.

Local development plans should address needs and opportunities in relation to infrastructure, and identify what infrastructure is required and how it can be funded and brought forward. When preparing a local plan, planning practice guidance recommends that local planning authorities use available evidence of infrastructure requirements to prepare an infrastructure funding statement. Such statements can be used to demonstrate the delivery of infrastructure throughout the plan period. There is already detailed guidance and an infrastructure funding statement template on the planning advisory service website. However, the chief planner wrote to all local planning authorities recently to remind them of their statutory duty to prepare and publish an infrastructure funding statement where they receive developer contributions via section 106 and/or the community infrastructure levy.

The Government also provide financial support for essential infrastructure in areas of greatest housing demand through land and infrastructure funding programmes such as the housing infrastructure fund. As my hon. Friend will know, the Government are also committed to strengthening the existing system of developer contributions to ensure that new developments provide necessary affordable homes and infrastructure. We will set out further details about our proposals in that area in due course.

It is worth mentioning the provisions in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will provide for mandatory spatial development strategies in sub-regions across the country. That is a good example of how groups of local planning authorities can plan at higher than the local planning level for the effective delivery of new homes and infrastructure across a wider area, making smarter decisions in a framework that sees infrastructure and investment come forward.

Finally, my hon. Friend raised the issue of agricultural land. The Government place great importance upon our agricultural land and food production. The NPPF is clear that planning policies and decisions should recognise the benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land—namely, land in grades 1, 2 and 3a of the agricultural land classification system. Where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer quality land should be preferred to those of higher quality. That said, the Government recognise that the system used to grade agricultural land is currently not fit for purpose. The maps are outdated, not at a scale suitable for the assessment of individual fields or sites, and are not suited to the changing suitability of land. The Government are exploring what improvements are needed to the ALC system to support effective land use decisions.

To conclude, I commend my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I thank her for the clarity with which she expressed the concerns felt by her constituents and Eccleshall and beyond. I emphasise once again my agreement with her about the importance of plan-led development to provide the necessary infrastructure, amenities and services. I am more than happy to meet with her to have a separate conversation on Eccleshall specifically, as she requested, but in general terms, I look forward to continuing to engage with her to ensure that the changes that the Government have already made, along with those to come, are to the lasting benefit of her constituents and those of other hon. Members across the country.

Dr Huq, I wish you, my hon. Friend and other hon. Members an enjoyable and productive summer recess.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Reciprocated all round, I think.

Question put and agreed to.