Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Sean Woodcock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Tomlinson]

I expect the hon. Member knows that the housing targets have been reduced in London because of the additional premium that was put on by the previous Government just to make life more difficult for the Mayor of London, which we all know Conservatives love to do. We are trying to be reasonable and proportionate in the location of the new homes.

As I was saying, it is important for us to do all we can to ensure that we can hit our target of 1.5 million new homes. As much as I respect my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire and his work in this space, I hope his amendment will not command the support of the House today.

I know my hon. Friend and Members on both sides of the House are strong supporters of social housing, but without the unamended changes in the Bill, we will not get the social homes that we need to be built. People have spoken movingly about those living in temporary accommodation. I spent four years or so as a child living in emergency and temporary accommodation. I was homeless for a number of years. Back then—15 or 20 years ago—there were not that many young children who were homeless and in temporary accommodation. There are now 160,000 children—one in 21 children in London, one in every single class—in temporary accommodation. We cannot allow a system that fails both nature and those children to persist. I implore any colleagues thinking of voting for the amendment to think of those children and the vital homes that could be built, and built quickly and at pace.

[Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dan Tomlinson]

I should make progress so that others can speak; my hon. Friend and I will have to talk later.

This Bill and this Government are all about the economic growth that ultimately is the route to more jobs, more opportunities and higher living standards—a better life for all of us in every part of the country. That is the potential of this Bill, and we must match the scale of the problem with the scale of our ambition. Britain’s economic decline has gone on for too long. Families are suffering with a crippling cost of living crisis, driven by high housing costs in many parts of the country and high energy bills everywhere. We just do not invest as a country; we do not build, and year after year we find ourselves surprised that we are worse off and that we are stuck in a doom loop from which no politicians in recent decades, if we are honest, have had the guts to pull us out.

We finally have a Government elected on a promise to wrest us from this decline, and legislation that takes steps in the right direction to do just that. Of course, there is more to do—much more—but this is a strong legislative start. For the prosperity of all our constituents, I hope the Bill passes unamended today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I do not have a specific answer to that point. I cannot give my hon. Friend an answer to that.

The Government’s own impact assessment provided no data that environmental protections are a blocker. Nature in the Bill is being scapegoated to distract from a broken developer-led model.

[Sean Woodcock]

We have heard a lot about the failure of developers to build infrastructure, protect nature and provide enough social housing. Does that not just show that the status quo is broken, and why the Bill is so important and heading in the right direction?

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

The current system is broken, absolutely, but I do not think that hard-pressed planning officers are the problem. I think developers are the problem, and that is the point that I am coming on to make.

Last year, less than 2% of new homes were social rents delivered through the planning system. Private developers prioritise maximum profit with high-end luxury builds, particularly in constituencies such as mine. At the current rate, we would need to build over 5 million homes to deliver just 90,000 social rent properties, yet there are over 1 million people on waiting lists. That is why I signed new clause 32 to introduce binding quotas for affordable and social rent homes. If we are serious, as I believe Labour is, about getting families out of temporary accommodation and off waiting lists, local authorities need the power and funding to lead a new generation of council house building.

We also cannot ignore the fact that the developer-led model creates conflict with nature, as under-resourced councils are forced to accept whatever sites developers propose, regardless of how suitable or unsuitable they are for sustainable development. There is no amount of killing badgers or red tape bonfires that will fix that. It is too simplistic to argue that this is a debate of builders versus blockers. The overwhelming majority of planning applications are approved, which is why we had more than a million planning permissions approved in the past decade that have yet to be built. Developers continue to drip feed developments into the system, prioritising properties that maximise profit and are far from affordable for local people.

It is time, therefore, to move away from the failed market dogma and, I believe, to return to Labour values. The post-war Labour Government built millions of homes supported by the planning system our party created, and it is time we did it again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sean Woodcock Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

Local electors can hold local authorities accountable for all of the decisions they make. On infrastructure, I refer the hon. Member to my previous answer. However, local authorities should, as part of the local plan development process, have infrastructure strategies in place that set out the requirements for infrastructure and how they should be funded.

[Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)]

Next month marks 80 years since victory in Europe, and I look forward to attending many VE Day events in my constituency to thank our service personnel of yesteryear. Homelessness is an issue that affects many veterans, so while I welcome the Prime Minister’s pledge to guarantee a roof over the head of every veteran, can the Minister confirm what extra support there is with homelessness for the veteran community in Banbury?

[Rushanara Ali]

Homeless veterans in Banbury will be able to benefit from extra support thanks to a £371,927 increase in funding for homelessness services in Cherwell and West Oxfordshire in 2025-26. Veterans in Banbury can also access housing support through Op Fortitude. This nationwide system provides housing guidance and assistance to veterans who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.

Local Government Reorganisation

Sean Woodcock Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

From our perspective, we cannot allow the cancellation—or postponement, I would say—of elections to be driven by any political views. We are clear that this is an administrative process and it is about whether areas satisfy criteria that meet our devolution priority programme. Where areas are already in the programme because they have mayoral elections this year, it would be reasonable of me to say that we would need to see where the benefit is of elections being cancelled, given that devolution is taking place. But as I have said, we have only just received the proposals. We are taking time to review them, and we will make sure that is done in a fair way.

[Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a serving district councillor for 13 years.

I broadly welcome the thrust of this document. My question is on a matter that the Minister has already referred to—areas that are serviced by a number of different local authorities, which mine is. I have a county council, two district councils, any number of parish councils, and Banbury town council—Labour-run for the first time ever. In those areas, there will be a wide variety of views as to what a local government reorganisation should look like, because different communities have different views. Can the Minister assure me that the fast-tracking and the speed of this process, which I acknowledge the reason for, will not lead to rushed proposals that do not take into account what communities actually feel and look like?

Building Homes

Sean Woodcock Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman makes a somewhat cryptic statement. Perhaps the point he is driving at is related to golden rules. One of the changes we have made that puts pragmatism above purity is dropping the straight 50% requirement across the country, and looking at how we can get more locally sensitive rates by putting in place a 15 percentage point premium on local affordable housing targets. In the round, we think that will provide more certainty and maximise the delivery of homes coming through that route.

[Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Cherwell district council’s housing waiting list quadrupled over the past decade under the Conservatives, which is why I committed to my constituents in Banbury during the general election campaign that I would make addressing the housing crisis a priority. We all recognise that planning reform, which the Conservative party ducked during its time in office, is crucial to fixing the housing crisis, but does the Minister agree that it is also crucial to helping us get the growth that we want in our economy, because it is good for businesses, whether they are sandwich shops or high-tech engineering firms, across the country?

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right that the situation we are in, with an acute and entrenched housing crisis and an ailing planning system, is not just blighting lives but holding back our economy and the way our great towns and cities can maximise their potential. This is a growth-focused national planning policy framework, and we are very proud of it.