Housing and Planning

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Problems need solutions—and here is one. Within London’s green belt alone there are enough non-green sites surrounding train stations for more than 1 million new homes. Of course, truly green sites should be protected. My frustration is not with parks, hills or areas of environmental protection, but with the scrappy plots of land in towns and cities, surrounding railway stations, that no one in their right mind would see as attractive. I am talking about the car wash in Tottenham Hale, the scrubland in Ealing, the waste plant in Hillingdon and the concrete airfield in Wisley—sites that no one in their right mind would recognise as green belt if it were not for their designation.

Despite the strength of the green-belt brand, 80% of London’s green belt is inaccessible to the public as green space and does not even have an environmental status. Together, those scrappy plots of what I refer to as the grey belt remain wrongly designated, just because of the potential furore that de-designation might cause. It is time to burst the myth that all green belt is green, and use those non-green sites to provide the homes that we so desperately need. I read with interest this weekend the comments of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), about his plan for the upcoming Budget, and his belief that the green belt around major train stations should be reviewed. I wait with cautious optimism to see whether that will happen under the new Chancellor.

Of course, de-designation is one thing, but what the land is used for is another. If any green-belt land is released, it should be fundamental that it be used to help to resolve the housing crisis, providing the social and genuinely affordable homes for which our country is so desperate. To offer it instead as a land bank bonus for the biggest house builders would seem inexcusable to the thousands of my constituents waiting for a place to call home. I ask the Minister please to grasp the nettle of the sensible policy I have outlined—but to use the land for the people who need it most. Otherwise we will be back in this Chamber debating even worse statistics in the months and years ahead.

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[Christopher Pincher]

The green belt is very important. We need to ensure that green spaces are protected, and that we have beautiful spaces in which we can all live. We also need to ensure that local plans are up to date and fit for purpose, in order to ensure that the houses that people want and need can be built.

That brings me rather nicely to my fundamental point. We all know that this country does not have enough homes. That is why we need a more agile and flexible planning system. KPMG and Shelter have both reported that simply to meet rising future demand, a minimum of a quarter of a million new homes will be needed every year. The median house price in England is eight times higher than median gross annual earnings; in London, it is 12.3 times higher.

We have to be bold and ambitious in our vision for the future of planning and house building in England. That is why, in January 2018, we set up Homes England as our housing accelerator, to intervene in the market and drive a step change in housing delivery. We have an unwavering commitment to enable the housing market to deliver at least 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, and a million homes by the end of this Parliament. I am pleased that the latest figures show that last year housing supply, which has been growing year on year, increased by more than 241,000, to the highest level in the last 31 years.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will, of course, give way to the hon. Member, as she intervenes at such volume.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

In the London borough of Merton, 10,000 families are on the waiting list. Since April 2019, they have had access to 18 three-bedroom properties. What does the Minister say to those 10,000 families?

[Christopher Pincher]

I would say that we need to build more homes in London. That is a conversation that we are having with the Mayor and with local authorities, because if we are to get those people into homes that they desire, we need to ensure that we are building them.

We have also cut the red tape—a perennial bête noire—making it quicker to plan and build homes that people want to live in. However, there is far more that we need to do to address the housing challenge. We are implementing planning reforms to ensure that our planning system creates and supports thriving communities, and to improve the quality, quantity and speed of home building. As I said, we will introduce the planning White Paper shortly, setting out our proposals to make the planning process clearer, more accessible and more certain for all users, including homeowners and small businesses, and I look forward to responses from colleagues across the House. The White Paper will also address resourcing and performance in planning departments, which various colleagues mentioned, and ensure that timely decisions are made.

The Government set national planning policy, but it is important that decisions and policies are made locally. We are clear that councils and their communities are best placed to take decisions on planning issues affecting their local area within the context of national planning policy. Local plans play an important role in outlining the homes that an area needs, and I believe that such plans can deliver local decisions that will remain at the heart of the planning system. Local plans provide clarity to communities and developers about where new homes should be built and how they should look, and such plans identify what developments are needed in an area, supported by the right infrastructure.