Oral Answers to Questions

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that question. We do keep the powers to regulate HMOs under review, and I do want to know from any Member of the House where local authorities do not think those powers are adequate. The key to ensuring that HMOs are properly regulated, particularly where that is necessary to protect the amenity or wellbeing of an area, is having strong policies in an up-to-date local plan. I know that our local authority is putting in place strong policies in our area.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

HMOs are the only way many young people can afford to rent, but their unregulated growth leads to the loss of family homes. However, Bath and North East Somerset council has taken action, and has included in its draft local plan a ban on the conversion of homes that would otherwise mean the loss of three-bedroom homes in Southdown, Twerton and Odd Down. Will the Minister congratulate Bath council?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will congratulate the hon. Member’s local authority. As I say, it is through up-to-date local plans and strong policies on HMOs that local authorities can ensure that they are properly regulated. After all, development plans are the basis on which decision makers, irrespective of whether they are officers or committees, will make their decisions. There is good practice out there in the country—including in my own local authority area, as I have said—and I encourage any local planning authority with concerns to familiarise itself with that good practice.

Changing Places Toilets: Capital Funding

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) on securing this very important debate, and I thank him for sharing his personal story. Lived experience is always most moving and powerful, but it is often difficult to share, because so many emotions come with it. No parent, and indeed no child, should be faced with the indignity of changing a loved one on the floor of a toilet or behind a shed. I feel very much for him and his experience. This problem is not something that has been resolved everywhere. It continues, which is why we are debating it.

The issue before us is simple: if a person cannot safely use the toilet when they are away from home, they do not have equal access to public life. For most people, planning a day out means deciding where to go and how to get there. For many disabled people and their families, it means checking whether the journey is accessible, whether the venue can accommodate them and, crucially, whether there will be a toilet they can use. Too often, the answer to the last question is no. That means cutting a day out short, turning down an invitation, avoiding a long journey or simply staying at home. No one should be excluded from everyday life because the facilities they need have not been adequately provided.

As we have heard, Changing Places toilets are not the same as standard accessible toilets. They include an adult-sized changing bench, a ceiling track hoist and enough space for carers to provide support safely. Without those facilities, some disabled people are left with completely unacceptable choices. They may have to be changed on a toilet floor. Their families or carers may have to attempt unsafe lifting. Some people restrict what they eat or drink before going out, because they are worried that there will be nowhere suitable for them to use. That is undignified, unsafe and entirely avoidable.

As legislators, we often talk in this place about inclusion, independence and equal access, but those principles must mean something in practice—they must not be just talk. A building is not truly accessible if a disabled person can enter it but cannot safely use the toilet while they are there. There has been progress. There are now 2,665 registered Changing Places toilets across the United Kingdom, compared with around 140 in 2007—that is good. The previous Government’s £30 million Changing Places toilets fund supported the installation of nearly 500 new facilities across England, but the fund is no longer active. That funding made a genuine difference and shows what can be achieved when the Government provide the right support. The fund was closed in March 2025, but the job is not finished. There are still too many town centres, transport hubs, parks, hospitals, tourist attractions and community venues without a Changing Places toilet.

Provision is also very uneven. There might be a Changing Places toilet within a local authority area, but that does not mean it is in the right place, open at the right time or easily accessible to the people who need it. The changes to building regulations are welcome, but they are not enough on their own. They mainly help when new buildings are constructed or when major developments take place; they do little to address the large number of existing public buildings and venues that disabled people use every day. We cannot wait decades for those gaps to be filled gradually during redevelopment.

Cost is often the main barrier. Installing a Changing Places toilet can cost tens of thousands of pounds, which may be a relatively small part of the overall budget for a major development, but it can be impossible for a charity, community venue, small visitor attraction or local council to afford without additional support. Local authorities are already under severe financial pressure, as we all know, due to the growing cost of social care, temporary accommodation and special educational needs provision. Councils may want to improve accessibility, but without dedicated capital funding, projects are delayed or even abandoned.

That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to review the long-term capital funding available for Changing Places toilets. We need a proper assessment of where the gaps are, and the Government should work with disabled people, families, carers, local authorities and the Changing Places consortium to identify the areas and venues where provision is most urgently needed. That assessment should lead to a properly funded, long-term programme.

Local authorities and community organisations should not have to rely on occasional short-term pots of money, and they should not have to compete against one another for limited funding. Changing Places toilets should also be included from the beginning in major transport projects, town centre regeneration schemes and investment in public buildings. It is far easier and less expensive to design these facilities into a project than it is to add them afterwards. Funding and guidance must take account of maintenance, signage, staffing and opening hours.

I would therefore like to ask the Minister three questions. First, does she accept that changes to building regulations alone will not deliver the number of Changing Places toilets that disabled people and their families need? Secondly, will the Government carry out a national assessment of gaps in provision, working directly with disabled people and the organisations that represent them? Thirdly, will the Government establish a successor to the previous capital fund, with long-term and predictable funding for local authorities and community organisations?

Changing Places toilets are essential infrastructure. We would not describe an accessible entrance, ramp or lift as an optional extra, so we should not treat appropriate toilet facilities differently. Everyone should be able to go shopping, travel, attend an appointment, visit a park or attraction and have a good time with their family without having to worry about whether their most basic needs can be met. The previous funding programme showed that progress is possible, and the Government must now build on that work. I hope the Minister is listening to the cross-party consensus on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nesil Caliskan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. This is the second or third time we have been in the same debate this week, so Members are in competition with me. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) for securing this important debate and for his ongoing efforts to speak up for issues that matter not only to him but to so many of our constituents across the country. He has been a committed advocate for Changing Places toilets and so many issues that others find difficult to talk about. He is the voice of many constituents around the country.

I welcome the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government to this important debate, which comes on the back of another important debate about public toilets for people with stomas, which some Members in this debate took part in. I thank all Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), for their contributions and their thoughtful, emotional and challenging speeches. Often these are the sorts of debates that have a real impact on policy change.

As Members have pointed out, for many people the availability of an accessible public toilet that is clean and safe can be the deciding factor in whether they feel able to visit a town centre, a high street, a local attraction, their park, or just something they want to do that weekend. Such facilities support dignity and independence for people with disabilities and accessibility needs. There is also an impact on the families that support those with a disability.

However, for some individuals with profound and multiple disabilities, or other conditions that severely limit mobility, standard accessible toilets might not provide the support they need. Such toilets might lack essential features such as adult-sized changing benches, hoists and enough space for a disabled person and one or more carers. As hon. Members have highlighted, that is exactly why Changing Places toilets are so important. They provide the space, equipment and dignity that standard provision simply cannot provide. I know that from my own experience as a Member of Parliament who has visited a lot of special educational needs provision and spoken to many parents about their own lived experience and the need for the gap to be fixed.

The Government want people to be able to live well, work, enjoy days out, shop and socialise, and we recognise that access to appropriate public facilities can be an important part of enabling that. Reasonable adjustments, as has already been mentioned, are instrumental to changing lives and allowing everybody to live fulfilled lives.

As hon. Members have acknowledged, in recognition of the importance of the issue, the Government delivered over £30 million for the Changing Places toilets programme, and I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) joined the debate. The programme has supported the targeted installation of well over 400 new disabled toilet facilities in areas where they were most needed across England. Although that programme closed last year, changes were made in January 2021 to the statutory guidance accompanying building regulations.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The Minister just acknowledged that the fund was closed, although I am not sure whether all the money was spent. We all agree that the fund provided and delivered a very important human dignity facility, as we have all talked about. Can she please explain why a fund that provided for human dignity was cut?

[Nesil Caliskan]

I thank the hon. Member for her passionate advocacy. Since the fund was allocated, we have had a significant spending review through which moneys were allocated to local government. I will make the case for why decisions around spending are best made locally, but that does not mean I do not recognise the important cases that have been made. I also recognise that the moneys that had been allocated to Changing Places toilets delivered change on the ground with facilities across the country.

I also absolutely accept the important point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford made about the speed at which additional facilities are being provided. There has clearly been a reduction in the speed of provision across the country—I am not in the business of rejecting the evidence in front of us—but the Government’s important spending review included a record spending settlement for local government, and spending decisions should be taken locally.

The 2021 regulations were significant. I remember them well; as a council leader, I followed building regulation changes, which have an impact on local government budgets. As a result of the 2021 regulations, all building works must meet the functional requirements of the 2010 building regulations, including part M, which addresses accessibility. In addition, at the 2025 spending review the Government committed more than £5 billion in new grant funding over three years for essential local services, including public toilets.

We continue to provide 100% mandatory business rates relief for separately accessible toilets. I accept that that is a slightly different conversation, but I want to give a sense of the Government’s broader commitment to ensuring that there are accessible toilets for everybody in our communities. Taken together, those measures are intended to increase the availability of these vital facilities over time and ensure that accessibility is treated as a mainstream consideration as we plan and build our public spaces.

I hear and accept the powerful cases that hon. Members have made. I acknowledge the calls for a new capital fund pot for Changing Places but, as Members will appreciate, it is a little beyond my ability to make a spending commitment, although I am reminded that Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have gone on to hold offices that have the power to make such commitments. Members will take the point that I am making.

The Government believe that local authorities are best placed to understand where facilities need to be, so our approach to funding them is important. We encourage them to allocate the funding necessary to deliver public toilet provision. Decisions are best made locally.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I understand the money argument, but will the Minister acknowledge that local authorities are stuck when it comes to providing mandatory services? They have to provide children’s and adult social care, but public toilets are optional. That is the dilemma. Local authorities cannot make that money available, as we have discussed.

[Nesil Caliskan]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford and I have spent a long time in local government, so we know all too well that statutory services are under huge pressure and that choices have to be made. I accept the argument that if funding is not ringfenced, things sometimes do not get done. However, this Government are committed to funding local authorities well, and we have done that through the spending review.

We are also committed to saying to local authorities, “You are best placed to make decisions for your area and assess what is needed. We will support you and encourage you to make the right decisions.” It is a balancing act, but debates like this give us an opportunity to reinforce the important message from Government that access to facilities and public toilets for all who need them is a crucial part of what local government should be doing.

Representation of the People Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

As always, my right hon. Friend raises an important point. There are huge concerns about cryptocurrency, not least because we cannot track where the funding has come from. We have charged Sir Philip Rycroft with conducting a review into these matters. His recommendations will be incorporated into the Bill as it progresses through the House, so that we can tackle the matter properly.

The reason the Bill extends the vote to younger people, aged 16 and 17 years old, is simple: it is because young people are our nation’s future. The voting age has stood at 18 since it was lowered from 21 by the Representation of the People Act 1969. More recently, the Welsh Government lowered the voting age to 16 for Senedd elections in 2020 and for local elections in Wales in 2021. The Scottish Government lowered the voting age to 16 for the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, and subsequently for all devolved elections in Scotland. The change in the Bill will bring consistency to the voting age for all statutory elections across the United Kingdom.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the same arguments that were made over 100 years ago about women not being fit enough to vote are now being repeated for 16-year-olds? The success that ultimately came from including women in the franchise should give us confidence that this is the right thing to do.

[Steve Reed]

I certainly share the hon. Lady’s confidence that this is the right thing to do, and I thank her for making that point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I recognise the situation that the hon. Member describes. We have launched the consultations to cover the circumstances he describes, precisely so that we can end that kind of practice.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

These sharp practices are not down to just one management company—a lot of companies are at it. A leaseholder constituent wrote to me to say he feels “abandoned and angry”. His property is leaking, but the freeholder is not interested in helping, and his ground rent will double in 2030. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that my leaseholder constituent will be protected from these unreasonable charges in the future?

[Steve Reed]

I hope the hon. Lady’s constituent will be pleased to learn that the reforms we have announced as part of the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, launched recently by the Minister for Housing and Planning, will include capping ground rents so that that kind of abuse cannot happen in future.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this issue. We are clear that the local licensing authority will continue to be the key authority, and such things as licensing fees will flow to those local authorities. This measure creates the ability for the Mayor of London to call things in, in particular instances where we think that the licensing will work for areas of strategic importance. In so doing, the mayor will invariably have to work with the local licensing authority and the community, because whatever is done—the mayor is elected—must be done with the support of the local community.

I will turn to planning and empowering our mayors to unlock housing and infrastructure.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I will make a little more progress, and then I will give way. The Bill provides mayors of strategic authorities with the ability to intervene in planning applications of potential strategic importance and to make mayoral development orders to better support growth in their area. Those powers are currently only available to the Mayor of London. When a mayor decides that they will become a local planning authority for an application of potential strategic importance, our amendment will enable them to choose between either a written representation procedure or an oral hearing, so that applicants, local planning authorities and other parties can make representations before a final decision is made.

To be clear, we want oral hearings to continue to be an important part of mayoral decision making. Applications of potential strategic importance that a mayor is dealing with will often be significant developments with wider ramifications for the area, so it is crucial that there is an opportunity to make direct representation to the mayor. However, an oral hearing may not be necessary for certain applications where planning matters may be less substantial, such as where an application deals with a variation to an earlier permission and the planning matter has already been established. We believe that this provision, which creates options and gives flexibility to the mayor, could save up to several months, such as by avoiding an unnecessary repeated oral hearing period.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. We want pace in planning and pace in development. One of the frustrations for us on the Government Benches is that we inherited a system where the development and the house building that should have happened did not happen under the last Government. We are trying to grip that, and through these mayoral development orders, we think we can deliver pace and strategic clarity so that our mayors can designate strategically important sites that are critical for investment in infrastructure and ensure that they happen, working alongside their constituent authorities.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The Minister mentioned the hospitality sector earlier, and I briefly want to come back to that. Bath council and I are seeking the power for local authorities to introduce a modest visitor levy, alongside our proposed 5% cut in VAT for hospitality. Does she agree that a visitor levy on overnight stays would generate a new ringfenced revenue stream for the hospitality sector, which would be beneficial?

Houses in Multiple Occupation: Planning Consent

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

As a university city, Bath has an increasing number of HMOs, not only but mainly because of increasing numbers of students. As we have heard, constituents living around HMOs face increasing pressure on parking, noise issues and waste collection issues. Meanwhile, more and more valuable family homes are snapped up by developers to squeeze more profit from single dwellings.

Bath council has started to control the mass conversion of properties into HMOs by imposing a 10% cap in certain areas on the number of homes that can be converted, and it is also protecting some families from being sandwiched between two HMOs. However, we still lose too many homes to HMOs, and the shortage of affordable family homes—especially two and three-bedroom homes—is particularly stark in the city centre. Bath is currently consulting on a new policy to ban turning three-bedroom family homes into HMOs where there could be family homes, and I urge all Bath residents to take part in that public consultation. Bath council is also ambitious about building 1,000 more social homes for rent to ease the desperate need for affordable homes. It is still waiting to hear from the new Government how they can support it, and I would also be happy to hear a response from the Government on that.

I am asking the Government to create a new planning class for short-term rentals such as Airbnbs. We need a planning system that can help reverse the loss of family homes from the housing market, and we must be serious about the current housing crisis. HMOs are not the only cause of that, but they are part of it.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It might surprise the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader), but in my constituency people want good local councillors —particularly the Liberal Democrat ones, who are working hard.

We Liberal Democrats passionately believe that power belongs in local communities, not concentrated in Whitehall. Although we welcome the drive for further devolution, the Bill sidelines local councils by handing yet more authority to regional mayors. Bath council knows all too well the frustration of having a regional mayor who does not listen to all the local authorities they represent. For years, Bath council wanted to bring buses under local control, but we were stuck with a Labour mayor who refused to listen and spent millions on a birthday bus vanity project, rather than delivering the change my constituents were crying out for.

The Bill will enable mayors of strategic authorities to nominate up to seven unelected commissioners to deliver policy, accountable only to the mayor. These unelected officials add a layer of unaccountable bureaucracy that communities do not want and councils do not need. Real devolution means local communities at the heart of decision making, working collaboratively with the mayor. Clauses 21 and 22 do not even clarify on which “relevant local matters” mayors must convene with local partners—surely that cannot be right.

Also absent from the Bill are visitor levy powers for local authorities. Bath council has long been advocating for the ability to introduce a modest visitor levy. We in Bath are proud of the role we play in supporting the visitor economy, but the system needs to be fairer, recognising the costs as well as the benefits of such high levels of tourism. The Government should give local authorities these powers through the Bill, to safeguard our hugely important and valuable tourism industry.

Also missing from the Bill is the introduction of public accounts committees to oversee and hold mayoral strategic authorities accountable, much like the Public Accounts Committee does with Government expenditure. Robust local scrutiny would reduce the dependence on upward accountability to central Government and represent real progress in the existing local council and mayoral scrutiny arrangements. If the Government do support the principle of local public accounts committees, the Bill should provide a timescale for their implementation.

We Liberal Democrats support the aims of the Bill, but it clearly falls short of real devolution. What we have is a Bill that misunderstands the whole point of devolution—namely, decision making from the bottom up, not the top down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Lady draws the attention of the House to an incredibly important point. The Government are clear that the house building sector can thrive only when there is fair and open competition. Where that is found not to be the case, it is right that the CMA acts decisively, as it has done in this instance by extracting £100 million for social and affordable housing from the seven house builders investigated. We are taking action to fix our broken housing system, as I have said, by overhauling the planning system, addressing our dysfunctional land market, and ending our over-reliance on a speculative model of development that produces sub-optimal outcomes and constrains housing supply. If she has evidence of any individuals being directly affected in the purchase of their home, I would be very grateful if she could bring it to my attention.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

4. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of reductions in council tax revenue from student houses in multiple occupation on local authorities.

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

The Government believe it is right that students are disregarded for council tax. If the only residents of a household are full-time students, the dwelling will be exempt. In the recently published fair funding review 2.0, the Government proposed to fully account for the impact of student exemptions in the distribution of the settlement.

[Wera Hobhouse]

In 2013, my Bath council received £31 million through the revenue support grant. This year, it is just around £1 million. Students, who are exempt from council tax, are not being counted. Will the Minister ensure that, through the fair funding review, the issue is urgently addressed, and that councils such as Bath and North East Somerset are not missing out entirely on central Government support?

[Jim McMahon]

The fair funding review will do what it says on the tin: it will make sure that, for the first time ever, all component pressures that councils face in delivering public services, and in raising money locally, are taken into account. It is wrong that while this Parliament can decide on national exemptions that councils have to apply, which limit their ability to raise council tax locally, we do not account for that in the distribution of funding that follows. For the first time, we will do that.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Tenth sitting)

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

rose—

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

Order. I think we have heard both sides very well, loudly and clearly. We need to push on because we have been discussing this one amendment for nearly half an hour. It is important that we now come to a decision.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Local Housing Need Assessment Reform

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Milne]

Yes, it makes strategic planning very difficult. Provision of infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is a major problem and not sufficiently built into the planning system to compensate for it. It is easier in urban centres where the infrastructure is already in place.

This is the reason we have contrived to have perhaps as many as 1.5 million unbuilt permissions nationally, at the same time as a national housing shortage. That is because too many of them are permissions for unaffordable and, therefore, unbuildable homes. There is a degree of land banking but, for the most part, developers build as fast as they can sell. If they are serving only the top end of the market, that will be slowly. As Oliver Letwin described in his excellent 2018 report, sadly unacted on by the Government of the day, we need far greater variety in housing type.

As much as 80% of housebuilding is aimed at the top 20% of the market. The fastest way to fix that is to build a guaranteed quota of social housing. My party is asking for 150,000 a year. I guarantee they would be snapped up like hot cakes, as fast as they could be built. There is a fundamental difference between permissions and actual, physical houses. If all we ever think about is permissions and alleged impediments to permissions, we will never get to grips with the problem. Wrong permissions do not increase supply, they suppress it. Wrong permissions bake high land prices into the system. Handing out more permissions like confetti simply chokes the system with unbuildable sites that will hang over the market for a generation. There are lots of ways the standard method could be reinvented, but any future form must empower local authorities to deliver social housing in significant numbers from day one. How we do that is up for grabs, but somehow it must be done.

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

I intend to give the lead Member two minutes at the end of the debate at 3.58 pm. I will call the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats at 3.28 pm. I will not impose a formal speech limit for the time being. I hope there is time for everybody to come in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Good for the hon. Gentleman for reading our manifesto—not enough people did, I am afraid. He is right: we did set a more ambitious target, which I am not against. As I said right at the start, I am in no shape or form a nimby. However, I am for honesty and fairness. The point is that the housing targets have been moved away from certain types of area where people tend to move. They tend to move from rural to urban to take their first job or start their first business, as I did, but the targets are going from urban to rural.

The Minister faces many challenges alongside the huge number he has set himself. The Office for Budget Responsibility and Homes England have said that the number targeted is impossible. Let us see. I wish him well for delivery, although not on the skewed figures that we have discussed today. There are real challenges here, as the Minister knows: things such as the Building Safety Regulator; the skills issue; small and medium-sized enterprises, which build a far smaller proportion of homes than they used to; and making sure that we get first-time buyers on to the housing ladder.

We have tabled a number of amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that will solve all these problems, and I very much hope that the Minister will look at them. One of them proposes no solar on any best and most versatile land. I am sure that the Minister will look at that, because it would potentially leave space for more British farmland to produce fantastic food. We have also tabled amendments on protected landscapes—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has a significant section of protected landscape in his patch, which is bound to constrain supply, but no recognition has been made of that—and on ensuring that there is no plus or minus beyond 20% in any of these targets, which would be fairer. We will also seek to amend the national scheme of delegation, which disgracefully removes votes from councillors, and restore the protections for the green belt. As some in this excellent debate have said, we need a better mix that is more suited to demand in local areas.

I very much hope that the Minister will support those amendments, but, because I feel that he will not, I will make one plea to him: please, look at the Building Safety Regulator. There is a queue of 18,000 homes with planning consent that are waiting six months or more for an answer from the Building Safety Regulator. That is a huge bottleneck in supply. I hope that the Minister will at least touch on that point.

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

I know that the Minister has quite a lot of time, but I ask him to leave two minutes for the Member in charge to wind up.