Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of delays related to the Planning Inspectorate’s processes of appeals against local authority enforcement notices have on the ability of councils to comply with planning law; what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that enforcement action is not undermined by appeal processing times.

The government is committed to the efficient handling of planning appeals, and the Planning Inspectorate has been working to improve processing and handling times in respect of them. As part of those efforts, it is trialling a pilot service of enforcement appeals through digital services.

The Planning Inspectorate's Strategic Plan commits to removing all casework backlogs by 2027. The Inspectorate continues to make considerable progress towards meeting that ambition across all casework areas.

To help improve service delivery and user experience, the Inspectorate is expanding the ‘Manage your appeals’ service to include enforcement.

In 2025/26, funding increased for PINS’s Resource Delivery budget (to £97.9 million) and their Capital Budget (to £15 million).