Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will review the five-year plan to assume that homes will be built within five years to remove incentives for developers to delay development and speculate on land.

The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that local planning authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years' worth of housing against their housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies.

The Government wants to see homes built faster and expects house builders to build out as soon as possible once planning permission is granted.

Where build-out is delayed, it is for councils and developers to work closely together to overcome any barriers. To support them, this Government is looking at strengthening the tools available to local authorities to encourage faster build out rates. We are considering the responses to the Planning for the Future consultation and will publish our response.