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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to review the performance of local authorities on meeting local housing need.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires that Councils 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. This is more commonly known as a 5-year housing land supply. Additionally, the Housing Delivery Test identifies the areas where homes are or are not being delivered against housing need.

Where the supply and delivery of housing is not meeting local need, the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies. This means additional housing allocations and approvals should be granted by a local authority unless planning constraints provide a strong reason against this when assessed against the NPPF as a whole - examples of this include Green Belt or flood risk.