Member

One of the advantages for housing developers of delaying housebuilding after they have got permission is that they can use up the housing allocation in the local plan to the extent that a local authority no longer has what is required, which is a five-year supply of housing sites. By getting permissions but not building, housing developers can by law then move on to greenfield sites because there is no five-year supply and use them first because there are more profitable and easier to build, while leaving those other sites, sometimes brownfield sites, waiting even longer to be developed. There is a lot of game-playing by housing developers on this issue. That is why I have tabled Amendment 219 to provide some leverage for local authorities to get houses built, which is the policy of this Government and the previous one. If there are levers to make sure that developers that have housing permission for more than 100 units—medium sites and beyond—that will help us get houses built, instead of having 1.2 million homes with permission that have failed to be built.