Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Hodgson, for these amendments related to the build-out of development. Of course, it is important that we make sure that sites that are permissioned are built out quickly. We are desperate for homes and to have over 1 million permissions sitting there that are not built out is just shameful, so we need to get on with this. Amendment 135HZI seeks to improve the transparency of build-out data by requiring the Secretary of State to publish information on a quarterly basis about the number of planning consents granted where building has not started or completed in each local planning authority. Amendment 227B seeks to stop land banking by developers by requiring planning permissions by them to be refused if they have not commenced another development nearby within a year. I reassure the noble Baronesses that I fully agree with the objective of improving that build-out rate of residential development and increasing the transparency around build-out. But I do not think these amendments are necessary to achieve this, and I will explain why. We are already taking action on this. In May, we published an important working paper on speeding up build-out, which sets out a more comprehensive and effective approach to this issue.