Member

The case for grasping the nettle of planning reform in order significantly to boost housing supply and unleash economic growth is incontrovertible. England is in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis, and as you, Mr Speaker, and every Member of the House will know, its detrimental consequences are now all pervasive: a generation locked out of home ownership; 1.3 million people languishing on social housing waiting lists; millions of low-income households forced into insecure, unaffordable and far too often substandard private rented housing; and, to our shame as a nation, just shy of 160,000 homeless children living right now in temporary accommodation. Our economy and the public services that our constituents rely on are also suffering, because as well as blighting countless lives, the housing crisis is consuming ever larger amounts of public money in the form of a rapidly rising housing benefit bill. It is also hampering economic growth and productivity by reducing labour mobility and undermining the capacity of our great towns and cities to realise their full economic potential.