Matthew Pennycook

I do not think that is correct—at least not in the medium to long term. Going back to the point I just made about supply and demand, we have to build sufficient volumes of homes to arrest the steady rise over many years in house prices and start to gently bring them down over time. We are some way away from that, but the affordability uplift should respond over time if we start to build, in a high and sustainable manner, the large number of homes we need. I will now address the rural-urban balance, which was raised by a number of colleagues. We have had this debate before. We recognise that the targets we have introduced are ambitious and they do mean uplifts in many areas, but such is the severity of the housing crisis in England that all parts of the country, including rural areas, must play their part in providing the volume of homes the country needs. However, it is not the case that the new formula directs housing growth away from large urban areas. We scrapped the arbitrary 35% urban uplift that the previous Government applied to the 20 largest cities and urban centres—and the core of those centres, as was mentioned. However, across city regions, the new standard method increases targets by 20%. Through it, housing growth is directed to a wider range of urban areas, including smaller cities and urban areas as well as larger city areas. London was referenced; under the previous Government, housing targets in London were deliberately set at entirely unrealistic levels because that arbitrary 35% standard method was applied not just to the core of our capital city, but to every London borough. We have revised that number down, but London still has a stretching house building target, which we increased in response to feedback to the consultation we received. In the draft framework yesterday, as the shadow Minister and other hon. Members recognised, we also gave more support for a brownfield-first approach to housing. We welcome responses to the draft framework, through which we now have in-principle support for development within settlements, subject to specified exemptions where there could be unacceptable impacts. We have built on that with the announcement of a default “yes” for development on land within reasonable walking distance around train stations. Local plans have been mentioned a number of times; in some ways, this gets to the heart of the matter. I would first say to the Liberal Democrat spokesman that, far from undermining the plan-led system, the announcements we made yesterday will strengthen the plan-led system. The clear, rules-based policies in that new draft framework will make it easier for local authorities to come forward under the new system of local plan making and get those plans in place more quickly and effectively. Why do they need to be in place more quickly and effectively? Because authorities with an up-to-date local plan will typically meet the five-year housing land supply, which is what is required to pass the examination in the first place. Having a local plan in place supports a much more comprehensive approach to considering cumulative impacts of development, so we need those local plans in place across the country. It is not my party’s fault that we do not have universal coverage of local plans. I remember standing for years where the shadow Minister is now, telling Conservative Housing Ministers on this side of the Chamber to take effective action to use the full range of their intervention powers to drive up local plans. We are not there, but this Government are committed to doing that. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire knows about this, as we have discussed it before: local authorities are able to justify a lower housing requirement than the figure that the standard method sets, on the basis of local constraints on land and delivery, such as natural landscapes, protected habitats and flood-risk areas.