Contribution
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.
This Labour Government’s last planning framework began pushing development on to rural areas, prioritising concreting over the green belt and green fields rather than focusing on supporting building in urban areas, which is where we need to build most. From what the Minister has just said, it sounds as though the Government are going to double down on this approach with an all-out assault on the green belt. Over the past decade in London, under its abysmal mayor, Labour has conspicuously failed to build the right amount of housing, and now it is going to fail to build the right kind of housing in the right places in the rest of England. It clearly prefers to target building in rural areas, while not building in the cities and urban areas where demand is highest and much of the necessary infrastructure already exists.
At the current rate of house building under Labour, which is at a dismal low, the Government will fail by some distance to meet their target of 1.5 million homes. House building is falling under Labour, with the number of additional dwellings delivered in 2024-25 falling by 12,810. If the delivery of net additional dwellings continues at this rate, Labour will deliver its target not by the end of this Parliament but in seven years’ time. This Labour Government’s record on house building is dreadful—they delivered fewer homes in their first year in office than we delivered during a global pandemic. This is not a good sign for Labour’s first year in office, and now this Labour Government are intent on ignoring the voices of local people up and down the country while imposing top-down housing targets, disproportionately in rural areas, and tightening their grip through Whitehall-imposed targets.
The reality is that Labour is prioritising building on rural areas while claiming that it is grey-belt land. It is now returning to something that the previous Labour Government did, namely garden grabbing. The previous Conservative Government removed the top-down diktats that forced councils to demolish gardens, but the Minister has just promised “the redevelopment of low-density” residential plots, introducing higher buildings at street corners and “infill development” within “residential curtilages”. It is clear that, because of Labour’s failure to build homes on brownfield land, it now has residential gardens in its sights. The Government should be prioritising and incentivising brownfield development first, and making it easier to build on brownfield sites in cities and urban areas, but they are not—they are only paying it lip service. If Labour really wants homes to be built where they are needed, it should think again about how its planning framework will actually deliver.
There are many questions about the Government’s approach, but time is short, so I will restrict myself to four. The Minister states that there should be “a default yes for suitable proposals for development of land around rail stations within existing settlements and around well-connected stations outside settlements, including on green-belt land”. In that context, what is a “well-connected station”?
The Minister proposes “action to secure a diverse mix of homes” and “stronger support for rural social and affordable housing”. What form will the support take? What regulations will the Government relax or scrap to support housing delivery? What incentives will they offer to get brownfield development actually to happen?
Finally, the views of local people are not a burden in assessing planning applications; they are among the most important factors. Putting local people and local concerns high up the agenda is a long-established and democratic precedent that successive Governments have followed. However, I fear for their voices under the current Administration. The Government railroaded their Planning and Infrastructure Bill through Parliament and are now following up with this statement. It is increasingly clear that the planning system that this Government are not just envisaging and planning for, but actively creating, is one in which such local concerns are much harder to raise. His Majesty’s Opposition do not believe that local people and local democracy should suffer for that.
The Government are eroding trust in the planning system and widening the gulf between the Government and local people. That is why we are clear that local voices, not just Whitehall’s, must play a key part in any planning decisions. We will continue to scrutinise the framework as the Labour Government implement it, and we will hold them accountable as it begins to negatively impact local communities.