Housing Target: Draft London Plan
Monday, 12 October 2026
Contributions
Question
Asked by
Lord Bailey of Paddington
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the housing target in the Mayor of London’s Draft London Plan is compliant with the number of homes required under their standard method for calculating housing need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, the draft London Plan proposes a housing requirement figure which is significantly below the figure given by the standard method for calculating housing need. The Government will respond to the mayor’s consultation on his draft London Plan in the coming days.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
I thank the Minister for her Answer. Given that the mayor has missed his housing targets repeatedly over the past decade or more, and that the Government are now asking for a target that he is actively working against, will there be consequences for missing this target? Will the Government be requiring changes to the London Plan?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I would like to reframe the context. The Mayor of London was operating under a very different Government before our Government came in. We are providing many opportunities for assisting housing in London and across the country. I look forward to looking at the response to the consultation and to the next steps that the mayor will be able to take.
Lord John of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, the reality is that construction in London has faced an unprecedented perfect storm. But even in the face of all the difficulties that it faces, will my noble friend the Minister join me in welcoming the Mayor of London’s more interventionist use of his planning powers, which have resulted in the call in and approval of 10,000 homes this year alone? I remind the House of my interest in Quoin Partners and Homes for Life.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My noble friend gives a very important illustration of how the Mayor of London has used the powers available to him so far. The estimate of 10,000 more homes delivered by his interventions should fill us all with optimism for what will be brought forward in the future.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I get rather frustrated by conversations about targets, missed or not. Surely the greatest scandal is the number of homes that already have planning consent but are not being built out—apparently about 300,000 in London and 1 million nationally. Does the Minister agree that the real issue of success is delivery, especially of social and affordable homes? Can she outline any powers or incentives that are being used to get these homes built out?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Baroness speaks as a former member of local government. Local government was criticised regularly for stalling planning applications, when the reverse was true. We know that too many homes are sitting with planning permission but not being built out. This is an urgent situation, as the noble Baroness has addressed. I look forward to welcoming measures that will deal with this matter.
Lord Best (CB)
What has happened to the national housing plan? It was promised 18 months ago, with a final publication date of the end of March. Have we now abandoned this 10-year, long-term national plan that would bring together all the strands of the Government’s housing policy?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his many years of interest in this matter, and it has been my privilege to work with him over several of those years. I reassure him that we have by no means forgotten about the long-term housing strategy and the 10-year national housing plan. I look forward to bringing those proposals forward in due course.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, of the 560,000 homes in the mayor’s plan, 340,000 are designated as affordable, but he has got the resources for only 50,000, as a result of which he is asking the Government for a lot more money. Given the response to the Health Secretary when she asked for more money, what are the prospects of the mayor getting the money he needs for affordable homes?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The money that has been put aside for social and affordable houses is a £39 billion pot, and I reassure the House that a significant amount of that—over £11 billion—will be spent in London. That is a significant example of the commitment that this Government are making to social and affordable housing.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not the case that the present crisis in housing can be traced back to the sale of council houses that were not replaced, and is that not one of the main causes that has driven up benefits costs to the nation as well?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank my noble friend as always for highlighting issues that he has been concerned about for many years. Many of us on this side of the House recognise that housing policy has simply not been good enough. We are talking about people’s homes, their quality of life and the impact on their children. It is time we really started to build on the green shoots of recovery that we are beginning to see.
Lord Redwood (Con)
Why have the Government and the mayor not taken more action to deal with the dreadful collapse in housing starts on their watch over the last two years in London?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I ask the noble Lord to be patient and wait for the mayor’s plan to be fully published to see the exact steps he is taking. We have already heard today of 10,000 extra homes because of the mayor’s intervention. That is a very promising start, and I look forward to more of those statistics coming forward.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, are the Government on course to deliver the 1.5 million new homes that were promised to the electorate in their manifesto at the last election?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord is referring to the target of building 1.5 million homes. We recognise that this is an ambitious target. We understand the stretch that is involved, but we are ambitious. We recognise the huge impact that the poor housing stock has on the people in this country, and we are determined to do something about it at pace.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, we have raised the issue of the layering of regulation and levies on development, making building unviable in many instances, particularly in London. Nick Cuff’s Prop Views said that the draft London Plan is “predicated on the assumption that gap-funding by the public sector will be required and will be delivered”— an assumption without precedent in his 40 years of experience. Does the Minister agree that viability is a key measure of soundness and cannot rely on additional government funding, and that the recently announced Conservative proposals to ease the burden of regulation, saving £50,000 per home, would help address this issue?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I do not think it is my place to comment on proposed policies from the Opposition, but I repeat that we recognise the challenges. We work very closely with developers around these issues, and we are determined to come up with a constructive way forward to deliver the homes that we need in the future.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
Can the Minister remind the House of the contribution and role that the Government’s new towns programme is going to play in increasing the production of new homes in the future?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue. As he will be well aware, in the spring we published the public consultation around the proposed new towns. The consultation closed early in the summer, and we are currently analysing the feedback received. The consultation marked the first formal step in shaping the new towns programme, the most important part of which is engaging with local communities around the opportunities, as well as the constraints, for development in each location.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I would like to press the Minister on one issue. It is great that we want to build homes in London, but there is a crisis of primary schools closing because of a lack of numbers. If we are to build these homes, we may end up with communities where there is no primary school. Could the Minister impress upon her colleague the Education Minister the need to look at the funding formula to ensure that these schools are there when we build new homes?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point about looking at all the impacts of housing development, and obviously education is a primary element of that. We know that the falling number of primary schools is due also to demographics. It is always challenging to get this right, but education is fundamental and will remain a key consideration.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister comment on whether any effort is being made to encourage small builders and the use of smaller plots of land within the London area?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Baroness regularly talks about small and medium-sized enterprises. I think that every city across the country absolutely recognises the role of those businesses. The Government want to make sure that they have every opportunity to thrive.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5413501.