Gareth Bacon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  That is very well put by my right hon. Friend. The Government do nothing to prioritise building. The Bill will not add a single social home to the housing stock. The Government are seeking to heal an illness before they have properly diagnosed it, and are offering a solution to a problem to which there is already an answer. If they were serious about reforming the right to buy and building more homes at the same time, perhaps they would look at how proper management and effective reinvestment of receipts could lead to an increase in housing supply, especially on brownfield sites. As my colleagues in the other place noted, it is better for everyone and for the economy if we make two homes out of one. Through efficient, productive and successful management of right-to-buy receipts, we can both sell a family home and support a family on the waiting list into another one. As homelessness peaks at record levels and the number of children in temporary accommodation reaches a dizzying summit of 178,000, it beggars belief that the Government are not looking at that more closely. However, I recognise that house building is not an overnight fix; it takes time, but for many families on the waiting list, that is something they simply do not have. We must therefore consider how best to free up existing stock to support those most in need.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I listened to what the hon. Gentleman said. Of course, one of the things we do not get from Government Members is any commentary at all about the state of the economy in 2010, after 13 years of their party being in power. The public finances had to be right-sized—the country was heading towards bankruptcy. They are happy to disown their record and criticise everybody who followed, but perhaps it would be slightly more honest if they prefaced their arguments with an acknowledgement of that.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Draft Building Safety Levy (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I welcome the opportunity to sit opposite the Minister—I am pleased to be able to call her that—whom I congratulate on her appointment to the role. I warmly welcome her to her place and appreciate her remarks on the regulations. The Opposition stand alongside the Government—and, I am sure, with Members from across the House—in saying that building safety and remediation are critical tasks. We cannot be a world-leading economy or global power and still have citizens who live in—or, worse still, are trapped in—homes that have been rendered unsafe. People’s homes are the very places that they should feel safest. I therefore agree with the Minister on the need to make buildings safe, and I recognise that the building safety levy is intended to play a part in doing that. When assessing the regulations, we must consider the juncture at which we find ourselves. I was pleased to support plans for the Grenfell Tower Memorial earlier this year, and I welcomed the constructive tone adopted by Members from across the House and the value of the wider discussions about remediation and building safety during that debate. As the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), highlighted in that debate, Government figures show that work to remove and replace unsafe aluminium composite material cladding—the type used for Grenfell Tower—has been completed for 91% of high-rise residential and public buildings with such cladding, and remediation work at most of the remaining sites is progressing. That is good news, as is the fact that Committee members are here to discuss and debate how to complete that task. As I said, I recognise the role that the building safety levy is intended to play in that mission, which needs to be completed, despite the extensive progress made under the previous Conservative Government and under Labour Administrations since 2024. None the less, the Opposition have concerns about the levy and, more germanely, about the specifics of the regulations. Perhaps the most pertinent is the deep concern that I and many colleagues share about the potential impact of the levy on the building of more homes. As we have debated back and forth many times before, this country is currently in the midst of a significant housing shortage. The Government’s own impact assessment raised concerns about the viability of sites, as this additional cost is added to pre-existing development costs. The Minister is right to say that developers have known about the change for some time, but that will not mitigate the impact of the cost when it arrives. That is especially the case in areas where residential land value is lower, as the impact assessment highlights. The Government have previously stated that that is why: “Levy rates have been set such that rates are lower in areas where house prices are lower and viability is more stretched.” I do not believe that the levy in isolation will cause house building to grind to a halt, but I am deeply concerned that, when costs in many parts of the country are already too high, yet another cost to development takes us another step closer to a critical—perhaps even fatal—moment for house building. We must remember that the housing industry is already paying, among other things, a 4% surcharge on corporation tax, worth £2 billion; a voluntary self-remediation pledge, worth more than £4.1 billion; and reimbursements to Government funds, worth more than £700 million. Those totals, alongside other measures, are worth almost £7 billion—more than double the value of the funds expected to be raised by the levy. The Home Builders Federation examined the proposals and found that developers are staring at a potential average additional cost of £2,320 per unit when building new homes. In London, the increase amounts to more than £3,00. As the HBF stresses, that is on top of the myriad other average additional costs, including £10,220 per unit for the future homes standard, £2,000 per unit for the proposed changes to landfill tax rates, £5,700 per unit for biodiversity net gain, £7,700 per unit for building regulation costs, £2,055 per unit in taxes and £37,000 per unit for materials and labour. Inflation on relevant building materials has exceeded 40% since 2020, and labour costs rocketed after the employer national insurance hike was introduced. We in this place have a duty to ensure that everyone can live in a safe and decent home, and remediation is a critical aspect of that. If these costs continue to layer and swell, however, we will eventually bury the affordability of new homes beneath the unaffordability of the costs that come with building them. That is not just a fear for the future, but one that I worry has already joined us in the present in some parts of the country—not least here in London, where new housing starts over the past two years are at negligible levels, despite record levels of housing demand. The Minister, who is like me, a Greater London MP, knows that to be the case. I acknowledge that safety, affordability and viability are a difficult triumvirate to harmonise, but the Government are on track to miss their target by up to 400,000 homes across the lifetime of this Parliament, so it is clear that something must be done differently. Finally, I turn briefly to an issue that I believe cuts to the heart of future viable housebuilding in the UK: brownfield development, which the Minister touched on. I welcome the fact that the draft regulations recognise the importance of getting more homes built on previously developed land, especially as that has not always been recognised by Labour Members. The Opposition acknowledge that a 50% reduction in the levy for brownfield sites is a positive step on paper. However, the definition of brownfield land under the national planning policy framework means that 75% of it must be previously developed, while these draft regulations now clarify the treatment of fixed-surface type infrastructure and unlawful operations, and exclude from the definition wholly underground buildings and underground parts of buildings, That leaves me concerned that we will see fewer buildings falling under the scope of brownfield land, and therefore fewer buildings benefiting from the rate reduction. I look forward to the Minister’s clarifications on that point and on my concerns about the potential impact on house building. As I have said throughout these discussions, it is vital that all sides of the House work together towards a constructive, viable and affordable system of house building and remediation. That is essential for a safer future and safer homes, for the ownership and security of personal welfare, and for a fairer system in a modern society in which we never leave a single one of our constituents living in a home they know is not safe and secure.