Matthew Pennycook MP: speeches

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Speeches

13 Oct 2025 · Private Rented Sector: People Granted Asylum · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman is conflating two separate issues. Genuine asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status and who can stand on their own two feet and work will rent, in some cases in the private rented sector and in other cases in market housing. Some dispersal accommodation for those seeking asylum will, of course, be in the private rented sector, and that can add pressure to local rental markets. That is why decisions must be made in co-ordination with local authorities and taking into account local housing pressures. More importantly, that is why the reduction in hotel use needs to be proceeded with in an ordered and managed way, not the chaotic way that the Conservatives have been calling for.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that matter to my attention. He is right that I cannot comment on individual planning applications, but I will certainly look into the matter. I wonder whether he would write to me with further details in that regard.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I would be more than happy to do so.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I agree that we have seen unintended consequences of the 2010 CIL regulations—they have unfairly penalised some homeowners. I can only reiterate the commitments I gave him during that meeting. In principle, we are committed to finding a solution to this issue, and I am more than happy to meet him again and update him on the steps we have taken in the interim.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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We absolutely need to make housing affordable. One of the primary ways in which we can do that is to build more homes of all tenures, which is precisely what we are committed to doing. We can also boost the supply of social and affordable housing, which our social and affordable housing programme—worth £39 billion over 10 years—will do.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I am sorry to learn about the loss of social rented homes in that instance. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to reinvigorating council house building, and I direct her attention to the five-point plan that we published in July to deliver a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I am afraid that I am unclear about which particular site the right hon. Gentleman is referring to. Again, if he wishes to write to me, I would be more than happy to engage with him on the particulars of that case.
13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I will refer the hon. Lady’s comments about the warm homes plan to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. If she wishes to write to me with details of any particular cowboy builders, I would be more than happy to read what she has to say.
13 Oct 2025 · New Housing Developments: Infrastructure · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman knows that I am always happy to sit down and talk to him about these and other issues. It must be said that when preparing a local plan, planning practice guidance recommends that local planning authorities use available evidence of infrastructure requirements to prepare an infrastructure funding statement. Local authorities are not doing that in all cases, which is why the chief planner wrote to all local planning authorities recently to remind them of their statutory duty to do so. We can discuss that and other issues when I meet him.
13 Oct 2025 · New Housing Developments: Infrastructure · Hansard source
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I can give my hon. Friend that assurance; ours is a brownfield-first policy. She highlights an important point. The previous Government released vast swathes of the green belt in a haphazard and chaotic manner. We are taking a strategic approach to green-belt release, prioritising the release of the lowest-quality grey belt, and we are ensuring that where that happens, subject to our golden rules, we see higher levels of affordable housing and infrastructure. It is a much smarter approach. The previous Government did not adopt it, and they should stop carping about it now.
13 Oct 2025 · New Housing Developments: Infrastructure · Hansard source
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The national planning policy framework sets out that: “The purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the provision of…supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner.” We made changes to the framework in December last year that will support the increased provision and modernisation of various types of public infrastructure. Local development plans should address needs and opportunities in relation to infrastructure, and identify what infrastructure is required and how it can be funded and brought forward.
13 Oct 2025 · Housing Development Statutory Consultees: Water Companies · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman raises an apt point. I regularly meet colleagues from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to discuss a range of issues, including water efficiency and management. I draw his attention to the consultation we launched just last month to review the water efficiency standards in the Building Regulations 2010. As part of that, we are investigating how we can bring technologies such as rainwater harvesting into new developments safely.
13 Oct 2025 · Housing Development Statutory Consultees: Water Companies · Hansard source
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Water companies are not statutory consultees on individual planning applications, but they are consulted as part of the preparation of local development plans. On 26 January, the Government declared a moratorium on any new statutory consultees and announced a review of the existing statutory consultee arrangements. A consultation on proposals designed to limit the scope of statcons to where advice is strictly necessary and to remove entirely a limited number of them will be published in the near future.
13 Oct 2025 · New Housing Developments in Cheadle: Infrastructure · Hansard source
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As per my answer to question 4, the changes that we made to national planning policy last year were intended to support the increased provision and modernisation of various types of public infrastructure. When it comes to ensuring that necessary infrastructure is funded and brought forward in Cheadle or any other part of the country, we look to local development plans and infrastructure funding statements to address needs and opportunities.
13 Oct 2025 · New Housing Developments in Cheadle: Infrastructure · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of issues. The best way in which local planning authorities can protect themselves from speculative development is to have an up-to-date local development plan in place. He touched on developer contributions; we remain committed to strengthening the existing system to ensure that new developments provide the necessary affordable homes and infrastructure. We will set out further details in due course. When it comes to the prospective new town that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I gently point out that it was not the Government but the independent, expert new towns taskforce that recommended to the Government that Adlington and 11 other locations in England should be the sites for the next generation of new town. On 28 September, we commenced a strategic environmental assessment to understand the environmental implications of new towns, and that will support final decisions. But no final decisions have yet been taken.
13 Oct 2025 · Leasehold System · Hansard source
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The Government continue to implement those reforms to the leasehold system that are already in statute and to progress the wider set of reforms necessary to end the feudal leasehold system for good. We have brought into force a number of provisions in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, with more in the pipeline, and we remain on course to publish an ambitious draft leasehold and commonhold reform Bill later this year.
13 Oct 2025 · Leasehold System · Hansard source
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We remain committed to protecting residential freeholders on private and mixed-tenure housing estates from unfair charges of the type that the hon. Lady described. We will consult this year on implementing the 2024 Act’s new consumer protection provisions for the 1.75 million homes that are subject to those charges. We are committed to bringing those measures into force as quickly as possible.
13 Oct 2025 · Leasehold System · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend highlights that, as many of us know, the reality of home ownership for so many leaseholders falls far short of the dream. We absolutely agree that we need to strengthen the regulation of managing agents, to drive up the standard of their service. We are looking again at Lord Best’s 2019 report on regulating the property agent sector, particularly in the light of the recommendations in the final Grenfell inquiry report. We have set out a number of specific proposals in the consultation that I referred to in my previous answer. Our preferred approach in implementing mandatory professional qualifications is for agents to belong to a designated body, but all final decisions will be taken in due course.
13 Oct 2025 · Leasehold System · Hansard source
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We know that there are good managing agents who work hard to ensure that the residents they are responsible for are safe and secure and that homes are properly looked after, but we also know that far too many leaseholders suffer from poor service at the hands of unscrupulous managing agents. In our recent consultation on strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services, we consulted on powers to appoint a manager or replace a managing agent as well as on mandatory professional qualifications for managing agents in England. We think that those proposals strike the right balance, but we are analysing all the feedback we receive to that consultation.
13 Oct 2025 · Leasehold System · Hansard source
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I can assure the hon. Lady that we will tackle the injustice of fleecehold as part of the ambitious changes that we intend to make to the leasehold system, with a view to bringing it to an end in this Parliament. The consumer protection provisions in the 2024 Act, which I have already mentioned, will ensure that homeowners who pay an estate management charge will have better access to the information that they need to challenge the reasonableness of charges at the first-tier tribunal. There are other powers as part of those protections and, as I have said, we will consult on them shortly and bring them into force as quickly as possible thereafter.
13 Oct 2025 · Community-led Housing · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend has long championed co-operatives, and I recognise his commitment to expanding co-ops in London and across the country. With that example, he draws our attention to the benefits that they can provide. We are considering opportunities to legislate to establish a legal framework for a co-operative housing tenure, which would help formalise the rights and responsibilities of both co-operatives and their tenants, and make co-operative housing a more attractive option. As my hon. Friend will know, I am more than happy to discuss the matter with him further at a suitable opportunity in the near future.
13 Oct 2025 · Community-led Housing · Hansard source
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The Government recognise that community-led housing delivers a wide range of benefits. We strengthened support for it in the revised national planning policy framework published last year, and in March we announced a 10-year social finance investment to provide capital funding for community-led housing. As part of the development of our long-term housing strategy, we are considering how the Government might further support the growth of the sector.
13 Oct 2025 · Community-led Housing · Hansard source
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The hon. Lady outlined another benefit of community land trusts: getting local buy-in. The availability of land is an issue for CLTs. I have already set out some of the ways that we are supporting them through new investment. As the Secretary of State said earlier, the new social and affordable housing programme will be designed with the flexibility necessary to support a greater diversity of social and affordable housing supply, including community-led housing.
15 Sept 2025 · Provision of Council Housing · Hansard source
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And we have debated that issue on many, many occasions. I have given the hon. Member very detailed answers as to why, at this point in time, we have not set a target, but we will keep it under review. As I have said, boosting the supply of social and affordable homes is at the heart of our efforts to ramp up housing supply more generally, and because direct delivery by councils has been key to high rates of house building in the past, getting councils building again is an essential part of our strategy. On social and council housing, the Government have put their money where their mouth is. As the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire made clear, at the spending review we announced £39 billion for a successor to the affordable homes programme over 10 years from 2026-27 to 2035-36. I can confirm that given the priority this Government accord to social rented housing, at least 60% of homes delivered through the programme will be for social rent. Accurately forecasting long-term delivery is inherently challenging—that is one of the reasons we have not set a social affordable housing target to date—but we believe our grant-funded social and affordable homes programme could deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over its lifetime, with around 180,000 being for social rent. The programme will continue to support regeneration schemes that provide a net increase in homes. It will also permit a limited number of acquisitions. We know these two delivery avenues are important to councils, including those with older homes and those who are looking to rapidly grow their housing portfolios to deal with acute local pressures. We also recognise that certain types of much-needed social and affordable housing can cost more to deliver, including those built by councils. That is why the programme has been designed to be flexible in order to support the greater diversity of supply required, with councils encouraged not to self-censor when coming forward with bids. To improve financial capacity, to deliver new supply and support long-term planning, for the first time, we announced a 10-year social housing rent policy at the spending review. In addition, we have recently completed a consultation on how to implement a social rent convergence mechanism, the outcome of which will be confirmed at the autumn Budget. The inclusion of this mechanism will be beneficial to councils, with many authorities letting homes below formula rent. Both these measures will support their capacity to borrow and invest in new and existing homes. Beyond investment, we have developed a series of measures designed to enhance councils’ confidence, capacity and capability to deliver, and I want to cover some of them as they directly address the subject of the debate. As the hon. Gentleman is aware and has noted, one of the Government’s earliest acts was to introduce transformative changes to the right to buy. We want to retain a scheme that helps long-standing tenants to buy their own homes, but we could not ignore the detrimental impact the right to buy was having on existing stock and councils’ confidence to deliver new social and affordable housing. So we took decisive action to deliver a fairer, more sustainable scheme that provides better value for money and creates the certainty for councils to once again build at scale. Changes that have already come into effect include returning the maximum cash discounts to between £16,000 and £38,000. We have also enabled councils to keep 100% of their right to buy receipts for reinvestment in new and existing homes. But we will not stop there. Following consultation, we will legislate for a more comprehensive set of reforms when parliamentary time allows. These reforms will include a 35-year exemption from the scheme for newly built homes, and a first option for councils to repurchase homes acquired through right to buy if they are sold on. On top of this, from 2026-27, we will act on a long-standing ask from councils by allowing them to combine right to buy receipts with grant funding from the social and affordable homes programme. In addition to revenue generated from sales through right to buy and capital subsidy, we know how important borrowing is to councils’ delivery plans. Since 2023, a preferential borrowing rate has been available from the Public Works Loan Board for council house building. So far, this preferential rate has enabled councils to borrow £6 billion for investment in new and existing homes. I am conscious that this rate is due to expire at the end of this financial year, and recognise the calls from councils for long-term certainty. Considering this, we will confirm our approach to this discounted rate at the autumn Budget. Many of the measures I have mentioned so far relate to councils’ financial capacity, yet we know—the hon. Gentleman again mentioned this—that the challenges they face are not solely financial, and that as rates of delivery have declined in recent decades, so too have the skills and capacity of their housing teams. In response, in partnership with Homes England and the Local Government Association, we have launched the council house building skills and capacity programme, backed by £12 million of funding this year. This programme aims to upskill councils’ existing workforces, recruit and train new graduates to become qualified surveyors and construction project managers, and drive engagement with the social and affordable homes programme. To conclude, this Government remain firmly committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation. Within that commitment, we have prioritised the delivery of social rented homes, and we are taking steps to enable councils—whether those already delivering or those with closed housing revenue accounts who want to deliver—to once again build at scale. We have achieved an incredible amount over the space of just 14 months, but there is much more to come. We will continue to engage with councils and pull every lever at our disposal to increase their confidence, capacity and capability to deliver the social homes that low-income families across the nation need to live, grow and build a better life for themselves. Question put and agreed to.
15 Sept 2025 · Provision of Council Housing · Hansard source
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The hon. Member will know that we have not set a target as things stand, for the reasons that we have debated on many occasions, but we keep the matter under review.

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