Matthew Pennycook MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I have a lot of time for the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that sort of hyperbole is beneath him, if I may say so. We are not absolving the Mayor of London of his responsibilities. The previous Government put in place a system whereby the arbitrary 35% urban uplift applied not merely to the core of a city region—as it does in every other part of the country—but to every London borough. That produced a fantastical figure that was completely divorced from reality. We have abolished that urban uplift and reset the standard method. That still leaves London with an incredibly stretching target of 88,000 homes per year, which is more than double recent delivery. We want to work in partnership with the Mayor of London, but we will be pushing him to increase his ambition for what can be achieved in London, and his delivery. We place great importance on agricultural land and food production. The national planning policy framework remains clear that where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer-quality land should be preferred to those of higher quality. Those protections remain in the framework.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To be clear, the reforms to the planning system that we are making today are not the only part of the answer; delivery of homes is an entirely different challenge from bringing forward planning permissions. We need to over-supply planning permissions into the system to get the number of homes we need in his constituency, and across the rest of the country.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  As I have said, we are giving a considerable amount of thought to what more we can do, in addition to the changes being made today, to ensure that the right infrastructure comes forward. I am happy to give the right hon. Gentleman’s point serious consideration.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  As I made clear in my response to the shadow Minister, our approach to agricultural land remains the same. Ours is a brownfield-first approach. We want to maximise delivery on brownfield first, wherever possible. Only when that type of delivery cannot come forward—where brownfield sites cannot be densified, or where cross-boundary strategic co-operation of the kind we intend to introduce is not possible—will we ask local authorities to review their green belt, with a view to identifying and releasing the lowest-quality, most poorly performing land within it.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend may know, the new method produces a figure for London of nearly 88,000. That is more than double recent delivery, and it constitutes the biggest proposed percentage increase against delivery in any region in the country by a significant margin. We expect London to step up and improve its housing delivery record. As for my hon. Friend’s specific question, it will be for London and the Mayor to consider how the aggregate local housing numbers are distributed across the whole of London. Because there is a spatial plan in the form of the London plan, the targets for individual London boroughs need to be viewed in that context. The same cannot be said for other parts of the country.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  In the formal Government response to the consultation, which will be published at the end of this statement, we set out very clearly how we are dealing with local authorities at an advanced stage of plan preparation—both those that will meet the regulation 19 stage requirement and those that will not —and how we will help those with up-to-date plans to top up their housing supply so that they come closer to the new standard method. I share my hon. Friend’s wish that her local authority takes steps to close the gap.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for those questions and for her broad support for the framework we have announced today. On social rented housing in particular, she is absolutely right. The previous Conservative Government’s record on social rented homes is absolutely dire. The figures speak for themselves. Not only did they fail to deliver new social affordable homes beyond anything more than 10,000 units a year, but they engineered the decline of social housing and ran down our stock through various interventions, including the slashing of affordable homes programme funding and increased generosity in the right- to-buy discounts, which my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister did not benefit from. We have returned the discount to the rate at which she accessed housing. The Conservatives’ record on social rented housing speaks for itself. On future investment in affordable housing and social rented homes, as I have said, we will set out details in the multi-year spending review next year. We want to prioritise the delivery of social rented homes given the important role they play in addressing the housing crisis, and in resolving the particularly acute end of that crisis in the form of temporary accommodation. On the NPPF more widely, I can give my hon. Friend those assurances. The targeted changes to the framework we have made today will support the delivery of infra- structure. As I have already said, when it comes to the release of green-belt land, our golden rules will ensure that we get a higher proportion of affordable housing, and also infrastructure and amenities and access to green space through that additional public benefit.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  That question sits slightly outside the framework, although, as I said, there are targeted changes to support the delivery of new affordable homes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have to do more about the decency of the existing social housing stock. We will be consulting on a new decent homes standard in the new year, as well as introducing Awaab’s law to clamp down on the most severe hazards.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I think the hon. Gentleman slightly misunderstands the situation for urban authorities. The housing targets are going up across metro areas.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I gently say to the hon. Lady that the expectation of having an up-to-date local plan in place is nothing new. Authorities have known for some time that they should be doing that. It was a failure of the previous Government that they did not use the powers at their disposal to ensure there was more up-to-date local plan coverage. Those areas that do not have up-to-date local plans in place will be vulnerable to development taking place outside the plan process, but we are committed to supporting those who share our ambition and are working in good faith to get a plan in place to be able to do so.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that the situation we are in, with an acute and entrenched housing crisis and an ailing planning system, is not just blighting lives but holding back our economy and the way our great towns and cities can maximise their potential. This is a growth-focused national planning policy framework, and we are very proud of it.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. There are local authorities around the country where the boundaries are such that they stray into areas where environmental protections are in place, such as national parks and other things. Local areas will need to engage with the mandatory higher housing targets that we are bringing forward when coming up with local plans. Those local plans will be tested by the Planning Inspectorate to see whether there are hard constraints of the type he speaks to and therefore whether a plan is sound on that basis. Hard constraints will still be taken into account in the development and examination of local plans.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman’s request has been put on the record and I will make sure that my ministerial colleagues are made aware of it.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I am not sure I detected a question there, but there were several points. I will endeavour to respond to at least a few of them. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s broad support for the framework and, in particular, for renewable energy deployment. On the charge that we are bypassing local democracy and local communities, I refute that entirely. We are encouraging, in the way that the previous Government did, the adoption of up-to-date local plans that are the best means of shaping development in any particular part of the country. That is where local people and communities can get involved to determine what development looks like and where it goes, but it must be a conversation about what development looks like and where it goes, rather than whether it happens at all. Under the current system, as a result of the NPPF changes in December 2023 and the fact that we have less than a third up-to-date plan coverage, there is too much speculative development outside of plans, which communities are rightly taking issue with. On social rented homes, as I have said to the hon. Gentleman previously, until he comes up with a less vague way of funding 150,000 social rented homes, we simply cannot take the point seriously. The Liberal Democrats got away with having no housing spending totals in their election manifesto. I applaud the ambition, but we take a more realistic path to boosting social and affordable homes, putting forward only what we know we can deliver within the spending constraints that we face. Lastly, I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to reform how CPO works. We are taking forward the discretionary power to disapply hope value that the previous Government took through—I commend them for doing that in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. We need that power tested, but we need to go further and we intend to do so in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I support that objective, but I gently say that the previous Government had 14 years to address concerns in this area. I remember repeated calls from Conservative Members at the time that the previous Government should get serious about this. We will. There are measures in the framework that support infrastructure delivery, but there is more work to do.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  Where appropriate, local councillors, with advice from trained planning officers, should of course have a say on major outline applications. Some of the proposals we are asking for views on—we are asking for nothing more than views at an early stage, on a working paper—are about ensuring we get planning officers taking the right decisions using their expertise, with members focused on the largest and most controversial developments. I do not know if the hon. Gentleman has ever sat on a planning committee, but can he say, hand on heart, that every reserved matters application, as technical as some of them can be, should come to full planning committee? We think there are ways to streamline the system that do not involve the removal of local control and that adhere to the plan-led system philosophy that we are taking forward and value very much.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we have added text to the NPPF to encourage the incorporation of features to protect threatened species, including swifts, but also bats and hedgehogs. We will consult on the NDMPs in the spring of next year.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  The previous Government, as the hon. Gentleman may know—again, I commend them for it—appointed an older people’s housing taskforce “to look at options for the provision of greater choice, quality and security of housing for older people.” That taskforce recently published its report, with a series of recommendations that we are engaging with. However, we need to give serious consideration as to how the planning system evolves to take into account demographic changes that we know we need to adapt to.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  There is more to be done in this area, and SMEs and small sites can make a huge contribution to the 1.5 million home target. There are changes that have been published today in the framework that will help SME builders, not least the focus on mixed- tenure sites that we know build out faster and where SMEs can play a big role going forward.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Contrary to the crowing by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) about the Opposition’s record on home ownership, the rates are stagnant and they are particularly bad for the younger generation. We have a generation locked out of home ownership. We are taking action in that area, not least through our plans to take forward a comprehensive and permanent mortgage guarantee scheme. One of the largest contributory factors, although not the only one, at the heart of why housing is unaffordable, is our failure over many decades to build enough homes of all tenures. Going forward, the framework will support our target of 1.5 million new homes.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that I cannot give either, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will add the invitation to the list of requests for visits that I receive from Members across the House. However, I commend the hon. Lady’s local authority for its focus on quality and good design. We want to see more of that across the country.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  There are measures in the framework that will help to achieve the objectives that we both seek. The Government are also committed to strengthening the existing system of developer contributions, so that we hold applicants to the promises they make as part of section 106 agreements, while arming councils to better negotiate with them in the first place.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I refer my hon. Friend to my previous answers on our targeted changes to the framework to strengthen expectations around brownfield development. We are in the early stages of a consultation, through the working paper, on proposals for a brownfield passport, and we are exploring how we can go further to prioritise and fast-track the development of that land. We absolutely want to work with local areas to look at where brownfield sites might be densified and at how we can get the majority of development through that route, where possible.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for some of his responses, and for those questions. I am glad that he broadly supports the Government’s target of 1.5 million homes. As he will know, the previous Government did not achieve their target—300,000 homes a year when disaggregated—once in 14 years. There were so many inaccuracies and misleading statements in that response, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the framework that we have planned, that I am not sure where to start. The assertion that we are waging war on rural England or that we have distributed housing targets predominantly towards rural areas is simply wrong. We are focusing— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Gentleman might wish to listen to the response and focus on the detail of the framework that we have published. We are focusing growth across our city regions. Housing need across mayoral combined authority areas will increase by over 20% compared with the current standard method. Similarly, on the green belt, it is not the case that we are allowing viability assessments—I was very clear in my statement. We are restricting the use of site-level viability assessments on green belt release until we have refreshed viability planning policy guidance in the new year, at which point we will consider exemptions for previously developed land and large sites. We prioritise the importance of up-to-date local plans. We inherited a system from the previous Government of less than a third up-to-date local plan coverage. That is unsustainable. We want communities more involved at an early stage, shaping their local plans. That is the best way that they can shape development. The hon. Gentleman mischaracterises our working paper proposals on planning committees; as we discussed at length in the urgent question earlier in the week, we are simply talking about streamlining the planning system to ensure that trained, professional planning officers take the appropriate decisions, and elected members get to focus on the largest and most controversial applications. I am not going to respond to the taunt about sites in my constituency.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  Well-designed places remain at the heart of planning policy; as the right hon. Gentleman will know, an entire chapter of the NPPF remains devoted to well-designed places. The changes we are making to the presumption today will ensure that when it comes to national policy on design, those expectations need to hold in the balance of decisions that the Planning Inspectorate makes. There is much more we can do outside of policy. In the new year, my Department will bring forward updates to the national design guide and national model design code. As part of those changes, we will make clear our expectations about what local authorities can do to improve the quality of design.