, Labour’s Deputy Leader
and Shadow Housing Secretary, responding to news that
the Conservatives missed their annual house-building target again
last year, said:
“The Conservatives have failed to hit their housing target each
and every year since they set it. When swift and meaningful
action is required, this government is taking us backwards, with
fewer houses delivered than last year and a generation locked out
of a secure home.
“The next Labour government will jump-start planning and get
spades in the ground to deliver 1.5 million homes over the next
Parliament. Labour’s housing recovery plan will deliver the new
homes our country desperately needs.”
Ends
Notes:
- Today’s figures cover the period before recent changes to the
planning system, announced in December 2022, are set to come into
force.
Labour’s Housing Recovery Plan:
- Reversing changes to the National Planning Policy Framework
announced in December 2022, reinstating compulsory local targets,
strengthening requirements to maintain a deliverable supply of
housing land and the presumption in favour of sustainable
development.
- A Written Ministerial Statement with legal force
strengthening requirements to approve homes, stating we expect
authorities without up-to-date plans and if they fail key policy
tests.
- Intervening where local authorities don’t meet our
expectations, ranging from mediation with the Planning
Inspectorate, to use of ‘call-in’ and designation powers.
- As announced by the Shadow Chancellor, increasing capacity of
LPAs, hiring hundreds of new planners to agree local plans, paid
for by increasing tax on purchase of residential property by
foreign buyers, and greater use of Planning Performance
Agreements on large sites.
- As announced by Angela Rayner, increasing flexibility in the
Affordable Homes Programme so Homes England can support build out
of ‘stalled’ sites with planning permission with more social and
affordable housing, and reforms to the Section 106 agreements.
