Matthew Pennycook
MP for Greenwich and Woolwich · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on securing this debate.”
“I will address the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s specific question in due course. Before I do so, I want to put on the record the policy in relation to villages. He can rest assured that I will address the point; if he is unsatisfied, he is more than welcome to intervene again. A number of hon. Members mentioned villages.”
“I will say two things in respect to that, and I will come on to detail how the approach works in relation to decision making very shortly. In general terms, developers can make whatever claims they like about any particular site across the country; it is for the local authority to assess whether, in its view, that site constitutes grey be…”
“and learned Gentleman’s point about what is likely to constitute grey-belt land. Let me directly address his other two specific points. Is this a significant policy? Absolutely, and it has been judged as much by the Office for Budget Responsibility and other external commentators. Is it deliberate? Absolutely. We want, as the right hon.”
“Where authorities may wish to restrict development in villages for other reasons, a range of tools are available, such as conservation areas or normal development management policies. On the right hon.”
“We have to put in place policies that, through the decision-making route, allow homes still to be brought forward in that interregnum, but then we have to push heavily to drive towards universal plan coverage. At that point, the protections are in place.”
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“Unless the Secretary of State directs otherwise, a draft SDS must be examined by a person appointed by them. The matters to be examined are for the examiner to determine, and the examination does not have to cover every aspect of the proposed strategy. The draft national planning policy framework sets out that the purpose of the examination should be to assess that relevant procedural requirements have been met and that the strategy is sound, alongside any other matters that the examiner considers appropriate. Draft regulation 2 will amend section 114 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act to allow the Lord Chancellor to make rules under section 9 of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992, governing the procedures for examinations. Any such regulations will support the effective examination of a strategy.”
“SDSs, as we discussed throughout the progress of the Bill in Committee, are not big local plans; instead, they will be high-level spatial frameworks for housing growth and infrastructure investment across sub-regional areas. They will be able to identify broad locations for development and establish the infrastructure required to support it, and they will be able to redistribute housing and other development needs between local planning authorities. The draft regulations make two minor, consequential amendments to support the implementation of the new strategic plan-making system, which we intend to commence later this year through a package of regulations. The first amendment concerns the procedure to be followed during the examination of a spatial development strategy.”
“The Act inserted a new part 1A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, placing a requirement on strategic planning authorities—be they mayoral or non-mayoral strategic authorities, or upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities—most of which, but not necessarily all, will be grouped together to prepare a document called a spatial development strategy, or SDS. An SDS will form part of the development plan that local planning authorities must determine planning applications in accordance with, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Local plans produced by local planning authorities will be required to be in general conformity with the relevant spatial development strategy.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 27 April. The Government were clear in their manifesto that housing need in England cannot be met without planning for growth on a larger-than-local scale. That is why we committed to introducing effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning. To honour that commitment, we legislated for an England-wide system of strategic plan making in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in December last year.”
“That is where decisions about which sites are appropriate come within the context of national planning policy—a “brownfield first” national planning policy. As the shadow Minister knows, we strengthened the policy requirements on previously developed land in our December 2024 update to the national planning policy framework. We have gone even further in the new NPPF, on which we have just consulted, and we will respond in due course to that. These are very high-level spatial development strategies. We do not want them all to be London plans; if they were, that would not represent success. London has very particular development needs. The legislative basis for SDSs is the London framework, but as I have said these plans are much more high-level. We are not aiming to replicate the London plan across the country.”
“The other simply requires marine plan authorities to notify strategic planning authorities as well as local planning authorities that they intend to make a marine plan. I hope that that clarifies what the two amendments are about. On the points made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, I do not want to relitigate all the debates we had in Bill Committee; I well understand the concerns expressed by Opposition Members about local input. It is important to reiterate a couple of things. Spatial development strategies will not allocate individual sites. As I said, they are high-level frameworks for housing growth and investment—they are not big local plans. Local plans will have to conform with them, but local planning authorities still have to develop local development plans.”
“I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their considered contributions and questions, which I will try to address in turn. It is first worth making clear that the two minor and consequential amendments before us do not implement the new strategic plan-making system. We will bring forward a package of statutory instruments in the autumn to switch on the main provisions of that system. As I made clear in my speech, the two minor and consequential amendments do two very simple things. One provides for the Lord Chancellor to make examination rules. The final content will be clear when we lay those rules, which we intend to do in the autumn; they will be largely technical and procedural in nature.”
“It is being made so that we can ensure that, in areas where a marine plan abuts a spatial development strategy area, there is co-ordination and that the marine plan can be taken account of in decision making by the strategic planning authority producing the SDS. I consider these to be simple, straightforward, minor and consequential amendments. We will have a chance to debate more fully the more substantive amendments that come when we establish the new strategic plan-making system.”
“Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes knows, marine planning is the process for managing the use of marine resources in a sustainable and co-ordinated manner. It ensures that the right activities happen in the right place, at the right time and in the right way. To encourage sustainable development, marine plans guide those who use and regulate the marine area, while considering the environment, economy and society. Marine plans operate alongside land-use planning systems to ensure a holistic approach to managing the coastal and marine environments. The six marine plans in England cover 11 marine plan areas. I come back to the specific change we are making through this amendment: it is just a notification—no veto is involved on the part of the strategic planning authority.”
“Members will know, in February and March the Government undertook a national consultation seeking views on proposed geographies for which spatial development strategies should be produced. That included proposals about which authorities will be grouped together under a strategic planning board. We intend to publish a response to that consultation in the summer. Regulations will be needed to establish each strategic planning board. Before the regulations are laid, the affected authorities must be formally consulted. We intend to begin laying regulations to establish those boards after the summer recess, as I said; at that point, we will confirm the geographies. Local people will have a chance to input into the strategies, whether they come through the individual authorities involved or the mayoral link. As my hon.”
“All will have a duty to produce a spatial development strategy. Those authorities, as I said, are known as strategic planning authorities. The Government, however, will be able to group any of those authorities together to jointly produce a spatial development strategy, through a committee known as a strategic planning board. In those areas where, for example, a mayor is not in place and there is not an obvious geography to take forward an SDS, a combination of authorities will be put together to come up with an SDS through a strategic planning board. Each authority will have a voice on the planning board. I should touch on the geography of an SDS. As hon.”
“We have, to the extent that marine plans impact on spatial development strategies; I will outline the relationship when I respond to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. To be clear, the regulation power that we are talking about is a simple notification requirement on SDSs to ensure joined-up plan making. The Crown Estate is involved with marine plans, obviously, and I will set out how many there are across the country and how that relates, but this is a simple change in scope. I touched on brownfield land. I want to make clear where the democratic input comes from and who has to produce spatial development strategies: combined authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral; combined county authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral; upper-tier county councils; and unitary authorities.”
“The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not take a sideline into a philosophical discourse on the meaning of a strategy or of a report that I do not think he named and I do not think pertains to my Department. We are introducing a system of strategic planning, on which I think there is widespread consensus across the House. The removal of any effective mechanism for cross-boundary co-operation has caused a variety of issues. The duty to co-operate does not work effectively and we have to put it back in place. The draft regulations allow us to do that. On that basis, we will have a series of SDSs that provide a high-level housing growth and infrastructure framework.”
“If the right hon. Gentleman wants to write to me about the whole of Government report that he cites—I do not think that he has mentioned the title—I will happily consider some of the lessons learned from it and how they might apply to my Department. On that basis, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.”
“The Government continue to implement those leasehold reforms that are already in statute and to progress the wider set of reforms necessary to end the feudal leasehold system for good. In respect of the latter, the King’s Speech confirmed our intention to introduce the substantive commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, which will include fixes to the small number of specific but serious flaws in the previous Government’s Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her advocacy on this issue. Homeowners should not be subject to unfair management charges or poor standards of service at the hands of managing agents, and I commend her for bringing this case to the House’s attention. Our recent consultation on enhanced protections for homeowners on freehold estates closed on 12 March, and we are analysing the feedback received alongside continuing to develop plans to strengthen the regulation of managing agents.”
“My hon. Friend has considerable expertise on leasehold reform, and he is right to press for clarity on this important matter. To commence the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act’s enfranchisement provisions, we unfortunately do need to fix the flaws he refers to through new primary legislation, and we will do so in this Session. In the interim, we will need to establish what capitalisation and deferment rates to set, and I am pleased to tell him that I am aiming to launch a consultation on those in the coming weeks.”
“As you will recall, Mr Speaker, this is not the first occasion on which I have had to mention FirstPort at the Dispatch Box. We need to drive up standards across all managing agents. I shall be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and a group of other Members, as she suggests, to discuss this particular provider in more detail.”
“As the hon. Lady is—hopefully—aware, the last Government asked Lord Best to chair a working group to look at the regulation of property agents in the round. We are giving careful consideration to the recommendations in its report, with a view to strengthening the regulation of managing agents. If the hon. Lady will write to me with more details about that specific case, I will look into it.”
“While I remain committed to ensuring that any Bill put forward is robust so that we do not have to fix problems in primary legislation, as we had to in the case of the 2024 Act, I am seized of the urgency of both presenting the Bill and commencing the ground rent provisions as quickly as possible.”
“I commend my hon. Friend, the other members of her Committee and its officials for the thorough piece of work that they have done in scrutinising the draft Bill: that will make for a better Bill when it is introduced. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not comment on press speculation but merely build on what I said in my letter to her of 8 June, namely that the Committee and the Government are of one mind when it comes to the necessity of making progress with the substantive Bill as quickly as possible so that we can transform the lives of leaseholders.”
“The hon. Gentleman is as charming as ever, but all I can say to him is what I say in respect of this and many other issues: I am more than happy to help our counterparts in Northern Ireland to learn from the very good work that this Government are doing in relation to leasehold reform.”
“As I have said to the hon. Gentleman on previous occasions, I have a great deal of respect for him, but he has some front in standing up and accusing this Government of dithering when it comes to leasehold reform. The Conservative party had 14 years in which to end the system, and did not do it. It raised expectations, and let leaseholders down. We are going to end the system within a Parliament. We are going to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. We will respond to the Select Committee, and will set out further details in the near future.”
“As you are aware, Mr Speaker, the Government recently consulted on a new national planning policy framework. That consultation included proposals designed to promote healthy communities. We are currently analysing the extensive feedback received and will publish our response in due course.”
“I am in full agreement with my hon. Friend on the importance of local green spaces. Such spaces are vital community assets that provide significant benefits, not only for physical and mental health but to mitigate growing challenges, such as the urban heat island effect. Although I cannot speak for other Government Departments, the new NPPF recognises the importance of safeguarding local green spaces and ensures that such spaces are excluded from the definition of grey-belt land.”
“If the right hon. Gentleman would not mind sending me details of the two cases in question, I am more than happy to sit down and have a conversation with him about how he thinks those decisions interact with the proposals set out in the recent consultation.”
“The plan-led approach is and must remain the cornerstone of our planning system, and we have been very clear that we expect all local planning authorities to make every possible effort to get up-to-date local plans in place as soon as possible. To support LPAs seeking to protect their communities from piecemeal and speculative development by getting up-to-date plans in place, we distributed £19.8 million following the publication of the revised NPPF in December 2024. We recently supplemented that funding with a further £15.7 million through our local plan implementation fund to support nearly 200 local planning authorities to progress plan development.”
“I am afraid I refute the assertion the hon. Gentleman makes about what the NPPF will do to local plans. We do need local plans in place, and as I have said, the plan-led approach is the cornerstone of the system. The NPPF kicks in where in certain instances authorities do not have an up-to-date local plan in place, which is the case for far too many. I am very pleased that his local authority has taken the steps necessary to get one in place as soon as possible.”
“My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We have spoken before about the importance of rural exception sites and what more can be done. In the NPPF consultation, which I have referenced, we set out proposals to strengthen rural exception site policy. As I have said, we are analysing the feedback received before we can set out the next steps.”
“National planning policy makes clear that planning decisions should minimise potential adverse impacts resulting from noise. Associated planning practice guidance sets out that good acoustic design needs to be considered early in the planning process.”
“Building regulations already require protection against sound or reverberation in houses, flats, buildings that have residential rooms and schools, but I am always open to considering how sound insulation standards might be improved in new builds. I would work on any further information my hon. Friend might send to me about the referenced projects in her constituency, including the Oscar Acoustics innovation centre.”
“My Department is working closely with the Department for Transport to consider reforms to adoption and highways frameworks. We also recently consulted on reducing the prevalence of private estate management arrangements, including proposals to increase the adoption of estate amenities such as roads on new developments. That consultation closed on 12 March and we are analysing the feedback received.”
“Those cases sound particularly egregious, and I am sorry to hear about them. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the detrimental consequences of declining road adoption rates. The Department for Transport is reviewing barriers to adoption, with a view to identifying improvements and informing future reforms, alongside the consultation that I referenced. When it comes to individual local authorities, to put it mildly, some are better than others—we know that—and Central Bedfordshire obviously has some ground to make up. That is one of the issues we are considering as part of the policy development process in respect of that consultation.”
“We will do better than that. As part of our consultation on ending the prevalence of those arrangements, we specifically consulted on what more we can do on common adoptable standards, and we are exploring mandatory adoption for certain public amenities in certain circumstances. If the hon. Gentleman has read the Competition and Markets Authority report into the issue, he will know that the two are essential; we cannot mandate local authorities until we have common adoptable standards. If that is the route we go down, we have to do them at the same time.”
“Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government engage regularly with ministerial colleagues across Government in relation to a range of housing policy matters. We continue to consider what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to respond to the pressures created by short-term lets, as well as second homes.”
“To be clear, there is no credible solution to the housing crisis that does not involve significantly boosting housing supply, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to argue that the distribution of homes in any given area has a significant bearing on housing availability and affordability. As she knows, the Government have already made changes to the tax system to reorientate the housing markets away from second-home owners and investors and towards local people looking for homes to live in. While I cannot commit to future legislation, I assure her that we continue to consider how best to ensure that local planning authorities have the full set of tools they need to manage challenges of the kind described by my hon. Friend.”
“My Department is not responsible for the national registration scheme for short-term lets. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is responsible for that and is committed to implementing it as soon as possible. When it is implemented, the scheme will capture any property used as short-term rental accommodation, importantly including second homes that operate as short-term lets.”
“Event fees should be fair, transparent and communicated effectively. The Government continue to give careful consideration to the recommendations set out in the final report from the older people’s housing taskforce, including in respect of implementing the Law Commission’s 2017 recommendations to regulate event fees.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question—this is a really important issue. We consulted on a package of measures last year to strengthen leaseholder protections, including on the use of event fees, and will hopefully be responding to that consultation in the near future. More broadly, resale values are influenced by a range of factors, but the older people’s housing taskforce commented on resale values and on what might be done, and produced a series of recommendations, which we are carefully considering.”
“As I have just made clear, we are looking carefully at resale values and the recommendations made by the older people’s housing taskforce in this area. I wonder whether both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) might send me some of the examples they have referenced, as any evidence we can get on how this issue is affecting homeowners and their families across the country would be incredibly useful.”
“It was remiss of me not to welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place, and I do so now. He has diligently pursued the issue of conveyancing and buying and selling over many months, not least in his role on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. I cannot go further at the Dispatch Box than saying that we are carefully considering the recommendations from the older people’s housing taskforce, but I am more than happy to sit down with the hon. Gentleman and discuss this issue if he would like to do so.”
“Me again, Mr Speaker. We remain focused on implementing the five-step plan we published in July last year to deliver a decade of social and affordable housing renewal. We received incredibly ambitious bids for our £39 billion social and affordable homes programme and are in the process of assessing them with a view to a timely announcement of allocations. As Members will know, our Social Housing Bill, which will give affordable housing providers the clarity and confidence they need to build more social homes, is also making good progress in the other place.”
“My hon. Friend is right. I would go further than she did: I think the previous Government deliberately set out to engineer the decline of social rented housing, not least through the reforms that they made to the right to buy, which we are reversing through the Social Housing Bill. As I made clear, we received ambitious bids from affordable housing providers across the country, including in the north-east. That will allow councils and housing associations to start using the grant to build at scale once again.”
“The Government remain committed to the principle of tenants and leaseholders taking over certain management functions from their landlords, and following a review of arrangements for the oversight of tenant management organisations, we intend to take steps to make it easier to do so. Statutory guidance sets out a process for intervening in cases of mismanagement, but as part of our reform agenda, we will strengthen governance and oversight, including by providing stronger safeguards in cases in which tenant safety is at risk.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this alarming case to my attention. We are clear that as we look to make it easier to establish TMOs—we want to do so; there are some very good ones out there—we must strengthen governance and accountability. I assure her that as part of that effort, the Secretary of State and I will be giving specific consideration to how extreme cases of mismanagement might be brought to an end, as a mechanism of last resort.”
“I thank the shadow Minister for that reasonable and apt question. We do need confidence in the system. Many tenant management organisations provide excellent resident-led housing services, but it is right that councils can intervene if things go wrong. Powers to intervene in cases of serious failings are included in the management agreement between councils and TMOs, but as I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), we are reviewing where we can go further on governance and accountability to ensure that the right safeguards are in place.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his constructive engagement on the new towns programme, and on Tempsford in particular. It helped to inform our approach, including to the decision that new town proposals will contribute to meeting the identified housing need of relevant authorities in all instances. We are assessing options for delivery vehicles across the proposed sites, with a view to ensuring that each is best placed to drive delivery and secure essential infrastructure in a timely manner.”
“As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are in the process of establishing the greater Cambridge development corporation. We will set out further details, as we did just a few days ago, about its development management powers, its planning powers and the specific sites that it will look at.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. I appreciate fully his concern about the potential mass eviction of his constituents. It is precisely so that private tenants can enjoy greater security, including the growing number of older people who now rent their homes, that we abolished section 21 no-fault evictions. I am happy to meet him to discuss the case further and what more support we might provide.”
“We meet a range of stakeholders through the water delivery taskforce. I understand that, in response to Canterbury’s local plan consultation, the Environment Agency has recommended close liaison between the local authority and South East Water to ensure that planned housing growth is located where additional water is available to supply new development.”