Gareth Bacon
MP for Orpington · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and to take part in this debate about the impact of changes to the national planning policy framework. At the outset, I thank the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing this important debate.”
“Furthermore, it has shown that England’s brownfield sites are increasing in number, land area and minimum net dwellings—up 54%, 6% and 34% respectively between 2018 and 2024.”
“A future Conservative Government will employ a genuine brownfield-first approach rather than releasing swathes of green belt or relabelling it under the murky and disingenuous designation of “grey belt”. We will not just pay lip service to brownfield development, but prioritise it and make it easier. That can and will be done.”
“The Prime Minister has told us that it means low-quality land made up of “disused car parks”, but that is far from the truth, because, for too many sites, grey belt is simply a façade for releasing green-belt sites for urban sprawl and overdevelopment.”
“As I pointed out in this place yesterday, the Government’s own figures show that the number of net new additional dwellings in England was just 208,600 in Labour’s first year in power—a 6% drop from 2023-24 under the last Conservative Government’s final year in office.”
“It covers everything from roads to housing, local communities to land use, and provides the overarching checks, balances and direction in the planning system. We are not in blanket opposition to everything that the Government are seeking to do with the NPPF.”
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“We have pointed out that the Government’s efforts to reach that unrealistic target appear geared towards removing as much local input into decision making as possible, and towards shifting development from brownfield sites in cities and urban areas, where demand and infrastructure exists, to rural areas, where demand is often lower and infrastructure is far less well provided or even non-existent. That brings me to the Government’s new towns policy, about which, as it is currently framed, we have significant concerns, which I will touch on shortly. At the Labour party conference at the end of September last year, the Secretary of State pledged that the Government would go ahead with work on new towns in at least 12 locations.”
“I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this important debate, and to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for bringing it forward. I have been rehearsing the name of her constituency in my head for quite some time, and I have made a mess of pronouncing it right from the outset, so I apologise to her. I also thank the 16 hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. It seems that every time I return to this place, the Government have fallen further and further away from justifying their increasingly mistaken belief that they can deliver on their 1.5 million homes target. No one believes they are going to reach such a lofty, albeit much- needed, figure.”
“Finally, as the Opposition mentioned in the final stages of the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, the Government should add to their growing pile of U-turns and reverse the damaging blows the Chancellor and the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), dealt to the housing market and the construction market through their unholy trinity of economic decline, tax hikes and cuts to demand-side housing policies. Only through a genuine brownfield-first approach and a reversal of the damage inflicted by No. 11 and the former Secretary of State will the Government succeed in protecting our countryside and get on to building real homes properly connected with the right facilities that people actually want.”
“If the Government want to see urban regeneration or densification done right, they can follow Conservative examples and pursue brownfield first, not greenfield first, as the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), highlighted at the Conservative party conference. The Government need look no further than the Olympic Park in east London—a brownfield site transformed into a superbly connected hub of housing, business, retail and leisure that was completed under Boris Johnson as the Conservative Mayor of London. It was the same with Canary Wharf under Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine, when the old, dilapidated docks were completely regenerated, revitalised and reborn.”
“I agree. It would be a great tragedy if the Government push on with their new towns policy and simply think that their brownfield passport will solve everything, because by having fewer developments on brownfield sites and some developments on greenfield sites, we will end up losing the precious green belt and still not delivering the amount of housing we need. That would be an own goal from the Government, so I hope they will take this point away and do something about it. The Government need to look further and faster at the proper development of brownfield land, rather than ripping up the green belt and steamrolling over local democracy, local voices and local communities. Recent history shows that this approach works.”
“Incredibly, the Government’s response has been to cut their floundering mayor’s housing targets by 11%, but skyrocket targets in outer London authorities, where the vast majority of greenbelt land is. That includes an increase of almost 400% compared with previously approved London planning targets in my local council area of Bromley. Will the Secretary of State please explain why people living in places such as Bromley and our local greenbelt must pay the price for Sadiq Khan’s decade of failure and uselessness?”
“At the outset of the Secretary of State’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), one could be forgiven for thinking that we had an entirely new Mayor of London. In fact, this year we celebrate, or perhaps more appropriately commiserate, a decade of Sadiq Khan’s tenure as London Mayor. In that decade, in the most prosperous city in Europe, Sadiq Khan has overseen not just stalling but consistently falling rates of private construction starts. Recent figures from Molior show that London began building just 3,248 new homes in the first nine months of 2025, leaving it on track to start building fewer than 5,000 in total in 2025.”
“The Secretary of State said last year that his own job should be on the line if he fails to meet his housing targets, so why does he not practise what he preaches, do Londoners a favour and tell sorry Sadiq to pack his bags over his decade of failure?”
“What the Secretary of State did not say is that local boroughs are not in charge of building out planning consents, and he did not acknowledge that London boroughs are subject to the London plan. The Secretary of State claims that he is working with the Mayor of London, who writes the London plan, to build more homes, but unlike the Secretary of State, the facts do not heed the mayor’s spin. According to Molior, there were just 3,950 new homes sold in London during the first half of 2025 and just 3,248 private housing starts in the first nine months of 2025, against a nine month target of 66,000.”
“That is why we are clear that local voices, and not just those in Whitehall, must play a key role in any planning decisions. Having heard the important testimonies of Members from both sides of this House, I believe that is especially the case for developments such as quarries.”
“As the Government railroad their Planning and Infrastructure Bill through Parliament, it is increasingly clear that the planning system that they are not just envisaging and planning for but actively creating is one in which it is much harder to raise local concerns. As I mentioned at the start of my speech, it is vital that the economic benefits of quarries are properly realised. That is especially the case when more homes are needed right across the country in the light of the Government’s failure to build anything close to the target for their first year in office. However, His Majesty’s Opposition do not believe that local people and local democracy should suffer for that. The Government are eroding trust in the planning system and widening the gulf between themselves and local people.”
“Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) presented a Bill on this very topic in 2023. I recall his concerns about small rural roads—rural infrastructure that is completely unsuited to the task—facing 100 or more lorries a day. I know that many hon. Members from across the House have shared or could share examples and figures to much the same effect, and I hope the Minister is listening to those examples closely. In assessments of planning applications for quarries or anything else, the views of local people are not a burden; they are among the most important factors. Putting local people and local concerns high up the agenda is a long established and democratic precedent that successive Governments have followed. However, I fear for local voices under the current Administration.”
“The code states in respect of regulation 16: “Barriers are appropriate where it is reasonably foreseeable that members of the public, including children, are likely to trespass on the site and could suffer injury if they did so… where there is evidence of persistent trespass by children which places them at significant risk, sophisticated metal paling fences may be required.” It is not just the quarry site itself that should be considered when a quarry is proposed; consideration of the impacts on local people and their local area must extend to transport concerns. The approved code of practice makes it clear that “Where site vehicles cross a footpath or turn onto a public highway, particular consideration needs to be given to safeguarding the public. This may involve discussions with the planning, highway or police authority.” My hon.”
“All those kinds of accidents have been recognisable health and safety concerns in quarries, and the 1999 regulations sought to prevent their number from being higher. There must be safeguards to protect the local people and local communities who suffer health and safety risks from quarries without ever even working in them. For example, it is important that proper safety procedures are discharged when planning permission is granted for quarries. That includes proper adherence to paragraphs 135 and 137 of the approved code of practice on the 1999 regulations.”
“The application of these safeguards, namely the health and safety aspect, is currently governed by the Quarries Regulations 1999, which include an approved code of practice. The regulations define our quarries as “an excavation or system of excavations made for the purpose of, or in connection with, the extraction of minerals or products of minerals, being neither a mine nor merely a well or borehole or a well and borehole combined”. We are, therefore, talking not just about small sites or eyesores, but about vast landscapes of machinery, dust, industry, and health and safety risks. In 2024-25, falling from a height, being trapped by something collapsing or overturning, and contact with moving machinery accounted for 65 fatal accidents at work in the UK, or 67% of the top five most common fatal accidents.”
“That is why the national planning policy framework has long made it clear that those factors are critical to assessments of the planning conditions for quarries. The current draft says that, in areas of mineral extraction including quarries, minerals planning authorities must always keep the health of local communities and people in mind, alongside the potential impact on “the natural and historic environment”. That includes making sure that “unavoidable noise, dust and particle emissions and any blasting vibrations” are accounted for, ensuring that their impacts are mitigated and controlled. It is always important that such safeguards are in place when a new quarry is proposed or when opportunities for expansion are explored.”
“Furthermore, we are a nation in need of more homes to help make the dream of home ownership a reality for people up and down the country; we are in need of more buildings; and we are in need of more infrastructure. Quarries are a key factor in providing many of the materials that our nation needs to build more of those things. Having said that, the Government already have 2,000 active quarries at their disposal, and I am not sure what number the Minister would need to get close to the Government’s increasingly distant target of 1.5 million new homes. Despite that, it is important to recognise that no two quarries are the same, and that their context—be that their economic value, social impact or environmental footprint—is always of great importance when considering planning permission.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and to take part in this debate about planning policy for quarries. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for securing the debate. I appreciate that many hon. Members on both sides of the House have local examples and experience of this issue, and I thank those who spoke before me for sharing their experiences and those of their constituents. Our quarries and mineral extraction sites are of great economic importance to the UK. Nationally, we are rich in key mineable materials such as lithium, nickel, tungsten and rare earth alloys.”
“The Government railroaded their Planning and Infrastructure Bill through Parliament and are now following up with this statement. It is increasingly clear that the planning system that this Government are not just envisaging and planning for, but actively creating, is one in which such local concerns are much harder to raise. His Majesty’s Opposition do not believe that local people and local democracy should suffer for that. The Government are eroding trust in the planning system and widening the gulf between the Government and local people. That is why we are clear that local voices, not just Whitehall’s, must play a key part in any planning decisions. We will continue to scrutinise the framework as the Labour Government implement it, and we will hold them accountable as it begins to negatively impact local communities.”
“In that context, what is a “well-connected station”? The Minister proposes “action to secure a diverse mix of homes” and “stronger support for rural social and affordable housing”. What form will the support take? What regulations will the Government relax or scrap to support housing delivery? What incentives will they offer to get brownfield development actually to happen? Finally, the views of local people are not a burden in assessing planning applications; they are among the most important factors. Putting local people and local concerns high up the agenda is a long-established and democratic precedent that successive Governments have followed. However, I fear for their voices under the current Administration.”
“It is clear that, because of Labour’s failure to build homes on brownfield land, it now has residential gardens in its sights. The Government should be prioritising and incentivising brownfield development first, and making it easier to build on brownfield sites in cities and urban areas, but they are not—they are only paying it lip service. If Labour really wants homes to be built where they are needed, it should think again about how its planning framework will actually deliver. There are many questions about the Government’s approach, but time is short, so I will restrict myself to four. The Minister states that there should be “a default yes for suitable proposals for development of land around rail stations within existing settlements and around well-connected stations outside settlements, including on green-belt land”.”
“This is not a good sign for Labour’s first year in office, and now this Labour Government are intent on ignoring the voices of local people up and down the country while imposing top-down housing targets, disproportionately in rural areas, and tightening their grip through Whitehall-imposed targets. The reality is that Labour is prioritising building on rural areas while claiming that it is grey-belt land. It is now returning to something that the previous Labour Government did, namely garden grabbing. The previous Conservative Government removed the top-down diktats that forced councils to demolish gardens, but the Minister has just promised “the redevelopment of low-density” residential plots, introducing higher buildings at street corners and “infill development” within “residential curtilages”.”
“It clearly prefers to target building in rural areas, while not building in the cities and urban areas where demand is highest and much of the necessary infrastructure already exists. At the current rate of house building under Labour, which is at a dismal low, the Government will fail by some distance to meet their target of 1.5 million homes. House building is falling under Labour, with the number of additional dwellings delivered in 2024-25 falling by 12,810. If the delivery of net additional dwellings continues at this rate, Labour will deliver its target not by the end of this Parliament but in seven years’ time. This Labour Government’s record on house building is dreadful—they delivered fewer homes in their first year in office than we delivered during a global pandemic.”
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. This Labour Government’s last planning framework began pushing development on to rural areas, prioritising concreting over the green belt and green fields rather than focusing on supporting building in urban areas, which is where we need to build most. From what the Minister has just said, it sounds as though the Government are going to double down on this approach with an all-out assault on the green belt. Over the past decade in London, under its abysmal mayor, Labour has conspicuously failed to build the right amount of housing, and now it is going to fail to build the right kind of housing in the right places in the rest of England.”
“What metrics will the Government use to assess the success or otherwise of the strategy? Will the Government report back to Parliament on progress regularly, and if so, with what frequency? We all want the strategy to work. In that spirit, His Majesty’s Opposition will engage constructively with the plan and scrutinise it as it is implemented.”
“The homelessness strategy has only just been published, and we will of course study it carefully, but I have some initial questions for the Minister. With the Government demonstrably failing to meet their housing targets, what guarantee is there that they will meet their new target on homelessness and halving long-term rough sleeping? How will they make that promise cast-iron? The Government are pushing more responsibility on to local authorities by requiring them to publish action plans, in addition to the homelessness strategy. How will that help? Will it just result in more paperwork? The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), promised to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824. Is that still the plan? If it is, will the Minister set out a clear timeline? The strategy mentions various new targets.”
“Only by making a concerted effort to reduce the cost of living and make private housing more affordable will the Government get people out of temporary accommodation and into secure, long-term homes of their own. However, the Government are determined to spend ever increasing amounts on welfare, increase taxes and make it harder to employ people, and they must square that with the negative impact on people’s jobs. Labour promised to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament, as the Minister mentioned again today. To make good their promise, they must build 300,000 new homes per year, but with only 208,600 delivered in 2024-25, they are already 91,400 behind their self-imposed target. That does not bode well for the future.”
“The previous Government implemented StreetLink to provide more support for those who are sleeping rough or those concerned with someone who is sleeping rough. It connects local authorities and charities, and provides quicker support to those who need it most. We welcome the Government’s taking action, but we need to see details of how the plan will be implemented in the long term to achieve their goals. Homelessness has reached a record high in the past year, with the number of households including children in temporary accommodation surging to historic highs. St Mungo’s estimates that long-term rough sleeping is up by 27% in London. It is vital that the Government look at the wider picture to see all the connected pressures.”
“Although progress to that end was made under the previous Government, work remains to be done, and I offer my full support to the Government in their desire to end homelessness once and for all. As policymakers have increasingly come to appreciate, homelessness does not simply begin when someone finds themselves on the street. Rather, it is rooted in long-term causes. For example, some people have persistent issues with mental health or substance abuse, offenders may be stuck between prison and the streets with no place to go, or young people may leave the care system without a fixed destination. I am pleased that inspiration for cross-departmental working has been taken from the previous Government’s “Ending Rough Sleeping For Good” strategy, which brought seven Departments from across the Government together.”
“I thank the Minister for her remarks and for advance sight of her statement. This is the third time that I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue of homelessness with the Minister in the last seven weeks. I do not doubt that all hon. and right hon. Members here today share a strong desire to end rough sleeping and homelessness for good. Homelessness is a social tragedy wherever and for whatever reason it occurs. No one in our society should be forced to live on the streets, and it is incumbent on us all to do our best to ensure that our constituents can live in a safe, decent and secure home. The Minister’s reference to the horrendous figure of how many men, women and children have died while being homeless is a poignant reminder of why decisive action is critical.”
“I sincerely hope that she will be able to take them on board and use this opportunity to effect real change, unlock the housing market, and transform the Building Safety Regulator into the trusted, pro-growth and pro-development body that it has always been intended to be and that I am sure we all want to see.”
“As the Building Safety Regulator moves from the Health and Safety Executive to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Government have an opportunity to make genuine reforms to the operation of the Building Safety Regulator. It is very important that that opportunity is seized. As I suggested in the previous debate, improved dialogue with applicants, more guidance on the applications process, machine-readable submissions as standard and an electronic file management system will all go a long way to creating a Building Safety Regulator that works faster and more efficiently, but without any compromises on standards, equality and safety. Thank you, Ms Vaz, for the opportunity to make these points to the Minister.”
“That is because, beyond gateway 2, around 70% of the applications that get through the Building Safety Regulator’s processes are rejected, compared with the roughly 10% to 15% of applications that get rejected in the wider British planning system. Schemes are now often delayed for 38 weeks longer than the two-week target time for approval, with 60% of adversely affected schemes in London, the city with the highest need and the greatest demand. With the lowest number of additional homes for nearly a decade, the Government have left themselves on track to fall well short of their target. Blockages resulting from the Building Safety Regulator are one part of the problem, but not the only one.”
“The CPA states that that is “paralysing projects”. The non-executive chairman of the Building Safety Regulator shadow board, Andy Roe—a man I know very well from my London City Hall days—appears to agree with the CPA. Earlier this year, he said that the gateway regime had “very real challenges and issues at gateway 2” and involved a process that was “designed in good faith that does not work”. I recognise and welcome the Government’s announcement in June this year that they are working to reform the process and to solve the issues, but that alone will not be enough. It will certainly not make up for the severe shortfalls in their ambitious yet increasingly impossible-looking target for 1.5 million new homes by the end of the Parliament.”
“In far too many circumstances it is preventing rather than aiding the building of those safe and decent homes. It has become a constraint on building—an all-too-large part of the increasingly muddled puzzle of red tape that now actively prevents Britain from building. According to the Construction Plant-hire Association, severe delays to a key safety approval process have stalled more than 150 high-rise residential construction projects across the UK. The CPA has stated that that has been caused by the bottleneck stemming from the gateway 2 regulatory checkpoint introduced under the Building Safety Act 2022. That is because the gateway 2 regulatory checkpoint currently requires developers to gain sign-off from the Building Safety Regulator before construction can begin on high-rise schemes.”
“As I said in a Westminster Hall debate a month and a half ago, which the Minister will remember, the Building Safety Regulator was set up with the best of intentions in the aftermath of the tragic loss of 72 lives in the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017. I believe there was collective agreement on that point. The original intention behind the creation of the Building Safety Regulator was for it to play a key role in regulating high-risk buildings, to raise the safety of all buildings, and to help professionals working in the sector, thereby fulfilling the Government’s duty to provide safe, high-quality and decent homes for the public to live in. None of those are contentious objectives. Along with other Members in that debate, however, I made the self-evident point that the Building Safety Regulator is not functioning as intended.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, for, I believe, the first time. I welcome the opportunity to sit opposite the Minister again, and I appreciate her remarks. His Majesty’s Opposition views the Government’s decision to transfer the oversight of the functions and institutional workings of the Building Safety Regulator from the Health and Safety Executive to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to be a sensible one, and we will support it today. However, if the move is to be successful and effect real change in how the Building Safety Regulator operates in the housing market, it must ensure that the shift in oversight brings improvements in delivering remediation, standards of safety and the best outcomes for local communities.”
“His boss, the Secretary of State, knows this, having admitted today that the Government will need a sharp increase in their current run rate if they are to meet the target of 1.5 million homes that they promised in their manifesto—a target that, according to his Department’s own figures, they are currently missing by a long way. Some improvements to the Bill have been made during the parliamentary process, including the Government’s concession on Lords amendment 33, which we are discussing today. We are grateful that the Government have moved on this question, and we will not seek to divide the House on it this evening.”
“When we last came to this House to consider the Lords message a couple of weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner outlined the Opposition’s key concerns regarding the Bill, not least that it fails to satisfy the three tests that we have consistently used to judge how it could help to unlock the housing market, make the necessary reforms to administrative and bureaucratic burdens, and create a dual incentive for communities and developers to embrace more homes and infrastructure. As will now be abundantly clear to the Minister, it is the continued position of His Majesty’s Opposition that the Bill fails on all three counts.”
“It is a privilege to present some of the Opposition’s final words on what I am sure the Minister will agree has been an extensive effort on both sides of the House to debate, scrutinise and amend the Bill. In the light of that, I particularly wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) for his efforts; he has worked tirelessly to push the Government to make this Bill fit for purpose. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who has made invaluable contributions throughout the whole process, both in this place and in Committee. Finally, I congratulate the Minister on seeing the Planning and Infrastructure Bill through its parliamentary journey, although I am hesitant to pour too much praise on many of the aspects of the Bill itself.”
“The Government had the chance to fix this Bill, to support infrastructure projects, to back community voices and to deliver the homes that the British people need, but they have not done so. The Housing Minister recently declined to rule out further planning legislation in this Parliament. If that comes to pass, let us hope that next time, he and his colleagues listen to industry, the voices in this House and our local communities, and do what he knows to be right.”
“The triple blow—with a Chancellor running our economy into the ground while hiking taxes and a Government cutting demand-side policies to support first-time buyers—has left the country without a clear pathway to the lofty promise of 1.5 million homes. Don’t just take my word for it: throughout this process, the OBR, the Home Builders Federation, the National Federation of Builders, Britain Remade, the Countryside Alliance, Professor Paul Cheshire, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and many more industry experts and organisations, have raised concerns, either about the Bill or about the Government’s ability to meet their housing target more widely.”
“Ripping up the green belt is not the answer, which is why my colleagues and I have called for the swifter redevelopment of brownfield sites. This is not least because, according to CPRE, in a substantial number of local authorities there is enough brownfield land with planning permission to meet the targets set by the Government’s standard method for calculating housing need for at least the next five years. This is something that the Bill and this Government have failed to explore. Across two Secretaries of State, several junior Ministers and almost a year of parliamentary time, the Government have pushed these measures through using their majority, but without using their common sense. Many provisions in the Bill still leave the market, home buyers, developers and local communities wanting.”
“This is despite clear warnings from the Home Builders Federation that the Government must provide help for first-time buyers and reduce taxes on new homes if they are to achieve anything close to the tally of 1.3 million homes by the end of the decade that was predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility in March. Let me turn to nature—something I know many MPs have received emails about. The Bill still lacks the clarity and the answers that nature lovers seek to legitimate questions about how we reconcile the delivery of new homes and infrastructure with the need to protect our natural environment. This is most evident when we consider the Government’s focus on removing legal protections on green-belt land.”
“No I do not—not fully; I will return to that answer in more detail in a couple of moments. As a prime example of what more could have been done, the Bill could have addressed the democratic deficit it creates. It strips powers away from elected councillors and gifts them to unelected planning officers, as well as giving more powers to the Secretary of State. That, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg when we consider the clear contempt shown for local democracy as the Government prepare to cancel yet another round of local elections. The Bill also fails to support both those building and buying homes—no amount of centralisation in the Bill will counter the Chancellor’s failure to meaningfully support growth and cut costs.”
“It certainly does not help that councils are being punished and losing money for the crime of being comparatively well run when they are still trying to play their role in providing temporary accommodation to those 126,040 households.”
“Friend the Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly) has called their “unfair funding” model for local authorities the Government are funnelling money away from councils predominantly in the south to send to councils predominantly in the north. It is hard to see that as anything other than a partisan cash grab and a punitive targeting of many well-run councils, especially penalising those who have historically kept council taxes low and controlled spending better. Some of the most affected areas, including the south- east, are witnessing a large rise in homelessness and simultaneously a potentially catastrophic drop in funding thanks to the fair funding policy. How does that reconcile with the need to go further to tackle this soaring issue? The answer is that it does not.”
“Much of the responsibility and funding for tackling homelessness lies with local government. Bills for homelessness accommodation have soared to £3.8 billion across 2024-2025—a 25% increase in a single year. There are now a record number of people in temporary accommodation, including 169,050 children in England—a 12% increase in a year. The result of that is that councils are now warning that homelessness poses one of the biggest threats to their financial viability. Homelessness is a statutory demand-led and highly acute pressure on local government. The Government’s answer so far has not been to provide more support, but to take money away from many councils as part of their so-called fair funding formula. In introducing what my right hon.”
“312WH.] That was a central focus in the last Government’s approach which produced £2.4 billion of funding to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness including the rough sleeping initiative and £547 million over the period from April 2022 to March 2025 before schemes such as the RSI were rolled up into one by the current Government. The rough sleeping initiative provided locally led tailored support and services for rough sleepers, providing direction and strategy at the most local levels. The Minister’s Department has so far failed to provide itself and its fellow Departments with a national strategy. Simply spending money will not do the job, and funding without purpose or direction can actually damage efforts to achieve the critical goal of ending homelessness.”
“They have introduced some additional funding: a £69.9 million uplift to the rough sleeping prevention and recovery grant, an additional £10.9 million for supporting children experiencing homelessness, and £3 million for the rough sleeping drug and alcohol treatment programme. The funding is welcome, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said in his opening speech and others have mentioned, funding must come with strategy and purpose and that is something we are yet to see. As I said in this Chamber in October: “prevention must be at the heart of any national strategy for tackling homelessness”. —[ Official Report, 21 October 2025; Vol. 773, c.”