House Building: London

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr French]

I absolutely agree. We need to unlock brownfield sites in the interests of current and future generations that want to own a home.

If there is any surplus profit in the situation I was describing, the developer will lose it, but if they make a loss, the number of affordable homes required will not be reduced. For a decade, London Conservatives have warned that this policy will harm house building. Today, we see the consequences. Sadiq Khan’s failed London plan has created a perfect storm, compounded by failing demand, policy costs and regulatory delays.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr French]

I am going to make a bit of progress, because I have been up and down quite a lot, and I am not fit enough to keep doing it.

Under this Labour Government, more and more first-time buyers are unable to afford a home, and they are the primary market for new builds in London. Over 3,700 new homes are sitting unsold. This is not a market where developers will build more. The Labour Government were wrong to slash first-time buyers’ stamp duty relief, costing first-time buyers up to £11,250 more in taxes. That is why the Conservatives’ plan to abolish stamp duty is the right one, and the Labour Government must rule out further market-suppressing tax rises.

Developers also face excessive policy costs—section 106 payments, community infrastructure levy payments, mayoral community infrastructure levy payments, carbon offset levies, biodiversity net gain requirements and the new building safety levy. The collective cost of those demands makes it too expensive to build. To make matters worse, on top of the burdensome London plan, the well-intentioned post-Grenfell Building Safety Regulator is now delaying building in the capital. It has rejected 70% of building safety designs, and some completed projects have had to wait 18 months for approval before people can move in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr French]

Again, I appreciate the point that the hon. Lady is trying to make. I have already outlined the Bexley position in response to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), so I do not need to go back into that—Bexley has been delivering affordable homes.

What can be done now? I am afraid that the recent measures announced by the Government and the Mayor of London—without consulting London’s 32 boroughs—to unlock house building are too little, and potentially too late. They will give developers only temporary, targeted relief from the community infrastructure levy on brownfield sites, but not from the more expensive mayoral levy. The changes to the affordable homes targets do not go far enough; at 35%, demand is still placed on industrial and public land, acting as a blocker on these sites that could host thousands of homes. While a temporary fast-track route for homes that provide 20% affordable housing is welcome, it is a minor amendment to a system that has ultimately failed.

More concerning are the proposals to give the Mayor of London the power to call-in applications for 50 homes or more and for developments on green belt and metropolitan open land. It is undemocratic to withdraw planning powers from local communities. It will backfire, eroding the little remaining public trust in the Greater London Authority, and it will confirm to outer Londoners that Labour’s plan is not to unlock building on well-connected brownfield sites, but to concrete over our precious remaining countryside.

[Andy Slaughter]

The problem I have with the hon. Gentleman’s speech is the implication that the Conservatives are in favour of house building, particularly affordable house building. I had the dubious distinction of having a Conservative council for eight years, which typically asked for 0% or 5% of homes to be affordable, and the Conservative Government’s permitted development rights meant that commercial property could be transferred into residential property with no affordable housing at all, even on major and important sites. Is that not the legacy of the hon. Gentleman’s party?

[Mr French]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but I understand the argument that he is trying to make. Ultimately, my position is that the way to get truly affordable homes is not by setting artificial targets; it is by building more homes across London. That is how we bring prices down and unlock home ownership for more Londoners across the capital.

Why should Sadiq Khan, who has comprehensively failed to get London building, be given more powers? As I have outlined, his London plan has made it too difficult and complicated to build in London, and as a result, Londoners face higher rents and unaffordable housing prices. Now he wants to build on the green belt, while brownfield sites near tube stations sit empty. This is completely unacceptable.

Sadiq Khan and the Labour party may boast about his house building record, but the reality is that four fifths of the homes that were built in London last year received planning permission under Boris Johnson. The same is true of the majority of homes that were started last year—they were approved under Boris Johnson, not Sadiq Khan. We are nine years into Sadiq Khan’s mayoralty, and his predecessor is still building or unlocking more homes than him.

The answer is not to build on the green belt, and it is not to let houses in multiple occupation conversions run wild or to take more powers away from local communities. It is to make it easier and cheaper to build in London again, and that means scrapping Sadiq Khan’s failed planning policies. Home ownership should be a dream that is open to everyone, but in Sadiq Khan’s London it is frankly not. It is a moral imperative that the Government step in to fix his mistakes.