Local Government Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Dr Murrison. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) for securing this important debate.

It was also a pleasure to hear from everybody’s honourable friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). It is not the first time he has come here and said, “I know that Northern Ireland is not covered by this, Minister, but perhaps our experience can be instructive,” but boy was he right today. There are two key questions, and he highlighted the importance of the first: “Why do this at all?” With all the attention it needs, it will take away from other priorities, at a time, in particular, when we are about to have huge changes to the system for special educational needs and disability. There are also the costs involved. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar) said, it is a question that literally no one was asking, and the answer was not in the Labour manifesto.

Even if we accept that there can be reorganisation, we must ask: “On what basis?” In East Hampshire, this plan will break up communities, take away local identities and put people into new artifices. It will take the people of Horndean, Clanfield and Rowlands Castle and put them into a new super-council area centred on Portsmouth, with the rest of East Hampshire going to a vast area called the Mid Hampshire unitary authority, all for an uncertain and quite likely negative return. In plain English, that means that local people will end up paying more.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) mentioned, the Government set out clear criteria for reorganisation, which included a focus on sustainability of high-quality services and a minimum scale of 500,000—that number did not come out of nowhere; it came from a serious piece of work by PricewaterhouseCoopers about the minimum scale needed to deliver services—and, crucially, that the building blocks of the new organisation should be existing districts and boroughs. It was on that basis that local leaders engaged in the process. They were not clamouring for it—leaders in Hampshire were not knocking down the door of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government saying, “Please reorganise us!”—but they engaged in good faith in the process.

Nick Adams-King, the leader of Hampshire county council, set out a summary of conditions for change, including that any new structure must be sustainable financially, operationally and democratically. He said:

“It must be capable of delivering high-quality services”

and

“resilient enough to manage demand in adult social care, children’s services and SEND.”

Crucially, he said, it must have “a balanced tax base” and “reflect real communities”, and

“not create winners and losers by stripping growth, infrastructure and income from area to shore up another.”

I do not think I could put it any better than that, but that is not what has happened. There were three different options in Hampshire, with different rationales for them. In theory, the fewer the unitary councils, the bigger the cost savings, but Hampshire county council and my district council in East Hampshire preferred the middle option, which was to have four authorities—a balance between delivering savings and reducing risk.

There has been a big disagreement about the analysis of those different options by different people looking at them. Crucially, we do not know the Government’s own analysis of the different options for carving up Hampshire and why they chose the one they did. We do know that, of the different local authorities, two on the mainland are smaller than the 500,000 minimum. Of course, the Isle of Wight is smaller again, although there are unique circumstances there.

We know that there are substantial costs. Although there will be some economies of scale in things moving from district level to unitary level, there will also be diseconomies of scale in things moving from county level to unitary level, and those are the things with the biggest cost pressures in our system. People worry what this will mean for housing. All the local plan work was done on the basis of the existing district councils; now, that will not work. People worry about the loss of local knowledge. Parish councils are concerned about the implications for them.

Crucially, there is the question of identity and cohesion. I already mentioned Horndean, Rowlands Castle and Clanfield being split off into Portsmouth, and this is also a concern, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East said, for parts of the New Forest, for Test Valley and for Winchester. The Minister has spoken of how identities grow over time. These are entities that have been in place for at least 50 years, around which other organisations have organised themselves. Charities and other public sector organisations organise themselves around district and borough boundaries, and these changes will inconvenience them.

If the Government insist on proceeding, the process will need time and sober assessment, and for local authorities to come together to find consensus on the way forward. This is not a trivial question; it is about some of the most important things in our lives, such as the care for our ageing mums and dads and for the children with the highest needs and vulnerabilities. It is a long-term decision. This will not have an effect for three or five years; it will have an effect for decades.

We need to start by knowing on what basis the Government made their decision. We cannot very easily argue with it if we do not know what it is. The letter from the 16 council leaders mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) makes a very reasonable ask: that we should know the Department’s own analysis and feasibility assessment. I say to the Minister simply: please, show us your workings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Forster]

I can do, but obviously I am going to pass over to the Minister in a bit.

If there are to be such monumental changes to the way we operate and run our society, we need to consult local people. Repeatedly, through this entire process, local views have been disregarded. Back in April, hundreds of people staged a protest against plans that would split the New Forest area into two mega-councils, as has already been referred to. More than 13,000 unhappy residents signed a petition calling for New Forest district council to take legal advice and pursue a judicial review. Local government reorganisation should be driven by councils and local areas, not dictated to by London. We are told that LGR is about efficiency and a fresh start, but the reality on the ground looks like absolute chaos. If anything, it is a setback.

We need look no further than Woking. Surrey county council was planning to make Arnold Road and Eve Road in Maybury safer and nicer, but the scheme has been kicked into the long grass and the council will not engage with me or the local residents it consulted about the plans. It has been palmed off on West Surrey council, which is being created next year. That is shocking. The situation is a prime example of how local government plans are grinding to a halt. Essential infrastructure is on pause as Ministers and civil servants reshuffle the system. LGR is causing delays and frustrating the lives of local people, who should not have to watch their community services decline while councils try to guess the future. That is all happening with no leadership or direction from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

The issues are rife elsewhere too. Shropshire council spends 80% of its budget on social care. It is a prime example of the financial pressure facing local services. Alongside underfunding, it has also had its funding cut. Care for the elderly is such a huge burden, because 25% of its population is over 65, and the lack of transport and other local services makes the provision of social care even harder.

The Government’s LGR is making it more difficult for areas to build homes, as councils are having to concentrate on LGR rather than the national housing crisis. My local authority, Wokingham borough council, has just started to draft a new local plan where local people get to decide where we build the homes we need. But next year it will be abolished. Labour’s manifesto pledged to build 1.5 million homes. Now it is making it more difficult for local areas to build and risk reneging on that manifesto promise.

Alongside the local plan, since coming to power in Woking, the Liberal Democrats have been trying to fix the mess left by others. Last year I helped secure a £500 million debt write-off from Woking’s debt that we inherited from the Conservatives.

[Damian Hinds]

Half a billion pounds?

Proposed Visitor Levy

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the proposed visitor levy in England.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Efford. It is also great to see the Minister in her place; we have a very highly regarded Minister to respond to the debate. She is a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Minister, but she will be responding on behalf of the entire Government, as Ministers always are when responding to debates in Parliament.

This subject touches on a number of Departments: the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is the sponsoring Department for tourism, but the debate is also relevant to the Department for Business and Trade, because of the trade considerations and export earnings; the Department for Transport, for obvious reasons; the Department for Work and Pensions, as tourism is one of the biggest employers in the country; the Home Office, which issues the visas; the Foreign Office, which is responsible for our international relations and soft power; the Cabinet Office, which owns the GREAT campaign; and, of course, the Treasury, which takes an overall view of taxation and is responsible for ensuring economic growth.

The proposed visitor levy is another measure that was not in the Labour manifesto—indeed, up until very recently, Ministers were actively saying that they would not introduce it. There has been limited debate on it and, although there has been a consultation, it was on how, not whether, the levy should be implemented. There are many different aspects to think about. There are the effects on the cost of living—it would push more people to take holidays abroad rather than staying at home—and the effects on youth unemployment and local economies. I am sure colleagues across the Chamber will make a number of those points; they are relatively straightforward points to land. I will focus on one that is not quite as easy to land, but that I think is just as important: the role of inbound international tourism into our country, the contribution that makes to the economy and the necessity not to hamper that.

There is a natural inclination among humankind to want to see more of the world. As societies, and the world as a whole, get richer, one thing we can guarantee is that travel and tourism will grow—in fact, they grow faster. For every 1% of world GDP growth, we see between 1.5% and 2% of growth in world tourism. Travel and tourism become an ever-enlarging part of the world economy, and—this is relevant at a time when we often worry about structural changes coming to labour markets—they are largely, although not entirely, AI-proof. Travel is also just a good thing. It brings people together for everything from family reunions to forging new business relationships and partnerships. Travel is good for the soul: people can discover new places, people and experiences, and there is opportunity to unwind and to see the world differently—literally—and as a result are able to think differently.

Domestic tourism is good for all those reasons. Of course, it is also very important for individual colleagues’ constituencies and their local economies.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Is the issue not also about the way the economy is balanced? The truth is that some areas of the country, including Hartlepool, will struggle to bring people in with their tourism offer compared with others. A tax such as this actually drives money and investment away from areas that need it most. Is that not why such a holiday tax is bad for constituencies such as Hartlepool?

[Damian Hinds]

That is one of a number of worries I have about this proposal; I am grateful to the hon. Member for putting it in such a rational and straightforward way.

I was coming on to say that international inbound tourism scores even more highly because, counterintuitively, tourism into this country is an export. In classical Keynesian economics—if I may appeal to the Government side of the House in that way—it is an injection into the circular flow of the economy. It is not spend that is displaced from some other activity; it is a net increase in economic activity in our country, which means that it is a net creator of jobs.

For the Exchequer, tourism is particularly attractive because tourists are on average very low users of public services. However, while they are here, they spend money not just on their travel and accommodation, but on their food and beverages, their purchases and activities, and on all those things they are paying tax and contributing to the Exchequer.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

It is important to reflect that in the United Kingdom tourists face a VAT rate of 20% on their spend, whereas in Germany it is only 7% and in Spain, France and Italy it is 10%. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Labour Government need to reverse their job-killing national insurance contribution hikes, which have had a massive impact on our hospitality industry up and down the country, including in my constituency?

[Damian Hinds]

I do agree; the hon. Member makes some very good points about national insurance contributions, which I will go on to talk about further. He also makes some very good points about looking at the set of taxes as a whole—we cannot just look at a bed tax or a tourism tax without thinking about all the other taxes. However, if I may, I promise him that I will come on to those matters later.

Inbound tourism is something that we are rather good at as a country. How could we not be, when we have great cities such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh, York, Bath and Brighton, as well as the lakes, the Peaks, the moors, the dales and the beautiful South Downs, part of which I have the privilege of representing? There is also our literary heritage, not least Alton and the village of Chawton in East Hampshire, the home of Jane Austen. Britain is also the birthplace of more sports than most of us could name if we were prompted to do so in 60 seconds. There is also the draw of screen “on location” sites, as we have recently seen in the “Starring Great Britain” campaign, west end theatre, live music and much more.

There is also the small matter of the English language—and believe it or not, even the weather actually acts in our favour. The fact that so much more of our inbound tourist infrastructure is indoor means that our tourist season is much longer, and we have considerably less seasonality in our tourist numbers, than many of our competitor nations.

All those things help to explain our success. We are the seventh or eighth biggest country in the world by tourist arrivals, but we are even higher—third in the world, in fact—for tourist receipts. Of course, that is particularly driven by London, which is a very high-value market, but overall, tourism is our third largest services sector by export earnings, and comparable to goods sectors such as automotive and pharmaceutical.

We do inbound tourism well, then; but tourism is also a competitive market and the reality is that we are not doing as well as we used to. We are doing well, but worse. Over the last 30 years, the UK’s market share of world tourism has tumbled. It has come down by something like half.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

I will just pick up on that point about competitiveness and competitive advantage. Is it not the case that those much-visited cities—Paris, Rome, many cities in Spain and others throughout Europe—have measures such as this proposed levy, yet they have not seen decreases in tourism? How is that a competitive advantage point for us? Is it not actually the case that tourists want the culture, events, activities and even investments in policing that this sort of measure could fund?

[Damian Hinds]

I do not know if the hon. Gentleman heard the earlier intervention by the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), who made the point—quite rightly—that we cannot look at a single tax in isolation. I will come on to discuss that point, and I will invite the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) to look at the maths on what happens when we add up all the taxes together and compare the cities that he has just mentioned with cities in this country.

We have lost market share, and it turns out that reaching the big target that the Government now have, to reach 50 million arrivals in the next few years, will involve—believe it or not—us losing more market share. Therefore, the great big ambition is for us to lose share of the global market for tourism. We should be much more ambitious than that.

Governments of all sorts and all flavours have acknowledged the importance of tourism, verbally and in writing. I will not go through all the sector deals and so on that there have been through the years. We now have, or at least anticipate, the visitor economy growth strategy from the current Government. However, I do not think—and I am not making a party political point here, because this applies to multiple Governments—that any Government in this country in my lifetime have ever given attention to this sector commensurate with its importance and potential.

[Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)]

The visitor levy became law in Scotland in September 2024, allowing Scottish local authorities to apply a 5% charge on overnight stays. It is due to be implemented next year in my constituency and is estimated to bring in £1.7 million annually. Last month, I met Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Destination Group to hear their concerns about the tourist trade. While I suspect the right hon. Member disagrees with a levy, does he agree that, if a levy is to be introduced, it should clearly be invested in a manner that benefits and strengthens the local tourist economy, in consultation with trade—not just to fill a black hole in council budgets?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is a wise man, and he anticipates a point I will come to very shortly.

Under the previous Government, candidly, there were increases to air passenger duty, rises in visa charges, the introduction of the electronic travel authorisation at a price of £10, and of course the loss of VAT-free shopping for tourists. The new Government are not just carrying on with those things, but adding cumulatively to those costs at a significantly greater rate. They are doubling the price of the ETA, which will now be £80 for a family of four. In fact, ETAs and visas are now both considerably above European price levels—considerably so, in the case of visas. On ETAs, unlike others, we do not give even a discount, let alone an exemption, for children or for people over 70. The Government have also cut the marketing budget for VisitBritain by 41%.

On top of all that, they now propose to bring in a bed tax. What is that bed tax? We do not know. It could be many things. It could be per room or per person. It could be a fixed percentage of the room rate, a fixed amount or tiered fixed amount. If it is a tiered or fixed amount, what amount? In truth, however, whatever amount is set initially is probably pretty irrelevant. Let us not forget that air passenger duty started at a rate of £5 and £10 and now ranges between £15 and well over £200. Will children be discounted or exempt?

The consultation talks about giving powers to a mayor; what about places that do not have a mayor? What will the scope be? Will it include sleeping in a tent? Will it include holiday camps, static caravans, scout camps, school trips, pilgrimages, hostels, homestays or sleeper trains? We do not know the answers to any of these questions right now.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman knows the answer!

[Joe Powell]

I wanted to add one important category that he did not list, which is short-term lets and Airbnbs.

[Damian Hinds]

That was my next sentence!

[Joe Powell]

He will know that in my constituency there is a very high concentration of Airbnbs—I have not read his speech in advance—which have contributed to antisocial behaviour, rubbish put out on the wrong day, and even breaches of leases, which can cause fire safety and insurance issues. I welcome the introduction of this levy, partly because it will help to collect a contribution from the short-term lets in my constituency.

[Damian Hinds]

Mr Efford, that really was my next sentence, because there are questions about short-term lets, and about second homes in Cornwall and so on. On the short lets issue—whether rents are being pushed up is sometimes another concern with short lets—this levy is not going to solve that problem. The Government will need to do something structurally different if they want to address those short lets questions.

[Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

UKHospitality talks about this tax being

“the wrong policy at the worst time”.

One of my worries is that entrepreneurs in the tourist industry in North Yorkshire and elsewhere are on their knees due to post-covid issues, national insurance, rates and a whole range of factors. Would my right hon. Friend agree that, whatever the merits of this policy, the levy must be paused until those businesses are back on their feet and start investing again?

[Damian Hinds]

I do agree. My right hon. Friend and I have been in multiple debates in the main Chamber talking about exactly those issues, both for tourism and for the wider hospitality sector.

There are some arguments in favour of an overnight visitor levy, some of which have come up already. The main one is summed up in the sentence,

“Visitor levies provide local government with a financial incentive to grow the visitor economy.”

That has truth to it, and there is definitely an argument for making hospitality more hospitable through more investment in the visitor economy—in facilities, events, policing and so on. The sector needs more money going into sales and marketing if we are to realise our potential, so there might be an argument for this measure if the money were truly ringfenced—if it were only being spent on truly incremental items. Even then, we would still get the problem where hotels over quite a wide area pay it but the events, attractions, extra policing and so on all take place somewhere else. That might apply in Hartlepool, for example, as has been mentioned. It will certainly be the case in London—a hotel in Brent Cross is not going to feel the benefit of some extra things being put on in theatreland in the west end.

Of course, though, the money will not be ringfenced. Even if it is nominally ringfenced in year one, do we honestly believe that in year five it will still be ringfenced? Of course it will not.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. One of the concerns that businesses have is that this policy was not in the Government’s manifesto, so they are now trying to prepare for something that has come as a surprise. There has been no consultation on this levy, so by introducing it now the Government are making a very difficult situation even worse. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not the best way to help businesses thrive?

[Damian Hinds]

I certainly do. On the issue of incrementality—I suspect other colleagues will make this point during the debate—there is only one way to guarantee that the money will truly be ringfenced and used for incremental activity, sales and marketing spend, which is to write it into primary legislation. In these debates, people often have a list of five or six questions to put to the Minister. I do not have five or six questions; my one question is whether she will write into primary legislation that the money must be ringfenced.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am arguing against this levy in principle. I think we should be making it more attractive to come to this country. However, if it is to happen, will the Government write into primary legislation the thing that I am sure they will say verbally to a lot of colleagues, including Labour MPs in seaside towns and parts of the country that need inward investment? I am sure they will say, “This will all be for extra stuff.” Let us see that in a piece of legislation before this Parliament. In the absence of that, I am sure that what will happen—maybe not in year one, but in year three or five—is that central Government allocations of funding to local authorities will be made on the basis that they could have implemented an overnight visitor levy. In practice, it will become impossible for a mayor in any one area to say, “I’m not going to impose that levy,” because the budget will assume it.

I now turn to the arguments against the levy, some of which we have heard already from colleagues from multiple parties. This is a sector already dealing with big cost increases from national insurance contributions. For businesses that rely heavily on flexible labour, dealing with the Employment Rights Act 2025 is genuinely difficult—and then there are business rates, which we have not yet talked about. Yes, there has been a reprieve for pubs, but there are two things we need to know about that: first, it is only for pubs, and secondly, it is only a temporary reprieve. It does not help cafés, restaurants or many other parts of the hospitality sector; in particular, it does not help hotels.

As you know, Mr Efford, there has been a change in the structure of business rates with the higher multiplier level. The Government keep describing this higher multiplier as a way of ensuring that online retailers are helping to pay for lower rates bills for other businesses. To keep us within the bounds of parliamentary language, let us call that “creative framing”. According to my calculation—by the way, it is very difficult to get an answer out of the Treasury—some 91% of the businesses and buildings that are subject to that higher multiplier for business rates are not to do with online retailing. Many hotels are among them; again by my own estimation, 1,100 hotels will be paying that higher multiplier for business rates.

The levy applies to everybody but, turning to the additional costs of international travel, air passenger duty is already the world’s highest departure tax. ETAs are a new cost for tourism in this country. In fact, after—strangely—Bhutan, the UK is in the highest category for total cost when we look at all the taxes, charges and policy costs imposed on tourists. That means that although we score very highly on international comparisons of attractiveness, we score 113th out of 119 for price competitiveness for tourists. Some will say—some have said already—“All these other countries have a bed tax.” Yes, they do, but they do not have a VAT rate of 20%, which is the crucial point. Typically, VAT rates are about 10% across European countries. Amsterdam is the exception: it has just put up its VAT rate on hotels to 21%, but it seems that it is trying to reduce the number of tourists coming in, so that is not an example we want to follow. The one thing that has kept us just about competitive is not having a bed tax on top of all those other taxes.

To conclude—as you will be pleased to hear, Mr Efford—the levy is a bad idea from the point of view of the cost of living; it would add over £100 to a typical holiday for a family of four. It hits a sector that has already been hammered by national insurance contributions and business rates—a sector that is absolutely vital for employment, particularly for tackling youth unemployment, that is all about small business and that is important for seaside communities. I ask the Minister, and the Government, to think of the growth opportunity and about what international tourism can do for us. It is a growing global market that is largely AI-proof and plays to our strengths.

The Government say that they want economic growth, and this is a sector that can deliver it. I estimate that keeping on the path of the world growth rate for tourism rather than being below it would be worth between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points extra in our economic growth every year. We have the capacity: it is true that some places, and certainly some individual attractions, are very busy, but it is not true for the country as a whole. Even in London, our biggest market, hotel penetration—the ratio of hotel rooms to the resident population—is still below that of Rome, Amsterdam or Madrid, for example. We score highly on cultural aspects, but low on value, which means that we are losing share to countries that take tourism very seriously and are actively trying to grow it. We can reverse that position—but not if we price ourselves out of contention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate.

As Liberals, we strongly believe that power should be handed down to the lowest level and that we should give local areas the tools and ability to shape their own future. In principle, I would therefore support giving combined authorities the powers to introduce an overnight visitor levy—but, in this economic climate, that does not mean that we necessarily should. Let us be clear: hamstringing regional mayors with inadequate funding and then handing them the power to tax is not devolution—it is simply passing the buck.

Across North Yorkshire, from Whitby to Harrogate, from the dales to the moors, tourism is not a luxury, but a lifeline for many communities. Hotel owners in my constituency tell me that if the money comes back into the local visitor economy, they can make it work. That is a reasonable position—but they also say they have been promised investment before, and that is where the scepticism lies.

Tourism is a vital part of the economy of many local areas, supporting jobs, local businesses and community services. One topic that has not been talked about much today is the support from town and parish councils with the hard graft of organising events, supporting culture and bringing people into our communities. That is why I am supporting both Harrogate’s and Knaresborough’s bids to be towns of culture. The problem is that there is no requirement to involve them in that tourism strategy, or even necessarily on what a visitor levy may look like. That is a glaring omission.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) cannot be here today, but she has told me about the work that her town council is doing in organising such events as the world-renowned Shakespeare birthday parade, which attracts visitors from across the UK and beyond. Under these proposals, the council could be expected to deliver the footfall to the town and the economy, but denied a say on the charge. That simply cannot be right.

If we are serious about devolution, local must mean local—not just mayors in their ivory towers, feathering their own pet projects and their nests. We should be including voices from town halls, parish councils and the communities they represent. That principle must extend to how any money raised from a visitor levy is spent. I have heard clearly from my own town councillors in Harrogate, Josie Caven and Graham Dixon, that if the mayoral tourist tax is introduced, people expect to see the basics done properly. Some of that revenue should go to funding services that tourists use—for instance, the cleaning, fixing, painting and refurbishing of parks and public toilets. If people are asked to pay more, they will expect to see where the money goes. If people cannot see where it goes, they will not believe a word about why it has been raised in the first place.

Crucially, people want to have an input and a proper say. That is why, in communities across the country, local Liberal Democrats are on the ground, working hard for their communities. They know much better than some of these regional mayors how any levy should be spent. For instance, across the other side of the Pennines in Stockport, local Lib Dem champion Niki Meerman is campaigning to bring a pavilion back into use at Bredbury rec. The local Lib Dem team in Offerton, led by Councillor Will Dawson and Councillor Dan Oliver, along with other local champions such as Jamie Hirst, wants to make sure the community gets the leisure facilities that have long been promised. Jason Jones is working to bring back Woodbank Hall into use. Those are not vanity projects. These are the things that make communities work.

[Damian Hinds]

They are focus articles.

[Tom Gordon]

They may well be focus articles too. The local community champions that we have on the ground are making the point that if money is raised locally, it should be shaped locally, spent locally and seen locally. That applies across England.

Councillor Hannah Kitching in Barnsley put it to me very clearly: if South Yorkshire ends up with a tourist tax, people will expect to see real investment in public transport—connecting the whole region, not just parts of it. That means expanding such things as the Supertram network beyond Sheffield and Rotherham, so that growth is shared from the visitor economy and not concentrated.

In my constituency, I have heard real concerns from businesses that a tourist tax has the potential to suck up money and take away from Harrogate and Knaresborough, rather than adding value to our community. If we are going to end up with yet another tax imposed by another Labour politician, it should at least fund the issues that will drive tourism and growth in our local area, for instance my long-standing campaign to dual the line between Knaresborough and York or the community campaign to get a restoration package for Knaresborough castle. Those things would bring people to the area and add, rather than taking away. They would not just be cases of tax and spend for the sake of it; they would deliver visible, tangible improvements that local residents and tourists alike would actually use.

Let us be honest about the context we are in. Hospitality businesses are already under pressure from every direction. Costs are up, business rates are rising and the Government are making it harder to employ the very people the sector depends on. A sector cannot be taxed into growth, especially when it is already struggling to stay afloat. When Ministers or mayors say, “It’s only a pound or two a night,” that might sound small to us, but it does not feel small to a family booking a week away or a small hotel running on tight margins. In a domestic tourism market such as ours, price sensitivity is not a detail; it is everything.

As it stands, the proposal’s fundamental flaw is that we would not necessarily end up taxing tourists; we would tax staying. Day-trippers, who often add strain to local infrastructure pay nothing, but those who stay overnight, supporting local jobs and businesses, pay more. We risk sending the signal, “Come for the day, but don’t stay the night.”

North Yorkshire is the size of a small country, so who are we really taxing? More often than not, it will not be international tourists, but people from our own region: a family from Harrogate staying in Whitby or a couple from York spending a weekend in the dales. That leads to the concerns that this would not be a tourist tax in North Yorkshire, but a tax on our own communities enjoying their own county.

The issues of fairness extend even further. Scout leaders have raised real concerns about whether they would be impacted. Are we seriously considering a policy that would put a price on a Scout camp, a school trip or young carers receiving residential respite weekends? We should be removing barriers for young people, who have already had a rough deal from this Government, not adding to them.

Perhaps the biggest question is: why now? The reality is that this has not been driven by a tourism strategy; it has been driven by funding gaps. The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, David Skaith, is operating with far less funding than many other devolved mayoralties, despite covering a vast rural geography. Instead of fixing that, we are handing over a simple new power to tax. When the Government will not fund regions properly, they give them a new tax and call it empowerment. Let us call it what it is: a workaround for underfunding, not a plan for growth.

If Ministers are serious about this policy, three things must be clear. First, every penny must be reinvested into the local community it was raised in, and towns such as Harrogate and Knaresborough should not be used as cash cows for other places. Secondly, businesses should have a genuine say—not just a consultation exercise, but a seat at the table. Thirdly, there must be clear exemptions for young people, charities and community groups. Without those safeguards, this is not a visitor levy; it is simply another pressure on an already stretched sector.

Tourism in North Yorkshire is not just about places; it is about people and the welcome that they offer. That is what brings people back time and again. Yes, let us empower local areas and give them the tools, but let us not pretend that this policy is fully thought through, or that it would deliver the fair deal that our communities deserve.

Before I finish, I have questions for the Minister, some of which we have heard already. Will this levy apply to short-term lets, such as Airbnbs? If not, how is that fair? What exemptions will there be for Scouts, charities, young people and unpaid carers? What formal role, if any, will town and parish councils have in this scheme? How can we ensure that their voices are heard by these mayors? How will the Government guarantee that the money raised is not just spent locally, but spent with genuine input from local communities? If we get this wrong, we risk pushing our tourism and hospitality sector over the edge, and cutting off our own nose to spite our face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Thank you very much, Mr Efford, for presiding over proceedings. I thank everybody who has taken part in what I think has been a very good discussion in this two-part debate, and I thank the Minister for her considered response.

Broadly, there are three main objections to this new tax. The first concerns the cost of living, the second concerns adding costs to a sector that has already withstood a lot of costs, and the third concerns international competitiveness. I say gently to a couple of colleagues who spoke that they cannot just wish away the law of the elasticity of demand. Yes, it is true that the Norfolk broads are unique, but on the international market, there is also the Loire valley and the Black Forest. Yes, London is unique, but for people who want to come and do high-end shopping and go to cultural things, there is also Paris and Milan.

I have only two asks. First, I ask the Minister to talk to colleagues and other Ministers, as she said she would, to consider the growth opportunity from this sector, and to calculate how many people would have to be deterred from visiting for the new tax to be value destructive, just in terms of the tax take from the VAT on hotel stays, food and beverages, attractions and everything else, quite apart from the overall effect on the wider economy and job creation.

My second ask is to everybody else, especially Labour MPs. We will all be told repeatedly that this tax will be ringfenced, earmarked and reinvested into the visitor economy, so that it will bring more people in and create more jobs. Just hold the Government to that. To the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard, I also say this: the only way she can guarantee that is to see it in black and white on a Bill that becomes an Act of Parliament.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the proposed visitor levy in England.

Local Government Reorganisation: South-east

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I commend the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for bringing this important subject to the House today. It is great to see MPs from across the House here in Westminster Hall, although with 400-odd Labour MPs and quite a few in the south-east these days, we might have expected more than one to come to speak in favour of this flagship Government policy—it is not entirely apparent to all of us why it is a flagship Government policy, but there we have it. Let us be frank: the hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) made an unconventional pitch to the Whips Office, but it was a pleasure and privilege to hear his very well reasoned and well thought-out case, obviously based on many years of experience.

There are two big things going on at the same time that quite often get conflated: the creation of mayoralties and the bringing together of different local authorities at unitary level, which we call local government reorganisation—LGR. The two things often get conflated, but today we are talking primarily about the second. I will be honest: we can make arguments in favour of unitary authorities, in favour of two-tier authorities, and in favour of three tiers—we can make all sorts of arguments—but if we are going to have this change, how we divvy up and carve up areas makes a huge difference. In my area, East Hampshire district council and Hampshire county council have been working hard on putting forward a good proposal.

One of the reasons this matters so much—previous speakers have raised this point—is the very high-cost items that will go into these new unitary authorities, principally adult social care and the high needs block, or SEND. In order to fund those costs for people at either end of the age scale, we need quite a lot of people in the middle. We need working-age adults contributing, and businesses contributing their taxes as well.

The hon. Member for Crawley talked about housing. One of the points that has not yet quite registered with everybody is the way that housing development planning will change. It will be on a different level, which will be further away—more remote—from the areas that are affected and could involve quite a lot of rebalancing of where housing goes. The hon. Member expressed the opposite view, but my fear is that in this new set-up, there will be the risk of more encroachment on to rural areas, because in the dominant urban areas, they will see less physical constraints for more sprawl out from those urban settlements.

The other point that I am not sure has quite permeated the public discourse is about identity. People often identify with the county and the town or village they are in. We have not yet given names to any of the new unitary authorities that might be created in the county of Hampshire, but they are almost certainly going to end up being, to some extent, artificial constructs—in the same way that, back in 1974, a lot of new identities were created, which was sometimes a difficult thing for people to deal with.

Whatever the pros and cons of different forms of local government, there is always a difficulty in the short term. Whenever anything is changed or reorganised, as anyone who has worked in business knows, there will be a great argument for, for example, moving the sales force to a regional level or back to a national level. Along the way, however, a lot of cost is incurred and effectiveness is eroded because people’s attention is moved from the key task in hand to what is happening in the organisation. Buildings have to be sold and redundancies made. All sorts of things affect operational effectiveness.

There is then still the question: what, ultimately, is the balance in terms of cost saving? I think that we are all grateful to the hon. Member for Crawley—I will call him my hon. Friend—who set out that it is really quite difficult to find material savings unless it is at a big scale. So many of the proposals that are coming forward are not at that scale—often for good reason, because it is difficult to create a meaningful identity in such a big area. There will, however, be some economies of scale. If bin collection is taken from the lower tier and put into the unitary, it should be possible to do that on a lower unit cost. There will also, however, be some diseconomies of scale, because some things will come from the upper tier and be moved into a smaller unit of geography, creating a diseconomy. I have no idea what the balance of those two things is, but we seem to be launching into this massive change—wholesale reorganisation—without knowing.

On the point about the upheaval along the way, whatever the end state is, I promise that in year one, there will not be a saving. There might eventually be something to look forward to, but we have enough economic troubles that I find it stunning that the Government should be considering entering into something that will make their fiscal task harder, at least in the short term and possibly in the long term.

I have tabled a number of parliamentary questions that have been answered in the name of the Minister before us today. Those answers have all been elegant, but they have not been illuminating. The charitable explanation came from her hon. Friend the Member for Crawley: maybe the Government just do not know what the data are. That might be true. It might also be true that they have a working assumption, but we are not being told.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing today’s debate on local government reorganisation in the south-east. It is a very important issue for residents and businesses across the region and I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s approach, the progress that is being made and the opportunity that change presents.

Local government reorganisation is an opportunity to modernise how councils operate. For too long, many areas have been served by complex two-tier structures that divide responsibilities, duplicate cost and blur accountability. Residents often struggle to know which council is responsible for which service. I note the various contributions that have been made on that point. I think we would all agree that councils can always do better to help residents engage with them, but there is no doubt that there is evidence out there that the two-tier system does seem to add to confusion and a lack of accountability. Decisions to build and grow our towns and cities can take longer, with resources spread more thinly. We need clearer structures, stronger councils, quicker decisions, more homes and better services for local people. By moving to single unitary authorities we can create councils with the scale, leadership and authority to grow their economies, create jobs and opportunities, and deliver for communities, particularly in the services where pressure is greatest, including children’s services, adult social care and housing. Those areas were mentioned by a number of Members; I appreciate the contributions that they made.

I just want to make one point on identity, because I am sure we will debate the finances of the situation. As he often does, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) raised the very serious situation that that council has been through, but identity is also important. I hope Members will forgive me if they have heard me say this before, but before I was born, my own area was in a two-tier system, with Birkenhead and Cheshire as a two-tier council area. In 1974, before I was born, we became the Wirral in Merseyside. Now, we are the Wirral in Liverpool city region. Those different identities are complex and interconnected. There are some people I represent who would say that they are still Cheshire all these years later.

[Damian Hinds]

Yeah!

[Alison McGovern]

There are! And there are some people who identify as Birkenhead and many people who, as I do, think of themselves as Wirralian. These issues of identity are complicated. We need to take account of them and listen to what residents tell us, but my experience is that there is never one right answer.

Across England, the programme is progressing quickly. Proposals have been submitted and consultations undertaken, and the first decisions are now being implemented. The south-east is at the forefront of this work. It is home to cities such as Brighton, Southampton, Oxford and Portsmouth, which have a vital role to play not only in their local economies, but in our national growth story.



I turn first to Surrey, the most advanced area. Parliament has considered the order to establish two new unitary authorities, East Surrey and West Surrey, with elections taking place this May and new councils formally assuming responsibilities in April 2027. Alongside structural reform, we have committed unprecedented debt repayment support of £500 million for Woking borough council, reflecting historic capital practices at the council and the value-for-money case for acting to protect local and national taxpayers. A couple of Members with Surrey constituencies rightly pointed out the consequences for other Surrey residents; I agree that there are consequences for all citizens in the UK when that sort of thing happens. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath asked about financial sustainability. We are keeping that closely under review as we move forward with this process. The support that we have agreed is a first tranche, and we will continue to explore what further debt support is required at a later point.

A number of Members asked about modelling. In this process, it is for councils to bring forward their analysis of costs and benefits to make the case under the criteria. I add one word of caution: we have all discussed the situation with spiking demand in particular areas of cost. I am working with other Government Departments on that; as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) said, local government is a complex mix when it comes to central Government policy. I spent three years on the Treasury Committee poring over the modelling on Brexit and other matters. It is not a precise science, as Members who have experienced Government know only too well.

[Damian Hinds]

As with many projections, some things are more uncertain than others. Typically, in business, revenues are really hard to project, but costs are a lot easier. Can the Minister share with us what the costs of the reorganisation are anticipated to be?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman; that is exactly the point that I am making. I am very conscious that I have spoken to many council leaders and finance officers in recent weeks who have experienced significant cost pressures in areas where we are in quite an uncertain policy environment. The right response to that is to work with the Department for Education, particularly on children’s costs, and others, to get the policy in the right place so that we can get those costs down.

[Damian Hinds]

I meant reorganisation costs.

[Alison McGovern]

I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point about reorganisation costs; I will think about whether I can say more to him in writing about that—otherwise we will just go over this forever.

I now turn to the really important point made by the hon. Member for Woking. I probably cannot respond in this context to his specific question about honours, but I will take it away. I have immense sympathy with the points he raised, but I am conscious that investigations are ongoing. I will leave it there, but he was correct to make his case.

The removal of the Audit Commission—and what happened to local audit under the Government from 2010 to 2015—was in my view an absolute disaster. We will put it right with the reintroduction of local audit and much greater constraints on the sort of behaviours we have seen not only in Woking, but elsewhere. I will leave that there, too, but I could go on about it for hours.

I turn to Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight. The Government have received a number of proposals and representations from councils. Across those areas, different authorities have put forward different visions for the future, some favouring multiple new unitary authorities while others, such as the Isle of Wight, have been clear in their preference to remain stand-alone. Those views, alongside the evidence submitted by other councils and stakeholders, will be assessed carefully against the criteria of sustainability, geography and public engagement.

I turn briefly to Sussex. Proposals for reorganisation have been received and the consultation has now closed. The Government are considering all the evidence submitted and will take decisions guided by the statutory criteria and what will best support effective and sustainable local government.

I turn to Oxfordshire. The Government have now launched a statutory consultation on proposals for unitary reform across the country, which closes this month. A range of options have been proposed, including a single county-wide authority, a two-unitary model and a three-unitary configuration, including a Greater Oxford council.

At this point, I note the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller). He will appreciate that I cannot comment on the specifics, but he asked for a meeting on finance with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock), which I am very happy to arrange. Oxford is a vital cog in helping to grow our national economy, but that is exactly why the consultation and the process are so important. Decisions must be informed not only by structural and economic arguments made by local councils but by the views of residents, businesses and communities themselves.

Across all areas undergoing reform, the Government’s priority is that change must not come at the expense of vital decisions to keep building homes and delivering frontline services. We are also providing practical support to councils delivering reorganisation to help with this capacity, including up to £63 million nationally to help manage implementation pressures alongside expert advice from across the sector and the Local Government Association. I note the comments made by the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) about parish councils being responsible for their own services and so on. If she has particular concerns about that, I will welcome a note from her.

Reorganisation also sits alongside wider action to place local government on a stronger financial footing. Earlier this year, the Government confirmed the first multi-year local government finance settlement in a decade, which has been welcomed by Members from across the House because it provides councils with greater certainty and ensures that funding better reflects needs and deprivations.

We should remember that the benefits of strong unitary councils are not theoretical. For example, where they already exist, we are seeing results. In South Yorkshire, four unitary councils working with the mayor are helping places such as Barnsley and Doncaster not only to grow their local economies but to translate that into higher wages for local people. South Yorkshire is one of the places that has suffered worst with unemployment in our country’s history, but it is now making serious and significant progress. That is the real economic growth that improves living standards.

Newer unitary councils such as those in Buckinghamshire and North Yorkshire are delivering millions of pounds of efficiencies through streamlined structures that have reduced duplications, delivering savings that will be reinvested in frontline priorities such as supporting vulnerable children and funding local transport. The hon. Member for Woking made his point about vulnerable children very well; I will alert the Minister with responsibility for children’s care to his comments so that he can get a response.

Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you presiding over these proceedings today, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on securing this important debate; it is good to have an opportunity to discuss these issues openly.

It is also a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott). He made a lot of the fact that there are hundreds of Labour MPs and the great mandate that that has given this Government. I find it vexing that, with a majority as large as the one this incoming Government have, that they should choose as priorities things such as digital ID, attacking jury trials, taking away school freedoms, trying to ban vaping in pub gardens and trail hunting, and a costly reorganisation of local government.

I am relatively agnostic when it comes to the structure of local government. Some people say that they are in favour of unitaries or of two-tier authorities; I always find that a peculiar position. It is possible to give a decent argument in favour of almost any structure of local government. The one thing I dislike is the upheaval when they are changed. Sometimes there is a good argument for change and we must do it, but we should never pretend that there is no cost to that change. There is a financial cost to reorganisation—what happens to buildings and all sorts of other things—and an effectiveness cost when any organisation is in a state of flux.

In the case of Hampshire, we will be moving from a two-tier system to a single tier of unitaries. There will be some economies of scale and benefits that come with that; for example, bin collections will be on bigger scale, and we should be able to get that at a lower unit cost. There will also be diseconomies in those services that are moving from the county level to the smaller level, for example adult social care and aspects of children’s social care and so on. We do not know—unless the Minister is able to intervene and tell me—what the net effect will be. I have tabled some written questions to ask what the Government’s assumption is on the net effect, and we do not have an answer to that.

If there is a net benefit from the mixture of those economies, diseconomies and costs of transitions, I guarantee that it will not come in year one. All of these plans end up being a classic hockey-stick sales projection—“Of course things are going to get better, but first we have to invest to make that happen,” so the curve goes down before it goes up. I am afraid that, for many sales projections, years one to three turn out to be accurately predicted, but the out years much less so.

There are big choices to be made in reorganising to unitaries—as was alluded to a moment ago in the context of Surrey and Suffolk—in terms of the number of different unitaries in a particular area. That can make a very practical difference to residents. Big-cost items are going to move from county level—the upper tier—into these unitaries. As everybody knows, the two biggest costs are adult social care and high needs children’s social care in education. They are going into the unitaries, so it will make an enormous difference for a district council, depending on which other areas it goes in with.

To fund all that expenditure requires income—from business rates, for example. The overall age structure in the broader footprint of the area also matters. People of working age are net contributors. Retired people and children need cash support. There is also the question of housing, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire put accurately and succinctly. There is a lot of controversy about the current targets for housing in rural areas, which have gone up under this Government by an average of 71% in new areas and 100% in areas such as mine—East Hampshire.

Some people feel that reorganisation and merging with nearby councils will solve that problem—all that housing will not have to go in the countryside after all; it can go in brownfield sites and developed areas, as it should. I fear that the opposite may be the case. We look to councillors to understand—as they do—the areas they represent. The further away decisions are made on things that really matter to local people, the less likely they are to be good for them.

[Jack Abbott]

What the right hon. Gentleman describes is already happening. Suffolk county council represents the entire county. The argument he is making is already playing out at the moment. We are having these conversations. This has already happened. We have rural councils making decisions about urban issues and vice versa. I do not think it is either/or.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful. I was talking about housing development and planning, which in Hampshire is decided by East Hampshire district council, not by Hampshire county council.

There is also the question of identity. Counties and parishes are anciently formed areas. Districts are quite often not; they are modern constructs in many cases, sometimes dating back only to 1974. How does that affect people’s sense of identity? That is half a century ago. I know that makes us all feel a little depressed; I was born in 1969. Over time, they acquire more of an identity, which we should think about.

The hon. Member for Ipswich was right when he said that local government reorganisation is complex, consequential and long-lasting. He also made a lot of having a mandate for change. There were loads of things about change in the Labour manifesto—it said “change” on the front cover. It did not say that the change would include this precise type of local government reorganisation, involving moving specifically to unitary councils. Because it is complex, consequential and long-lasting, it warrants a steady and sober assessment of the implications for all our residents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

1. If he will review the methodology for assessing housing affordability used to set local house building targets.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)]

The Government are committed to building the new homes people need so that we can end the housing crisis that we inherited. The method for calculating local housing need aligns with the Government’s ambition for 1.5 million new homes over the course of this Parliament. That reflects affordability, and there are no plans to change it.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. The housing formula has resulted in huge increases for parts of rural England, including a doubling of the number in my East Hampshire constituency, and it should be reviewed overall. However, this question is about one specific aspect, whereby in an unintended way, the mix of housing that is being delivered might be skewed. I have written to the Secretary of State’s colleague, the Minister for Housing and Planning, and all I ask is that the Department looks at that with an open mind and considers it fully.

[Steve Reed]

I am always happy to listen to suggestions from the right hon. Gentleman and ensure that he gets a response. I reassure him that housing targets reflect the baseline of local housing stock, but I will ensure that he gets the letter he has requested.

Housing Development: Cumulative Impacts

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the cumulative impacts of housing development. 

It is good to see you presiding once again, Mr Twigg. Let me start with the obvious statement that in this country, and in all of our localities, we need more housing. There has been population growth, and in our constituencies we want there to be customers for shops and people to work in them, and places for people growing up locally to be able to move into. We also recognise that people move, which is important for labour mobility. Part of the population growth is about net immigration, but a big part is about increasing longevity—people living longer—and part of the need for more housing is the tendency of people to live in smaller households.

Overall, the record of housing delivery for both Labour and Conservative Governments has had its ups and downs. Both Labour and Conservative Governments suffered from major disruptions—in the case of Labour, the crash of 2007-08, and in the case of the Conservatives, covid-19. However, the peak of the modern era in net additions to housing was the 249,000 achieved just before covid under a Conservative Government, against the peak of 224,000 under Labour just before the crash. The target the new Government have in place is one that has not been achieved since the 1970s, and they are falling far short right now. The provisional number for 2024-25 is 209,000, which is a 6% fall on the previous year of 2023-24.

There are aspects of what the Minister outlined in his announcement yesterday that could help to address the shortfall, but I believe that it is inconsistent with the way that the formula currently skews development towards rural areas. What do I mean by that skew and how does it come about? Overall, the Government require a 50% uplift in housing numbers, but in the 58 mainly or largely rural local authorities, the average increase was 70%. In East Hampshire, which I represent, the target doubled, from 575 a year to 1,100.

Meanwhile, urban and major conurbations saw a much lower increase, at around 16% to 17% on average, and quite a few places saw a fall, including much of London and Birmingham. To be clear, that is not correcting a historical imbalance. Looking back over 20 years, the proportionate addition of dwellings per 1,000 households has been greater in predominantly rural areas than in predominantly urban ones. We also know from analysis by the Resolution Foundation that tilting development towards cities is good for economic growth.

Why is it a problem to have a skew towards rural areas? First, let us acknowledge that when we talk about rural land, this is not land that is typically sitting there doing nothing. It is not idle; often, it is farmland. Of course, these days we are more acutely conscious than ever of the necessity for food security. It is also the home for nature, and important to biodiversity. The countryside is an amenity for everyone, whether they live in the countryside or in a town. We will be back in Westminster Hall tomorrow to debate the legacy and significance of Jane Austen. The countryside of the constituency that I represent is what inspired Jane to write her great novels, and it still brings many people to the area.

Yes, there are protected areas of countryside, but it is not only about areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks—the majority of rural areas are not in one—nor is it about the green belt. In East Hampshire there is a lot of green, but there is no green belt. We have a further complication, in that the district of East Hampshire is shared in Parliament between myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford). The South Downs national park represents 26% or 27% of pre-existing housing and population in the district, but represents only 15% of housing completions in East Hampshire since it came into being. That creates extra pressure just outside the national park, in places such as Alton Holybourne, Four Marks and Medstead, which I will come back to, and in Horndean, Clanfield and parts of Rowlands Castle.

The Minister and I have had an opportunity to discuss this issue previously and I am grateful to him for his constructive engagement with it. I think that East Hampshire district council is right to assume that in the future there will be a split in housing development, reflecting where the pre-existing population and housing were. There is a 74% and 26% split. However, the council cannot do that for affordability. Unaffordability is significantly more acute inside the national park than outside it. However, I am not here today to talk about the national park primarily, because the bigger problem that is driving these issues is the total target.

We now also have effects of the duty to co-operate. It is possible that even with that split between 74% and 26%, the part of East Hampshire that is outside the national park might still get asked by the part that is inside the national park to take on more of its burden, and it is obliged to engage in those discussions constructively. However, we also now have other nearby authorities asking East Hampshire, and by the way a couple of other more rural authorities, to take on more of their housing numbers. So, we have this crazy situation whereby, with all the targets having gone up, people are looking to a district such as the one I represent to take more of their housing. But I should also say that none of those authorities have had an increase in their housing target as large as the one that East Hampshire has had.

We also have looming over us the effect of local government reorganisation. I think that some people see local government reorganisation—the merging of districts and boroughs into larger unitary authorities—as an opportunity and a way to address some of these problems. I fear that that might be a false hope. In fact, the creation of these large authorities might deepen or even embed some of these issues, with more housing being moved into countryside that will then be lost forever.

I will briefly give a case study of one area; it is not the only area where this situation applies, but it is a particularly striking example. It is Four Marks and Medstead. There is a grouping called Four Marks and South Medstead—it is called that in the planning document—and it is in tier three in the settlement hierarchy. It has already had a great deal of housing development. In the 2014 local plan, Four Marks and South Medstead had 2,030 houses and the target in the plan for the period to 2028 was 175 houses. The total number of new houses that have been built since 2014 is in fact 592, which is three times the original target. However, with further permissions and applications, there could be a great deal more houses. Indeed, there could be up to eight times the target and a two-thirds increase in the size of the settlement, and we even hear of further applications on top of all that.

What are the effects of that extra development? It takes a lot for a single housing development to change a local environment, but cumulatively a number of smaller developments can change the whole character of an area, which is at odds with paragraph 187 of the NPPF. And this is not just about character and landscape. It is also about practical matters, such as the A31 and being able to turn right on to it, or the capacity of the waste water treatment plant and the electricity substation at Alton.

I have talked about Four Marks and South Medstead. In the other part of the parish of Medstead, Medstead village itself and its surroundings are in tier four in the settlement hierarchy. There was no specific target for it in the plan, because Medstead village was put together with other villages. However, I have seen speculative applications for a number of sites in that area, particularly in the new land availability assessment.

So why is cumulative impact not being considered in all these developments and proposals? The main time that cumulative development is taken into account is, of course, at the time of plan-making. With speculative developments, when the cumulative effect is not considered, there is a risk that the developments do not meet the economic, social and environmental objectives set out in paragraph 8 of the NPPF.

The East Hampshire district local plan was adopted in 2014 for the period up to 2028, and the update process started in 2018. There have been some delays, including most notably as a result of covid. The key point is that under the old, pre-2024 housing targets, East Hampshire had a five-year housing land supply and the 5% buffer. We then got a rapid doubling of the housing targets. There is now no five-year housing land supply—there is a 2.9-year housing land supply. Given that we have doubled it, the only way we could still have a five-year land supply is if we had previously had a 10-year land supply, and I doubt that many local authorities can say that. That is why, although I am talking about East Hampshire, other colleagues may mention other areas; East Hampshire is clearly not alone.

Since the big increases in a number of the targets for different areas, I understand that most councils do not have both an up-to-date local plan and the five-year housing land supply. Speculative development is therefore probably happening in lots of places around the country, but it is especially concentrated in our rural areas, because they have had the biggest increases in targets.

East Hampshire is currently developing its new local plan. It expects to reach regulation 19 stage in the summer of 2026 and for the plan to be operational in August the following year. Until the local plan is finalised, the tilted balance principle means that the council is required to approve sites unless they can be said to be not sustainable development—a high bar indeed. Each application can be considered only on its own merits and in relation to its individual impact on traffic, sewerage and the rest of it. The council cannot consider the cumulative effect of, say, five smaller developments that might together be the equivalent of one big one. It cannot say, “Because we have already allowed these four, we are not going to allow the fifth.”

While I have the floor, I want to mention something that I have mentioned in passing to the Minister before: that the way the formula works does not encourage a change in the housing mix towards more actually affordable homes. To be clear, in areas like mine, we want more affordable homes. When I say “affordable”, I mean it in both senses of the word. What I call “capital-A Affordable” is the sense known to the public sector: social rent and part ownership. There is also “affordable” in the common English sense of the word—the affordability of housing as it is often expressed to us by our constituents in our surgeries, which is to say homes that young families can afford. Although not everybody does, most aspire to home ownership; I would wager that most hon. Members in the Grand Committee Room today had that aspiration to become home owners and did so.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

On affordability, I was at an open event for a development plan—a large development, as it happens—north of Dorchester, which will fundamentally change the natural characteristics of the town. On the display presented by the developers, the phrase “affordable housing” was actually in quotation marks. That was almost an acknowledgment of how ludicrous that statement is in relation to what is actually affordable for local people. Does the right hon. Gentleman think we need a better definition of what is affordable that is based on what is locally achievable?

[Damian Hinds]

I know the hon. Gentleman’s constituency quite well—he is my mother-in-law’s MP. I know what a fantastic and beautiful area it is, as well as some of the challenges with the local economy. He makes a very good point.

[Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that affordability is linked to supply and demand? That is part of the reason why the Government wish to increase the supply, which in turn will bring prices down.

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, I agree. It is sometimes frustrating to talk to people who say there is no link between aggregate supply and the price of housing. Of course there is, but there is also the question of the mix, which is what I want to come to.

Other things being equal, the best returns for developers tend to be on larger, costlier homes, and new builds are generally more expensive than the existing stock of housing. In East Hampshire, the median price of the current housing stock is an expensive £430,000, but the median price of new houses is £530,000. With development and the increase in stock at a local level, median house prices therefore go up. The formula then calls for more of the same because of how it measures and treats affordability, so it becomes a cycle in which we still do not get the lower-cost homes we need. It could even be said that developers have an incentive to keep the unaffordability ratio increasing, because that extends the pipeline further into the future. I ask Ministers to look again to create incentives for quality, lower-priced housing.

I have three straightforward, reasonable asks of the Minister. The first and most important is, of course, to rebalance the formula away from rural—not so there is no rural, but so the balance is right and we do not have targets that mean an unrealistic amount is put into the countryside. It is about having that balance, which requires changing the formula.

I asked that of the Minister yesterday, and he was good enough to give me a pithy and clear single-word answer, which was no. I get that, unless and until it changes, the policy is what the policy is, so the answer is no. However, I ask him to reflect further and think about it, not to conflict with Government policy but to complement and support Government policy. A change in the formula—moving back towards the urban, from the rural—would actually support what he is trying to do, including the spirit of what he outlined in yesterday’s statement.

My second ask is to change the way the formula works on affordability, to remove the perverse affordability factor I mentioned. Affordability looms large in the overall formula, as it has had its weighting increased, but this is specifically about removing the perverse effect I just mentioned, whereby building more actually makes an area more unaffordable in the eyes of the formula, which therefore increases the target. I think the Minister will say that local authorities can do that in their plan making, but we need it to be systematised to find a way to require a change in the mix of housing so that we get homes that are more in reach of people growing up in rural areas.

Finally, in the meantime, as the targets have increased so much and so quickly—the five-year housing land supply in many areas could not possibly have increased nearly so quickly—we have a lot of speculative development. Therefore, pending the change in the formula, will the Minister give guidance stating that local authorities should consider the cumulative impact of all developments together?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

The Minister is very good to give way; I thank him. To be clear, when I was talking about the mix, I was not talking solely or even mainly about the tenure mix, but about the price points and the way that the formula works—he gets the point.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The point was well made and well understood, and I will address it shortly. The new standard method that we introduced relies on a baseline set at a percentage of existing housing stock levels to better reflect housing pressures right across the country. It uses a stronger affordability multiplier to focus additional growth on the places facing the biggest affordability challenge. In general terms, it is a vast improvement on the standard method it replaced, which was based on household projections that were volatile, subject to change every few years and subject to unevidenced and arbitrary adjustments, with the result that local planning authorities found it extremely difficult to plan for housing over their 10 to 15-year plan periods.

I did, in response to the question put to me yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman, give a pithy and straightforward answer. The Government have no intention of withdrawing or modifying the standard method that is now in operation. On the specific point he raised, where affordability ratios fall, the uplift would also fall because it applies over an affordability ratio of 5:1—that is the Office for National Statistics affordability threshold.

I think I understood the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the short-term impact, but the only way to bring the affordability ratio down is to build many more homes of all types, and that is what the target is intended to do. However, it is a complex and technical point and he may wish to write to me on it.

[Damian Hinds]

I will write to the Minister in more detail—but if, in adding to the stock, we raise the median house price, that has an adverse effect on affordability. We get this ironic situation where the more we build, the less affordable it looks.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I do not think that is correct—at least not in the medium to long term. Going back to the point I just made about supply and demand, we have to build sufficient volumes of homes to arrest the steady rise over many years in house prices and start to gently bring them down over time. We are some way away from that, but the affordability uplift should respond over time if we start to build, in a high and sustainable manner, the large number of homes we need.

I will now address the rural-urban balance, which was raised by a number of colleagues. We have had this debate before. We recognise that the targets we have introduced are ambitious and they do mean uplifts in many areas, but such is the severity of the housing crisis in England that all parts of the country, including rural areas, must play their part in providing the volume of homes the country needs.

However, it is not the case that the new formula directs housing growth away from large urban areas. We scrapped the arbitrary 35% urban uplift that the previous Government applied to the 20 largest cities and urban centres—and the core of those centres, as was mentioned. However, across city regions, the new standard method increases targets by 20%. Through it, housing growth is directed to a wider range of urban areas, including smaller cities and urban areas as well as larger city areas.

London was referenced; under the previous Government, housing targets in London were deliberately set at entirely unrealistic levels because that arbitrary 35% standard method was applied not just to the core of our capital city, but to every London borough. We have revised that number down, but London still has a stretching house building target, which we increased in response to feedback to the consultation we received.

In the draft framework yesterday, as the shadow Minister and other hon. Members recognised, we also gave more support for a brownfield-first approach to housing. We welcome responses to the draft framework, through which we now have in-principle support for development within settlements, subject to specified exemptions where there could be unacceptable impacts. We have built on that with the announcement of a default “yes” for development on land within reasonable walking distance around train stations.

Local plans have been mentioned a number of times; in some ways, this gets to the heart of the matter. I would first say to the Liberal Democrat spokesman that, far from undermining the plan-led system, the announcements we made yesterday will strengthen the plan-led system. The clear, rules-based policies in that new draft framework will make it easier for local authorities to come forward under the new system of local plan making and get those plans in place more quickly and effectively.

Why do they need to be in place more quickly and effectively? Because authorities with an up-to-date local plan will typically meet the five-year housing land supply, which is what is required to pass the examination in the first place. Having a local plan in place supports a much more comprehensive approach to considering cumulative impacts of development, so we need those local plans in place across the country. It is not my party’s fault that we do not have universal coverage of local plans. I remember standing for years where the shadow Minister is now, telling Conservative Housing Ministers on this side of the Chamber to take effective action to use the full range of their intervention powers to drive up local plans. We are not there, but this Government are committed to doing that.

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire knows about this, as we have discussed it before: local authorities are able to justify a lower housing requirement than the figure that the standard method sets, on the basis of local constraints on land and delivery, such as natural landscapes, protected habitats and flood-risk areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I thank the Minister for his considered remarks and for his constructive approach to date—the cumulative effect, one might say, of the Minister’s approach. However, I hope that after today he will think further. The Government should issue guidance to local authorities to the effect that, at least in circumstances where they face huge increases in their housing targets in short order, and it is not viable or realistic to suddenly have a five-year land supply available, they should be able to consider the cumulative impact of speculative developments that come along.

The Government should also change the way the target itself is set, so that we get the affordable homes we need, but with the totals rebalanced among local authorities—back towards urban areas and away somewhat from rural ones—so that we end up with reasonable and realistic targets for East Hampshire and areas like it. That would be entirely consistent with—indeed supportive of—what the Government are trying to do on overall housing supply, but it would be a sustainable way of providing the services and infrastructure that people need, fostering community, promoting economic growth, and maintaining the public amenity and productive capacity of our countryside.

I conclude, as others have, in the spirit of the season by wishing you, Mr Twigg, all colleagues from across the House, and House staff a very happy Christmas.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the cumulative impacts of housing development.

Planning Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have visited the developments in my hon. Friend’s constituency that Ebbsfleet development corporation is taking forward. As I said in response to an earlier question, we as a Government are clear that new housing must be supported by appropriate infrastructure and amenities. Last year we made important changes to the framework to strengthen the provision of community infrastructure, and, as I have said, the draft framework consolidates and strengthens the support given to that provision, including public services. However, we know that there is more to do to ensure that the right infrastructure comes forward at the appropriate time, alongside the building of new homes.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

As with business rates and the Budget, it might take a few days for it to be absolutely clear what is in today’s announcement, although I hope that it will not take quite as long as it did with the Budget. I think it possible that some things will be welcome, given what the Minister said about densification and brownfield, if that is accompanied—this would be consistent—by a rebalancing of the housing target formula, which resulted in a doubling of targets in places such as East Hampshire and many places in the far north-west and far north-east, and a reduction in parts of London and Birmingham. Will the Minister now revisit that formula?

[Matthew Pennycook]

No.

Supporting High Streets

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is natural in these debates that we repeatedly hear phrases like “lifeblood” and “beating heart”, because colleagues across the House love our town and village centres; they are the essence of our local communities. For me, that means principal towns like Alton and Petersfield and substantial villages like Liss, Four Marks, Clanfield, Horndean and Rowlands Castle. Why do we care? Of course, it is important to have the provision of goods and services for our residents, but mostly it is because these are the places that bring people together; they stop isolation, form social bonds and give life and form to the idea of community.

Lots of different things are needed for a successful high street. There is the physical environment and its aesthetic appeal, which Members have mentioned. I pay tribute to those who give up their time voluntarily to maintain and improve that landscape, including litter pickers such as those from the Alton Society, the Petersfield Society and the brilliantly named Rubbish Singers.

A good events calendar can really make a difference and can go a long way. I think you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is hard to beat an events calendar like that of Alton in Hampshire. It is about having cultural assets, such as Petersfield museum. In fact, this morning the Culture, Media and Sport Committee heard about the role of heritage buildings in creating a sense of place. It is about initiatives that bring people into the town centre, such as Dementia-friendly Alton and “Health on the High Street”. There must be wider community facilities, including libraries and nurseries—in fact, anything that just brings people to that specific place.

Most of all, it is about people and the shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants that they work in. The great British high street still has a lot going for it, but it faces some very difficult headwinds, principally from out-of-town shopping and online shopping and home delivery. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not blame the Labour Government for either of those things. They are forces that our country and the world has been dealing with for quite some time—and we can add to those more recently the indirect effect on banking, as a couple of colleagues have mentioned.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

I am very lucky in my constituency to have a thriving high street in Minehead. It was obvious when I was wandering around doing my Small Business Saturday that the strength of the independent traders is what makes Minehead high street particularly successful and a thriving part of my constituency. Does the hon. Member agree with that point?

[Damian Hinds]

I largely agree. In truth, it is a blend. Having distinctive independent traders is what sets all our towns apart; it makes them unique and it makes us very proud of them. But customers want both those independent traders and some brand-name retailers, and there is nothing wrong with being a brand-name retailer. The secret comes from having a combination of both.

I was just saying that I want to join in with what other colleagues have said about the need for banking. On the need to review the criteria, I think it is the Financial Conduct Authority that sets the criteria. As this development in banking goes further, we need to ensure that towns the size of Petersfield in my constituency have a business banking facility that is open at least five days a week, and I hope that the Government can look at that with the FCA.

Given the headwinds that our high streets face, the most important thing we need is more people to come into those places. Efforts to create more residential accommodation in town centres, which the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) talked about, are useful, as is maximising the use of brownfield land. Most people coming into town centres are coming in for a purpose, and we need to be hospitable to them. Walking and cycling are great, but we must remember that most people are still coming in by car, especially in an area like mine, and we must make sure that it works for them too.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a very impressive speech. Cultural institutions are also important for our high streets. I note that it is the 200th anniversary of the death of Jane Austen, who lived in Chawton House in Alton in his constituency. Hopefully that will help to regenerate his high street as well.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I might return the favour by mentioning the Robert Bolt theatre, which I think is in his constituency. Colleagues will know of “A Man for All Seasons”, and the hon. Gentleman is something of a man for all seasons himself.

As well as bringing more people into the town centre, I think the No. 1 imperative right now is to address the cost of doing business and employing people. There are good arguments against every tax—anyone who has ever worked at the Treasury will know that—and that is why we end up having a blend of lots of different taxes. Business rates are an especially bad tax, because it is a fixed cost being to imposed on businesses. That makes it harder to turn a profit, and crucially it deters new people from coming into business.

In the case of retail and hospitality, we must remember that as well as their roles as businesses, they are volume employers—two of the three biggest volume employers. As well as being the home of workers, they are a big source of customers who will use other businesses.

There was a bit of talk about the national living wage and so on. Of course, it is good that the national living wage goes up. The point is that when that is done at the same time as other things that impose further costs on business, making it harder to employ people, we will see an effect. We are already seeing damage, not in mass lay-offs but in marginal hiring decisions, with employers not taking on some Saturday help and not offering some extra hours. In fact, we see some pubs closing earlier than they would do ordinarily. I am afraid that will all become worse with the Employment Rights Bill, and the biggest impact will be on those furthest from or newest to the labour market. I encourage the Government to think again.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. There will be an immediate three-minute time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Blair McDougall]

We made it clear a few days ago that we plan to reduce the administrative cost of the regulatory burden by nearly £6 billion, and that is what we will do. Conservative Members have spoken about the Employment Rights Bill and their intention to repeal it, but they are forgetting that that Bill will set up a single regulator for the labour market, which will actually reduce red tape for businesses across the country.

[Damian Hinds]

Let me try to help the Minister, because Conservative Members are very keen to know the answer, and probably many of his colleagues are keen to know it too. It is one thing to say, “We would like to reduce the cost by 25%”—sure you would! The question is: how do the Government think they are going to realise savings of 25%?

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Chris Bryant)]

Why—

[Dr Luke Evans]

It’s your amendment, Chris! That is what you are voting for.

[Damian Hinds]

It is the Government amendment in an Opposition day debate. How are those 25% savings going to be realised?

[Blair McDougall]

In a moment, I will come to our plans to reduce the mountain of red tape that the right hon. Member’s Government left us with, and to reduce the cost of that red tape.

Conservative Member after Conservative Member spoke about the Employment Rights Bill. I should say at the outset that we want the rights in that Bill to be fit for the 21st century—the last time that we properly reviewed our employment law and the relationship between employer and employee was in the last century. However, I am astonished that right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches do not seem to see the connection between how much money people have in their pockets and the ability of their local high streets to thrive. Giving people more secure work and higher wages means that the money in their pockets ends up in the tills of local businesses.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Naushabah Khan]

I rise to speak as a member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, and in support of new clause 50.

For too long, affordable housing has become a catch-all term that means anything but. Shared ownership and discounted market schemes are products that may work for some, but for many, they offer no real housing security. What those people need is not the option of getting a foot on the property ladder in the distant future, but a roof over their heads now. They need security, stability and homes that are truly affordable, and that means social rent. If we are serious about tackling the housing emergency, then clear, national targets for delivery of social rent homes are essential. That is why I support new clause 50, which would bring forward the accountability and direction that we need to get building and start delivering for those who have been let down for too long.

As housing charity Shelter identifies, building more social rent homes is the only lasting solution to the housing emergency. Those homes are genuinely affordable because their rent is linked to local income; there are secure tenancies; and any rent increases are more predictable. In my constituency—I know colleagues from across the House will recognise this from their inboxes—families are trapped in substandard housing or temporary accommodation for years on end. Many of us have, I fear, become desensitised to the stories of families with no kitchen to cook in, no quiet space for children to learn, and no peace in which to rest.

That is the daily reality for far too many families in the UK. This is a national scandal. Let us be honest: it did not appear overnight. For over a decade, the previous Government failed to build the homes that this country desperately needs. They dismantled council house building, slashed local authority budgets, and left the private rented sector unchecked. Those failures have left this Government with an inheritance of a hollowed-out system that responds to homelessness after the fact, instead of preventing it at root.

I welcome the fact that this Labour Government are changing this reality for families in my constituency through significant policy changes, and by allocating £800 million to the affordable homes programme, and I am proud that a significant proportion of those homes will be for social rent, but we need to go further. Publishing or updating planning guidance on how local and national decision makers can contribute to the delivery of social rented homes can make a significant difference. That would align planning, investment and delivery with a shared goal.

We know the scale of the challenge. As many have noted, we need to build 90,000 social rented homes each year, not just for the remainder of this Parliament, but for the next decade, to meet current demand and get on top of the deep backlog. We must equip councils and delivery partners with the resources, planning powers and clarity of mission that they need. New clause 50 supports that clarity, making sure that every local and regional planning decision is pulling in the same direction.

I agree with the Minister on the need for strategic planning, the potential that spatial development strategies have to unlock large-scale regional housing solutions, and the power of land value uplift to fund affordable homes. These are important tools, but they would be better supported by clear targets. Setting a national target for social rented homes is not about Whitehall dictating numbers from above; it is about saying that we are serious about tackling homelessness.

I echo the words of this Government: this country needs builders, not blockers. Central to that sentiment must be setting a clear social housing strategy, so that we know not just that we must build, but how much we must build, and hold ourselves accountable for delivering those homes.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I will be brief as many colleagues are waiting to contribute. I will speak only to new clause 40, which calls for a review of the standard method of assessing local housing need. A couple of colleagues have already mentioned aspects of it, but I will talk about it for three reasons: it puts too many housing development requirements on rural areas, rather than cities; in areas like mine there are physical constraints, such as national parks, which can cause difficulties; and, as specified in the new clause, the system needs to take account of different types of housing and their affordability.

First, the new formula means that too much housing is being put into rural areas, away from urban areas. As we have heard, in some parts of London and Birmingham targets are being reduced, but there has been a 50% uplift in housing numbers nationally and a 100% uplift in my constituency. This is not a north-south issue; it is repeated in rural areas throughout the country, including in the far north-west and the far north-east. It does not correct what some people may think of as an historical imbalance, where all the developments are in towns and not in the country, because over the past couple of decades developments have been disproportionately in predominantly rural areas rather than predominantly urban areas. This is also bad for the Government’s growth agenda because, as the Resolution Foundation and others have pointed out, skewing development towards cities and towns is better for growth because of connectivity.

Secondly, I am concerned about physical constraints such as national parks. Development in a constituency such as mine, where over half the land area is inside a national park, creates particular issues in the areas just outside the national park. The Minister and his officials have been listening and they have been very helpful; I hope that they will continue to give the issue full consideration and that there will be a change.

Local Housing Need Assessment Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Mrs Hobhouse, it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair—I think, in my case, for the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing the debate and bringing us together to discuss this important matter.

It is very good to see this Minister in his place. I thank him and his Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government colleagues for their engagement on these issues. I have been in this place on more than one occasion to talk about related issues, including about how national parks work relative to local authority planning areas. I am grateful to his colleague the Minister for Housing and Planning for also meeting me separately as well as corresponding. Today, I am going to talk not about those issues, but about the algorithm overall and how it works and, in particular, about the affordability ratio and how it works—or, more correctly, does not work.

We know that the Government are looking for a big uplift—a 50% increase—in the number of housing completions, but in areas such as mine in Horsham, the increase is much greater than that. In my local planning area the target is up from 575—already a pretty punchy annual target—to more than 1,100, which is effectively a doubling. It is not a north/south thing, it is a rural/urban thing. Rural areas throughout the country have some of the biggest increases, such as in the rural far north-west and far north-east. There have been really big increases in the target, and at the same time major conurbations are seeing much lower increases in their numbers—typically 16% or 17%. Some places, including parts of London and Birmingham, are actually seeing the numbers go down at a time when we are trying to build many more homes. Sometimes it is thought that this is correcting a historical imbalance—that homes have not been built in the countryside for all these years—but that is not the case. Proportionately over the last couple of decades, in the rate of additions of homes per 1,000 existing dwellings, the predominantly rural areas have seen a greater build-out rate than predominantly urban areas.

I do understand that the Government need a formula—the 0.8% of housing stock multiplied by the five-year average affordability ratio, minus five, divided by five, multiplied by 0.95, plus one. It looks okay. Trust me: it looks logical if we break it down, but the truth is that in practice, it is not working. It is not delivering what all of us want to see, or what the Government want to see, which is a material, sustainable increase in housing stock in the places where people need it.

The affordability formula matters so much more now because of that 0.95. It used to be 0.6, but since it has gone up, it has made the affordability ratio do that much more work. There are multiple aspects to query, such as whether to use workplace-based earnings or residency-based earnings. I think both of those things are relevant, and a comprehensive formula would probably use both. Whether earnings or income is used makes a difference, because it means capturing only the working population or the retired population as well. Crucially, the formula lumps all types of housing together, so it does not distinguish between the cost of a starter home and a two-bedroom flat, a one-bedroom flat or a three-bedroom house in these different places.

Echoing what we heard from the hon. Member for Horsham, I have lots of people coming to my surgery who are unable to afford a home; probably everybody in this room has lots of people coming to their surgery in the same position. Some of those people are looking for social housing and there is a shortage of that, but when most people come to our surgeries and talk about the unaffordability of homes, they mean the affordability of a home they can buy—a decision that, I am guessing, most of us made at some point in our 30s or 40s. However, many more homes get built every year and I still get the same number of people coming to my surgery saying that they cannot afford to get on the housing ladder.

We want there to be more affordable homes in both senses, both the public sector sense, in what I call “capital A” affordable—social rent, part-ownership and all that—and for young couples and young families to be able to buy a home and invest in their security and that of their children. But the problem is that, other things being equal, the best returns for developers are on larger, five-bedroom or four-bedroom executive homes in large plots of land outside of town centres, which are very aspirational homes for people to buy. Although there is nothing wrong with that, it does not address the needs of the people coming to our surgeries saying that they cannot afford to get on the housing ladder. Therefore, because we have high unaffordability ratios, we get lots more houses being built but they tend to be five-bedroom, four-bedroom executive homes disproportionately. That makes the area even more unaffordable on average, because the average price of a new build house is greater than the median price of the existing housing stock, so over time the formula ratchets up the price. It just says, “However many more homes you build, you will need to build more and more.” Honestly—there is no mathematical logic to it. We should be trying to address the actual need.

I ask Ministers to look again at the formula, not to get rid of it but to change it. Development targets must be sustainable and reasonable in different areas of the country, and crucially they must target the addition of homes that people can afford to buy, so that over time affordability ratios improve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing this debate, and hon. Members from across the House on their excellent contributions. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am still a sitting councillor at Teignbridge district council.

The Liberal Democrats support housing targets, but believe we need to win the case for that housing within the communities we represent, and that enforcing them from Whitehall without community consent will continue to fail to deliver the homes we need. Homes must be built to meet local need and not be driven simply by developers seeking the highest profits. Development has brilliant potential for providing a wealth of opportunities to rural communities, but that can be realised only by genuinely involving those communities in the decisions that affect them. That means the right houses in the right places.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s decision to make housing a priority, given the desperate number of people denied the basic right to a safe and warm home. The Conservatives’ poor commitment to house building has left 8.5 million people in England with unmet housing need. The Conservatives let developers get away with building housing to poor standards, and without GP practices, schools and community infrastructure, which are badly needed. They also let them off the hook for leaving land for housing unbuilt and new homes empty. We believe everyone has a right to a safe and secure home, but without more support for councils, more people will be left without access to quality and affordable housing. The previous Conservative Government forced councils to do more and more with less and less, plunging many into financial crisis.

Although we have welcomed this Government’s commitment to our call for multi-year funding settlements, with additional pressure on councils to accept national insurance contribution changes, it is essential that they are funded robustly to achieve those aims.

We have been disappointed by the Government’s reluctance to commit to a target for social house building. In addition to an overall target for new homes, the Liberal Democrats would target 150,000 new social homes to tackle the housing shortage and homelessness crisis. We are committed to ensuring that house building does not come at the expense of our environment. The Government should not be either delivering house building or protecting our environment; they can and must do both.

We welcomed the Government’s recent announcement that they are adopting the Liberal Democrat policy and wording mandating all homes to be built with solar panels, in a solar rooftop revolution. We also welcome the measures in the Renters’ Rights Bill to ban no-fault evictions and create a national register of licensed landlords. We believe that these steps are crucial to overcoming the housing crisis. Liberal Democrats have long called for leasehold reform to make house ownership fairer and more accessible—we have been campaigning against leasehold since Lloyd George introduced the people’s Budget.

On the specifics of the standard method, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham, who pointed out that it does not and cannot work—as did the right hon. Member for, I believe, the Isle of Wight.

[Damian Hinds]

Well, I have been there, but I represent East Hampshire.

[Martin Wrigley]

My apologies to the right hon. Member.

Since 2018, when the Conservative Government introduced the so-called standard method, which was supposed to calculate housing need, the country has suffered from a top-down, dysfunctional system that fails to prioritise the importance of affordability or the infrastructure necessary to support new development. The constant tinkering, with the introduction and subsequent withdrawal of various failed algorithms, has led to the near paralysis of our planning system. That came on top of the central Government’s starving local planning authorities of the resources they need to function, and the lack of direction as a result of no fewer than 13 changes of Conservative Housing Minister in the nine years from 2015.

It is illiberal, and contrary to the interests of a community-led planning system, to remove options for how to assess housing need from local communities. Although the standard method of assessing housing need is likely to be followed by most authorities, councils with the resources and ability to assess housing need in ways more suited to their areas should be permitted to do so. All housing need assessments are, in any event, subject to the same scrutiny by the Government’s inspectors.

In the district of Teignbridge, in which my Newton Abbot constituency sits, the average house price in 2019 was just under 11 times the average income. After a substantial increase in housing targets due to the standard method calculations, that ratio is going up, and the average house price is now over 11 times the average income. Housing developers build homes only as fast as they can sell them and at the price they need to protect their profit and viability, given the often extortionate prices they have paid for the land. Asking them, via the flawed standard method, to build more to reduce the price is much like asking the owner of a gold mine to increase extraction to a level that reduces the price of gold. It will not happen.

A big part of the solution is to build more council homes, and I am proud to have overseen the resumption of council house building at Teignbridge for the first time in 30 years. I urge the Government to help more councils build more council homes to help more people.