Draft Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026

Debate between David Simmonds and Chris Curtis

Tuesday 30th June 2026 General Committees

[Chris Curtis]

I thank the shadow Minister for making that point because it was the last point I was going to briefly make before wrapping up. This is the key point: it adds not only uncertainty, but delays. If uncertainty has costs in the housing system, the developers might go to the Planning Inspectorate, but that adds extra delay and costs.

Most of the developments in schedule 1 are very small—often up to just 10 properties. The margins that a developer would make on that project are much smaller than the costs of that delay and of having to go to the Planning Inspectorate in the first place. That means that most developments across the country have effectively stopped construction altogether. The big consequence of that is that SME builders, particularly those in local communities who have generally been building smaller sized developments, are going under. One of the only ways to fix that is by bringing certainty back into the system, given that uncertainty is one of the reasons why they have been facing challenges.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Curtis]

I have taken up too much time; people really want to get off.

We all accept that we should be focusing on smaller sites because, as the Minister set out, the bigger sites should be decided and focused on by the planning committees. This measure will free up more of their time to focus on those bigger sites and issues. However, schedule 1 sets the size of small sites at nine properties or fewer, which I think is at the lower end of people’s expectations. I appreciate that the Minister has done lots of consultation work on the draft regulations, but given that just 69% of the properties built each year would fall into that category, can he please give us some information on how he has settled on that number? Will he consider raising that number in future, if he is convinced that it would lead to more benefit and more good-quality homes being constructed?