Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Chris Vince

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to those in the other place for their work in getting us to this stage. I am conscious of time—it is a Thursday, and many Members want to speak—so I will not go into great depth on the amendments. However, I welcome the changes that the Government have made in the other place, and the work of Ministers to reach a compromise to get the Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible. I particularly welcome the series of pragmatic Government amendments on environmental delivery plans. It is critical to ensure that any system to protect our environment is robust, and the measures outlined by the Government will go some way to quelling some of the fears outlined not just in the other place but by Members across this House on Report. I also welcome reforms to address water supply and encourage the building of badly needed reservoirs, as well as measures to ensure that developers have extra time to commence work when a court grants a judicial review. That sensible and proportional approach will ensure that permissions do not expire through no fault of the developer, and avoid any unnecessary repetition of the whole planning process.

As Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, I wish to touch on two points that relate to the scrutiny we have in this place for planning and infrastructure. The first relates to Lords amendment 1, which is identical to amendment 83, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) on Report. As the Minister said then, this is

“about ensuring that scrutiny is proportionate to the changes being made,”. —[Official Report, 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 756.]

However, we must be honest and say that even amendments to statements can have a massive impact on our communities up and down the country. Sometimes that impact is even bigger than that of Bills, which are subject to the full weight of parliamentary scrutiny.

I understand the point that the Minister made in Committee, which is that the system has led to unacceptable delays, sometimes for several months. I also know as much as anyone that just because a Committee recommends something to Ministers, it is far from a guarantee that the Government will change their policy. However, it is important that this change is not used to ride through significant changes without Committees having the chance to carry out proper scrutiny into how the measure will impact the lives of people up and down the country. It must also not be used to bypass scrutiny when a statement is amended so much over time as to become a de facto new statement. That is part of the role that we were elected to carry out by this House, and it is something that helps give confidence to the whole House that we have properly considered the statements before us. I heard the Minister indicate earlier that the Government will not accept Lords amendment 1, but I gently ask whether he can assure the House that Committees will still be included in the process of amending statements, and that they will not be sidelined when we engage proactively and in a timely manner with that process.

The introduction of this Bill is long awaited, after years of failing to unblock a broken planning system and to build on the scale that we desperately need. Research from Crisis found that nearly 300,000 families and individuals have ended up without a home of their own, while previous Governments failed to act, and as we know, some children do not even have a room in which to learn to walk or crawl. In reality that will not end overnight; it will end only when we have a system that consistently builds the affordable and social homes that we desperately need.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am not on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, but I can tell from hon. Friend’s passion that she is an excellent Chair. The use of temporary accommodation, which we have discussed before, costs local councils millions of pounds every year. Does she hope that the Bill, and the fast tracking of social and affordable housing that she talks of, will help to tackle that issue and bring down bills for local councils?

[Florence Eshalomi]

My hon. Friend is a proud advocate of highlighting that issue, which we constantly raise with the Minister. This is about ensuring that our councils are part of the building process, and the new social and affordable homes package—the £39 billion—will help to ensure that we build those homes. It is good to see that package. The prospectus was announced last week, and bids will be coming in from February 2026—build, baby, build!

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Chris Vince

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this important and urgent debate. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is responsible for some of the biggest areas that impact all of us every single day, and I welcome the ambitious drive of the Deputy Prime Minister and her Ministers to deliver in those areas.

For too long, we have simply failed to build the homes that people need: the affordable homes for young people stuck at home or in the unaffordable private rented sector; the family homes for people whose kids have outgrown sleeping in the same room; and the social rent homes to get people off the social housing waiting lists and give the 164,000 homeless children a safe and permanent roof over their head.

I welcome that the Department is addressing head-on the financial distress that many local authorities are in. Last year, a record 30 local authorities received so-called exceptional financial support, which allows them to sell long-term assets or take out loans just to pay for their day-to-day costs. Due to the pressures they are under, some councils now have no choice but to hollow out their services in order to deliver vital services for residents. How can that be sustainable in 2025? How can it be fair that local people ultimately pay the price when their councils cannot fix up their town centres and have to cut vital services like bin collections just to make ends meet?

If the Department is going to get to grips with these dual crises and deliver on its ambitions, its plans to address them must be fully funded. When we look at the estimate and the recent spending review, there is good news for affordable housing and social housing, although I do have some questions for the Minister, which I will come to. On local authority finances, however, the Select Committee remains concerned that no new money is on the way. The spending review promises

“an average overall real terms increase in local authority core spending power”,

but only if local authorities increase council tax by the maximum allowable under legislation, passing the buck on to councils and raising the taxes we all pay in our local area.

If the Department is serious about ensuring everyone has access to an affordable home, we must end the decades of failure to build the homes we desperately need. That is why I welcome the Government’s ambition and commitment to deliver 1.5 million new homes during this Parliament, but evidence to our Select Committee from the sector has been clear: if the Government want to increase house building towards delivering more than 300,000 homes a year and reaching their target, social housing must be a substantial part of that mix. Ministers have said that the 1.5 million target is “stretching”, and the message we have heard from the sector is clear. In November, the Minister for Housing and Planning told us that, rather than a target of 300,000 homes per year over five years,

“The trajectory is an upward one”.

He said:

“The precise curve of that trajectory is dependent on factors like… the spending review settlement”.

We therefore warmly welcome the announcement in the spending review that the next affordable homes programme for 2026 onwards will be worth £39 billion. The estimate provides almost £400 million of uplift for the current affordable homes programme, which runs from 2021 to 2026. It is important that we continue to fund that if we are to reach the aim of 1.5 million new homes, but we need to start the building now, not towards the end of the decade. That is why I would be grateful to get some clarity from the Minister and the Department. Ministers have said they will publish a long-term housing strategy later this year, to set out how they will meet the 1.5 million target.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

This morning I met one of my constituents who is a care leaver, and she spoke of the huge challenges she faced in getting housing, partly because of the lack of affordable housing. Does my hon. Friend agree that supporting care leavers needs to be part of the housing strategy?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that really important intervention. It is clear that so many people desperately want to get their foot on the housing ladder and are worried about the precarious nature of private renting, which is why we welcome the Government’s ambition to end no-fault evictions, but there is much more we can do, and it starts with building the homes.

It is important that the Government set out their plan for reaching their target, instead of leaving it too late, so I have three questions for the Minister. First, when will the House have clarity on how much funding will be coming forward in each year of the 10-year affordable homes programme? The Government have said that spending will reach £4 billion a year in 2029-30. What does that mean until then? While the £400 million uplift accounted for the affordable homes programme is welcome, it is not clear that that is a sufficient rise for the Government to achieve their goal of 1.5 million new homes.

Secondly, when will we see the long-term housing strategy? The Government have said that the strategy will be published “later this year”. Now that we have the long-term certainty of 10 years’ worth of funding, housing associations are calling out for clarity—they want to get building the homes that we need.

Thirdly, what discussions is the Department having with Homes England about the design of the new affordable homes programme? What is the Minister’s view on how much of that funding should go to shared ownership or right to buy? My Committee has consistently called on the Department to set out how that target will be achieved by tenure, including the important target of social rented homes.

My Committee has been undertaking an inquiry into local government funding and we have heard that local government continues to be under severe financial strain. Local authorities across the country are being asked to deliver ever more, but simply have not been given adequate funding to do so. I welcome the Department’s day-to-day spending in respect of local government and the uplift of 22%—£2.5 billion overall—according to the proposed estimate.

However, the financial strain councils are facing is almost entirely driven by high-cost, demand-led services, over which councils have little control. Those services, which include the provision of social care and homelessness support, are vital and often relied on by some of the most vulnerable people in our respective areas. The cost of social care has soared over recent years. In 2023-24, local authorities in England spent £20.5 billion on adult social care—19% of the total service net expenditure. If children’s social care is included in that figure, it is over 30% of the total budget.

A significant proportion of the 22% uplift in the estimate comes from new money—over £850 million—for adult social care grants. I welcome that much-needed injection of funding. There is also an uplift of £684 million for children’s social care, but that figure appears to be somewhat inflated by a budget transfer from the Department for Education. While that uplift for the Ministry is welcome, it still may not be enough.

I want to touch briefly on homelessness and temporary accommodation again. Our first inquiry as a Select Committee in this Parliament deliberately chose to look at the sharp end of the housing crisis, and we published reports on children in temporary accommodation and rough sleeping. We found that at the heart of the crisis are over 165,000 homeless children and their families, who are often voiceless, out of sight and stuck in completely unsuitable temporary accommodation. That is also damaging council finances. I have repeated the figure before and I will repeat it again: councils spent £2.29 billion on temporary accommodation in 2023-24, which amounts to London boroughs spending a combined total of £4 million per day on temporary accommodation. That is not sustainable.

The estimate includes over £260 million in funding for the rough sleeping prevention grant, and an uplift of £194 million in the homelessness prevention grant. Again, while these uplifts are a positive step in the right direction, my Committee heard that the restrictions placed on the homelessness prevention grant are quite troubling for some London councils. The new ringfencing introduced for 2025-26 requires almost 50% of that grant to be spent on that specifically. The homelessness situation in the capital is not deceasing and boroughs are spending almost 80% of that funding on temporary accommodation. The Committee urges the Government to engage with councils to solve the issue, to ensure that we do not see a reduction in provision and to address homelessness levels.

The current system also has small, short-term pots of funding. We urge the Department to reform those funding streams to ensure that there is long-term sustainable funding, instead of multiple, short-term funding pots.

My Committee is concerned that there is slow progress on the inter-ministerial group that is developing the strategy. We know that the Department plans to publish that “later this year”. This area may not be in the Minister’s direct remit, but will he be more specific about when we will get that strategy? Given that we cannot end homelessness without building the social homes we need, could the homelessness strategy be published at the same time as the long-term housing strategy?

There is so much to welcome in the estimate for 2025-26. The Government are moving in the right steps and the right directions, but we need to hear the detail of the affordable homes programme funding, especially if we are to deliver a boost to housing before the end of this Parliament. We need to ensure that our local authorities are on a stable footing to provide for the most vulnerable in our society, whether it is those who need adult social care, people sleeping rough or families at risk of homelessness. I welcome the funding commitments outlined in this estimate, but I urge the Government to go further and be more ambitious in their funding and financial support for these priority areas. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to my questions.

Children in Temporary Accommodation: England

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Chris Vince

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my fellow Committee member, who brings her experience to the issue from her work with homelessness organisations. Local authorities want to work with the Government, but they need to talk to each other more. We will push the Government further to ensure that local government is speaking with one voice. At the moment, some boroughs are not notifying each other. It is vital that we look at that.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Select Committee Chair for bringing this report to the Chamber. It relates to two of my previous roles, as I have worked as a teacher and with homelessness charities, so the subject is close to my heart. What joint working has the Committee done with the Department for Education and teaching professionals on the impact of being in temporary accommodation on learning? I also want to raise an issue that came up in Harlow when I worked for a homelessness charity. The decision by the previous Government—I do not think it was malicious—to raise the housing element of universal credit led to many private sector landlords raising their rent. That had an impact on temporary accommodation, because many people were being housed in temporary accommodation in the private rented sector. Will the Committee consider that?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for his points, and I again commend him on the work he has done in this area, which I have heard him speak on in the Chamber. It is important that we recognise that the long-term ambition is to build those genuinely affordable homes, but in the interim, it is about how we work to address this important issue. One way is ensuring that this issue does not just sit with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It has to be an inter-Department agenda and focus. That is why we welcome the Government’s cross-departmental ministerial team looking at this, because the issues are not confined to MHCLG, but are about education and health, too. It is important that the Departments continue to talk, and that is one thing we will feed back as we get responses from the Government.