Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for bringing to the House an important debate on an issue that affects a lot of our constituencies. I also thank all the Members who contributed today, including my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster)—indeed, I thank him for contributing in this Chamber for the second time today.

The Liberal Democrats want to see more homes built, principally the 150,000 council and social rent homes that the country needs, but the right way to deliver those homes is by working with communities and trusting them, and prioritising brownfield sites, the 700,000 empty homes in the country, and the 500,000 homes that could be provided in empty commercial buildings, according to the London School of Economics.

When it comes to the green belt, few of us, and certainly not the Liberal Democrats, would object to a community deciding, through its democratic local plan, to release formerly green-belt land for its own reasons, and particularly for social homes. But the Government’s grey-belt policy is not that. It is being abused, giving carte blanche to development pretty much anywhere and, as it is currently set out in the national planning policy framework, it has to go. We were told that “grey belt” meant disused car parks and old petrol stations, but the CPRE has found that, in the first year, 88% of homes approved on the grey belt at appeal were on land that had never been built on, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam also pointed out.

In this Chamber in July, the Minister told us:

“The definition of grey belt is set out in the glossary of the NPPF.”—[Official Report, 16 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 466WH.]

There is a definition there, but for me it has more holes than a Swiss cheese. It omits to protect two of the green belt’s five purposes—safeguarding the countryside from encroachment and recycling derelict land. Because the purposes that are left do not apply to villages, it has also removed villages from the green-belt protections that they have had for more than a century, so a field on the edge of a green-belt village is very likely to be grey belt. Developers know it and are trying their luck.

On 7 September, the Secretary of State told the House that she is

“strengthening and clarifying the rules around the release of grey belt”.—[Official Report, 7 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 643.]

If there is no confusion, what is being clarified? The answer so far has been to take the test for protected landscapes out of the definition altogether. That widens the grey belt rather than tightening it. On the same day, the Minister confirmed that the Government do not collect data on how much land councils have identified as grey belt. Will the Minister commit to collecting that? My hon. Friend the Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) asked for that last October.

The new national planning policy framework requires every green-belt council to plan for grey-belt releases, allocated in its local plan. But since the Government’s grey-belt rules allow any developer to apply for grey-belt development on any site, whether or not it has been allocated as grey belt in the local plan, there can be little point in pretending that the local plan approach is the only one, or that grey-belt development is, in any sense, being plan led.

Developers do not need a grey-belt policy to redevelop an old petrol station in any event. Redeveloping previously developed land in the green belt has been allowed since 2012, if not longer, as long as it does not harm openness more than the development previously there. What grey belt adds is the field next to it, and it is decided at appeal, rather than through the local plan—that is, rather than by the local community. That is another instance where community powers have been stripped away in what the Town and Country Planning Association has called an “unprecedently permissive” planning regime.

This policy comes into play where there is unmet need—in practice, where a council cannot show a five-year land supply. In Somerset, the Government are mandating that another 75,000 homes—a 41% increase—should be found in the next local plan. I have not met anyone who believes that is realistic or achievable. The targets are derived from the Government’s new standard method, which has in one fell swoop thrown much of England under the threat of development, as the majority of councils cannot meet such impossible targets under the new standard method. It would take them the two-year local plan process to escape that threat, and millions of pounds to boot. This could be called a developer’s charter but, unfortunately, many of these sites are not being developed, so it is more of a land speculator’s charter.

Developers, not the community, end up selecting which part of the green belt is up for grabs. Villages are hit hardest, not just because they have lost their green-belt protection but because for many, if not all, the new targets have undermined the one thing that has reliably delivered affordable homes for local people in rural areas: rural exception sites. Last week, I brought to the House an example from an inspector’s decision in Gweek, Cornwall.

The Minister told us in July that the framework makes exception sites easier. In reality, exception sites work where agricultural land that is worth, say, £12,000 an acre cannot be sold for a higher price for commercial housing due to strict planning rules, so it might as well be allowed to be sold for agricultural value, or a little more, for social housing that helps the village. The Government, however, have now told every landowner around villages and elsewhere that their acre could be worth not just £12,000 but anything from £150,000 to £3 million—the price of land with residential permission—because those strict planning policy preventions no longer apply, and because anyone can apply for it to be developed as grey belt anywhere in the green belt.

If a landowner is told that their field might be grey belt, why would they sell it for £12,000 for social housing, when they could get £150,000 or more? It would definitely be more in the home counties and near London. Hope value has always been the enemy of exception sites, and the way that the grey belt has been implemented has created hope value around every village and green belt—so goodbye to social housing on such exception sites. Building the kind of homes that villages lack just got harder.

We do agree on the golden rules, which rightly require more affordable and social housing where green-belt land is released. That is absolutely right, but it does not mean that valuable green spaces should be up for grabs. Ironically, an area with no green belt can be better protected from some of these policies, but that does not mean that our green spaces in Taunton and Wellington are safe.

In Taunton, we have green wedges—countryside running right into the town and doing the job that the green belt does elsewhere—but those spaces have only local policy protection. Earlier this year, consultants recommended releasing Trull green wedge from its green wedge status, ironically because it was the last bit of green remaining in a built-up area. That is something that, in my opinion, made it more valuable not less. An application for 125 homes quickly followed, because the council, like most in England, cannot meet its new five-year land supply. Our councillors rightly refused the application. Fortunately, it was under the 150 homes limit, above which councillors must now ask Whitehall’s permission to refuse a development.

The appeals public inquiry has just begun showing how thin green wedge protection is. The green belt, green wedges and local green spaces can all be weakened by the next rewriting of the framework, without this House having a vote. In the Liberal Democrats’ view, all communities—not just those in the green belt—should have a stronger and longer-lasting way to protect their most precious green spaces.

What should we do instead? First, we should scrap the grey belt and instead release green-belt land through community-led local plans, with the golden rules applying in full and with social homes at their heart. Secondly, we should keep the long-standing exception for previously developed land, and make brownfield-first a legal requirement. Thirdly, we should give communities who review their green belt 20 years’ statutory protection for the green wedges and green belt that they prioritise. That would give them confidence that, instead of a free-for-all, their most precious green spaces will be protected in law for the long term.

If people are to accept the homes that we need—and we do need them—they must have confidence in the protection for the bits of green space that are most precious to them and most dear to those communities, as our amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 set out. We were promised that the grey belt would turn old petrol stations into homes, but what it is actually delivering is the loss of green field after green field, as decided by the Government’s policy issued in Whitehall. It is time to scrap it and put communities back in charge of their green belt and their green spaces.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on securing this debate. He is an assiduous and highly effective parliamentarian, whom I have the upmost respect for, and he opened the debate with a characteristically incisive and challenging contribution. I thank him for the opportunity he has given the Chamber to debate this issue, and I will seek in the course of my remarks to respond to each of his specific points.

I also thank the hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. I appreciate fully that this topic provokes strong views, to put it mildly, but in the time I have available, I hope to provide some further clarity on the Government’s green belt policy, specifically the nuances of national policy relating to grey belt. Hon. Members and the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam will appreciate that, due to the quasi-judicial nature of the planning process, I will be unable to comment in detail on individual local plans, planning applications or how individual local planning authorities may interpret national planning policy.

As the right hon. and learned Member made clear in his opening remarks, the definition of grey belt is set out in the glossary of the “National Planning Policy Framework”. It is defined, for the purposes of plan making and decision making, as

“land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not…contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d)”,

as set out in NPPF policy GB2. As I make that point, it is also worth making it clear that we have not altered the five purposes of the green belt that we inherited. They remain as they were, and we do not propose to alter the general extent of the green belt either.

I will come on to expand on the role of local planning authorities in the process. It is for individual local planning authorities to undertake the necessary assessments to identify if land is grey belt, either through plan making or through considering specific applications that come forward. Let me take each of those in turn, starting with plan making, and in doing so gently push back on the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster).

This is, and is intended to be, a plan-led approach. The NPPF allows for local planning authorities to alter green belt boundaries using the local development plan process in “exceptional circumstances”. That includes situations where a local authority is unable to meet its identified need for development, having examined all other reasonable options for doing so, including making as much use as possible of suitable previously developed land, optimising the density of development and assessing whether sufficient sites can be identified outside the green belt. As set out in NPPF policy GB2, any decision to alter green belt boundaries should be informed by a green belt assessment, which identifies grey-belt land within the green belt.

Following the publication of the revised NPPF in December 2024, the Government awarded over £9.3 million to 133 local planning authorities to support them with the costs of undertaking such green belt reviews. An assessment of the strategic role of the green belt should also inform the preparation of spatial development strategies, as legislated through the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, where these will be setting the strategic context for land release.

[Gideon Amos]

The Minister is always generous with his time and in responding to interventions, which is appreciated by all of us. If the intention is that this should be a plan-led approach, will he remove the provisions in the NPPF that allow developers to claim that their land is grey belt through an application by reference to the policies that have been put in the NPPF for such grey belt decisions to be made outside of the local plan process through individual planning applications?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will say two things in respect to that, and I will come on to detail how the approach works in relation to decision making very shortly. In general terms, developers can make whatever claims they like about any particular site across the country; it is for the local authority to assess whether, in its view, that site constitutes grey belt, if that is part of the application that is submitted. Where there is disagreement and it goes to appeal, I have set out exactly how planning inspectors need to determine such applications.

It is crucial to note that where grey belt is identified, it does not automatically follow that it should be allocated for development or released from the green belt, or that development proposals be approved in all circumstances. Other considerations in decision making are relevant, as I will expand upon shortly. I also want to stress that any alterations to green belt boundaries must promote sustainable patterns of development by ensuring that any alterations, taken together, do not fundamentally undermine the five green belt purposes of the remaining green belt when considered across the plan area. Considerations also include giving priority to the release of previously developed land in the green belt, then considering low-quality grey-belt land, which will include disused petrol stations and other previously developed land of that kind, although not necessarily be limited to it, and only then exploring other green belt locations.

To respond to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam on whether allocating grey-belt land for development will necessarily lead to the cumulative erosion of the green belt over time, I would point out two things. First, as I have already mentioned, development proposals on grey-belt land must respond to a demonstrable unmet need—I will come to his points about the standard method shortly. Secondly, it is precisely to avoid the situation that we inherited—which was a haphazard and piecemeal approach to green belt land designation and release—that this Government have implemented the approach that we have. Its effective working is predicated on ensuring that designation and release take place in a strategic manner over time through local plans with a 10-year horizon, and in due course—because they are just as important—through spatial development strategies with a 20-year horizon. We want the approach to be plan-led.

Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on securing today’s important debate and setting out the issue so clearly. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) on all the hard work he is doing to deal with the Halloween horror of panels falling in the town centre.

I pay tribute to the 72 victims of the Grenfell disaster. No debate should pass without recognising how grotesquely they were failed by the systems that were meant to protect them. Let us not forget what the public inquiry panel, chaired by the judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, said in its epic report on the disaster. On building inspectors, it said:

“We have concluded that the conflict between the regulatory function of building control and the pressures of commercial interests prevents a system of that kind from effectively serving the public interest.”

Similarly, it said that the Building Research Establishment

“sacrificed rigorous application of principle to its commercial interests.”

I will return to commercial interests shortly.

The remediation Bill announced in the King’s Speech is expected to make it a legal requirement that every fire risk appraisal of external walls be carried out according to the publicly available specification, or PAS 9980, standard produced by the British Standards Institution. That document decides whether, by law, a leaseholder’s building requires remediation or is considered safe.

The final version of that document has only just been published, but the draft that went out to consultation should worry us and every leaseholder in the country, and we need to know whether its deficiencies have been fixed. First, it says:

“Failure of a building to meet the benchmarks given in building regulations...at the time when the building was built, should not be used as the sole basis for determining the outcome of the FRAEW.”

That means that a building can still pass the PAS 9980 test even if it is proven not to have complied with the building regulations in force when it was built. The fire safety order manages fire safety in occupied buildings on the assumption that they met the building regulations when they were built. The remediation regime should require the same standard that developers should have met when constructing the building, and that others were, and continue to be, required to meet when constructing buildings.

What is remediation for if not to make buildings meet the standards they should always have met? Frankly, what is the point of having building regulations for leaseholders in this position if they are not enforced in such clear circumstances? Can the Minister reassure leaseholders that the newly published standard requires the remediation of failures to comply with the building regulations that were in force at the time of construction? Such questions also point to worrying failures to enforce building regulations more generally, far beyond fire safety, which could lead to an unfolding tide of undiscovered construction failings.

After what we have heard from Sir Martin Moore-Bick and the panel in the Grenfell public inquiry report, any notion that the profit motive has a continuing role in building inspection following those tragic events is unacceptable and cannot be sustained. I am disappointed that the building control independent panel has recommended the continuation of private sector, and therefore profit-seeking, roles in building inspection. That is what got us into this mess; it will not get us out of it. The Liberal Democrats are calling for building control services to be in-house in local or regional authorities, or otherwise not for profit.

As we have heard, the second deficiency in PAS 9980 is the gap between “tolerable” and “low”. Where an appraisal finds a tolerable risk, the draft allows for the work that is needed to bring that risk down to low to be delayed. The commentary on clause 7 suggests

“recommending upgrading the performance of external wall components if/when there is any refurbishment of the external walls in future.”

If and when is not good enough for families who have to live in unsafe homes and with the knowledge that their external walls contain flammable material, sometimes including materials that are more flammable than that used on Grenfell Tower. The leaseholder pays for that wait in insurance premiums, mortgage difficulties and living in a building that is only partially safe. For too many, it also renders useless the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act, as they apply to unsafe cladding, and this cladding is not considered unsafe.

If components are found to pose a tolerable risk, are they unsafe? Why should they not be removed to reduce the risk to low? We have heard about the challenge of getting insurance; if buildings were remediated to the standard to which they should have been built in the first place and all flammable materials were removed, residents would not have any problem in getting insurance. Developers cannot be asked to come back to finish the job under those circumstances, because the developer remediation contract only requires a building to be brought up to the “tolerable” standard. Can the Minister confirm whether the newly published standard requires all the work needed to reach a low-risk outcome to be undertaken at the same time?

These are not technical quibbles. The Department’s own figures, published in August, show that of the 4,600 buildings being monitored, only 1,800 have completed remediation, and over 2,000 of the 4,600 required remediations have not even been started, meaning. That means that in 46% of buildings with unsafe cladding no work has begun—nine years on from Grenfell, as other Members have pointed out—and the Department estimates that somewhere between 1,100 and 2,600 more buildings are in scope but have not yet been identified.

Meanwhile, leaseholders continue to struggle under the cladding crisis, buying properties that they believed met safety standards but that they now realise do not, and are suffering huge increases in premiums and so on. Many developers and building owners have passed on the cost of remediation work to tenants and leaseholders, putting many of them, quite unfairly, in serious financial peril. The Liberal Democrats, following the policy passed by our conference last year on the great property rip-off, are therefore calling for the removal of all such flammable cladding, whether above or below 11 metres, as soon as possible and without tenants or leaseholders, including non-qualifying leaseholders, having to pay.

After all, those who bought leases placed their trust in the private companies and regulatory bodies that let them down. The fault was not theirs. Solicitors’ searches would have shown that buildings had not met building regulations. Homeowners were misled, and it was not their fault. They should not have to pay a penny towards that work. That is why my noble Friend Baroness Pinnock’s Leaseholder Remediation (Building Safety) Bill, which had its Second Reading in the other place on Friday, would protect leaseholders in buildings of any height and would put developers, contractors and manufacturers on the hook for the cost.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister six things. Will she set out the changes between the consultation draft and the recent version of PAS 9980, which was published the other day? Will she make it clear that a building that has been found to fail the building regulations that were in force when it was built must be remediated back to the building regulations standard, and that the work needed to reach a low-risk outcome should be done once, not deferred to some future refurbishment? Will leaseholder protections be extended to every leaseholder in every defective building, including the hundreds of thousands excluded from the building safety regime? Will the Government commit to driving profit-making commercial interest out of every part of building control inspections and official product testing certifications, and to making physical inspections the norm once again in every development? What more will the Government do to end delays at the Building Safety Regulator? Finally, will the Government confirm that the remediation Bill will provide for cladding manufacturers to be pursued for their share of the costs of remediation, which they have at least partly caused?

We welcomed the legally enforceable duty to remediate on pain of criminal sanction, and we still do, but a duty to remediate is only as good as the standard against which it is measured. Commercial interest should have no place in policing commercial projects for safety and building regulations. Residents in Taunton and Wellington, in London and across the country deserve nothing less. Above all, the victims of the terrible and avoidable disaster at Grenfell deserve justice.

Social Housing Bill [Lords]

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my experience as a social landlord.

The Liberal Democrats have long called for a major programme of social housing—150,000 homes per year—so there are elements of the Bill that we welcome and we will support it today. Extending the qualifying period to 10 years and cutting discounts will slow the loss of social homes, as we have been hearing. Protecting a newly built social home from sale for 35 years should give councils more confidence to build again, as will the improved right of first refusal. The protections for tenants fleeing domestic abuse are welcome and overdue, and we support them. So there are important steps in the right direction, but the Bill as a whole is nowhere near the scale of what is needed.

As other hon. Members have pointed out, right to buy was not on its own the biggest issue; it was the complete failure to replace properties, home for home. Thanks to the Conservatives, in Taunton and Wellington, as in the rest of the country, there are thousands fewer council homes than there used to be, all while the need for social housing has grown and grown. There are 4 million fewer council houses in this country than there were in 1980. Even taking into account replacements, social housing and registered social landlords, the number of social homes in this country has dropped by 1.5 million homes.

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

I agree with the majority of what the hon. Gentleman has said so far; he may come on to things that I do not agree with later in his speech, but we will have to wait and see. Will he reflect on the fact that the impact of councils losing their council housing stock has been that they have had to spend more and more money on temporary accommodation? It is a zero-sum game for local councils and the impact on families and young people has been particularly difficult, including in my constituency of Harlow.

[Gideon Amos]

I thank the hon. Member for I forget where—he does not mention it very often, but maybe it is Harlow. He is right and I will come to exactly that point about temporary accommodation.

The Resolution Foundation found that only one home was replaced for every five sold. That is a direct failure of Governments of all persuasions to build enough social housing. The Conservatives reversed their policy of allowing councils to spend 100% of receipts soon after they introduced it. In comparison, in 2004, a Labour Government required three quarters of receipts to be sent straight to the Treasury. Homes were sold at around half their value, and what money there was from receipts went elsewhere, not into building new social homes, and building rates plummeted.

I am glad that the new Prime Minister talks a good game on devolution, but even under the measures in this Bill, councils will remain unable to stop the loss of council homes from right to buy. The Liberal Democrats would give councils that power to end right to buy in their areas, if that is right for them and their communities. The Government should trust councils to understand their communities and their own housing markets.

When it comes to the Conservatives, who seem to be chasing their ideological bedfellows in the Reform party, apparently the priority is not building housing; it is finding a minority to blame for the problem—a group to alienate as “the other” when we should be focusing on building for the whole of the UK and everyone who lives here. Their amendment banning people who are not full British citizens from social housing overlooks the fact that people subject to immigration control are already ineligible for social housing—that is the law—but they want to go further.

The nurse on the ward at Musgrove Park hospital, in my constituency, would not be welcome under this Conservative amendment and would not be allowed to have a social home or a council house. The care worker who looked after people during the pandemic would not be welcome under this Conservative amendment. Under a Conservative Government, they would have nowhere to live when it comes to council and social housing. That is ironic for a party that has produced two Prime Ministers born outside Britain. As the Member of Parliament for Taunton and Wellington, I do not know whether I should inform his grace the Duke of Wellington that the first Duke of Wellington would not fully be a British citizen under the Conservative amendment tabled today because he was born outside Britain.

[Gareth Bacon]

That is total rubbish!

[Gideon Amos]

I suggest the hon. Gentleman reads the Conservative amendment that refers to reserving social housing for British citizens.

[Gareth Bacon]

The Duke of Wellington was British.

[Gideon Amos]

No, the Duke of Wellington was not born in Britain—the hon. Gentleman needs to have a look at his history books—[Interruption.] Regardless of the history of the Duke of Wellington, attempts to use the Bill to pump up divisive culture-war claptrap does not deserve our attention. Rather than pointing the finger of blame at minorities, we should be talking about how to build more social homes, and that is exactly what I will go on to do.

The failure to replace social homes, among other factors, means that more and more people are in temporary accommodation. There are 132,000 households in temporary accommodation, and councils spent £2.8 billion on it last year. The scourge of poor-quality temporary accommodation exists for far too many children, and that is why we need a big public housing programme to match the scale of the challenge. If for no other reason, we must do that because it is incumbent on all of us in this House, across parties, to end the tragic loss of children’s lives. The Shared Health Foundation has highlighted that temporary accommodation was found by a coroner to be a contributing factor in the deaths of 104 children in the last five years.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

I have almost 180 families in Woking in temporary accommodation, and it is tragic for them. Some 20 of them are located outside the borough. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to ensure councils can locate people in temporary accommodation locally so that it does not devastate their lives as much as it does at the moment?

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. People should be able to stay in their communities, and we need local, affordable housing and social housing at scale to deal with that issue.

[Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Tory idea of capping the local housing allowance would mean that families who cannot afford to stay in their area will have to move out of the area, tear their children out of school and turn their lives upside down?

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the local housing allowance and the huge effect that it has on local families and housing markets. It needs to be uprated. I must return to my speech, or you will start giving me looks, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Among other things, we must free up councils to build. My Lib Dem colleagues on Somerset council would build 600 council houses; they are already building council housing in parts of the county for the first time in a generation. The council has sites for another 600 houses and wants to build them, but it does not have the headroom in its housing revenue account. The Government promised to confirm their approach to a discounted borrowing rate for housing revenue accounts in the autumn, so we and councils eagerly await that news. If Ministers will not raise the £3.9 billion per year to the £6 billion per year that we have put in our manifesto for social housing, will they use some additional funds to write off some or all of that housing revenue account debt so that councils such as Somerset can get building again, as Shelter and others have called for?

On the scale of the need, the Government have reannounced that 60% of their programme for 300,000 homes will be social housing, which is 18,000 a year. That is welcome, but when that was first announced in July 2025, we said that it was not enough, and reannouncing it this summer does not make it enough. Will the Government raise the target for social homes—if not to our target of 150,000, then to a number higher than 18,000 a year?

In addition, the Bill does very little to address the unique issues of affordable housing in rural areas. In Taunton and Wellington, all that people are seeing is unprecedented plans for private housing, which many cannot afford. The council has been instructed to consent homes for 180,000 people in the next 15 years. The population of Somerset has never grown by 25% in any 15-year period in its history, and it will not do so in the next 15 years, but acres of beautiful countryside will be gobbled up for private housing permissions that many people in my constituency cannot afford.

Proposals to eat up the green belt have a consequence for social housing. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has brought to my attention an inspector’s decision in Gweek in Cornwall, following the Minister’s own policies, in which all social housing was removed from a previous consent on appeal, because, under new, mandatory Government housing targets, the new five-year supply could not be met. All private housing must now be allowed, and all social housing must be removed from the scheme. That needs to be addressed.

However, this is not just an issue in Cornwall. Most of England—at least, most of southern England—is covered by councils that, thanks to the new standard method, can no longer achieve the new five-year land supply. With the majority of those councils, we have a planning free-for-all in which social homes are not being safeguarded. The standard method has to go. We should replace it with a return to properly researched household projections that take into account movements between regions and safeguard exception sites for social housing, which are being lost. Fortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives has thought about this issue, and he has a Bill that would do exactly that. Permission in principle capped at nine dwellings sits below the affordable housing threshold, so that, too, means that sites are being lost.

The Government’s Bill does protect rural social homes from being sold, which I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues welcome. However, as long as the planning system that runs alongside it closes down the supply of new ones, it will simply not be enough. Overall, this Bill does not go far enough. In contrast, our Liberal Democrat Housing Bill—I had the privilege of presenting it to Madam Deputy Speaker not so long ago—would establish a target of 150,000 new social homes a year, including a new wave of rent to own, allowing young people to get on the housing ladder. It would require the Secretary of State to report on progress on meeting that target and would give local authorities the proper powers over social housing they will need to achieve it, including the right to end the right to buy in their area if it is right for them and their community. That is the Liberal Democrat vision for a revolution in the delivery of social homes, and I commend it to the House.

Draft Building Safety Levy (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the Minister on her appointment and welcome her to her place.

I rise to restate the Liberal Democrat commitment that no leaseholder who has found themselves subject to cladding remediation costs for which they were not responsible should shoulder those costs without access to remediation. We support these amendments to improve the 2025 regulations, but there is a bigger question about other buildings.

High-risk buildings need to be addressed first, as the shadow Minister said, but there are none the less residents in buildings under 11 metres tall and in buildings whose standard does not meet PAS 9980:2022, which means that they continue to live in buildings with flammable cladding. Although that cladding would last an hour, so it is safer for them to escape, it is not a standard recognised by insurers, who expect buildings to be built to building regulations. Thousands of leaseholders are potentially in that position, and many of them cannot get insurance—except at very high cost—and cannot sell their properties.

I invite the Minister to comment on how the funding towards the building safety regime can be widened beyond the levy, and to confirm that the Government will bring forward proposals in their remediation Bill to tackle the cladding manufacturers, which have been largely responsible for the crisis since it began.

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the shadow Minister for highlighting that. I should have said that the levy has been designed to minimise potential housing supply impact.

The shadow Minister asked whether the levy could have an impact on our ambitious target—rightly so—of reaching 1.5 million new homes. We continue to work closely with the housing market to look at supply. We are committed to working with the industry to ensure that homes continue to be built at pace. This issue comes up in my inbox, as it does for many hon. Members—it is not isolated to London. It is important that we build good-quality homes.

The shadow Minister also highlighted the impact that the measures could have on innocent homeowners, who should not be burdened with the cost. I thank him for agreeing that the cost should not be placed on them. It is right that developers and house builders be responsible for it, in order to protect innocent homeowners.

The Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, highlighted an issue on which many of us have campaigned for many years: ensuring that innocent leaseholders and homeowners are not responsible for paying the levy. Many of them struggle with housing costs and the cost of living crisis on a day-to-day basis. It is important that developers have a way to fund the levy with no additional cost to the taxpayer.

The Lib Dem spokesperson asked about properties that fall out of scope. We will continue to identify those properties and work with the sector to highlight other ways of supporting them, in order to ensure, again, that costs are fairly shared across the market.

[Gideon Amos]

On a point of further clarification, I hope that the Minister agrees that one reason for broadening the scope of funding for the safety regime so that it includes cladding manufacturers is that in constituencies such as mine in Somerset, there are no high-rise buildings at all—indeed, most of Somerset has no high-rise buildings—but all the developers in Somerset will none the less pay for remediation in the big cities. None of us begrudges the importance of paying for that remediation, but I hope that that example illustrates the importance of widening the funding of the regime so that cladding manufacturers are required to contribute.

[Florence Eshalomi]

As I mentioned, we will keep under review the process and, importantly, the rates, and we will report back to the House every three years on those key areas.

The building safety levy is essential to fund the remediation of historic building safety issues without further burdening residents and leaseholders. The draft amending regulations before the Committee are designed to support this work and make the levy work more efficiently, in accordance with our initial intention to support redevelopment of brownfield sites. They are intended to correct drafting and improve clarity and consistency of process for developers and local authorities, rather than alter the underlying policy design of the levy.

The Government are committed to delivering 1.5 million homes in this Parliament to meet the country’s long-term housing needs and unlock growth. That mission must work in parallel with our commitment to remedy the building safety failures of the past. We expect the development industry to contribute to our work making buildings safe for those who live in them. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Building Homes and Renewing Communities

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment. I look forward to our exchanges, and to working with her and her team.

There are millions fewer council houses than there used to be, yet the need for social housing has only increased, not least given the scourge of poor-quality temporary accommodation for too many children. The Shared Health Foundation has found that in the last six years, temporary accommodation has been noted by the coroner as a contributory factor in the deaths of 104 children.

In Taunton and Wellington and elsewhere, all that people see are unprecedented plans for private housing that many will not be able to afford. Councils have been instructed by Whitehall to consent to homes for 180,000 people in Somerset over the next 15 years—a 25% increase in the pace of growth, never seen in the county’s history. What we need instead is a truly ambitious programme of council and social housing—not the Government’s reannouncement that 60% of its 300,000 programme will be social housing and not the 18,000 per year, but the Lib Dem policy of 150,000 social homes a year.

I recognise that the statement confirms around 46,000 social homes over 10 years, with further tranches to come, but will the Housing Secretary and the new Prime Minister, who has said a lot about social housing, raise the target from 18,000 a year or not? Will the Government raise their £3.9 billion funding to our proposed £6 billion? If they will not do that, will they write off some of the councils’ housing revenue account debt so that councils such as Somerset can build the 600 council houses that they would build if they could?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this issue, which is one that the Prime Minister feels incredibly passionate about. He has committed to delivering the biggest council house building programme since the post-war boom ended in the early 1980s, and although I recognise the challenges, I also want to celebrate the fact that last year, councils built the most council houses since records began in 1991. However, we want to see that ramp up with the money we are investing to help councils, as I outlined earlier.

We have already taken measures, as Members can see from the legislation that is going through at the moment—it has been through the other place—to tighten up the right to buy and make sure that councils keep full receipts. We are supporting that programme, and we should recognise the significance of the £10 billion of investment that was announced last month. This is about making sure that we get that money out the door so that we can build those homes, and the planning reforms we have introduced are about making sure that people have a say about those homes, but also about having clarity, so that the homes and the infrastructure around them are built.

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the number of children in temporary accommodation. I still think it is absolutely awful that those children are in those circumstances, and that is why we want to tackle social housing in particular.

National Planning Policy Framework

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) and all the hon. Members who have contributed today, including my hon. Friends the Members for St Ives (Andrew George), for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young), for Horsham (John Milne), for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) and for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew).

One of the abiding themes of the debate is that water and other infrastructure seem to escape the demanding targets that are applied to the delivery of housing. We need an infrastructure-first approach in which infrastructure is as prioritised as housing. The Liberal Democrats welcome the ambition to deliver more homes, particularly the 150,000 social and council rent homes that the country needs, which we established as a target in our manifesto. But the right way to deliver those homes is by working with local communities and trusting them, not through more centralisation into Whitehall. Housing targets, for us, should be established firmly in a community-led process.

The incoming Prime Minister has talked a lot about devolution and giving power back to local communities, and he is right to do so. Communities know what works for their area, but this proposed framework does the opposite, stripping power away from local decision makers rather than handing it to them.

The proposed framework comes off the back of the recent regulations and direction that mean that decisions, both small and large, are now removed from local councillors, so that they have no power or control over those decisions. It also means that proposed developments such as those at Orchard Portman near Taunton—where 1,100 acres of farms were sold off by the Crown Estate to a house builder without the usual return of payments to the public purse being required in the event of planning permission—could be decided in Whitehall, not by our elected counsellors in Somerset.

For all applications now, the draft NPPF, which was recently out for consultation, is filled with policies that weaken local plans and community involvement. It is a power grab by central Government. Across the proposed new framework document, that centralising instinct repeats itself, starting with the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Today, that presumption is a backstop, applying only where the local plan is absent or out of date, or where there is no five-year land supply. That rewards communities for investing in an up to date local plan. That presumption in favour of sustainable development is now to be abolished; instead, policies S3, S4 and S5 would impose a de facto presumption in favour of development in every circumstance for certain kinds of development. That begs the question: will councils continue to invest all their time and effort in local plan preparation?

The same instinct runs through proposals on the weight to be given to different policy considerations, giving the same weight to housing, economic development, and heritage and landscape, leaving Historic England to raise concerns about how those will be balanced. It could mean that the historic setting of the Wellington monument on Oldway Road in my constituency, currently subject to appeal, could be another victim of these proposed policies. That approach could also be in contravention of the well-known wording in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 that “special regard” will be paid to preserving heritage.

Nowhere is the centralisation of such decisions in Whitehall’s grasp going further than in the green belt. The Town and Country Planning Association has called the framework “unprecedentedly permissive” for good reason. Three elements combine to have that effect. First, the standard method, where 0.8% of the existing housing stock is applied as a multiplier and then a further multiplier is applied according to areas of high house prices. By definition, green belts constrain supply; that is their purpose. Therefore, they are areas of higher prices. In short, the standard method takes the consequence of protecting a place as a justification for building more on it. That cannot be logical or acceptable.

Rural councils have therefore been subject to much higher housing targets. For example, in Somerset, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills put across very well, the 75,000 new dwellings will come as a surprise in terms of population growth compared with what has ever been achieved in the past. Urban areas where regeneration is needed have seen their targets reduced.

The second element driving development in rural green fields is green belt policy GB7. In short, that means that a developer can secure consent anywhere in the green belt, regardless of what the local plan says, on condition that it is near a town with a railway station. Ironically, an area with no green belt might be better protected because it is not subject to those policies to allow development around railway stations.

The third and final part of the policy that leads to this greenfield development is GB2 for the grey belt. Few of us, and certainly not the Liberal Democrats, would object to local communities deciding that underused green belt land is degraded and could be released for development. But this policy overrides that local plan process, and disapplies protections against encroachment on the countryside, removing villages from the green-belt protections that they have had for decades and generations.

[Andrew George]

As my hon. Friend is aware, I am very fortunate to have secured a place in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, and my Bill will be on affordable homes. The details have not been written, so there is an opportunity to work on that with him, and indeed with the Secretary of State. I am very keen to do so and to adapt a number of those policies so that it provides a framework within which the Government can work with Parliament to improve and adjust planning policy to achieve the desirable aims.

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He reminds me that, frankly, I struggle with the fact that such a momentous and significant policy instrument is going through Parliament without a vote. It can hardly be right that these major policy changes, which will unleash development all over the country and reverse decades-old planning policies, will not be subject to a vote, considering that we quite rightly spend weeks and months going through Bills.

I am very grateful that my hon. Friend has chosen to prioritise these issues and is bringing them forward in his private Member’s Bill. I wish him well. I know that the Minister always works constructively across the House, and his work is appreciated for that. I know the Minister will work with my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives on his private Member’s Bill, as of course will I.

Together, the existing and proposed frameworks begin to look like a greenfield-first approach. The golden rules, which would rightly require more affordable and social housing where green belt is released, are absolutely right. But the Government have consulted on allowing viability assessments to potentially undermine that. I encourage the Minister to say something on whether land should escape the golden rules requiring more social housing just because it has been previously developed. The binning of the garden city principles in the draft is equally damaging. They are the very foundation of what made the new post-war towns, such as Milton Keynes with its famous 22 million trees, some of the best places to live. That is no doubt a bit of drafting by those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Similar centralising is proposed on nature and climate. National development management policies, along with constraints on local standard setting, will stop councils exceeding the statutory 10% of biodiversity net gain. Again, proposed policy PM13 will prevent councils from setting more ambitious energy targets. We saw the folly of that under the previous Government, who refused to continue with the zero-carbon homes programme. If they had continued that, and we had had solar panels on every house built since then, we could have avoided the need for an entire 900 MW power station—perhaps a small nuclear reactor or a gas-fired power station.

Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills pointed out, policy F5, paragraph 2(b)(ii), would create a new exemption from the sequential test for sites at risk of surface water flooding. As my hon. Friend said, the insurance industry has pointed out that there could be as many as 400,000 mortgage prisoners in the future, unable to afford insurance as a result of these kinds of policies.

To conclude, the Liberal Democrats are firmly committed to delivering the housing that we and our communities need, but placing all the emphasis on increasing permissions for private sector homes that few can afford is not the answer. We know that that will not reduce—and has not reduced—prices to make homes affordable. New homes are only 5% of the market, after all. With 13,000 homes with planning permission unbuilt in Somerset and 359,000 empty homes in the country, we should be redoubling our efforts to deliver on both of those fronts first.

What a community-led approach really means—and this framework lacks almost anything about community involvement—is homes that people can afford: council and social rent homes, alongside rent-to-own to help people get on to the housing ladder. The environment, our people and our communities are not the blockers of development; they are—or at least should be—the reason for development, and we can enhance the life chances of both if we get it right.

Estate Regeneration

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) on securing the debate. His call for minimum repair standards seems very reasonable, and I am happy to echo it. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) identifying the regular attendees in this Chamber—I am tempted to say that it takes one to know one. I am sure we will see him again; it is always a pleasure to have him with us in a debate.

It is a shame that the constituents of the hon. Member for Basingstoke do not feel they have been fully consulted, as they should have been, on the regeneration project he mentioned. Regeneration, when done with genuine community involvement, can change lives in some of the best ways possible. Community involvement, consent and consultation are fundamental necessities if that kind of positive and transformative outcome is to be achieved.

Regeneration is one of the best tools we have to help solve the housing crisis. It allows us to build the new homes we desperately need—including, crucially, new social homes—on brownfield sites, saving precious greenfield from development. It allows residents to exchange some of the coldest, leakiest housing stock in Europe for better homes that are affordable to run, while adding the kind of infrastructure that the hon. Gentleman referred to, such as GP surgeries, school places and playparks, which some estates built 60 years ago never had.

Many Liberal Democrat councils are showing the way to do this. My Somerset councillor colleagues, including Federica Smith-Roberts, Tom Deakin and Lee Baker, have led the way on the regeneration of the North Taunton estate. There are 162 defective prefabricated concrete Woolaway homes, unfit for the 21st century, being demolished and replaced with 229 council homes for affordable rent—67 more than we had before. The scheme was built around a resident design group from the outset, not token consultations or consultation after the drawings were finished. Local community champions like Lesley Councill, who has done amazing work at the Priorswood community centre, helped to lead that involvement and deserve to be credited for a lot of the work. Existing tenants were rehoused during the works, with a guaranteed right to return.

Another example is the Cambridge road estate in Kingston upon Thames, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey). The Liberal Democrat council there insisted on subjecting the proposed regeneration scheme to the kind of ballot that the hon. Member for Basingstoke referred to. Those involved worked hard with local residents and the proposal received overwhelming support, resulting in 2,100 new homes and 871 new council houses—218 more than were on the site before.

Those are not marginal examples; they are proof that the choice is not between going ahead with regeneration or getting community consent. With leadership and real involvement, communities can and do vote for more housing, not less. The Liberal Democrats want to see that ambition matched nationally, and we would go further. We want infrastructure to come first in these developments, so that regeneration comes with the GP surgeries, transport and drainage capacity that the extra density demands, rather than as an afterthought. As we have said: no doctors, no development.

We would also get serious about the housing that already exists, but sits empty. There are more than 359 homes across the country that have been empty for six months or longer. Addressing that would ease the pressure to drive up to unsustainable densities in other parts of towns and communities, and would relieve pressure on greenfield sites.

The same principle applies to our high streets. The Liberal Democrats want to see a properly funded high streets strategy that genuinely brings empty units back into use as accommodation and housing above shops, strengthens the town centre-first principle and supports property owners who want to do those conversions. We would deliver on our 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households, so that regeneration is not the only route to warm homes.

We welcome the fact that the Government have made housing a priority. We have read that the new Prime Minister will want to increase the number of council and social rent homes being built. Does the Minister believe that the new Prime Minister will match the Liberal Democrat ambition to reach 150,000 new social rent homes per year? I am sure we would all be interested to hear that.

We ask the Minister for an infrastructure-first requirement, so that regeneration schemes are properly funded to deliver the GP surgeries, schools and transport links that increased density requires; a national target for 150,000 social rent homes per year, rather than the market-led approach that we have at the moment; the delivery of a 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households, and a recognition that regeneration should never be done to a community, but done with and by the community.

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

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. The only certainty that consigning applications to officers will bring is a greater certainty of refusal. Officers refuse a greater proportion of planning applications than planning committees, which is not an argument in favour of the draft regulations.

[Chris Curtis]

To prove that point, the hon. Gentleman would need to prove that the types of applications currently going to either officers or planning committees are effectively random, but they are not. We know that different types of applications go to each one, so we cannot make that comparison between the two numbers.

[Gideon Amos]

I will give two examples that have a bearing on the hon. Gentleman’s point momentarily.

The Liberal Democrats have supported elements of the Government’s reforms. We supported the housing measures in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, and we support the principle of strategic planning. We also have no objection to a standard scheme of delegation or an upper limit on the size of planning committees. However, we do not accept that decisions must—the word “must” is used several times in the draft regulations—be taken away from elected councillors such that councils will approve decisions in cases where every single councillor disagrees, and the council’s name will still be on that decision. How can that be just? How can that be right?

The delivery of new homes is important. In particular, our target for social homes is higher than the Government’s, as we would aspire to deliver 150,000 per year, and we would allocate funding in that direction. Many of the measures that the Government are bringing forward seem to be directed at increasing planning permissions, largely for private sector housing, which many people in my constituency cannot and will not be able to afford. There is also little evidence that increasing planning permissions will reduce house prices—in fact, that has never happened, and it never will. Of course, house builders work on a commercial model in which they need to sustain their price to make their profit, which is an entirely reasonably approach.

Recent other changes also seem to be bearing in this direction. Councillors have already been removed from making a free decision on developments for over 150 homes; they cannot refuse them unless they first go cap in hand to the Minister and ask whether that is okay. Under that recently introduced direction, they lost their ability to decide on applications over 150 homes, and under the draft regulations, they will also lose their ability to decide on smaller applications. Guidance on the draft regulations would be a good thing, but this is not about guidance—the key word is “must”. The Minister referred to democratic oversight, but that will be removed unless the draft regulations are defeated. There is absolutely no question of any democratic oversight in any of these decisions.

Two examples came to my mind. One does not have to spend a lot of time as a member of a planning committee to come across applications where officers recommend a cautious refusal, but members of the committee then overturn that decision. I dealt with one in Wiltshire many years ago where an owner wanted to divide a large house into two by blocking up two doorways. The planning officer and the senior planning officer were adamant that this would create a new dwelling in the open countryside and so must be refused, and they would listen to no other representations. With the support of local councillors, it was taken to the planning committee and the planning committee unanimously approved the application to create an additional dwelling and increase the housing supply.

When I spoke to the chair of my local planning committee in Somerset recently, I heard about a similar example just outside my constituency where officers were recommending a refusal, but members overturned that decision and the housing was granted. That will not be possible under the draft regulations, and applicants will have nowhere to go. Whether they are local residents or local builders, they will not be able to do anything. They will be allowed to contact their councillors, but their councillors will turn around and say, “Even though I’ve been elected as a councillor, I cannot have any say or effect over this council decision. It has been taken away from me by the regulations.”

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I have previously been a local councillor, so I understand the importance of planning committees and of local democracy around planning decisions, but I find the idea that local councillors will have no ability to have any say or influence over officers’ delegated decisions a bit ludicrous. If a councillor is doing their job properly, they are constantly going to the planning department to speak to officers about various issues that are raised with them. It will be more than possible for councillors to speak to planning officers, knowing that they are to make a decision on something like this, to give them whatever local context they feel they would need to come to an informed decision. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree with that?

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the importance of close working between councillors and officers, and I do not deny it, but the planning committees and the national scheme of delegation consultation outcome document is crystal clear, and I am grateful to him for allowing me the opportunity to quote it. It says in paragraph 17:

“Nominated officers and nominated members should make every effort to reach agreement on which cases should be referred to committee.”

Of course, that is only in schedule 2 applications; in schedule 1 applications, there is no opportunity for councillors to have a word with the officers and have the application referred to committee, but in schedule 2 applications there would be. The consultation outcome document goes on to state:

“However, where agreement is not possible, the case must be delegated to officers under regulation 5(3).”

The questions raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Orpington, about whether officers will be required to prepare the same registers of interest and to be subject to the same degree of openness and accountability that councillors have to have are well put.

In our view, the draft regulations dangerously undermine democratic accountability—in fact, they remove it altogether—and leave the way open for those who will say, “It doesn’t matter how you vote or what you think—it has no effect.” The regulations will extend that principle to councillors and their powers: it does not matter what they think or what they say; they will not be allowed to affect decisions that are taken in their name and the name of their council. We will be pressing the regulations to a Division if the Opposition do not. Every councillor will regret these changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I knew that this instrument would provoke strong feelings, and it has done so, but I very much welcome the scrutiny provided by hon. Members and the considered contributions they have made.

The first thing to say is that a principled case has been advanced—as it was during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—from members of the Committee who do not believe that a national scheme of delegation is warranted in any way. We have heard some of those arguments today, but, quite frankly, the time for those arguments has passed; the Act containing the enabling powers for these regulations passed both Houses after extensive scrutiny. We are talking about the form that the regulations take in implementing the national scheme of delegation, and we have undertaken extensive consultation and engagement to try to get the balance right in terms of the two-tier system we are introducing.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, put a number of questions to me. The first touched on the rationale for the regulations in a fundamental way. As I said, we recognise the important role that planning committees play in ensuring local democratic oversight, and they will continue, once the regulations have passed—if they pass—to play a crucial role in planning decision making in the future. Across the country, we have a plethora of local schemes of delegation with huge variation, and that postcode lottery of schemes of delegation creates uncertainty. It slows down the planning system in important respects, which is why these regulations are required. We have made a raft of changes through our reforms to the planning system and are introducing a new system to bring forward local plans quicker.

The hon. Member for Broxbourne mentioned the importance of local plans, and I absolutely agree with him. It is a travesty that we inherited a system with such low local plan coverage that was up to date. We have made concerted efforts, as he knows, to try and drive up coverage of local plans across the country, to introduce a more rules-based national planning policy framework and to resource planning authorities to ensure that they can do the job they need to. Planning committees will continue to play a vital role in exercising democratic oversight, but we have to ensure that they are operating as effectively as possible and are focused on larger, more complex applications where member input is required.

The Government trust expert planning officers. The question for us is finding the right level of trust and empowerment to allow them to resolve the applications that we propose to put in schedule 1 of the regulations more quickly in the service of residents and businesses. Only 5% of minor residential development applications are determined by committee, but that 5% adds a lot of time to what are, when it comes to residential development for example, quite minor applications. Local input in planning decisions will continue to be incredibly important, including from elected representatives. We believe that the best way for councillors and communities to engage in development is through the local plan process; that is the point at which local councillors can ensure that the local policies that planning officers would have to follow in respect of schedule 1 applications are in place. The changes we are making through the national scheme of delegation will support that plan-led system. They will ensure that planning committees operate as effectively as possible by focusing, as I have said, on those major decisions.

We recognise that some planning applications are potentially complex or controversial. That is why we have created a framework where schedule 2 applications can go to committee for consultation when additional scrutiny is necessary. For example, schedule 2 includes listed building consent applications. In the vast majority of cases, we would expect those to be delegated to officers without any consequence, but there will always be a few cases that raise more significant issues and where members will want to take a view. Where a controversial development is proposed that has not been planned for, councillors can still play a key role in representing the voices of their constituents.

I absolutely refute the Liberal Democrat spokesman’s argument that the regulations completely remove the role of councillors or cause the death of local democracy, as he sought to portray it. Local people will still be able to make representations on individual developments through the application process. Local councillors will be able to submit their views or objections, and, as the hon. Member knows because of his experience in the planning service, those concerns must be taken into account when, in the case of schedule 1 applications, the officer is reaching a decision. We are not changing anything in that respect.

[Gideon Amos]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. As he knows, we fundamentally disagree with these proposals. He has just illustrated the point that councillors will be reduced to the same role as members of the public: they may make representations, but that is it.

[Matthew Pennycook]

And we think that is right on schedule 1 applications. They are a very different proposition from schedule 2 applications, which we think members should be able to take a view on through the gateway test.

High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) on introducing this important debate, on the constructive spirit in which he introduced the subject and on his generosity in taking interventions. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) rightly highlighted the issue of business rates; they need to be abolished and replaced with an entirely different system, which I will come back to.

High streets are at the heart of our communities. In Taunton and Wellington we have a great range of independent traders, shopkeepers and hospitality businesses. Footfall in Taunton is up by 4.6%, which is way above the national average, in large part due to their efforts and work to promote the independent quarter and other parts of our town. However, they are struggling against the backdrop of energy costs, the difficult financial environment and those dishonest traders who do not play by the same rules as the rest of us.

We cannot allow our high streets to become sites of decline. In Taunton, thanks to the team of councillors, trading standards officers and local police, a number of shops have rightly been shut down—a crackdown that I called for and supported when it happened. Although I am encouraged by the Government’s measures on closures, they must go further on this issue. I reiterate the call I made on behalf of the Liberal Democrats in this Chamber a few weeks ago: there need to be greater powers for police officers to issue closure orders more swiftly and permanently close down repeat offenders and, as other hon. Members raised, measures need to be taken against dodgy landlords who knowingly and repeatedly let their premises to illegal traders.

All those changes must come alongside investment in proper community policing to curb not only that kind of activity, but antisocial behaviour and shoplifting, which drive customers away. The Liberal Democrats would call on the National Crime Agency to establish a dedicated unit to tackle organised shoplifting gangs and give small businesses the tools they need to protect themselves.

Several hon. Members rightly raised planning controls. Someone walking down many of our high streets will find units that are technically occupied and trading but with shop windows deliberately blacked out with various coverings. It is a simple point, but a shop usually has a shop window and a display, not an opaque screen hiding the internal activities from view. The window on to the street provides natural surveillance into and out from the premises. It is an invitation to the customer, and what makes the high street feel alive—it is part of its aesthetic appeal. Although it is difficult to quantify, that is incredibly valuable to the vitality that makes our town centres places where people want to go. Planning enforcement could be used to enforce that principle.

If a business converts its shopfront into a blank wall or an entirely blacked-out façade, it is no longer operating as a retail unit in the traditional sense of the word. Planning use classes A and E define what a shop is, and both those classes include several mentions of a display. With an amendment to the guidance to clarify that one feature of a shop is a display of some sort or a shop window, enforcement action could be taken, and a stop notice could be issued under the Planning Act 2008, requiring unauthorised use to end. I urge the Government to include that measure in their review of powers, as well as addressing the issue of illuminated signs, which was raised by several hon. Members.

We should all recognise that antisocial behaviour can be deeply traumatising; as well as bringing back proper community policing, the Liberal Democrats want more use of directly employed community safety wardens, and mobile CCTV to enforce localised issues such as fly-tipping and harassment. However, enforcement alone will not regenerate a high street. In Taunton and Wellington, I often speak to local traders who offer brilliant products and services, but they are under massive pressure to make ends meet, given the cost pressures and tax increases that have been levied. The Government increases in employers national insurance are a jobs tax, and they hit businesses hardest. That is why the Liberal Democrats oppose them at every opportunity. I call on the Minister to lobby the Treasury to reverse those increases and take more costs off our small businesses, which are the backbone of the UK economy and its single biggest sector.

In some cases, business rates now exceed rents and squeeze out the independent businesses that give high streets their character. Our long-standing position is clear: replace business rates with a system of commercial landowner levy, based on land value rather than capital value, thereby shifting the burden from tenants to landowners and prioritising high streets in the process, stimulating the investment that we need. It is no matter how nice our high streets are if people cannot visit them, so we have called for bus fares to be cut to £1 for all. A family of four making a trip into Taunton from a nearby village have spent a significant sum at £3 each before they have spent a penny in a local shop. Homes above shops also have a transformative role, putting more people on to our high streets day and evening, weekday and weekend. The current policy framework allows for that, but shop owners often have neither the time, expertise or resources to navigate the system. We need more support for them to covert those spaces into residential use.

In conclusion, the Liberal Democrat asks are clear: swifter, stronger closure orders; penalties for landlords who turn a blind eye; planning enforcement against opaque store fronts; the reversal of employer national insurance rises; bus fares cut to £1; and more help to unlock homes above shops. Our great traders and small businesses deserve that support, and they will repay it in bucket loads if we give it to them.

Draft Private Landlord Redress Schemes (Approval and Designation) Regulations 2026

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 General Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. On the parent Act to this instrument, the Liberal Democrats campaigned in favour of ending no-fault evictions, and we were pleased to support the Bill to bring that about and bring those to an end. We support the principle of the landlord redress scheme, although we did push for the Government to go further on protecting renters and on the private rental database, including more records of landlords, on rent smoothing and so on. We believe that the redress system should extend to providing redress against excessive rent increases above and beyond the pertaining Bank of England rate of interest. That is in our rent-smoothing proposals. None the less, we support the draft enabling regulations for the redress scheme.

Will the Minister say a little more about the kinds of landlords that the draft regulations will apply to, which he said will come out in due course? Is the metric to do with the scale of the landlord or a type of landlord? It would be helpful to know a little more on that front. Otherwise, we are willing to support the statutory instrument.