Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, and to take part in this debate on the building safety remediation of residential buildings. I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate and for eloquently setting out lots of issues in the sector.

This is a vital issue. As right hon. and hon. Members have rightly said, no one should be forced to live in an unsafe home. A great deal of progress has been made to improve our housing in recent years, and the share of unsafe homes has declined in the past decade, but we must go further. The need to press ahead is as great now as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire, which caused the horrific deaths of 72 people.

The last Conservative Government began the remediation work straight after Grenfell. It included the introduction of financial protections for leaseholders from the costs relating to remediation of unsafe cladding systems put in place by the developer remediation contract. That has ensured that major developers pledge to remediate life-critical fire safety issues in buildings over 11 metres that they have played a role in developing or refurbishing over the past 30 years in England, although some developers should be taken to task for not acting quickly enough and for leaving constituents to fend for themselves.

The last Government were also responsible for putting in place £5.1 billion through the building safety fund and the cladding safety scheme to recover cladding costs for repairs of buildings over 11 metres where no responsible developer could be identified. The Opposition welcome the continued progress by the current Government to implement the Grenfell tower fire inquiry’s recommendations, especially regarding remediation. Residents expect to see the inquiry’s recommendation implemented in full and to see remediation work completed swiftly and safely. For far too long, that has not been the case.

The Building Safety Regulator, established through the Building Safety Act 2022, was set up with good intentions for stronger regulatory oversight. Although it has done much to oversee remediation, it has worked at an unsustainably slow pace. I know that the Minister will be keen to point out that gateway 2 decisions, namely approvals, are coming in at a faster rate, but this is after years of delay. The regulator made just 118 decisions on remediation applications in the 12-week period to 31 August 2026, with a median of 33 weeks for a determination to be made in some older cases. At the end of July 2025, remediation works had been completed in just 39% of identified buildings, with barely half seeing remediation works to unsafe cladding start or finish. That means that, of the estimated 250,000 dwellings of a height of 11 metres or over with unsafe cladding in the private and social sector, 104,000 have not even started remediation.

In my constituency of Broxbourne, I have seen what happens when fire safety issues in flats are not addressed. Earlier this year, at a six-storey block in Waltham Cross, with known cladding issues and no working alarm, residents were told on the day before the Easter weekend that they would have to evacuate their homes that evening, because the management company had stopped funding the waking watch, where someone is paid to patrol the building to look out for fires. Local authorities were forced to intervene and to extend the waking watch, and fortunately residents were able to stay. Weeks later, Homes England and the Department supported the installation of a suitable alarm and detection system.

I am relieved that there were no fires in that block and that residents did not have to evacuate in the end. However, leaseholders ended up paying thousands of pounds for the waking watch and were left worrying about the risks of fire to their homes or being removed from their homes at the last minute. That could all have been prevented if the remediation works had been carried out when fire safety concerns were first raised. I hope that the Minister will outline how the Government plan to ensure that all buildings with fire safety issues are made safe before the situation gets so serious.

I conclude by reiterating the Opposition’s firm and unwavering commitment to safe and decent housing, especially through the remediation efforts started after the tragedy of the Grenfell fire. We will continue to support the Government and work across the House to increase the pace of remediation work, improve the Building Safety Regulator and remove dangerous cladding and other materials from homes across the country.

Social Housing Bill [Lords]

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak opposite the new Minister, with whom I very much enjoyed working on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Now that she is on the Government Front Bench, I suppose it is left to me to ask the tough questions.

The Government have said that the Bill has been designed to encourage social housing providers to invest in the building of new socially rented homes. They want to encourage councils to build by restricting right to buy. That is the wrong approach. Yes, waiting lists for councils homes are far too high, but making it harder for tenants to get on in life and escape the clutches of the public sector is not the right solution. Instead, Ministers should look at what their policies are doing. Despite their promises, Labour is going backwards on house building.

As our reasoned amendment states, last year there were

“12,810 fewer net additional dwellings delivered in England compared to the previous year”.

Why are the Government not pledging to take on the developers, who are sitting on thousands of unbuilt planning applications? The Institute for Public Policy Research—Labour’s favourite think-tank—has found that 1.4 million homes have been left unbuilt since 2007, despite planning permission being granted. The figure of 1.4 million homes sounds rather close to the Government’s challenging target of 1.5 million new homes.

People are fed up with the eyesores in their neighbourhood—levelled ground left abandoned, surrounded by hoardings. I can show the Minister many examples in my Broxbourne constituency, and I am sure that hon. Members from right across the House can do the same. Taking on the land-banking developers would have widespread public support, but this Government only seem interested in making it easier to build on the green belt. We are still waiting for them to reveal what action they are taking to speed up building following the consultations held more than 12 months ago, so there is clearly no urgency.

The Government should also consider who should be eligible for the help of a social home. People who come to this country and wish to live here should not rely on the generosity of taxpayers. Making Britain your home should be earned by working hard and integrating; it should not come with a free ride on the benefits system. That is why the Conservative party will end social housing tenancies for foreign nationals. Ensuring that only UK nationals can access social housing would free up 230,000 homes for British families. That change would make an immediate and significant difference to those stuck on council house waiting lists, but the Government would prefer that they sit around waiting for the Bill.

Sadly, this Government, and especially their Back Benchers, are blinded by their ideological dislike of right to buy. It is clearly—[Interruption.] A number of Members have asked where Conservative Members were today. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate, Members of Parliament have a lot to deal with. When we do surgeries in our constituencies and people say, “When I turn on the TV, I see hardly anyone in the Chamber,” we all explain why that is. I suspect there will be times when all hon. Members cannot make it to important debates that their constituents want them to attend.

It is clearly the view of Labour Members that if we had no right to buy, social housing waiting lists would disappear, but where do they think the 2 million families that have utilised the scheme would be without it? Well, I can tell them: they would probably be in the same home, but it would be subsidised by the taxpayer rather than privately owned. Abolishing right to buy is not the silver bullet that they think it is.

The Government are placing huge burdens on social housing providers to help Ministers meet their own net zero targets. The cost of complying with new energy regulations is causing significant pressure, and getting 713,000 homes up to minimum energy efficiency standards is estimated to cost £4.5 billion. The Chartered Institute of Housing told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that housing associations do not want to buy properties with gas boilers because they know that it will cost them more money to strip them out and make properties energy efficient. That is pushing up council house waiting lists.

The National Housing Federation is clear about what that means: spending billions to comply with net zero regulations will make it harder to build new homes. Ministers already know this, as they reduced energy efficiency targets for social housing in January on the basis that providers could not build new homes because of the financial burden of upgrading their existing stock. If Ministers want councils to be incentivised to build, entirely getting rid of those expensive regulations would be a good place to start.

What is positive in the Bill is the review of the shared ownership scheme, and I hope the Minister, when she gets to her feet, can confirm that the Government intend to keep that review in the Bill. This obligation was added by the Government only due to the diligent work of the Conservative team in the other place. I have lived in a shared ownership property, and I know that—as for other forms of ownership, such as leasehold—reforms are desperately needed to fix the many problems residents face. The Opposition agree that the provisions to protect victims of domestic violence are needed, but a separate legislative measure would have been the right way to bring those forward.

I gently say to the many hon. Members who have made impassioned speeches that, when I was a council leader, I had a number of meetings with housing providers and housing associations, and not once in the hundreds of hours of meetings I had with social housing providers did they say to me that they could not build new social homes in Broxbourne, or in fact across the country, because of the right to buy. It was never mentioned as a reason why housing associations are not building social homes.

[Luke Murphy]

Providers did, however, when the Conservatives were in government, point to the 60% cut in the affordable housing budget, which nearly led to the abolition of social rent under the Conservative Government. There was a 97% reduction in builds between 2010 and 2016; that is the record that the hon. Member’s party stands on.

[Lewis Cocking]

The hon. Member has intervened on me quite a lot, and we have had quite a ding-dong in this Chamber. I say gently to him that when I speak to housing providers, they tell me that one of the reasons why they cannot build new social homes is the Government’s increase to employer national insurance contributions, which means that they spend more money on taxes, rather than on building new social homes.

In summary, this Bill is the wrong approach, and it is fundamentally built on the wrong beliefs. It will not build a single new social home, but it will deny many families the opportunity of ever owning a home of their own. The Conservative party will always be on the side of aspiration and opportunity, and that is why we will vote for our reasoned amendment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

My constituents and people across this country are fed up with more and more housing being built without the proper infrastructure in place first. There is nothing in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 about forcing developers to put schools and GP surgeries in place at the same time as new developments. Will the Minister look again and commit to listening to existing residents about bringing changes in legislation, to ensure that there is infrastructure first?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome the shadow Minister to the Front Bench on a well-deserved promotion.

The previous Government had 14 years to resolve this problem; they did not do so. I say to the shadow Minister honestly—he knows this full well as a former local councillor—that there is no single, simple answer to the problem of getting the necessary infrastructure in place. As I said, we have strengthened national planning policy to ensure that community facilities and public service infrastructure are brought forward. Again, we are strengthening developer contributions. We directly finance land and infrastructure. There is more to be done, and we will do it.

[Lewis Cocking]

Well, the Government have had two years—that will not wash with my constituents, who have seen thousands of new homes built with no new infrastructure. Healthcare services are of particular concern: when there is new housing, that makes it much harder for everyone to see their GP. This Government are taking on more political control of the NHS, so can the Minister tell me what discussions he has had with the Department of Health and Social Care about ensuring that new healthcare facilities are in place when there is new housing?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The shadow Minister raises a justified point, in that in some cases securing the necessary public service infrastructure is about ensuring that the buildings are brought forward through the relevant developer contributions and other infrastructure funding streams. In some cases, there are other issues, such as workforce challenges in particular. We regularly speak to colleagues in other Departments, including the Department of Health and Social Care, to ensure that we get that infrastructure up front and alongside development.

Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker, and I welcome the Minister back to his place. I commend the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this important debate and giving us the opportunity to speak about the rural areas that this Labour Government are neglecting.

My constituency is home to a handful of farms and the beautiful Lee Valley regional park. Although it might not be the most rural, I am well aware of the pressures faced by rural communities, which have been made clear by hon. Members across the Chamber today. Having started off with the infamous family farm tax, the Government are now moving on to implement the unfair funding review. This change in the funding formula for local government seems to have been designed with the express purpose of stripping away funding from rural areas just to hand it to urban ones.

[Noah Law]

Does the hon. Member recall the enormous slashing of the budget of Cornwall council under his Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government?

[Lewis Cocking]

Lots of difficult decisions had to be made. I politely say to the hon. Gentleman that his party is in government now. We will see the mettle that they are made of in the coming months, when they have to make difficult decisions to produce their Budget, and we will also see how that goes down with the British people outside this place.

Many rural councils face real challenges across the board, and now they are expected to cope with even fewer resources. In my area of Hertfordshire, a semi-rural local authority, the county council is facing a reduction in funding of around £50 million a year. That is thanks to this Labour Government, despite the council already being under extreme pressure from an unfavourable SEND funding formula. Under that formula, Hertfordshire receives one of the lowest funding allocations per head. It would receive millions more if it were funded at the same rate as other areas.

When it comes to SEND, rural authorities lose out. Inner London boroughs receive thousands of pounds more in high needs block funding per pupil. For example, a child in Camden is allocated four times as much as a child in Yorkshire. It should not matter where someone is born in the country; children with special educational needs deserve the same resources. I am sure that all hon. Members from right across this House can agree with that.

Similarly, rural authorities have been ignored throughout this Government’s top-down local government reorganisation. As we have seen in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and other areas, rural towns and villages are now being absorbed into new unitary authorities dominated by cities. That will only result in rural areas being more marginalised and left even further behind.

[Perran Moon]

If His Majesty’s Opposition are so unhappy about the local government reorganisation, why is there not a single Opposition Member here to make that point other than him?

[Lewis Cocking]

I thought someone might make that point in this debate. I have been in debates where no Labour or Liberal Democrat MPs have turned up. When I go out and speak to my constituents about how, when they turn on the TV, the Chamber is not full, I explain to them that there are many calls upon Members’ time. I gently say to the hon. Member that some constituents will watch debates that he does not attend and be unhappy with that, so we could maybe think about that before we make interventions on that topic.

As I was saying, this Government’s top-down local government reorganisation has seen rural communities left behind. Rural communities and authorities have also been hugely hit with a high increase in housing targets, forcing them to build over the green belt and ruin the character of their areas. They have increased by up to 487%, while many Labour-run urban areas have seen their targets decrease. The new Prime Minister likes to talk about devolving power to every postcode, but the only changes that people in rural areas have seen are money and power being taken away from them. They are the people that this Labour Government should champion: the hard-working people who have too often been left behind. Instead, they are being sidelined and ignored. The Government need to take time to actually listen to the rural community and protect their way of life.

I may not represent a very rural part of this country, unlike other hon. Members in this room, who have so passionately spoken about their rural areas, but it does not take much to work out that forced local government reorganisation, increases in taxes and reduced funding formulas are the exact opposite of how the Government should support rural local authorities.

Local Government Reorganisation

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I have visited my hon. Friend’s constituency with her on many occasions, so I know at first hand that she is one of the strongest advocates for her constituents of any Member in the House. She makes an important point there, because we do not want to lose the voice of individual towns such as Hastings and Rye within unitarisation. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 allows for what are referred to in the legislation as “area committees” but which could sit as town committees, operating as a scrutiny function, to call in the providers of public services and hold them to account within the locality that makes sense to local people.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

What would the Secretary of State say to my constituents in Broxbourne, who never asked for this reorganisation and are concerned that it is just a waste of time and money that will leave them with higher council tax bills and less say over local planning decisions?

[Steve Reed]

I would say to the constituents of the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have conversations quite often—not least on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, of which he is a distinguished member—that the selections for the county were made because they best reflect the distinct economic areas that operate across the county, because they will keep services closer to residents by organising around where people live, work and travel, and because they will make the best set of proposals for attracting further inward investment into the county, which will, I am sure, benefit his constituents, as well as others across the county.

Local Government Reorganisation

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. She will understand that until we have made the announcement, there is little I can say in response to her point, but I will just say that councils deliver very important public services. We are introducing the local outcomes framework so that we can see transparently what councils deliver and what they do not.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The Minister and I have had many exchanges on this topic, and she knows that I am focused on securing the best outcome for my constituents. We know that reorganisation in Hertfordshire is coming, but the uncertainty is not helping my residents or local councillors, so can the Minister confirm whether an option for Hertfordshire will be included in her announcement on Thursday? Can she also confirm whether MPs will be informed before any public announcement is made?

The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 General Committees

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

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation (Establishment) Order 2026.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. The order was laid before the House on 4 June. It will establish a centrally led urban development corporation in greater Cambridge, pursuant to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, which provides that the Secretary of State may designate an urban development area only when they are of the opinion that it is expedient and in the national interest, and following a public consultation.

As the Committee will be aware, the economic growth of Cambridge over recent years has been a phenomenal success. It now has arguably the most intensive and innovative science and technology cluster in the world, with more than 5,000 knowledge-intensive firms based in and around the city, employing tens of thousands of skilled workers and generating in excess of £18 billion in annual turnover. However, the supply-side constraints that are evident across the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, from infrastructure deficiencies to housing affordability, are particularly acute in greater Cambridge. Its continued position as a world-leading centre of innovation, its ability to make an even greater contribution to the UK economy, and the quality of life experienced by its existing residents are all dependent on removing those constraints.

Local institutions and leaders have worked hard to support the rapid growth of greater Cambridge over recent years. Over the past two years, the Government have intervened alongside local authorities and the greater Cambridge shared planning service to address pressing constraints such as water scarcity. Such action has helped to unlock more than 9,000 homes, 500,000 square feet of commercial space, and a new cancer research hospital.

It is widely accepted, however, that delivering development at the scale and pace necessary to realise the full potential of greater Cambridge is beyond the capacity and powers of existing institutions. It was for that reason that, between 4 February and 1 April this year, we consulted on proposals to establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation—a centrally led urban development corporation with the legislative powers, focus and resources to unlock the area’s full potential. I once again thank all the organisations and individuals who took the time to engage with the process.

The prevailing theme among responses was that infrastructure delivery in greater Cambridge has been slow and piecemeal, or has failed to keep pace with historical population and employment growth, and that that was having a detrimental impact on residents’ quality of life, constraining the region’s ability to scale its globally significant innovation economy, and reducing business and investor confidence. Individuals and organisations widely reported that greater Cambridge has lacked a strategic, co-ordinated and long-term approach to the rapid delivery of primary infrastructure. Complex governance, fragmented decision making and uncertain long-term funding were identified as obstacles to delivering at the scale and pace required.

While fully acknowledging the strong local efforts that have been made and the excellent performance of the greater Cambridge shared planning service, the consultation confirmed the Government’s belief that the scale and complexity of the development challenges faced by greater Cambridge required a bold and long-term approach, and a genuine step change in how infrastructure is planned, co-ordinated and delivered; and that the establishment of a centrally led development corporation, combining responsiveness to local priorities with national leadership and influence, would be the most effective way to unlock nationally significant growth at the pace and scale required.

The development corporation established by the order will unleash ambitious and high-quality sustainable growth in greater Cambridge to the benefit of its existing communities and the country as a whole. Once established, the corporation’s boundary will align with the current combined administrative areas of Cambridge city council and South Cambridgeshire district council. This broad development area will underpin the corporation’s ability to deliver its objectives and make effective use of its powers, enabling the scale of growth necessary to deliver on both local and national interests.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The Minister is always very generous with his time. He has just explained the boundaries of the development corporation. Cambridge is going through local government reorganisation. How will that affect the order and the boundaries that he has just described?

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is a very good question. In short, although I am more than happy to expand on this response, the development corporation’s boundary does not pre-empt or prejudice the outcome of the recent consultation on local government reorganisation. The Government would, of course, consider, through due process, any changes to the development area that are deemed necessary as a result of any local government reorganisation but, as I say, that does not pre-empt or prejudice what we are taking through by dint of this order.

The Government have worked hard to sustain a constructive relationship with local leaders and key partners. We want the development corporation to be a joint national and local endeavour that combines local insight and input from local democratically elected representatives with national leadership powers and investment. As such, the democratically elected leaders of Cambridge city council, South Cambridgeshire district council and Cambridgeshire county council, as well as the democratically elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, will be invited to join the board. The Government also recognise that input from residents and communities will be integral to the success of the development corporation. That is why it will be asked to create exemplary engagement structures to enable broader community participation, including from residents, community representatives, and town and parish councillors.

The order will establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation as an independent corporate entity, allowing it to be granted infrastructure, financial and land assembly powers in due course. The powers and functions order, which my officials are preparing for consideration later this year, will equip the development corporation with planning powers, including the ability to determine planning applications above a minimum threshold of 250 homes, and non-residential applications above 5,000 square metres. Our intention is that the development corporation will eventually take on plan-making powers. However, we believe the optimal way to kick-start growth in the plan-led system is to take a phased approach. As such, the development corporation will exercise plan-making powers only once the draft local plan has been adopted. The Government are clear that adoption of the draft local plan should not limit or delay future ambition for growth and, subject to its adoption, successor plans will be expected to build positively on the draft local plan’s foundations to support continued growth.

The development corporation will also be granted development management powers for strategic sites within its boundary. Only applications for sites of strategic importance will be determined by the development corporation. The vast majority of planning applications will continue to be determined by the greater Cambridge shared planning service. The Government recognise and accept that almost all strategic residential developments will be of over 1,000 houses, flats, or houses and flats. However, to account for the possibility of residential development prejudicing the delivery of sites of strategic importance, residential thresholds will be set at a minimum of 250 houses, flats, or houses and flats. Any application that is determined by the development corporation will still be considered against national and local policy, and subject to public consultation as normal. That combination of powers will provide the development corporation with the tools, certainty and investment needed for sustainable infrastructure-first growth. The model will form an exemplar for integrated powers and funding, and set the standard for housing development elsewhere in the country.

The order will establish the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation as an entity accountable to the Secretary of State and set out the geographical boundary in which it may operate. The Greater Cambridge Development Corporation will focus on the delivery of strategic, nationally significant growth within its boundary. It will work collaboratively with local authorities both within and bordering its development area, as well as with transport bodies and utility providers, to unlock development opportunities and boost economic growth.

I extend my sincere thanks to local leaders and their officers in greater Cambridge for their hard work and ongoing constructive collaboration in pursuit of our shared objective of supporting ambitious and high-quality sustainable growth in Cambridge and its environs. I also thank Peter Freeman for his continued leadership of the Cambridge Growth Company and commend the CGC for everything it has done to date to help to facilitate the delivery of new homes, infrastructure, and commercial and laboratory space. I hope that hon. Members agree on the value of establishing the development corporation. I commend the order to the Committee.

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

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 General Committees

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I have great respect for the Minister. I hope that he remains in post or gets a promotion in the upcoming reshuffle. I did not plan to speak today but, although I have heard some good points made in this Committee, I have also heard some nonsense.

This is a terrible idea: I do not think a national scheme of delegation will work across the country. It puts too much power in the hands of planning officers, who do not always get it right. We often fail to talk about how we have to create communities, but when someone makes a bad planning decision, that building is there for generations. There are issues that should be thought about within the planning process, and they will be difficult to solve if an officer has recommended the approval or refusal of a specific application and they have got it wrong. Officers are less likely to live within the council area, so they are less likely to know the place as well as councillors. Councillors should be around that table and should be able to call in planning applications.

Lots of councils do have a scheme of delegation, but it is important that they retain flexibility, because there will be certain applications where local circumstances apply. For example, an application for a house may have to be called in because there are specific issues down a road, or because lots of people have replied to the consultation. Councils need to have that flexibility. The national scheme of delegation will not help the Government in meeting their target of building 1.5 million homes. This is not the problem within the planning system.

As I have said before, the reason that hardly any homes are getting built in this country is developers themselves. Most applications that go through the planning process get approved. It takes such a long time for developers to get their planning application not because the approval process is slow, but because they actively go against what the council is seeking to achieve within its local plan or what local people want. If, when they originally bought the piece of land and wanted to create their development, they came around the table and worked hand in hand with the council, they would get through that process a lot quicker. As leader of Broxbourne council, I had loads of experience of dealing with developers who would take ages to get through the planning system because they would not do what the council asked them to.

The idea that this legislation will speed up the planning process and solve all the issues, and then 1.5 million homes will be built over the course of this Parliament, is just utter nonsense. This is not the right part of the process for the Government to be attacking. This is an incredibly bad idea. It is not well thought-out. It will create issues down the line, when officers approve lots of planning applications and people do not understand why they have been approved, and it will cause fundamental issues for parking, healthcare facilities and education that will have no democratic oversight.

I hope that the Minister will reflect on this and try to improve the planning system, because I do not think this piece of legislation does that. It is an attack on democracy, and it is all about concreting over the green belt.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lewis Cocking]

The Minister mentions local plans and schemes of delegation. If a developer comes forward with a planning application that is not allocated within the local plan, how will that be dealt with? Will it be deal with through schemes of delegation, or would it automatically go to committee?

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is a fair question. As I set out in my opening remarks, if such an application were to meet the conditions in schedule 2, it would go in front of the chief planning officer, in most instances, and the chair of the planning committee, and a gateway test would determine whether it meets the criteria that I have set out. If it does, the local authority can put the decision in front of elected members, as happens now with an officer recommendation, so we are not changing that. I have listed the types of application that fall under schedule 1: minor residential development under 10 units, minor commercial development and so on. There might be a principled difference of opinion here, which I respect, but we do think that expert planning officers should be able to take decisions on those matters.

The hon. Member for Orpington challenged me on the impact of the fact that 96% are already not determined by committee. In a sense, he was saying, “What’s the point of these regulations, given that we have local schemes of delegation doing the job?” As highlighted in the impact assessment for these reforms to the Planning and Infrastructure Act, we expect these reforms to have a small but positive impact on the delivery of housing in this Parliament. We have never suggested that they are a silver bullet for all the issues that we face in the planning system. The Act’s impact assessment covered a number of options, including our lead option of delegating when applications are in line with local plans. We explored that issue, but the regulations take a more structured approach to delegating along the lines of application type, so we need to update the assessment to reflect that.

We recognise that only approximately 4% of decisions are made by committees at present, but that percentage represents a substantial proportion of total units in the planning process because many major applications go to planning committee for consideration. Under the circumstances that we have outlined for the gateway test, they might not necessarily do so as they might not meet those criteria. Streamlining the planning process will make a meaningful contribution to the delivery of much-needed housing and sustainable communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I do not believe so, because local planning authority schemes must adhere to planning regulations and meet the gateway test—in the sense of what can pass a committee—and the statutory guidance to which they must have regard. In a sense, we want to ensure that applications passing through the gateway and considered by committees are larger, complex and more controversial cases, and that less significant applications are determined by planning officers.

That leads me to the legal obligations on officers. In a sense, the question has been put to me, “Can we trust local planning officers to make these decisions?” I must make it clear that officers working for local authorities are bound by strict requirements in the way they make decisions on applications. They must, by law, take all material considerations into account, including relevant parts of a local plan—that is why having an up-to-date local plan in place is so significant—and national planning policy. The law also requires their decisions to be rational. Planning officers’ actions must adhere to codes of conduct, be they those of the local planning authority or of the professional institutes to which they belong. Taken together, we think that these measures provide strong safeguards to underpin the integrity of decisions.

[Lewis Cocking]

The Minister is being very generous with his time. How can the public deal with planning officers who get it wrong? At the moment, if a planning committee gets it wrong, the public can go out to the ballot box and vote for someone else. They cannot do that with planning officers who make the wrong decisions.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Planning officers routinely make decisions without applications going to committee. We trust them to do so; they are bound by the requirements that I have just set out.

The hon. Member touches on a point that I was going to come to. It is important to ensure that we have a highly skilled planning profession and the right training and support in place for officers. We are investing in good decision making by planning officers in councils across the country. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Department has a planning capacity and capability programme that provides a broad range of support covering recruitment, skills, development, training and funding to ensure that local planning authorities have the capability and capacity that they need. Our approach to supporting planning recruitment and skills is deliberately demand-led, allowing local planning authorities to deploy support in line with their specific pressures. As he will know, councils have the flexibility to use support to recruit specialist skills or to upskill existing staff.

To ensure that I respond to all questions, I will make two final points. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, asked about instances in which the local authority is the decision maker or a local authority member is involved. I addressed that in my opening remarks, but it is worth clarifying again. We recognise that, for applications involving a local authority or an officer or member of that authority, committee scrutiny is merited in some cases, in the interests of transparency. To allow for that, we have provided in the regulations that such applications, regardless of whether they fall into schedule 1 or schedule 2, can be referred to committee with the agreement of the nominated officer and nominated member, even if they do not meet the specific criteria.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North made a powerful speech in support of the regulations. However, he asked how we determined which types of application fall into schedule 1. On the specific question of minor residential development, we took that as the appropriate threshold because, unlike in policy, in legislation—the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015—there is a distinction between minor and major development. With “minor development” being under 10 units, we thought that that was the appropriate level to set when it comes to residential developments. Commercial and housing development also falls into schedule 2.

Importantly, a key addition that we made to the regulations following consultation was the requirement for the regulations to be reviewed within two years of their coming into force. That will give us the opportunity to monitor their implementation and identify any issues or unintended consequences resulting from particular types of application placement. That review will take place by 31 October 2028.

Notwithstanding the range of issues and considerations that we have discussed, let me draw the Committee back to what the regulations seek to achieve. They are about improving the quality and speed of decision making so that the housing and growth that local communities want—and desperately need in many cases—can be delivered more quickly. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Draft Local Government (Structural and Boundary Changes) (Control of Disposals etc.) (Amendment) Order 2026

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 General Committees

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The Government are bringing forward logical proposals to deal with new councils, but my concern is that I am not sure that this measure goes far enough. It talks about protecting new councils from existing councils’ decisions about their finances, but what we do not talk about in this—and what I think the Government need to consider—are existing councils that are going to be forced to merge.

That is important because, if we look at my constituency, I have a council with money in the bank and a council without money in the bank. This legislation talks about protecting the new authority from financial decisions that the existing authorities have made—I completely support that, and I think the Government are taking a logical approach—but we need to explore whether it is fair for all the money to go into the same pot. Is it fair for people who have had good councils, with money in the bank, to see their taxpayers’ money spent elsewhere in the authority, where they will not see a benefit?

We should explore what financial information, constraints or regulations we can give to new councils when they are created, rather than just putting all the money into the pot. The councils to be merged will not have the same financial footing. They will not have the same services or the same money in the bank. If we think that it is important to protect the new council from decisions that the existing authority has made, it is right that we look at protecting specific areas within new councils that have had good financial management over the short to medium term.

As I said, there is an example in my constituency: Broxbourne council has about £50 million in the bank but East Herts council has none. What I do not want to see if we have to go through local government reorganisation is all that money going into the pot and then being spent on paying someone else’s debt. It is right for constituents that I represent in the borough of Broxbourne to say that there should be some guidance outlining that that money should at least be spent within the existing boundaries of that authority, even if it is under the new council.

[The Chair]

Order. The Member is straying a little from the scope of the proposal. Will he conclude, please?

[Lewis Cocking]

Thank you for your guidance, Mr Vickers.

This is an important piece of legislation that the Government are bringing forward. I wonder whether the Minister could explore some of the points that I have raised in this debate.

Local Government Reform

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. May I congratulate you on the 25th anniversary of your election to this House, which happened a few days ago? I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) on securing this important debate.

For the past few months, I have worked closely with the local election candidates in my constituency, and I am pleased to say that their hard work paid off: they were elected on to Broxbourne district council and it remained under Conservative control, with no change to our majority. During that campaign, I spoke to hundreds of local residents, and not one person said to me that they wanted to see Broxbourne council abolished. If they were aware of the Government’s plans to do just that and force us into a large unitary authority stretching 40 miles from top to bottom, they wanted to know what I was doing to stop it.

I suspect that when the Minister replies to the debate, we will be told that local councils were knocking down the door of MHCLG, saying, “We want to reorganise. We want to go into large unitary councils.” Well, I have seen the letter that the Government sent to my council, and councils had no alternative but to reply to that letter. This is forced local government reorganisation, no matter what people say.

The people of Broxbourne instinctively understand what Ministers continue to deny: that large councils are remote from the people they serve, with decision makers naturally less concerned about towns and villages that they have no connection to. Moreover, the big new authorities will cost towns and villages money, not save it. There will be no savings from reorganisation. I am yet to see any evidence that unitary councils provide better government than the two-tier system that we have in place. I am yet to see those councils that have been through reorganisation—whether North Yorkshire or Somerset—come forward and say, “D’you know what? We’re awash with cash. We’ve got so much money now that we’ve saved so much through reorganisation.” I have not seen that.

In fact, when Somerset council went through reorganisation to become a single, large unitary council that the Government accepted, it increased council tax by 10%. There were no savings. If the Government are hellbent on doing this and want to move forward with it, they should show us the evidence that that type of council serves its residents the best, is cheaper and provides better services.

Last year we learned that the Department did not even carry out its own cost analysis of the reorganisation. Do not get me wrong—Broxbourne council is not perfect, nor is any district council—but, given its reasonable size and proximity to residents it at least has a chance to make a positive difference, if run well. It is no secret why Broxbourne residents voted to keep the council the same, as they do year after year. Council tax is lower than anywhere else, while services such as waste collection and leisure centres are run better than in neighbouring councils that charge more council tax. We all know that, when reorganisation comes, the new authority will provide the bare minimum in services and hit residents with the highest rates that it can get away with. From day one residents in the new authority, which my constituents will be forced into, will pay more in council tax but get less back. For those reasons, I fundamentally oppose the reorganisation.

The process we have seen so far should also make us doubt the Government’s ability to achieve what they have promised. As already mentioned, just last week the County Councils Network sent a damning letter to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, pointing out that the top-down imposition of local government reorganisation, as we have seen in Sussex, goes against the wishes of local councils without the evidence to back it up.

Many right hon. and hon. Members have made this point, but I too say, “Please show us the evidence. Show us where big unitary councils cost less and deliver better for residents, then we can at least understand and argue about the nuances of what the Government want to achieve.” It is difficult to do that when I have sat in a number of debates on this issue—I was on the Bill Committee for the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026—and not seen one shred of evidence that the new authorities will deliver better services and charge less in council tax. The majority of councils in Hertfordshire, including Broxbourne, support the proposal to create four unitary councils, rather than two or three, as they know that councils operating as close to the people as possible serve their residents better.

When it comes to making future decisions on reorganisation—and let me be crystal clear for the avoidance of doubt, though it will be no surprise to the Minister, I do not want any local government reorganisation in Hertfordshire—I hope that the Department will listen to what councils are saying and act on that. I urge the Minister, as I do every time in such debates, “Please review the policy, please make sure that future decisions are made with our constituents in mind and please ensure that whatever system is forced upon us will deliver outstanding local services and cheaper council tax.”

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) for securing this important debate. It is obvious that LGR is the Government running before they can walk. On so many issues, we Liberal Democrats push the Government to go further and faster—but not on this. Even McLaren, from my constituency, would think that the Government are going too fast and too furious.

Local government reorganisation has charged ahead without listening to councils and while ignoring residents. A layer of our local democracy is being removed and silenced. It very much feels as if Labour is reorganising local government for the sake of it, without rhyme or reason. Severe funding pressures are pushing local services to the brink. Vulnerable children, the elderly and the safety of our roads are suffering because of years of Conservative mismanagement and neglect, but rebranding and changing the face of the problem does not affect the way that something works—or, more importantly, the way it does not work. The Liberal Democrats believe that we need to fix our public services first and involve local people before we even think about redrawing lines on the map.

Of course, we still do not know why the Government have chosen to push ahead with LGR. Organisations, whether charities or businesses, always have a fully costed business case; they do not change the way they do things without one. I sit on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, and it was clear from yesterday’s meeting that the Labour Government simply have not outlined their business case.

What we have here is an overly ambitious plan to reform all local government by 2028. There seem to be no reason other than creating “efficiencies”. In the meeting yesterday, when I asked the Minister how much money reorganisation would save, she said, “It is challenging to answer that question,” and, “Unitary councils tend to be more effective. I can’t give a direct answer.” I was surprised to hear that. That was the answer for a flagship Labour policy that would involve the largest change to local government for over half a century.

[Lewis Cocking]

I, too, sit on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the reason the Government are struggling to answer that question is that local government reorganisation will not save a single penny?

[Mr Forster]

We missed the hon. Gentleman at yesterday’s meeting. I agree; I fear that it will not save any money. The lack of evidence and a business case is a concern for me and the Liberal Democrats, and we expressed that at the Committee yesterday. I am sure he will be able to do the same next week when he joins us.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is, as ever, a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison, and I add my own congratulations on your important anniversary. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) for securing this debate on local government reorganisation. I know that he has strongly held views on the future of his constituency, as we have heard today. For reasons of time, I will not repeat the names of all those who have spoken, but it has been a joy to hear so many Members describe their communities.

I say to all Members that I know we disagree on this topic. The point of this House is disagreement, so our disagreement is not only expected but welcome. However, someone listening to hon. Members might think, “There is no problem in local government and everything is okay—if only we were not proceeding with local government reorganisation!” I simply say to Members that the problems in local government, particularly those related to finance, have arisen because of the age of our population, the burden on local government in adult social care and other things, and a suite of failing policy areas, including special educational needs and disabilities, homelessness, adult social care and children’s care, which have meant that local government has carried the can for policy failure in this place. It now falls to those of us in this House to try to put that right.

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alison McGovern]

I will make some progress.

The hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) mentioned £0.5 billion of debt write-off for his community. The words he was looking for were, “Thank you”. He is perfectly at liberty to quote me selectively, as is any Member of the House, but selectively quoting a Minister is not an argument—it is not a case to be made. This Government put £5.6 billion of grant funding into local government at the spending review. We have committed £4 billion to SEND as part of the White Paper. We are investing in local government to try to get it out of this situation.

As I did yesterday, let me repeat what I have said before to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds): although the Department’s analysis of the finances of this change is important, given the high and spiking costs that local government currently faces, the priority must be to deal with those cases. I challenge anyone to come up with a perfect cost-benefit analysis in this environment. That is what I said yesterday, and I repeat it again for clarification.

That said, I will do as a number of colleagues have asked by setting out why we are ending the two-tier system of local government. In two-tier areas, services and functions are split across county and district councils. That slows down decisions as different councils try to agree, and it leads to fragmented public services, meaning that it is unclear who does what and who is responsible. In Leicestershire, the area of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, the county council reported that 140,000 people called the wrong council when trying to get help and support.

The Government are committed to local government reorganisation, for clarity and other reasons that I will set out, and to the timetable that we have set out. We want stronger local councils, equipped to work with strong mayors and strategic authorities, for the purposes of economic growth, improved public services and empowered communities. That is the point of reorganisation: councils that match the real economic footprint of our cities and towns, rather than lines drawn on a map 50 years ago.

I might not have been alive in 1974, but I was born in 1980 into the relatively newly created area of the Wirral. At the time, it was part of the county of Merseyside. We subsequently became part of the Liverpool city region. Of course, administrative boundaries change, as Members know, but the identity of the place I am from—the village of Bebington, where I was born in hospital, and the village of Bromborough—is still as strong as it ever was, and we take part in the Liverpool city region with all the benefits that it brings.