Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Government have reintroduced home building targets that were scrapped by the previous Government. It is important that we have those targets and that they are achievable, and councils will be held to account to achieve them. I am working on an acceleration package to encourage more building in which local authorities will be key partners, and we will make announcements on that in due course. Of course, the hon. Lady will be aware of the changes we are making to drive up standards in council and other social housing, which we will insist are enforced and carried through.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It falls to me to open the bowling for the Opposition Front Bench, so I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment and welcome him to his place today.

The previous Government awarded the Mayor of London almost £9 billion of funding to build a total of 151,000 affordable homes in London. The second tranche of that money amounted to £4 billion, which was to build 35,000 homes between 2021 and 2026. To date, only 997 have been completed, with 443 of those homes being acquisitions rather than newly built. What plans does the Secretary of State have to hold the Mayor of London to account for this lamentable failure?

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[Steve Reed]

First, I do recognise the challenges the hon. Gentleman has outlined. They should concern us all, and I thank him for raising them. He will be aware that we are making legislative changes right now, with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that is going through Parliament, to speed up the planning system that is holding back so many homes from being built. We will be tabling further amendments to the Bill to tackle some of the challenges the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

I am working with the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London on an acceleration package that targets London in particular. We will make announcements on that within weeks, and the hon. Gentleman will then see the action that we intend to take here in the capital city to ensure that home building continues apace. We will also be looking nationally, because every region of the country needs new homes built to meet people’s dreams of having somewhere affordable to rent or buy.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

In 2007, Ming Campbell launched the Liberal Democrats’ campaign for not just affordable but decent homes for our military. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his position. Will he join me in congratulating the forces families who backed my amendment to provide them with a decent homes standard, and will he agree that they deserve nothing less?

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I am afraid I will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman, as it was the previous Conservative Government—in which he served as a Minister—who lost control of our borders and presided over the complete breakdown of the asylum system. This Government are restoring order to that system, speeding up decision making and reforming the appeals process to cut the asylum backlog and remove those with no right to be here at a much faster rate than the previous Government. Our country has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those fleeing persecution. Genuine asylum seekers who have been granted refugee or humanitarian protection status should be welcomed. The hon. Gentleman would have said the same some years ago, and it is a sign of just how far his party has fallen that he cannot now bring himself to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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

Despite that answer, it is clear that things are getting worse. Our councils are battling with the cost of this Government’s border failures. The 22% rise in small boat arrivals, combined now with Chagossians arriving in rising numbers, throwing themselves at the mercy of our local authorities as they escape Starmer’s sell-out, is stretching council housing budgets to breaking point. The Government have refused to answer my written questions about what financial support they provide to councils housing asylum seekers and refugees who are granted asylum in their areas. Can the Minister tell the House how much of the proposed rise in council tax is for the cost of the Government’s asylum failures, and will he publish the full costs and support in the interests of transparency?

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[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to bring long-term empty homes back into occupation.

[Mr Speaker]

Welcome, Minister.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Samantha Dixon)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The Government want more empty homes brought back into use across the country, including through the steps we outlined in the English devolution White Paper to strengthen local authorities’ ability to take over the management of vacant residential premises.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I am intrigued to hear how coalfield regeneration relates to the hon. Gentleman’s part of Northern Ireland. I call Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. The fact is that there were coalfields in Northern Ireland. There has been an opportunity—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. So the hon. Gentleman is saying that he has coalfields in his constituency? [Interruption.] Okay. I am going to allow the question, but I ask that we think about whether issues are relevant to our constituencies.

[Jim Shannon]

The question of who benefited from coalfields in the past is always relevant to people in Northern Ireland. Other parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have experienced coalfield regeneration, and people have come back from those areas on the mainland to Northern Ireland. Can we ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to benefit from this? These benefits have been brought forward in England; bring them forward in Northern Ireland as well.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure that that is relevant.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We recognise that we need to support communities across the country who have been held back. We are working with the Northern Ireland Office to make sure that support is available for communities to renew and regenerate, so that they have the power to drive the change that they want to see.

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[Alison McGovern]

The party of Liz Truss just doesn’t learn, does it? The Conservatives are happy to make tax policy that is absolute fantasy. People need real homes to live in, not this kind of thing, and the Conservatives simply will not get a hearing until they look at their record and learn to say sorry.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State and his Ministers to their positions. I very much look forward to welcoming them to meetings of the Select Committee; we are a fair and robust Committee. The Minister highlighted the inter-ministerial group, which the former Secretary of State chaired and saw as being very important. The issue cuts across all departmental groups. It is important, because within two months, as we go into the next year, and in the next financial year, we will see over 170,000 young children in temporary accommodation —in homelessness. That should worry all of us. The inter-ministerial group has met four times. Can the Minister confirm that the group will continue to be convened—and if it will, who will chair it?

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[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. Homelessness can be about rough sleeping, but there is also hidden homelessness. Our forthcoming strategy needs to consider all that in the round. He asks me what lesson I take from what happened a few years ago—and, I would argue, from how we reduced rough sleeping in the past. I would say that politics is about choices. We took the choice last week to invest, in-year, an extra £84 million in preventing and addressing homelessness. That is the right thing to ensure that everybody in this country is safe and has a roof over their head.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to her place. Youth and overall homelessness have increased since the Government took office, and charities have been harmed by policies such as the national insurance rises imposed by the Chancellor. We welcome the additional money that the Government have allocated for tackling homelessness this winter, but it is an admission that they have failed in their pledge to reduce homelessness. The former Minister had a novel touch, and sent the figure the wrong way. I will ask this Minister the same question that I asked in the previous Session: does she accept that homelessness has risen under this Government, and will she commit to eliminating it by the end of this Parliament?

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[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of issues. The best way in which local planning authorities can protect themselves from speculative development is to have an up-to-date local development plan in place. He touched on developer contributions; we remain committed to strengthening the existing system to ensure that new developments provide the necessary affordable homes and infrastructure. We will set out further details in due course.

When it comes to the prospective new town that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I gently point out that it was not the Government but the independent, expert new towns taskforce that recommended to the Government that Adlington and 11 other locations in England should be the sites for the next generation of new town. On 28 September, we commenced a strategic environmental assessment to understand the environmental implications of new towns, and that will support final decisions. But no final decisions have yet been taken.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I should say that that is the Adlington in Cheshire, not Lancashire.

[Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

15. What steps he plans to take to reform the leasehold system.

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[Steve Reed]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, for her work in supporting disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Oldham and her strong support for the Pride in Place programme, which offers a significant amount of long-term flexible funding and support to areas like Oldham. Best of all, it is local people who will take the decisions about what the investment needs to look like to make a real difference to their high streets, public services and public transport, so that they can take back pride in the place they belong.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Nobody but nobody believes that 1.5 million homes will be built under this Government. Although the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern), spent a lot of time at the Dispatch Box, she did not answer the question about whether the Treasury will be asked to scrap stamp duty. We know that 2.8 million people said that they would consider downsizing if stamp duty were abolished, freeing up family homes of all sizes. She would not answer, so I ask the Secretary of State directly: will he ask the Treasury to scrap stamp duty—yes or no?

[Steve Reed]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman was a strong supporter of Liz Truss when she stood for leadership of the Conservative party, but surely he cannot have forgotten what she did: she made multibillion pound unfunded spending commitments that crashed the economy, and sent wages down and prices, mortgages and rents skyrocketing. The last thing this country needs is tens of billions of pounds of more unfunded commitments, crashing the economy again and destroying people’s dreams of home ownership—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are lots of Back Benchers who wish to speak and this is topical questions. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Sir James Cleverly]

I asked for a simple yes or no, but the right hon. Gentleman struggled to give that. The truth is that we have outlined exactly where the money could come from and we have made it clear that if those on the Labour Front Bench have the guts to take on their Back Benchers, they will have the support of Conservative Members in making the expenditure cuts that are needed. The London School of Economics has estimated that £16,000 of economic activity comes with every house purchase, so if he will not agree to cutting stamp duty, will he at least agree to not putting up property taxes?

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

It is important that we get that right, and we will have further discussions about it shortly. I might disagree with my hon. Friend on the importance of Pride in Place, which will turn around some of the decline created by the Conservative party.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)]

In June, the Department made the welcome announcement of legislation to allow proxy voting and remote attendance, which will help to drive up the diversity of councillors across the country, but the Government have not yet set out a timeline. Will the Minister advise the House on when a timeline will be shared, and whether the Government have considered including the changes in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill?