Homelessness

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is participating remotely.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

Does this Question not take us right back to the price of land for affordable housing? In Nijmegen in Holland, the Waalsprong urban extension of 11,000 homes is being built on 3,000 acres of land acquired at agricultural prices. Similar is happening at Hammarby, near Stockholm in Sweden. Why do we insist on paying landowners inflated land compensation prices when the country needs to house our growing population? We need new thinking on land for affordable housing—it is quite simple.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the issue of land ownership and transparency is one that we have debated before. One measure that the Government have taken forward in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act is greater transparency over not just land ownership but the contractual controls over land that allow councils, developers and other people seeking to build more affordable housing to have a better idea of what land is available and in whose control it is, so that they can take forward their plans and be more effective.