Housebuilders: Information Sharing

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have much sympathy with what the noble Lord says. He has great expertise in this area, and I recognise that. Our focus is on creating a more balanced and competitive market overall by addressing the systemic barriers that prevent SMEs and others delivering more homes. We are taking action to support SMEs across the three main challenges that we know they face: access to finance, access to land, and an uncertain and complex planning system. We have announced two immediate packages of measures to support buildout and SMEs via £100 million in SME accelerator loans and measures to support faster decisions on smaller sites, which I hope will help.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the one-off payment of £100 million towards affordable housing is only about 3% of the operating profit of the five biggest housebuilders this year. Is this a relatively small penalty for them to pay for anti-competitive practices over many years?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I already commented, this is the biggest settlement ever achieved by the CMA. Of course, we can always do with more money for housing. We have to consider what is appropriate in these circumstances. I am sure the CMA has done that. This will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to delivering the affordable housing we all want to see. I am sure that the CMA will continue to watch the market very carefully to see that the changes that are introduced as a result of its report make the difference that we know we need.