Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Marsha De Cordova

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. He cited the planning practice guidance we have issued, which has a very clear definition of the grey belt and the rules for it. When it comes to plan making, local authorities must take a sequential approach. On decision making for applications outside of local plans, he will know that we have imposed very strict laws to ensure viability assessments are not used on those sites. Where development comes forward and is judged to be appropriate by decision makers—and by the Planning Inspectorate in appeals—those golden rules will also ensure high levels of affordable housing, infrastructure and access to green space.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s bold and ambitious plan to deliver more housing, especially affordable and social homes, in Wandsworth. The council is already delivering homes, but of the 800 homes in its plan, only 50 are accessible for wheelchairs. How will the Government deliver more accessible homes, and will the Minister agree to raise the default standard to the M4(2) standard of accessibility and adaptation, so that everybody has the opportunity to live in a safe and accessible home?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I have a vague memory of certain parliamentary questions asking much the same, and I refer her to those answers. We want to ensure that all people have accessible homes. We are considering the M4(2) standard, and we will make announcements in due course about the accessibility of new homes in general.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Marsha De Cordova

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He will recognise—I know he does—that those types of developments are the result of the expansion of permitted development rights that was taken forward after 2013. There are issues with the quality of some of the works that have come through that stream. On the specific issue he raises, perhaps it might be a good idea if we sat down together. I will happily discuss with him how we can protect leaseholders from those types of variable service charge increases.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Battersea is home to a large number of leaseholders, many of whom have had to face astronomically high service charges from what we all know are unscrupulous management agents. I am very pleased that this Government will protect leaseholders, given that the last Government failed to do so, but is the Minister willing to meet me and some of my leaseholders so that he can share Labour’s plans to protect them?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I am more than happy to sit down with her, or to join a call or meeting with leaseholders in her constituency, in order to discuss the Government’s plans to end the system in this Parliament. We fully appreciate the wish of leaseholders across the country for us to act with speed. As the ministerial statement sets out, we also have got to balance that with the need to get these reforms right. The serious and specific flaws that were left to us by the previous Government in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 are a warning about what happens when reform in this area is not done properly.