Homes and Planning Bill

Sean Woodcock Excerpts

Friday 13th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ben Maguire]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. He knows as well as I do that it takes years to put together neighbourhood plans, and lots of those were disregarded when the new legislation came forward. I hope that he will say something on that. As we move forward with our Cornish devolution deal, perhaps something can come with that.

I want briefly to take the rare opportunity to praise the Conservative Government—I am not often found doing so in the House, and I will have to caveat this carefully. Just before the general election—I leave it to hon. Members to consider the cynicism of this and how likely they felt it was that they would be returned to enact the measures—they proposed much of what my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives does in his Bill in requiring planning permission when a residential property is turned into a holiday let. I must admit that I am extremely frustrated and disappointed to see the Labour Government not taking that on.

[Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)]

It is lovely to see the coalition making a comeback in the Chamber. My reason for opposing the Bill is that, during the coalition in particular, local authority planning capacity was totally gutted. Councillors have no capacity to do this. Local authorities such as Lib Dem-led Cherwell in my constituency are in special measures because of their failures to deal with planning, so the idea of giving them more stuff to decide on is ludicrous when we have a housing crisis. Does the hon. Member not see that logic?

[Ben Maguire]

The hon. Member makes a good point. Of course, his Government have centralised planning policy, so my councillors in North Cornwall have virtually no say about planning applications, be they on infrastructure or affordable homes. When I was reaching out cross-party, what a contrast those cheap political points are. By the way, I work well with my Cornish Labour colleagues for the good of Cornwall and would happily work with Conservative Members and hon. Members across the House to make positive changes for my constituents.

I really emphasise that these measures are already being taken in other parts of the United Kingdom: we saw the Labour Government in Wales introduce much of what my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives seeks. Finally, I re-emphasise my commitment to people in my constituency such as Sarah and Frank, who live in Rock and have been sofa-surfing for nine months because they cannot afford to rent anywhere. As was said earlier, when we look on Rightmove for rental accommodation, we see little available, because—guess what?—it is much more profitable to put properties on Airbnb or let them as holiday accommodation. We need to bear those people in mind when we vote—although, given the Government’s opposition to the Bill, we may not get a chance to vote for it today.

I hope that today is not the end of the conversation. I mentioned my predecessor from the ’60s, who talked about how acute this issue is in Cornwall, and we have heard similar from hon. Members who represent other parts of the country. I hope that the Minister is listening and that he will finally take action on an issue that has gone on for decades. We have heard various proposals along the way, but we have never seen the action that we need to regulate the housing sector and ensure that our local residents can afford a safe and warm home.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for introducing this important debate. The issue matters a great deal to my constituents, as well as to my father and step-mother, who are constituents of his, and their cats, Trevor and Midnight. I know he is a great campaigner for their interests, especially those of Trevor the feral cat.

My constituency sits within Erewash borough—the boundaries of the constituency and the borough are not quite coterminous—which has a social housing waiting list some 5,000 people long. Of those 5,000 people, more than 2,000 are children. Too many families are growing up in temporary accommodation and there is a generation of young people for whom the dream of home ownership is distant, at best. The Prime Minister is right to talk about how our politics has treated housing purely as a commodity to be bought and sold, and we have heard lots of commentary on that point during the debate.

The failure to recognise that housing is an essential part of life and important in our way of living has been a major contributor to the housing crisis that we face today, and we need to change tack to address that issue. That is why I am strongly in favour of this Government’s direction on housing and planning generally. I believe that direction already addresses many of the areas in the hon. Gentleman’s Bill.

My principal concern is that much of what the Bill seeks to achieve, as we have heard from a number of my hon. Friends, is already being delivered through existing policies, can be achieved without primary legislation or would sit uncomfortably alongside frameworks already in place. Work is already underway through licensing arrangements and neighbourhood planning mechanisms to provide councils with the tools they need to influence the use of properties and shape development in our communities. Work is also underway to strengthen protections against second home owners abusing rates relief.

Indeed, many powers already exist at the local level to crack down on empty second homes. I will highlight a couple of examples from my patch as to where we have done some good work in this area. Recently, Labour-run Erewash borough council took the decision to introduce a double rate of council tax, which some colleagues have already mentioned, on long-term empty properties. That policy has already proven successful. Homes that were being kept on the market for unreasonably high prices, waiting for the market to catch up to those expectations, are being sold at a more reasonable price in order to avoid the double council tax. Landlords who were previously happy to sit on empty properties that they could use as collateral are now being forced into action, which is fantastic. As a result, those homes are being sold to families who will actually live in them. At the end of the day, that is exactly what this Labour Government are about.

Furthermore, the money raised from taxing empty homes is being used to do other great work locally in the council area. Labour-run Erewash borough council has frozen council tax this year because of the money it has successfully raised. It has also introduced free parking on Saturdays and great new measures to help tackle the cost of living generally that back our town centres as local economic hubs. These are simple powers and they are available to district councils across the country right now. They are both effective and capable of delivering many of the aims set out in this Bill.

[Sean Woodcock]

My hon. Friend is making a really important speech about empty homes. We all have homes in our constituencies that have been empty in the long term that we want brought back into use, but is the reality not that there are generally far too few empty homes across the country? Just 1% of houses are empty, so what the Government need to do, which I support, is build more homes in the first place so that we can house people properly.

[Adam Thompson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. This Government’s drive towards building more homes is incredibly important.

Turning to the parts of the Bill that pertain to the creation of local plans, such plans already allow communities and councils to determine where development should take place, what infrastructure should accompany that development and the mix of the home types that we need to meet local demand. They are built on assessments of local housing need and they are subject to consultation with residents, businesses and community organisations.

I know this because in Erewash my colleagues on the council are currently going through the process of starting a new council local plan. In fact, this week Erewash borough council is publishing its first draft for a consultation to get the views of local residents on what they want to see in their community—indeed, in my community. For the first time, the council will be launching a brownfield land request, asking residents to identify brownfield sites that they believe could be suitable for development. This Government have a “brownfield first” policy. I think the council is doing great stuff in implementing that at a local level by allowing residents to put forward appropriate sites. It takes the conversation away from big landowners and developers and gives everyone the opportunity to chip in.

I want to put something on the record. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) recently talked about fleecehold. I want to talk about a local area in my constituency where this is occurring. Around the time I moved to Erewash, a little over a decade ago, there was a new estate being built just on the outside of Ilkeston called Elka’s Rise. It was a lovely few hundred houses in a great location. Indeed, at one point I even looked at buying a house there myself.

Since the completion of that estate, I have discovered by knocking on doors in the area and talking to residents that there are many issues—many colleagues will have had similar experiences. Residents have told me of a fee—I consider it to be almost a privatised council tax in many ways—that they are being forced to pay annually for the upkeep of space on the estate, whether it is the roads themselves, which have not yet been adopted by the council, despite being in good condition, or, in this case, the creation of a local play park that was never opened. The play park was built on flood land. Residents never got to use the space because it was completely unsuitable and unsafe. Fencing was put around the outside that was not safe. I went to look at the park and the grass was at chest height at one point. It was just dreadful. Yet the residents are being forced to pay for this on an ongoing basis.

I was pleased in recent months to hear about the work that the Government are doing to tackle this fleecehold approach, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister over the coming weeks and months about what more he will be doing to implement changes to address these issues. I was very grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central raised that issue, because I was keen to get that on the record.

I do want to say that local councillors Mark Alfrey and Kate Fennelly are doing fantastic work with the residents. They are doing everything they can to get as much of that land adopted by local councils so that we can take power away from those developers, who are really fleecing the residents.

In the interests of local need, with which this Bill concerns itself, the draft plan has set ambitious goals. Erewash borough council seeks to ensure that of the 6,800 homes that it is expected to deliver under its plan, 1,500 will be available for social rent. More than 20% of those new homes will be provided for social rent—I think that is great. This measure will help us move towards bringing down the unacceptable length of our social housing waiting list and ending the practice of families growing up in temporary accommodation.

I would also like to bring to the attention of the House the decision to create at least one new job for every home built. That will help to tackle youth unemployment and provide real opportunities for young people. It shows, again, the implementation of this Labour Government’s national policies at a local level by a Labour council, which I am incredibly proud of.