Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to update his department's Plain English guide to the planning system, published in January 2015.

The government has no current plans to update the previous government’s ‘Plain English guide to the Planning System’.

The government is currently consulting on a new National Planning Policy Framework that includes clearer, ‘rules based’ policies for decision-making and plan-making. These changes aim to ensure that national planning policy is accessible, understandable and provides clarity and certainty to all users of the system. The consultation can be found on gov.uk here and will remain open for responses until 10 March 2026.

The new plan-making system that we are shortly commencing is designed not only to ensure that local plans are faster to prepare and simpler for end users to access and understand but to improve community engagement.