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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps is his Department taking to increase the speed of the planning applications process.

The powers we are taking through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will enable us to create a more consistent, streamlined and digitally enabled approach to planning applications. This will be proportionate to the scale and nature of the development proposed. When utilised with existing powers, this will enable us to create an end to end system which is faster and more accessible to communities.

In addition, we have announced our intention to increase planning fees, to support the additional resourcing of local authority planning departments, together with a new planning performance framework to ensure the delivery of a high quality and timely planning service.