Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2018 to Question 124559, on Planning Permission, if the he will take steps to (a) produce a register of all land in England and Wales owned by development companies which has neither building work ongoing nor planning permission granted nor approved, (b) make that register public and (c) provide the House with regular updates as to his Department's progress in reducing the amount of land on that register; and if he will make a statement.

We have no such plans at present.

Local authorities are already required to publish registers of brownfield land suitable for housing. The registers include information relating to the ownership and planning status of land on the register. Local authorities are also required to publish planning registers containing details of all planning applications which are under consideration or which have been agreed.

In the Autumn Budget 2017, the Government also announced it will develop a central register of residential planning permissions from local authorities to improve information on where permissions are held and progress towards them being built out.

The Government's Housing white Paper sets out a wide ranging approach to driving up build out of planning permissions. In addition, the Autumn Budget 2017 included the announcement of a review of build-out chaired by Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP. The review will consider the significant gap between housing completions, and the amount of planning permissions and land allocated for housing. The review panel will make recommendations for closing this gap, and will report on its findings in 2018.