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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to ensure that (a) local development plans retain their primacy in law and can provide for local variations to National Development Management Policies where there is a local justification to do so and (b) changes to National Development Management Policies are subject to public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny.

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill - currently being scrutinised in the other place - sets out the proposed legal basis for National Development Management Policies, including their consultation requirements. We are currently consulting on changes to national planning policy. The prospectus consults on a range of changes to national planning policy that are intended to introduce greater clarity on the circumstances in which local authorities can adjust the number of homes planned for to account for local circumstances. We will carefully analyse the responses to the consultation, and any subsequent changes in policy will be confirmed when the Framework is updated later in 2023.