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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department plans to allocate additional (a) powers and (b) resources to councils for the purchase of brownfield sites to help those councils meet housing targets.

Local authorities already have compulsory purchase powers which they can use to acquire land, including for the delivery of new housing. In recent years, we have taken forward wide ranging reforms to improve the compulsory purchase process. We are keen to encourage local authorities to make more effective use of these powers and we will continue to explore ways of supporting them in doing so.