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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that local planning authorities accelerate the delivery of housing set out in their local plans.

In 2018 we introduced a Housing Delivery Test and published the 2019 measurement on 13 February 2020.

On 12 March the Secretary of State set out this Government's plans for housing and planning following the announcements at Budget. This includes continuing to raise the Housing Delivery test threshold to 75 per cent in November 2020, setting a deadline for all local authorities to have an up-to-date local plan by December 2023, and consulting on reforming the New Homes Bonus to reward delivery.

In addition, in the Spring we will be publishing bold and ambitious Planning White Paper which will propose measures to accelerate planning.