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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Greenhalgh on 1 October (HL8296) and on 19 October (HL8828), what assessment they have made of the impact of tackling the practices of 'land banking' and 'intentional delay' on the market absorption rates in the housing market.

Sir Oliver Letwin’s 2018 independent Review of Build Out was clear that developers will only build new homes at a rate that the market can absorb. That is why our planning white paper sets out proposals to revise national policy to encourage masterplans and design codes for substantial development sites to see a variety of development types by different builders come forward at once. This will help speed up build out by ensuring new development can appeal to a broad range of market needs. We are also exploring further options to speed up the build out of residential development as part of the implementation of the white paper.