Labour is fixing abject failure of our national housing system: Matthew Pennycook
This government arrived in office with a bold and comprehensive plan to build the homes and infrastructure the country needs. We are faithfully executing that plan. It is beginning to bear fruit.
And while the headwinds are undoubtedly growing stronger, we are going to stay the course and finish the job.
The case for fundamentally transforming the housing system that we inherited is unarguable. By any metric, it has been an abject failure.
The crisis of housing availability, affordability and quality that that system has produced is blighting lives and hampering economic growth and productivity. That is why, as a government, we set ourselves the task of reforming this failing system root and branch.
Over recent days, I’ve listened with some amusement to colleagues claim that we arrived in government underprepared and lacking clarity of vision and direction. When it comes to housing and planning, nothing could be further from the truth.
We used every waking moment in opposition to develop a bold and comprehensive plan – one that over the past 22 and a half months has allowed us to undertake the most rapid, holistic and radical overhaul of the housing and planning system in decades.
Within six months of taking office, we published a revised National Planning Policy Framework. Through it, we restored and raised mandatory housing targets; strengthened brownfield land policy; and introduced a modernised, strategic approach to Green Belt land designation and release.
The Office for Budget Responsibility have estimated that these changes alone will boost GDP by £6.8 billion by 2029/30 and will lead to the highest level of housebuilding in 40 years.
In December last year, we built on those initial revisions, publishing for consultation a wholly restructured Framework. This modified NPPF incorporates new clear and rules-based national policies for both plan and decision-making and includes new policies such as a permanent presumption in favour of suitably located development and a “default yes” for suitable proposals that develop land around rail stations.
In the same month, our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Act received Royal Assent. This Act is already enabling us to speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, not least by allowing the dismissal of legal challenges to DCOs that are ‘totally without merit’.
Once we have switched on the Act in its entirety, including overhauling the consenting process for critical infrastructure; our new Nature Restoration Fund; new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning; and the modernisation of planning committees, we estimate that this single piece of legislation could boost GDP by up to £7.5 billion over the next decade.
Having received the final report of the independent New Towns Taskforce in September last year, we launched a public consultation in March on our proposed New Towns Programme.
The large-scale new communities that this will create will make a significant contribution to meeting housing need across England and support economic growth by releasing the productive potential of our constrained towns and cities.
No government in living memory has done more to tackle the country’s housing and infrastructure deficit than the one I am proud to be a member of.
Matthew Pennycook is Housing and Planning Minister. This is an edited version of a recent speech in Leeds.