Matthew Pennycook MP: speeches

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Speeches

17 Jun 2026 · Draft Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 27 April. The Government were clear in their manifesto that housing need in England cannot be met without planning for growth on a larger-than-local scale. That is why we committed to introducing effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning. To honour that commitment, we legislated for an England-wide system of strategic plan making in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in December last year. The Act inserted a new part 1A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, placing a requirement on strategic planning authorities—be they mayoral or non-mayoral strategic authorities, or upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities—most of which, but not necessarily all, will be grouped together to prepare a document called a spatial development strategy, or SDS. An SDS will form part of the development plan that local planning authorities must determine planning applications in accordance with, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Local plans produced by local planning authorities will be required to be in general conformity with the relevant spatial development strategy. SDSs, as we discussed throughout the progress of the Bill in Committee, are not big local plans; instead, they will be high-level spatial frameworks for housing growth and infrastructure investment across sub-regional areas. They will be able to identify broad locations for development and establish the infrastructure required to support it, and they will be able to redistribute housing and other development needs between local planning authorities. The draft regulations make two minor, consequential amendments to support the implementation of the new strategic plan-making system, which we intend to commence later this year through a package of regulations. The first amendment concerns the procedure to be followed during the examination of a spatial development strategy. Unless the Secretary of State directs otherwise, a draft SDS must be examined by a person appointed by them. The matters to be examined are for the examiner to determine, and the examination does not have to cover every aspect of the proposed strategy. The draft national planning policy framework sets out that the purpose of the examination should be to assess that relevant procedural requirements have been met and that the strategy is sound, alongside any other matters that the examiner considers appropriate. Draft regulation 2 will amend section 114 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act to allow the Lord Chancellor to make rules under section 9 of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992, governing the procedures for examinations. Any such regulations will support the effective examination of a strategy. The second amendment concerns marine plans. Draft regulation 3 amends paragraph 1 of schedule 6 to the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 to require a marine plan authority to notify a strategic planning authority whose area adjoins, or is adjacent to, marine plan areas, of its intention to prepare a marine plan. That requirement already applies to local planning authorities, and extending it will enable strategic planning authorities to consider how they wish to participate in the marine planning process and to put in place appropriate arrangements for that participation. I trust that the Committee agrees that these minor, consequential regulations are necessary and that it will support the effective implementation of the new system of spatial development strategies.
17 Jun 2026 · Draft Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source
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I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their considered contributions and questions, which I will try to address in turn. It is first worth making clear that the two minor and consequential amendments before us do not implement the new strategic plan-making system. We will bring forward a package of statutory instruments in the autumn to switch on the main provisions of that system. As I made clear in my speech, the two minor and consequential amendments do two very simple things. One provides for the Lord Chancellor to make examination rules. The final content will be clear when we lay those rules, which we intend to do in the autumn; they will be largely technical and procedural in nature. The other simply requires marine plan authorities to notify strategic planning authorities as well as local planning authorities that they intend to make a marine plan. I hope that that clarifies what the two amendments are about. On the points made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, I do not want to relitigate all the debates we had in Bill Committee; I well understand the concerns expressed by Opposition Members about local input. It is important to reiterate a couple of things. Spatial development strategies will not allocate individual sites. As I said, they are high-level frameworks for housing growth and investment—they are not big local plans. Local plans will have to conform with them, but local planning authorities still have to develop local development plans. That is where decisions about which sites are appropriate come within the context of national planning policy—a “brownfield first” national planning policy. As the shadow Minister knows, we strengthened the policy requirements on previously developed land in our December 2024 update to the national planning policy framework. We have gone even further in the new NPPF, on which we have just consulted, and we will respond in due course to that. These are very high-level spatial development strategies. We do not want them all to be London plans; if they were, that would not represent success. London has very particular development needs. The legislative basis for SDSs is the London framework, but as I have said these plans are much more high-level. We are not aiming to replicate the London plan across the country.
15 Jun 2026 · New Social and Affordable Homes: Blaydon and Consett · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right. I would go further than she did: I think the previous Government deliberately set out to engineer the decline of social rented housing, not least through the reforms that they made to the right to buy, which we are reversing through the Social Housing Bill. As I made clear, we received ambitious bids from affordable housing providers across the country, including in the north-east. That will allow councils and housing associations to start using the grant to build at scale once again.
15 Jun 2026 · New Social and Affordable Homes: Blaydon and Consett · Hansard source
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Me again, Mr Speaker. We remain focused on implementing the five-step plan we published in July last year to deliver a decade of social and affordable housing renewal. We received incredibly ambitious bids for our £39 billion social and affordable homes programme and are in the process of assessing them with a view to a timely announcement of allocations. As Members will know, our Social Housing Bill, which will give affordable housing providers the clarity and confidence they need to build more social homes, is also making good progress in the other place.
15 Jun 2026 · Acoustic Design Planning Requirements: Workplaces · Hansard source
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National planning policy makes clear that planning decisions should minimise potential adverse impacts resulting from noise. Associated planning practice guidance sets out that good acoustic design needs to be considered early in the planning process.
15 Jun 2026 · Acoustic Design Planning Requirements: Workplaces · Hansard source
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Building regulations already require protection against sound or reverberation in houses, flats, buildings that have residential rooms and schools, but I am always open to considering how sound insulation standards might be improved in new builds. I would work on any further information my hon. Friend might send to me about the referenced projects in her constituency, including the Oscar Acoustics innovation centre.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for her advocacy on this issue. Homeowners should not be subject to unfair management charges or poor standards of service at the hands of managing agents, and I commend her for bringing this case to the House’s attention. Our recent consultation on enhanced protections for homeowners on freehold estates closed on 12 March, and we are analysing the feedback received alongside continuing to develop plans to strengthen the regulation of managing agents.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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As the hon. Lady is—hopefully—aware, the last Government asked Lord Best to chair a working group to look at the regulation of property agents in the round. We are giving careful consideration to the recommendations in its report, with a view to strengthening the regulation of managing agents. If the hon. Lady will write to me with more details about that specific case, I will look into it.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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As you will recall, Mr Speaker, this is not the first occasion on which I have had to mention FirstPort at the Dispatch Box. We need to drive up standards across all managing agents. I shall be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and a group of other Members, as she suggests, to discuss this particular provider in more detail.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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As I have said to the hon. Gentleman on previous occasions, I have a great deal of respect for him, but he has some front in standing up and accusing this Government of dithering when it comes to leasehold reform. The Conservative party had 14 years in which to end the system, and did not do it. It raised expectations, and let leaseholders down. We are going to end the system within a Parliament. We are going to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. We will respond to the Select Committee, and will set out further details in the near future.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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The Government continue to implement those leasehold reforms that are already in statute and to progress the wider set of reforms necessary to end the feudal leasehold system for good. In respect of the latter, the King’s Speech confirmed our intention to introduce the substantive commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, which will include fixes to the small number of specific but serious flaws in the previous Government’s Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend has considerable expertise on leasehold reform, and he is right to press for clarity on this important matter. To commence the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act’s enfranchisement provisions, we unfortunately do need to fix the flaws he refers to through new primary legislation, and we will do so in this Session. In the interim, we will need to establish what capitalisation and deferment rates to set, and I am pleased to tell him that I am aiming to launch a consultation on those in the coming weeks.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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I commend my hon. Friend, the other members of her Committee and its officials for the thorough piece of work that they have done in scrutinising the draft Bill: that will make for a better Bill when it is introduced. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not comment on press speculation but merely build on what I said in my letter to her of 8 June, namely that the Committee and the Government are of one mind when it comes to the necessity of making progress with the substantive Bill as quickly as possible so that we can transform the lives of leaseholders. While I remain committed to ensuring that any Bill put forward is robust so that we do not have to fix problems in primary legislation, as we had to in the case of the 2024 Act, I am seized of the urgency of both presenting the Bill and commencing the ground rent provisions as quickly as possible.
15 Jun 2026 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman is as charming as ever, but all I can say to him is what I say in respect of this and many other issues: I am more than happy to help our counterparts in Northern Ireland to learn from the very good work that this Government are doing in relation to leasehold reform.
15 Jun 2026 · Road Adoption · Hansard source
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We will do better than that. As part of our consultation on ending the prevalence of those arrangements, we specifically consulted on what more we can do on common adoptable standards, and we are exploring mandatory adoption for certain public amenities in certain circumstances. If the hon. Gentleman has read the Competition and Markets Authority report into the issue, he will know that the two are essential; we cannot mandate local authorities until we have common adoptable standards. If that is the route we go down, we have to do them at the same time.
15 Jun 2026 · Road Adoption · Hansard source
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My Department is working closely with the Department for Transport to consider reforms to adoption and highways frameworks. We also recently consulted on reducing the prevalence of private estate management arrangements, including proposals to increase the adoption of estate amenities such as roads on new developments. That consultation closed on 12 March and we are analysing the feedback received.
15 Jun 2026 · Road Adoption · Hansard source
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Those cases sound particularly egregious, and I am sorry to hear about them. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the detrimental consequences of declining road adoption rates. The Department for Transport is reviewing barriers to adoption, with a view to identifying improvements and informing future reforms, alongside the consultation that I referenced. When it comes to individual local authorities, to put it mildly, some are better than others—we know that—and Central Bedfordshire obviously has some ground to make up. That is one of the issues we are considering as part of the policy development process in respect of that consultation.
15 Jun 2026 · Short-term Lets: Licensing · Hansard source
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Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government engage regularly with ministerial colleagues across Government in relation to a range of housing policy matters. We continue to consider what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to respond to the pressures created by short-term lets, as well as second homes.
15 Jun 2026 · Short-term Lets: Licensing · Hansard source
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My Department is not responsible for the national registration scheme for short-term lets. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is responsible for that and is committed to implementing it as soon as possible. When it is implemented, the scheme will capture any property used as short-term rental accommodation, importantly including second homes that operate as short-term lets.
15 Jun 2026 · Short-term Lets: Licensing · Hansard source
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To be clear, there is no credible solution to the housing crisis that does not involve significantly boosting housing supply, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to argue that the distribution of homes in any given area has a significant bearing on housing availability and affordability. As she knows, the Government have already made changes to the tax system to reorientate the housing markets away from second-home owners and investors and towards local people looking for homes to live in. While I cannot commit to future legislation, I assure her that we continue to consider how best to ensure that local planning authorities have the full set of tools they need to manage challenges of the kind described by my hon. Friend.
15 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. I appreciate fully his concern about the potential mass eviction of his constituents. It is precisely so that private tenants can enjoy greater security, including the growing number of older people who now rent their homes, that we abolished section 21 no-fault evictions. I am happy to meet him to discuss the case further and what more support we might provide.
15 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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We think it is right that developers can use site-by-site viability assessments, as the alternative where viability challenges are acute is that we get no homes coming forward at all. We have consulted, in the recent consultation on the NPPF, on standardised inputs to viability, and we will set out further steps in due course.
15 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his constructive engagement on the new towns programme, and on Tempsford in particular. It helped to inform our approach, including to the decision that new town proposals will contribute to meeting the identified housing need of relevant authorities in all instances. We are assessing options for delivery vehicles across the proposed sites, with a view to ensuring that each is best placed to drive delivery and secure essential infrastructure in a timely manner.
15 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I do not intend to reverse the decision; I made the decision. The hon. Member’s local authority is one of nine that have been designated for poor performance, just as the previous Government designated local authorities when they fell below the required standards in their planning processes.
15 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I am aware of my hon. Friend’s robust views on this matter. There are a range of views about the right geographies for spatial development strategies. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), and I are looking at all the consultation responses we have received, and we will make decisions on the full basis of having those fed in.

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