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Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has declared that the UK is living the “most acute housing crisis in living history” as she announced a radical reform to the country’s housing planning system.
Addressing the Commons, the housing secretary has promised to fix the Tories’ legacy by bringing back mandatory housing targets of 370,000 a year on councils.
Under the plans, Ms Rayner announced a review of the green belt if councils do not meet the housebuilding targets.
It comes as Rachel Reeves warned “more difficult choices” are coming after axing winter fuel payments for many pensioners in a bid to help plug a £22bn black hole in the public finances.
The chancellor unveiled plans to tackle the projected overspend, including cuts to infrastructure projects and an end of winter fuel payments for people not in receipt of means-tested benefits.
Following her speech, Ms Reeves doubled down on accusations that Jeremy Hunt “lied” to the public and to MPs during the election campaign about the state of public finances.
Abbott leads Labour rebellion over Reeves’ spending cuts
Diane Abbott has led criticism of Rachel Reeves’s spending plans labelling them “renewed austerity”.
It comes as the chancellor unveiled a raft of brutal cuts to deal with a £22bn black hole in the country’s finances.
But her set of measures to save up on funding has sparked criticism among members of her own party.
The veteran MP for Hackney has accused Ms Reeves of presiding over an era of “renewed austerity”.
Ms Abbott is leading a left-wing backlash over the chancellor’s move to scrap winter fuel allowance payments, cancel transport projects and Boris Johnson’s plan to build more hospitals.
Cleverly attacks Labour over London housebuilding target
James Cleverly has criticised the government’s housebuilding plan after Angela Rayner set out a target of 80,000 new homes a year for London.
He tweeted: “We need to build more homes in urban areas like London, massively increasing densification.
“Labour would rather concrete over the greenbelt than make Sadiq Khan do his job.”
British nationals in Lebanon urged to leave amid escalating tensions
British nationals in Lebanon risk “becoming trapped in a warzone” if they fail to leave, the foreign secretary has warned.
In a House of Commons statement on Lebanon and a conflict between Israel, Lebanese Hezbollah and other non-state actors, David Lammy told MPs: “The prime minister chaired a Cobra meeting this morning and I’m working with Foreign Office consular teams to make sure we are prepared for all scenarios, but if this conflict escalates, the government cannot guarantee we’ll be able to evacuate everyone immediately.
“People may be forced to shelter in place and history teaches us that in a crisis like this one, it is far safer to leave while commercial flights are still running rather than running the risk of becoming trapped in a warzone.
“My message, then, to British nationals in Lebanon is therefore quite simple: leave.”
It comes as tensions have been escalating after Isreal’s military said it struck several targets in neighbouring Lebanon linked to Hezbollah.
Angela Rayner says new homes ‘should have style and character’
Angela Rayner has said the new homes built by the government “should have character and style”.
Speaking during the Commons debate, Tory MP Sir John Hayes told MPs that he had served on the Building Beautiful Commission and as he asked Ms Raynerfor a meeting to discuss the new homes that Labour hopes will be built.
“For she will know that the wealthy can always live in beautiful places, in beautiful homes. But the people from council houses, as she and I originate, deserve their chance to know, to sense and to see beauty,” he said.
The housing secretary replied: “I absolutely agree with everything that [Sir John] says and I know the minister will be meeting shortly with all stakeholders, and I think he’s got a meeting with those that you’ve just mentioned as well in the coming days.
“I would love to work with [Sir John] to make sure that we build the houses that people deserve, whether those are social affordable housing or any other housing. They should be beautiful. They should have character and style, and we’re determined to make that happen.”
Rayner denies plans will ‘ride roughshod through local communities’
Housing secretary Angela Rayner insisted the government’s housing targets will not “ride roughshod” over the wishes of local communities.
Tory MP Wendy Morton said: “I’m no nimby but today what we’re seeing is a lurch back to top-down mandated targets that will ride roughshod through local communities, like those that I represent.”
Ms Rayner said: “It’s not riding roughshod over local decisions and what local people want because having mandatory housing targets and plans means that people will be able to decide.
“What we’re saying – and what we said at the general election – is that we will build 1.5 million homes. We said that really clear and we have a mandate to do that. We think the new method for housing targets works better.”
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said his constituents were being “priced out of being able to live in their local community” as he asked what number of the 1.5 million homes would be “affordable” and how many would be council homes.
Ms Rayner replied: “That can be chosen by the local area, if they say ‘I want a particular amount of social rents’, they can put that in there, and I would say that, again, looking at the document, looking at the methodology that we’re using, I think, and looking at the affordability test, I think that that makes things much better in terms of giving a number and a figure that reflects the realities of people in the local area.”
Angela Rayner hits back at Lee Anderson’s council house ‘quip’
Angela Rayner shot back at a “quip” from Lee Anderson that she was “a little bit of an expert when it comes to council housing, as the Reform MP asked her to confirm that “priority will be given to British families, veterans and pensioners” for the new houses Labour hopes will be built.
The deputy PM replied: “We have confirmed that people with a local connection will get priority in this homes.
“But I also say to the honourable gentleman, who tries to make a quip about the fact that I grew up in a council house – the situation I hear and when I took on this brief is that, actually, people used to talk about my childhood as if I grew up in poverty.
“But there’s many kids today that if they got a council house it would be considered they’d won the lottery. Those children today can’t have that. So we will build the homes. We will prioritise that people locally can get them, and we will make sure that first-time buyers get first dibs as well.”
Tory MP Mark Francois accuses Labour of pursuing ‘the old failed way’ of housebuilding
Tory MP Mark Francois has attacked “pernicious top-down targets” as he accused Labour of “going back to the old failed way” of housebuilding.
“It is possible to have successful development, but from experience it has to be something you do with people and not to people. This is the latter,” he told the Commons. “These pernicious top-down targets have the practical effect at ground level of setting one town against another, one village against another, and one local community against another.
“And given the chancellor’s statement on public spending yesterday, who will pay for the tens of billions of pounds of infrastructure that will be required to make all of this work? All experience shows that on development and housebuilding the man or the woman in Whitehall really does not know best. Why, then, are you going back to the old failed way of doing it which will not work?”
But Angela Rayner replied that she was “shocked” to point out to him that “national targets have always been there, it’s not something that I’ve dreamt up”, adding: “The important thing is, is our new method is clearly based upon what the housing stock, and affordability, and the need in their area.
“This is a need that has created a housing crisis in this country – and that is why the electorate elected the Labour government … because we said we are going to fix the housing crisis that we inherited.”
Rayner: Council housing masterplans will go to ‘square one’
Housing masterplans which councils have in draft may have to return to square one under new planning rules, Angela Rayner has suggested.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper asked: “For those local authorities which are at an advanced stage of their draft local plan, will they need to start again with the new standard method or will they continue?”
Ms Rayner replied: “In terms of local plans, it depends on where they’re up to, in terms of the direct question you asked, and there will be a transition, and we outline that within this consultation because we recognise areas have got quite far on.
“In terms of where that’s up to, it very much depends on what the difference is between what their local plan says and what we’ve asked.”
Tories accused of putting ‘developer greed over community needs’
Planning measures put “developer greed over community needs” under the previous Conservative government, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader has said.
Daisy Cooper said: “For too long under the Conservatives, we had a planning system that put developer greed over community needs – a system which did not deliver the homes we needed to tackle the crisis but did destroy swathes of our green belt.”
Conservative MP Paul Holmes, who represents an area of Hampshire between Southampton and Portsmouth, said: “This announcement, quite frankly, will be a disaster for my Hamble Valley constituency.”
Also from the Conservative benches, former cabinet minister Kit Malthouse urged deputy prime minister Angela Rayner to confirm protections would exist for national landscapes, designated areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs).
Ms Rayner said those protections would remain and added: “I think it’s very important and, again, what we’re saying in terms of the release of the grey belt is that it has to be for the benefit of local, natural spaces.”
Peers call for curb on PM’s power to appoint House of Lords members
Restrictions should be imposed on the Prime Minister’s power to appoint members of the House of Lords, a cross-party group of peers have suggested.
The Prime Minister currently has “absolute power” to appoint whoever they like and however many they like to the upper chamber.
Peers have suggested imposing certain restrictions, such as a cap on prime ministerial appointments, and a requirement to abide by the recommendations of the House of Lords Appointments Commission (Holac) could improve the situation.
Holac is responsible for vetting for proprietary of all nominations to the Lords, but the Prime Minister is not currently required to acquiesce to their advice.
Indeed, Boris Johnson ignored the concerns of the Commission about the appointment of Lord Lebedev in 2020.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Wallace of Saltaire noted: “The prerogative power of the Prime Minister to appoint to this House remains absolute, as we saw under Boris Johnson.”
He suggested that Sir Keir Starmer could announce that, from now on, Prime Ministers would not make appointments without consulting certain bodies.
Former Holac member Conservative peer Baroness Browning urged the Government to have a “complete discussion” about the role of the Prime Minister in the appointment process.
