Minister grilled over ‘concerning’ Hyphen investigation into social homes
Green party housing lead Ellie Chowns took Labour’s Matthew Pennycook to task during debate on planning and infrastructure bill
–
The Green party’s housing lead has grilled the government in parliament over findings from a Hyphen investigation that laid bare the dearth of social rent homes approved during Labour’s first six months in power.
Ellie Chowns took housing minister Matthew Pennycook to task during a House of Commons committee stage debate on the government’s landmark planning and infrastructure bill on Tuesday. Chowns cited data obtained by Hyphen that suggests more than half of England’s councils did not approve the building of any homes for social rent in the six months following Labour’s election win in July 2024.
A third of councils in England responded to our freedom of information requests asking how many homes had been given planning permission between July and December last year — and how many of those were earmarked for social rent. Just 6.2% (3,147) of the more than 50,000 homes approved by these 119 local authorities were designated for social rent.
Addressing the committee, Chowns proposed an amendment to the bill to require national and local government to set housing plans that “include, and justify, quotas for the provision of both affordable and social housing”. A key finding of our investigation was that most councils did not have targets in place for the building and greenlighting of social rent homes, despite 1.3m households nationally languishing on waiting lists.
“We absolutely have to build more homes for social rent,” she said. “I recently saw stats about the changes in planning permissions in the last six months: 6% of the permissions granted in that time have been for social rented homes. It is nowhere near enough. We desperately need more homes for social rent.”
Labour has pledged to get 1.5m homes built in Britain over five years but hasn’t said how many of these will be for social rent.
Chowns urged Pennycook to back the change, adding: “I think that others will find it difficult to understand why a Labour government would not support targets for affordable and social housing — not specifying the numbers, but requiring that such targets are a necessary part of achieving what the government say they want to achieve in improving access to housing.”
But the Green party amendment was voted down. Eight Labour MPs, including Pennycook, voted against it, while Chowns and Liberal Democrats MPs Gideon Amos and Olly Glover were in favour.
Ministers have updated the National Planning Policy Framework so it now stipulates that, where a need for affordable housing is identified, planning policies should specify a minimum proportion of social rent required, but does not suggest what this proportion should be.
Pennycook admitted: “It is true that the government have not yet set a social and affordable housing target, but we are clear that we need to significantly increase the number of social and affordable homes built each year.”
He claimed this was a “particular focus” on this under Labour following “the engineered decline of social rented housing over the previous 14 years”, adding: “We are determined to build more and, through the changes we are making to right to buy, to retain more of our stock, while recognising that long-term tenants should still have a right to buy, where applicable.”
But he said the proposed changes to the bill were not “the right way forward”.
Amos, the Lib Dem housing lead, has also described Hyphen’s findings as “deeply concerning”, while housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa accused Labour on social media of making an “extremely disappointing start” on building more social homes.
The government has said the planning and infrastructure bill will help speed up planning decisions to boost home-building.
Topics
Get the Hyphen Weekly
Hyphen is the leading media platform on Muslim life in the UK and Europe. Sign up to our newsletter to receive our top stories straight to your inbox every week.
This form may not be visible due to adblockers, or JavaScript not being enabled.