John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, responding to the National Audit Office’s report ‘Planning for New Homes’, said:

“This report from the government’s spending watchdog should be a wake-up call for Ministers. It shows that deep cuts and poor planning changes are stopping us building the homes the country needs.

“Crude council cuts mean fewer staff to deal with planning applications, and looser rules mean developers have increasingly dodged their fair contribution to building new low-cost homes.

“Labour will build a million genuinely affordable homes, end cuts to councils, stop developers dodging their affordable housing obligations and set up an English Sovereign Land Trust to make more land available for housing, more cheaply.”