Minister tries to allay fears within Tory party that May is to roll back on manifesto promise with housing crisis white paper

Theresa May will this week reaffirm a Conservative commitment to protecting the green belt, despite unveiling a government strategy that aims to ramp up the pace of housebuilding to ensure 1m new homes are built by 2020.

The prime minister will seek to reassure Tory MPs and grassroots activists who have expressed concerns about the plans that she will not be rolling back on a pledge made by her predecessor, David Cameron, during the last general election.

“The green belt is 13% of the land. We can solve this crisis without having to take huge tracts out of the green belt,” the housing minister, Gavin Barwell, said.

However, he admitted councils were free to build on the green belt in exceptional circumstances, which could mean more demand on the protected areas given the legislation’s aim to boost overall numbers.



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He told ITV’s Peston on Sunday that the government’s white paper on housing would aim to break the dominance of a handful of large developers, and instead see more involvement for small builders, as well as councils and housing associations.

The document would also pave the way for a “change of tone” in which the Tories would turn their attention to the millions of people locked out of home ownership who instead need affordable and secure rents.



Barwell admitted the severity of the home ownership problem, but added: “We are not going to weaken the protections; we have a clear manifesto promise and there is no need to take huge tracts of land out of the green belt to solve our housing crisis.”

He said local councils had the power to decide to build on the green belt, with reports suggesting that more than 360,000 homes are planned for protected areas.

“They can take land out of the green belt in exceptional circumstances but they should have looked at every other alternative first,” he said, including building on brownfield land, releasing surplus government land, increasing the density of projects in towns and cities, or partnering with neighbouring councils.

Barwell was responding to pressure from some within his party, including former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell, who said he feared the government was about to backtrack on its claim that the green belt was “sacrosanct”.



Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mitchell said green belt land in his Sutton Coldfield constituency was threatened by a plan to build 6,000 homes. He admitted there was an urgent need for action with home ownership at a 30-year low.

“But my concern is this: that by giving councils and builders more scope to argue that ‘exceptional circumstances’ can be invoked and the green belt destroyed, we are opening the way to vandalism across Britain. It is unforgivable,” Mitchell wrote.

The number of homes granted planning permission on green belt land rose fivefold from 2,258 in 2009-10 to 11,977 in 2014-15, according to the House of Commons library. The net loss of green belt land between 2004 and 2014-15 amounts to 41,570 hectares (103,000 acres).

Ministers are preparing to unveil plans that will shift focus towards the needs of people who rent, with new planning rules that mean developers do not just have to provide a proportion of “affordable homes” but that enough of them are available for rent.

The government will also announce incentives to encourage landlords to offer guaranteed three-year tenancies, action to ban unscrupulous landlords who offer substandard properties, and provide further information on a policy to ban fees charged by letting agents.

The plans will be seen as moving away from Cameron’s heavy focus on home ownership, with his policy for “starter homes”, which is meant to help people get on to the housing ladder, expected to be sidelined instead of being scrapped.

Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, said: “We are determined to make housing more affordable and secure for ordinary working families and have a rental market that offers much more choice. We understand people are living longer in private rented accommodation which is why we are fixing this broken housing market so all types of home are more affordable.

“These measures will help renters have the security they need to be able to plan for the future while we ensure this is a country that works for everyone.”

The shadow housing minister, John Healey, said there was a huge gap between the Conservatives’ rhetoric and their record.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/05/new-homes-warranty-firm-pays-millions-to-leading-homebuilders

“After seven years of failure, the country has a housing crisis of the Conservatives’ making. We’ve had 1,000 announcements from the government on housing since 2010 but the lowest level of affordable housebuilding in 24 years,” he said.

“A promise to be the ‘party of home-owners’, but 200,000 fewer households who own their own home; an apparent concern about homelessness, but rough sleeping has more than doubled; a pledge to build more homes, but housebuilding fell to the lowest level since the 1920s.”

On the focus on renting, Healey said the proposals fell short. “Ministers even voted down Labour’s efforts to ensure that private rented homes were simply fit for human habitation,” he said.

Others welcomed the news of a shift of focus to renting. Dan Wilson Craw, the director of Generation Rent, said: “The government has finally recognised that home ownership is too distant a prospect for too many people. The insecurity created by short-term tenancies is no way to live if you’re stuck renting, especially if you’re raising children.”