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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 6 August 2025
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Displaying 1228 contributions

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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

We would need to separate the NPF4 document and the policies that are articulated in it, which, as I indicated earlier, we would not want to change. The guidance that sits alongside the NPF4 document gives clarification on whether it is required and how it may be interpreted, adopted and implemented.

The guidance is dynamic. If we identify that more information or more clarification is required, we follow that up. The suite of guidance is easily accessible for those who are seeking to review it. What we have in that regard is already dynamic in that the guidance changes to address challenges, concerns and more new information.

We would not want to go back through the NPF4 process, because that process gives us stability on the policies and it is important for people to have certainty on that.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

As I said, it is for planning authorities to make such decisions, but we are very active in working with them to share best practice and put more resource into the planning system at a macro level across the country. As I have said, we have done so by increasing fees and taking steps to bring in more individuals to be trained as planners.

We are also working with some local authorities鈥攑articularly smaller ones鈥攖o explore opportunities for them to co-operate with other local authorities in sharing resources, particularly specialist resources that are in shorter supply. We are active in that space, but where there are opportunities to do more, we are very interested in pursuing them.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

Those are pretty much in place on an on-going basis. There is a heads of planning group, a high-level planning group and specific groups on other issues. There is a lot of, and increasing, engagement with key agencies.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

If we look at the numbers, we see that far more units are given planning permission every year than are started or completed. There is a significant amount of land out there for which there is planning permission but which is not getting built out. I do not think that the issue is that not enough planning permission is being granted; there is plenty of land that could be built on. There are other issues, and part of the work that we are doing is to understand why, once land has got planning permission, development is not being taken forward.

There are resourcing challenges that we will talk about, and we have done an awful lot of work to address that, but the evidence shows that although units are being given planning permission in significant numbers under NPF4, those numbers are significantly in excess of the number of units that are actually getting built.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

In the planning system, NPF4 and the guidance lay down the framework in which planning decisions are made, and conditions are there to ensure that there is compliance when the development is taken forward. Enforcement would be up to local planning authorities. I am not aware of specifics on that. If you have more details, it would be helpful to hear them. Cara might wish to say more.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

I am trying to work out how we would do that other than if people came forward and told us that it was happening.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

Yes, and the team is in place to do that. In some cases, it is not a question of resource but of taking on board all the different aspects from different stakeholders and ensuring that we have the guidance to target the right issues and cover all the different aspects that need to be covered. If there is a resource issue, we will look at that, but that is not the primary issue with regard to the production of guidance.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

We would be delighted for house builders to build 25,000 units a year. In recent years, an average of 29,000 units a year have gone through the planning system. That goes back to the point that I made earlier. There is planning permission for 164,000 units that have not been built out yet. Clearly, there is a range of reasons why they have not been built, and we are doing quite a bit of work to understand the specifics of that, but a target of 25,000 homes when we are giving planning permission for 29,000 homes each year points to the fact that a lack of planning permission is not the barrier to people building houses.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

The numbers are there in the minimum all-tenure housing land requirement, which is based on the housing needs assessment. With an additional factor built on top of that, the number comes to just under 20,000 homes a year and some 197,000 over the 10-year period. That is an assessment of what the need is. Each local authority has a minimum number and some have significantly higher numbers in their local development plans鈥攊n some cases, 30 or 40 per cent higher, depending on the local situation鈥攂ut none has numbers below the minimum. That is what the assessed need is, but if developers want to take forward more of the plots that have already been given planning permission, we are supportive of that.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]

National Planning Framework 4: Annual Review

Meeting date: 24 June 2025

Ivan McKee

Absolutely. There will be a mixture of stuff in there. There will be stuff about flooding and some of the issues that we have talked about, such as biodiversity and woodland and so forth鈥攕ome of which we might be able to resolve and some of which are harder to resolve. That also leads into the work that we are doing on the review and audit of key agencies to see how they are approaching planning and what can be done to streamline those processes.