Part of Planning and Infrastructure Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:30 pm on 9 June 2025.
Gideon Amos
Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Housing and Planning)
6:30,
9 June 2025
I agree with my hon. Friend, who is a great champion of green spaces in development. In our contribution, we are showing how the protections of nature could be strengthened in the Bill without entire chunks of it being deleted. I shall say more about that later.
As we heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, Florence Eshalomi, when it comes to rights for individuals, real freedom often depends on decent homes that people can afford and where they can bring up their families. When homes are genuinely affordable for local people, they will command real community consent and support in the planning process. Unless we give a commitment to a massive increase in the number of social and council rent homes, we will not be responding to the needs of those people, and we will fail to meet head-on the criticism that housing developments today are more about profit than about people.
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