My speech on New Towns
My Lords, in 2004 the Labour Government were struggling with a shortage of homes and rising housing costs, so I offered some published advice on how, for example, they could initiate the construction of a new garden city by the Thames. I provisionally called it Thames Reach—it was in the Ebbsfleet area—as an example of how it would be easier to get consent to something bold and visionary which included infrastructure and formed complete communities than to just keep on adding piecemeal to existing communities who often did not like the stresses and strains that could create. It did not appeal to the then Labour Government, but the incoming Conservative Government later took other advice and decided on
Ebbsfleet Garden City, and that is now well under way, with a development corporation to do it. I am very pleased they did it, and I think it is an example of what can be achieved.
Like others in this debate, I would like to see more passion, enthusiasm, urgency, force and development. The Government made a mighty promise to our country of 1.5 million houses in five years. The last Government were achieving around a million; they hit their targets. The Labour Opposition were quite right to say that they were not that stretching, and they came up with this stretching target. But I have got news for Ministers: two years in, they are miles off the pace. They will not even hit the pace of the outgoing Conservative Government. They need to make a big shift in what they are trying to achieve.
I would also like to hear more about how it can be based in some fine traditions of British development, and the formation of British communities. Someone I revere as one of our great entrepreneurial designers, Josiah Wedgwood, in some ways started it with above-average housing for the skilled workers that he recruited, trained, and wished to retain, in a village called Etruria. What a good idea to give them an improvement in living standards as part of the package.
That was carried on by other great entrepreneurs and rich families. Go and visit Bournville and Port Sunlight; are Ministers not proud of these? They were great achievements, with wonderful architecture, countryside in the development, people with gardens, sporting facilities that they could use, communal facilities that they could go and enjoy, a community that was built around a place of work that they were proud of, and that paid them decent wages and looked after them. This spread out more widely, as we have heard from others, in post-war developments, when you had the development of garden cities, with Welwyn and so forth taking off. So there is a tradition that we can build on, and the Government could show more passion, and a bit more continuity in British life, drawing on the things we can be proud of: how normal skilled workers got access to much better housing, started to live in communities and then went on to become owners, which is also extremely important for democratising capital and spreading wealth more widely.
The Government should also look at what works to break down resistance, because we have a paradox in public opinion in this country. The public think that we should build more houses, but most of the public do not think any of the houses should be built anywhere near them. I represented a constituency which always had one of the fastest rates of new house building foisted on it by successive Governments: the constituency of Wokingham. So successful was it that they kept having to break bits off from my constituency to form new ones, as we had so many people coming into the patch. I had to be the chief nimby, but you can see that I am not a nimby. We need to build houses. Construction is a great thing. But I did have to represent the perfectly genuine view that, if you took too many of our green fields and green gaps between settlements, you destroyed the community and changed the nature of the fabric of the local area. We were being asked to take too much, too quickly.
I also shared the view that we were not getting access to the funds and projects for the infrastructure. We were inviting people in when there was not electricity, water, enough pipes to take the dirty water away, or enough drained land, so the new houses flooded almost as soon as people moved into them. It was a disgrace that we did not plan it properly.
So I urge the Government to put more emphasis on new cities and towns, to accept the conclusions of the report that you plan them in advance and, above all, that you put the facilities in first.
June 11, 2026
I agree that if you build houses there has to be an existing infrastructure there to support the development in the form of power, water,drainage,effluent treatment as well as schools, surgeries,shops,and other community facilities.
However I have to question whether we need housing in the volumes that are currently proposed.The issue over housing seems to have become a political ‘point scoring’ exercise in order to satisfy those that are either on a housing waiting list or in the market for a home or in need of ‘affordable’ accommodation whatever that means.However we never see the figures that support the need or demand for millions more houses which are currently ruining the green belt that has been so well protected over the years.
We hear there are massive waiting lists for houses.Is that true?
Where is the demand coming from, who are we building for and is already consented land being developed before new sites come forward into the planning system.
Could the housing demand be met by converting existing retail premises, that are fast becoming redundant, to residential which the Conservatives legislated for and are there brown field sites that could meet a lot of the demand .The easy option is to blitz the countryside with more and more houses putting more pressure on local infrastructure, services and utilities.
The figures need to be reviewed to ensure the numbers and types of property being built meets demand and should take into account the falling birth rate, the increasing age profile of the UK and death rate, currently vacant property which could be bought and refurbished, and those emigrating.
There seems to be a general political statement going on that the UK needs more houses;Where’s the proof.
June 11, 2026
Now the big pushback has started there will be less need for new houses. Watching Belfast it’s obvious the Genie is out of the bottle and there’s no putting it back. We don’t need more houses, we need less people and that’s the only solution.
Here in the East Midlands it seems every nook and cranny is having shoddy houses built, the majority taken by a certain cohort. This is breeding resentment by locals who’ve been on the housing list for years
It’s not going to end well
June 11, 2026
Grand schemes exercise a malign attraction to socialists, though they are incompetent at seeing them through to conclusion. We already have one bedroom per head in UK. It would cost less to encourage redistribution according to need than to build whole cities more.
June 11, 2026
would be better to encourage vast numbers of immigrants to return from where they came, then we wouldn’t need as many houses. remove passports and ILR who have been given them just for working here, or family of someone who was. remove from asylum seekers who came here from safe countries. remove from people who people who came in on a marriage visa to someone with parents who also came in on marriage visas. remove from people who openly hate the UK and its native people.
June 11, 2026
Good morning.
The cost of moving house is too expensive. This discourages people living in homes that are larger than their needs to sell and create more housing stock. We also need to preclude foreign people buying homes that are under £1.5 million. Homes under that amount should be for British people only !
We must also consider building Social Housing in locations like Scotland where there is more space and land is cheaper. We must also stop allowing Council to provide Social Housing for non-British citizens.
Finally STOP ALL IMMIGRATION into the UK.
Do the above and you will soon find out that you do not need to build many houses at all.
June 11, 2026
For this we also need lower interest rates and some som growth in job so people can pay their rents or mortgages. But will anyone rent to people anymore given the new landlord mugging legal framework,
This governments agenda is borrow as much as we can, increase tax rates, then waste it so ever higher interest rates and a doom loop, negative growth and negative tax take agenda.