Speeches by Pennycook.

“Thank you, Chair. I will chase your May letter through my private office.”

“Yes. The Department will not do that for each of the many hundreds of local authorities across the country but it expects that as part of plan development.”

“Again, I will bring in Jo and Emma to add some detail. We are very confident they will be able to comply. We have given them the time to comply and are providing lots of detailed guidance to help them to roll it out. Again the regulator has a role in terms of SRS, MEES and those consumer standards coming through. We ar…”

“It is obviously an absolutely pressing need. I find in particular that cases of overcrowding that come to my advice surgery on a weekly basis are heartbreaking in themselves. There are young children who cannot study properly living in a living room because there are not enough bedrooms. That is absolutely heartbreakin…”

“We can certainly review the evidence session. As you know, there is a live conversation about the regulation of property agents more widely.”

“I am taking from you that you want to see generous allocations to London and other parts of the country so they do not have to face this problem. That is the balance we face. Families are being housed in these areas because of the lower rental values.”

“I have always been really candid about the trade-offs that exist, and there are some real tensions and trade-offs when it comes to overcrowding policy. What I would say in general terms is that the statutory definition of overcrowding has been in flux basically since the Victorian era. It was overhauled in 1935 and aga…”

“Do local authorities have a choice?”

“I cannot make a judgment on whether it would definitely reject x local plan or not; it would be looking at the plan in the round and judging whether it was sound, but it would have to take this into account. This is all subject to whether we confirm the 40% M4(2) in the final NPPF; as I say we are working through the f…”

“From memory the feedback we have had to the NPPF is that a minimum threshold of M4(3) is not particularly appropriate in the way that a minimum percentage of M4(2) is. It is a very different product.”

“There are undoubtedly concerns that exist about that minimum percentage. We think that is the right thing to have proposed and are working through all the feedback. I suppose what I am saying in terms of the framework is that that proposal obviously did not exist before. It is what we are proposing to come forward as w…”

“At that point I thought it would be published shortly. I am afraid I cannot give you a date. One reason why I brought this document, and many other things, is that I want—”

“No. The proposed framework is very clear that you must plan to meet local housing need. You should be assessing the need for M4(3) properties. We are just saying in the sense that where on M4(2) there is a floor and that discretion to adjust for need, on M4(3) there is complete discretion, to be brought forward through…”

“I will come back to you with a final comment. You can hold us to the theoretical 100% standard that the previous Government committed to and had no plan to deliver, or you can hold us to the very significant uptick that we are seeking through this 40% minimum and discretion, given that lots of local areas are planning …”

“Maybe we can share that question, and I will do the resourcing first. We are relying on local authorities to enforce and are giving them significant amounts of money to help them do so. We provided £18.2 million in 2025-26 and £41.1 million in 2026-27 to support the new enforcement responsibilities that local authoriti…”

“That is a really fair question. Emma or Jo might want to talk about the grants that are available to adapt homes. In an ideal world we would get to 100% up-to-date local plan coverage, on the basis of new-style local plans, with the final proposals in the framework. If we take forward M4(2), over time in theory you wou…”

“We do not routinely publish internal analyses of that nature. It plays into the decisions we have had to make on what was proposed in the framework and the final decisions we will make on it.”

“That is a really good question. Through the NPPF we have tried to limit the discretion of local authorities to put in place their own standards when there are national standards in place. We are working through all this right now. On energy efficiency and internal layout, what is the amount of discretion that is approp…”

“To go back to Mr Mohindra’s question—he has left so does not get to hear me opine on this—this is one of many things I am really proud of. It was a previous Government commitment to introduce Awaab’s law, and I fully recognise what they did to make that initial commitment, but we have stepped up and made sure that we a…”

“I will chase a reply on that, Chair.”