Press Release: Chris Hinchliff MP Calls on the Government to Smash the Developer-Led Housing Model

30 May 2025

The Labour backbencher is championing a progressive alternative on planning.

Chris Hinchliff MP has tabled a suite of amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill aimed at reforming the planning system so that it once again puts people and nature before developer profits.

The Labour MP for North East Hertfordshire is directly challenging the narrative that environmental protections and local democracy are the chief villains of the housing crisis.

Mr Hinchliff is arguing that this misdiagnosis is leading the Government to assume there must be a bonfire of so-called red-tape and then affordable homes will naturally follow. The evidence tells a different story - over 90% of planning applications are approved, and more than one million approved homes have gone unbuilt since 2007.

Mr Hinchliff has criticised the Bill as being “all carrot and no stick” for developers - allowing them to “drip-feed” homes onto the market to keep prices high, while continuing to prioritise profit maximising developments over genuinely affordable housing in truly sustainable locations.

Mr Hinchliff has proposed strict penalties for developers who fail to build out their permissions, and recently welcomed the Government’s announcement it will take action in this area in future legislation.

Mr Hinchliff has called for new powers to prevent developers from wriggling out of their affordable housing commitments. And, responding to widespread cynicism over so-called ‘affordable housing’, which often is anything but, Hinchliff has put forward a new definition, backed by Shelter, that would tie affordability to local incomes.

Calling for “councils to be put back in the driver’s seat” Mr Hinchliff’s plans would replace the current “call for sites” model with a system of proactive site identification and acquisition. Instead of being forced to accept whichever ill-suited plots developers offer up, councils would gain the power to select the most suitable locations for sustainable development - ending the manufactured “conflict” between housing and nature.

Ecologists are clear: in its current form, the Bill gives a license to kill nature. This is despite the Government’s own impact assessments admitting there is scant evidence that environmental protections block development. Supported by the Wildlife Trusts, Hinchliff has tabled amendments to stop the Bill giving developers the ability to pay cash in return for a greenlight to trash the countryside, push species closer to extinction, or destroy irreplaceable environmental features like chalk streams.

Chris Hinchliff, Member of Parliament for North East Hertfordshire, said: ““The failures of the developer-led housing model are felt in every community with prices kept high to maximise profits and a consistent failure to deliver affordable homes.

“The Planning and Infrastructure Bill gets it badly wrong, handing more power to profit-driven developers, rather than cracking down on their failures. Instead of demanding results, it rips up environmental protections and weakens local democracy, rewarding failure at the expense of people and nature.

“Slashing so-called red tape in the hope the market will deliver is a political cul-de-sac. It won’t build the homes we need, and, in a few years, the developer lobby will be back for more, demanding another round of deregulation: a little less democracy, a few more habitats destroyed, and then, they will no doubt promise, the homes will come.

“The Government should smash this broken model and forge a progressive alternative: putting councils back in the driver’s seat, with the powers and funding to lead a new generation of sustainable council housebuilding that delivers the genuinely affordable homes workers need.”

ENDS

Editors’ Notes

1. A range of quotes from supportive organisations has been included below.

2. Shelter’s organisational rules prohibit the inclusion of a quote to an external press release, but a quote can be provided upon request. Please contact press_office@shelter.org.uk

3. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will return to Parliament for Report Stage on 09 and 10 June.

Matt Browne, Head of Public Affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, said:

‘‘The Government has got Part 3 of the Planning Bill wrong – it’s a license to destroy wildlife and to replace current development rules, which are tried and tested, with a confused and harmful substitute. We urge Ministers to reflect on their Manifesto promises to ensure nature is at the heart of housebuilding, and to correct the proposed, damaging approach by withdrawing Part 3 of the Bill. Alternatively, Report stage amendments tabled by Chris and other MPs are a step in the right direction and would make the Bill work better for nature and development. If the Government is to avoid a legacy of environmental regression, Ministers should swiftly accept these amendments and urgently consider further changes to fix the Bill.’’

Roger Mortlock, Chief Executive of CPRE, the countryside charity said:

"The Planning and Infrastructure Bill provides a huge opportunity to help solve the problems facing the UK, from building more social and affordable housing, to restoring our natural environment and tackling the climate emergency. However, the government seem to be focused solely on speeding up the planning system rather than harnessing it to tackle these issues. The weakening of democratic oversight of planning, the failure to set meaningful targets for affordable and social housing and the reduction in nature protections are deeply concerning, as is the failure to reform the housing market to improve housing delivery.

"As it is written the Planning and Infrastructure will not deliver for our rural areas, so the Government must listen and look to the amendments put forward to improve the Bill to ensure it tackles these vital issues."

Rick Hebditch, Better Planning Coalition Coordinator, said:

“We need effective and ambitious planning to deliver the new social homes we need, to tackle climate change and to support prosperous towns, cities and villages across the UK. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill has some really positive moves on things like funding planning properly and the new strategic planning layer. But the Bill also could see weaker democratic oversight of planning and could undermine protections for nature. Ministers need to listen to what MPs and other have said on these issues and come back with how they will address these concerns as the Bill reaches its final stages in the Commons.”

James Cooper, Head of External Affairs at the Woodland Trust, said:

“Nature will pay the price if the Government refuses to improve its Infrastructure Bill. Plans for new housing and development must include robust protection for our irreplaceable trees and woods. The Bill must be amended to reflect this.”

Nick Ballard, Head Organiser at ACORN the Union said:

"ACORN represents thousands of tenants across England and Wales struggling with this extortionate costs of private renting, people trapped in temporary accommodation, people unable to get on the housing ladder, and stuck on the social housing waiting list.

“Forget 'affordable' housing, if developers want to make money building in this country then they need to be held to account and deliver truly affordable, secure, high quality social housing.”

Martin Wicks, Secretary of the Labour Campaign for Council Housing said:

“Chris is right when he says that the Bill ‘gets it badly wrong, handing more power to profit-driven developers, rather than cracking down on their failures. Instead of demanding results, it rips up environmental protections and weakens local democracy, rewarding failure at the expense of people and nature.’

“As the Town and Country Planning Association has said, the planning system ‘is not, and has never been, the root cause of our housing crisis.’ It is ‘an overwhelming lack of investment by government in homes for social rent’.

“Liberalising planning law will not lead to more social rent homes. House building is dominated by the oligopoly of big volume builders who build at a pace and a scale to maximise their profits and the dividends of their shareholders. They will not build at a scale which lowers prices. They have no interest in building social rent homes to resolve the housing crisis.

“As we approach the 80th anniversary of the election of the Attlee government, we should remember that in far worse economic circumstances than we face today (debt to GDP ratio of 250% as compared to 100% today) the Atlee government founded the NHS and the welfare state and made a large-scale council house building programme its priority.

“The lesson to draw from that is that the key to ending temporary accommodation and cutting the 1.3 million households on the waiting lists, is for the government to make council housing its first housing priority. It should fund councils to build/acquire on the scale of 100,000 council homes a year and end the disastrous Right to Buy policy.

With political will the resources can be found. An end to austerity and a break with Treasury orthodoxy is necessary. A return to a progressive taxation system can raise the resources.

“As Anuerin Bevan said: ‘the speculative builder is an unplannable instrument’. The government cannot control the market. It can only control what it funds. Unless it funds a renaissance of council housing, the acute housing crisis will be protracted; hundreds of thousands of people will languish in poor temporary accommodation and council money will be wasted paying for it.

“We would especially emphasise Chris's amendment that ‘affordable housing’ should mean social rent homes. The government should abandon its support for the Tories definition of ‘affordable housing’. Grants should only go to fund social rent homes.”

Contact

All press queries should be addressed to:

Press Office Office of Chris Hinchliff MP chris.hinhcliff.mp@parliament.uk