London, (Parliament Politics Magazine) – A conservative rebellion over a pledge to build 300,000 homes a year has forced the government into a major climbdown on a flagship policy.
More than 50 backbench MPs said they would back an amendment to ditch compulsory housing targets, initially pledged in the conservative party general election manifesto of 2019.
The scale of the rebellion would have forced the government to rely on labour votes to get it’s key piece of legislation through Parliament, which was far from certain, despite Labour saying it would not back the rebel amendment.
Faced with this prospect Housing Secretary Michael Gove announced a postponement to the debate on the bill to give the government more time to win over backbenchers and avert a potentially embarrassing defeat for Mr Sunak or having to reply on the opposition to get the legislation through.
The rebellion was led by former environment secretary Theresa Villiers, who put forward 21 changes to the levelling up an regeneration bill. Her amendments included scrapping the housing targets and enshrine ING the right for individuals to object to planning applications in law.
She was supported by a number of very senior conservative MPs, including: former party leader, Sir Ian Duncan Smith, former Cabinet Ministers, Priti Patel, Damian Green, Sir John Redwood, Wendy Morton and Chris Grayling, former Ministers, Dame Caroline Dinenage and Sir John Hayes and father of the House, Sir Peter Bottomley.
Ms Villiers said: “This is a significant victory for the backbenches. It shows that ministers know that they need to listen to us and they need more time to come up with a solution.
“We cannot go on as we are with these top-down excessive targets. We must have change. The 50 names on NC21 showed the strength of feeling there is on this issue.”
While Sir Iain Duncan-Smith, said: “These top-down targets have to go, and if the Government does not back down we will vote for this amendment.”
While another rebel, Bob Seely, MP for the Isle of Wight said: “The system at the moment doesn’t produce housing.
“The reason why we don’t have enough housing being built is because the planning permissions are given out – there are one million extant planning permissions – but the big oligarch housebuilders just sit on them.
“The idea that if you give Persimmon permission for another 1,000 houses, you get 1,000 houses is delusional nonsense.”
He concluded: “We are not being nimbys. What we are doing is caring about our communities, caring about our environment.”
Labour, attacked the decision to pull the vote and the attempt to scrap the targets. Shadow Levelling Up secretary Lisa Nandy said: “This is a complete shambles. The government cannot govern, the levelling up agenda is collapsing and the housing market is broken. Pulling flagship legislation because you’re running scared of your own backbenchers is no way to govern.
“There is a case for reviewing how housing targets are calculated and how they can be challenged when disputed, but it is completely irresponsible to propose scrapping them without a viable alternative in the middle of a housing crisis.”
The Government sources insist that the PM remains committed to the 300,000 target and that the vote on the bill initially scheduled for Monday would still go ahead before Christmas.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said: “We want to work constructively to ensure we build more of the homes in the right places. That’s something that the department and the Secretary of State are very focused on”, adding that the Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, would continue to discuss how the 300,000-home target was delivered.
However, given the scale of the opposition to the plans and the perceived weakenss of the PM’s position it seems highly likely that the government will either soften its approach or ditch the compulsory target altogether.