Lords built environment chair to examine government’s 300,000-home target

The committee will launch its first inquiry on Tuesday 6 July, which will focus on the demand for new housing in the UK and how to overcome barriers to meet it. It will also consider the key factors shaping the type of housing needed in the UK as well as the skills shortage in the construction industry.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe noted that the forthcoming Planning Bill and the effect it can have on planning departments will be scrutinised during the first inquiry.

The Conservative peer and former commercial secretary to the Treasury was a senior civil servant from the 1970s to the 1990s, before taking on a senior role at grocer Tesco.

She said: “People are rightly concerned about preserving the countryside and that’s why I think we are taking evidence on the new proposed design standards within the new Planning Bill, and that links with my own concerns over whether planning departments have the right people to set those important standards.”

The baroness said she hopes the committee’s work will influence debates in the Commons and the Lords on the forthcoming Building Safety Bill and Planning Bill.

She said the committee may seek evidence on whether new homes are built to last and considering the sustainability of delivery properties that can only be “guaranteed” to last 50 or 60 years.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe added: “It is a question we should be asking. I live in a Victorian house, which was built in 1814, it’s needed some work but they [the Victorians] built sustainably.

“In other areas we have housing built as recently as the 60s which is leaking and needs to be cleared and rebuilt. I think we are going to try and look into it and seek evidence from overseas as there are often good ideas [from abroad].”