Fundamental mistake to strip councillors of their powers, says shadow housing secretary

Mr Hollinrake, who co-founded the national estate agency Hunters, said there were “a lot of things to be welcomed” about the planning bill and “we want the government to succeed” in its goal to build 1.5 million new homes.

He approved of reintroducing mandatory housing targets and properly resourcing the planning system. Mandatory local plans were “great” and “I have no issue with limiting the time available to have statutory consultations”, he added.

“Where I have concerns is around moving the democratic accountability of local authorities to the public.

“Technocracy sounds like a good idea, just officers making these decisions, but limiting councillors’ oversight of local planning decisions to the local plan is going to cause a lot of problems for local people.

“You’ll see the backlash in time as people realise that they’re not going to have influence over planning applications through their local councillor.”

People don’t tend to engage with the local plan, he added, which is “quite an impenetrable document”.

“And lots of things happen after that stage. A local plan might say, ‘We want 30% affordable homes in this area, or a certain amount of infrastructure’… and suddenly the developer says, ‘We’ve changed our mind and we can’t deliver that’.

“People will say, ‘Where’s my affordable housing?’ The technocrat in the office is going to say, ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t possible’. And no one had checks and balances over it.”

The shadow minister said: “It’s a really fundamental mistake to strip powers away from councillors… You can reduce the amount of time someone can judicially review applications without saying to people, ‘You have no say over this through your local council anymore’, which is what they’re saying”.

Mr Hollinrake argued that Labour’s “massively increased” housing targets, introduced in the National Planning Policy Framework late last year, run roughshod over neighbourhood plans.

He said: “Suddenly, my neighbourhood plan’s not valid any more, because my local plan’s not valid any more.

“It drives a coach and horses through all the work that’s been done by local communities to try and engage them in the planning system.”

The MP claimed he had “never, ever objected to a housing development”, but criticised the uneven spread of the government’s new housing targets.

Central York’s target is up 10%, while rural North Yorkshire’s targets have risen 211%. “It’s simply not fair,” he said. “It is deliberate, it is ideological, it’s war on rural areas… These are not 30% increases, these are increases of double, treble.”

Mr Hollinrake was asked if he approved of Labour’s plan to build more social rented homes, which were deprioritised under the previous Conservative government in favour of higher-cost ‘affordable rent’ homes.

“OK, the government wants to deliver more social homes,” he said. “That means it will deliver fewer affordable homes at 80% [market rent], which will be harder for housing associations financially.

“You are talking pretty much about a zero-sum game in reality, unless you extend the affordable housing budget significantly,” he added.

“Where they’re going to get the money from to do the capital investment of building hundreds of thousands of social homes is yet to be seen.”

However, he added: “There’s certainly an argument around that. I can’t say that will be our policy in 2029, but I’m certainly interested in the argument around it.”

Inside Housing also asked Mr Hollinrake about an interview he did with journalist Vicky Spratt, which was published in her book Tenants in 2022. The book quoted Mr Hollinrake saying, “I don’t believe in rent caps but I do believe in some regulation,” adding “ideally, rents should increase at or below the level of inflation according to the Retail Price Index.”

Does he still stand by that? “I can’t remember the interview, but I’m glad I agree with myself for saying there shouldn’t be rent caps, because there are unintended consequences that come alongside those things,” he explained. “The most effective way to regulate anything is through more competition, more rapid delivery. That’s what holds prices down.”

However, he said: “I think rent regulation around [the] Decent Homes [Standard] is the right thing to do,” and added that he also supported a national landlord register and landlord redress scheme.

Yet forcing private landlords to upgrade their homes to Energy Performance Certificate Band C, as the government is proposing, was a step too far, he argued, because it will mean “lots of supply removed from the market”.

“[If] I have a little cottage in the country, and I’m probably a small landlord, I’m probably just going to sell it.”

Mr Hollinrake is against the government’s plans to abolish Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions in the private rented sector. He opposed it even when the Conservatives committed to abolishing it under Theresa May’s premiership.

“I think it was a mistake,” he said. “We had a special advisor in Number 10 called Toby Lloyd, very nice chap. I think he persuaded us in government to abolish it. Very big mistake… Lack of supply is very bad for tenants.

“You’re restricting supply. Find other ways to make sure there is a decent supply of property people can rent for the long term.”

Instead, he suggested, landlords could be allowed to deduct mortgage interest against their rent – “that’s artificially restricted at the moment” – or allowed to put residential property in their pensions.