One of the first actions this Government took upon assuming office was to establish an independent expert advisory panel, the New Towns Taskforce, to support the delivery of our manifesto commitment to build a new generation of new towns.
A key purpose of this new generation of new towns is to create new and expanded places and thereby boost economic growth and the supply of new homes—spreading opportunity and supporting strong communities. With that ambition in mind, the taskforce was commissioned to make recommendations to Ministers on the location and delivery of new towns.
The Government made it clear that the taskforce should consider not only large-scale, stand-alone new communities, but also urban extensions and urban regeneration schemes that would work with the grain of development in any given area. We specified that each of the new settlements should contain at least 10,000 homes, but made it clear that we expected a number to be far larger in size. We also commissioned the taskforce with ensuring that any proposals would deliver well-connected, well-designed, sustainable and attractive places where people want to live, with the infrastructure, amenities and services necessary to sustain thriving communities.
On 28 September, the Government published the taskforce’s final report as well as an initial response to it. In its report, the taskforce recommended 12 potential new town locations to the Government. In line with its remit, the taskforce has identified sites across a range of typologies that share core characteristics and reflect the Government’s ambition for new towns to unlock economic growth and deliver housing at scale. Collectively, they have the potential to deliver up to 300,000 homes over the coming decades.
In our initial response, we welcomed all 12 of the recommended locations. Prima facie, each has the clear potential to deliver on the Government’s objectives, with Tempsford, Crews Hill and Leeds South Bank looking particularly promising as sites that might make significant contributions to unlocking economic growth and accelerating housing delivery.
We also made clear that we support the placemaking approach recommended by the taskforce and are encouraged by the aims of its recommended placemaking principles. These include links to high-quality public transport, access to nature, and infrastructure like schools and hospitals, support for business growth and job creation, and the aim to achieve 40% affordable housing, with half of this social rent. The final selection of placemaking principles will be subject to environmental assessment and consultation.
The Government agree with the taskforce that the preference for new town delivery should be through the development corporation model, while recognising the need for flexibility depending on the circumstances of each site. We intend to assess the delivery vehicle options for each place, including consideration of central, mayoral and local development corporations, and the potential for public-private partnerships.
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping: Additional Funding 2025-26
I am pleased to announce that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has allocated £84 million in additional funding across four homelessness and rough sleeping grants for 2025-26:
£69.9 million uplift to the rough sleeping prevention and recovery grant, bringing the total funding for this grant to £255.5 million. Up to £12.8 million of this funding uplift is being awarded to councils specifically to deliver and add value to partnerships and services with voluntary, community and faith sector organisations. This additional funding has been made available to 62 local authorities experiencing the greatest rough sleeping pressures, alongside 12 strategic authorities and five London sub-regions. The funding will support a range of services, including for those experiencing long-term rough sleeping, and will enable strategic authorities to put greater emphasis on integrated efforts to end rough sleeping across their regions. It will also support interventions to prevent rough sleeping for those transitioning from the asylum estate.
£10.9 million on supporting children experiencing homelessness. This will be delivered as an uplift to the homelessness prevention grant, bringing total funding for this grant to £644.14 million. This funding has been awarded to 61 local authorities with the highest numbers of children in temporary accommodation, to increase access to support and services for families and make a tangible impact on their quality of life while they remain in need. This will deliver positive benefits for education and health outcomes by funding interventions such as school travel, uniform and equipment, and the provision of specialist support roles.
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) has today made the following statement:
The Government are determined to modernise the home buying and selling process. A well-functioning system allows people to move into the right homes at the right time, enables households to put down roots in a community and supports labour mobility by making it easier to relocate for jobs. Its impact also extends beyond housing into sectors such as removals, construction, retail, and commercial property. Ensuring the process is swift, seamless, and reliable, therefore matters not just for individuals, but for the economy as a whole.
However, the current home buying and selling process is long, complicated and frustrating. It takes an average of 120 days to complete once the buyer’s offer has been accepted, and transaction times have increased by 60% since 2007. Around one in three transactions fail, costing buyers and sellers around £400 million per year in wasted costs. Older people often face particular challenges when looking to move or downsize with lengthy and uncertain processes deterring them from selling homes that no longer meet their needs.
These inefficiencies have consequences for the housing market and broader economy. Slow transactions reduce the demand for and the supply of homes, contributing to housing shortages and affordability pressures. Bottlenecks restrict the jobs market by making it harder for individuals to relocate to advance their careers. Sellers, especially older people or those looking to trade down, are often deterred by the hassle and uncertainty of the process, which in turn means fewer homes are listed.
Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales: Scheme Improvements
I am today launching a consultation on proposed improvements to the Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales.
With 6.7 million members and £400 billion of assets under management, this Government see the vital importance of our role as steward of the Local Government Pension Scheme. We know the impact that changes to the scheme have, not only on individual members but on the country as a whole. Investing in the members that make up the scheme—those who collect waste, serve school lunches, manage libraries, and tend to parks and green spaces—rightly rewards the hard work that they put in to making our communities thrive.
As a first step, in May 2025 we launched a consultation on enhancing member benefits, with a focus on:
Equalising the entitlement to survivor benefits of all eligible survivors of Local Government Pension Scheme members, remedying historical discrimination in the scheme;
taking concrete steps to addressing the gender pension gap;
mandating reporting on opting out from the scheme; and
closing loopholes on current pension forfeiture rules.
This work sat alongside important reforms to investment and pooling, which unlock the investment might of the scheme, due to reach £1 trillion by 2030. These reforms will harness the potential of the scheme as a catalyst of growth while ensuring that it delivers on its primary duty to provide a retirement income for members.
Building on these, the consultation we are launching today covers four areas:
The initial response also states that planning decisions in all 12 recommended locations should consider potential impacts of other developments on the delivery of the new towns, in line with recommendations by the taskforce. We also note wider recommendations by the taskforce on ensuring that the planning system is set up to support new towns and that the legislative framework facilitates the role of development corporations in their delivery, and will carefully consider these recommendations ahead of our fuller response in the spring. In advance of this, we want to reassure local leaders that a consistent and fair approach will be taken to how local housing need targets interact with the future delivery of new towns, to support our overall aim of increasing housing supply, and we will set out more detail in due course.
The Government have commenced a strategic environmental assessment to understand the environmental implications of the development of new towns. This will support final decisions on precisely which locations we take forward as well as the final approach to placemaking and delivery. No final decisions on locations will be made until that SEA concludes, and preferred locations could change as a result of the process.
Ministers and officials will now begin work with local partners to develop detailed proposals and enhance our understanding of how different locations might meet the Government’s expectations of what a future new towns programme can deliver, with all promising sites and reasonable alternatives assessed and considered through the SEA process. Appropriate assessment under the habitats regulations will also be undertaken when required.
The Government will publish draft proposals and a final SEA for consultation early next year, before confirming the locations that will be progressed as new towns later in the spring alongside a full response to the report of the New Towns Taskforce.
In our initial response, we set out the Government’s intended approach to land. This includes the fact that the ‘no-scheme principle’ of compensation for compulsory purchase will apply, so compensation will not include any land value generated by the new town scheme. Any value associated with the potential for planning permission that arises as a result of the relevant new town scheme, including from potential created from the planning framework for the new town scheme, will also be disregarded in accordance with this principle.
Delivering the next generation of new towns will be a cross-Government effort and central to the Government’s agenda, not just in terms of building homes but in order to drive economic growth and spread economic opportunity across the country. It will be a priority across all Government Departments to ensure that new towns are built with the infrastructure and amenities required to create successful new places, with the long-term certainty of funding. We are determined to get spades in the ground on at least three new towns during this Parliament, and the Government are prepared to progress work on a far larger range of locations if it proves possible.
Finally, I would like to thank Sir Michael Lyons, Dame Kate Barker and all members of the New Towns Taskforce for their diligent work over the last year in producing such a considered and comprehensive set of final recommendations.
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£3 million uplift for the rough sleeping drug and alcohol treatment programme, bringing the total funding for this grant to £61.7 million. We are allocating additional funding to the rough sleeping drug and alcohol treatment component of the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery improvement grant, known as DATRIG, to provide evidence-based drug and alcohol treatment and wraparound support for people sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough, including those with co-occurring mental health needs. This will allow continued service delivery in 83 local authorities.
£200,000 uplift for the voluntary, community and frontline sector grant, bringing total funding for this grant to £3.7 million. This additional funding will support work to develop innovative initiatives within the faith and non-commissioned sector to support those in need.
The Government are committed to getting us back on track to ending homelessness. The additional funding allocated across these grants will enable councils, strategic authorities and the wider sector to support those who are most vulnerable in society, and, ultimately, will help to save lives.
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Other countries show that the system can be better. In Norway, transactions complete in four weeks or less, with digitisation driving estimated savings of up to £1 billion over 10 years. Even within the UK, in Scotland up-front information and more binding contracts are already resulting in fewer fall throughs. There are clear lessons to be learned as we seek to ensure our system is more streamlined, less stressful, and fit for the future.
With a view to delivering a faster, more reliable system, driven by informed consumers, innovative technology and high-standard professional services, we have launched two consultations on reform proposals to transform home buying and selling.
These proposals will make transactions faster, fairer and more transparent, cutting weeks from the process and reducing the number of failed transactions. They will also support the wider Government agenda to unlock housing supply, improve affordability, and support the delivery of 1.5 million homes over this Parliament.
Our home buying and selling reform consultation proposes requiring sellers to provide comprehensive up-front property information before listing a property, including information from searches and a property condition assessment. This will help buyers make informed decisions and reduce the risk of late-stage surprises that derail transactions.
We are also proposing to professionalise property agents by introducing a code of practice for estate, letting and managing agents, and consulting on mandatory qualifications to raise standards and improve trust in the sector. We want digital property logbooks and packs to become a standard feature of transactions, reducing duplication and speeding up the process, and will consider legislating to require their use.
We are exploring greater use of binding conditional contracts to reduce the number of failed transactions, bringing our system closer to international best practice. We will work to streamline conveyancing and anti-money laundering checks, simplify processes and reduce duplication, including through the use of trusted digital identity services and we will accelerate digitalisation by supporting the implementation of common data standards, trialling a data trust framework to guarantee data provenance, and continuing to work with industry to drive adoption of digital technology across the sector.
These reforms will deliver real benefits for households. The buying process could become around four weeks faster, and the proportion of failed transactions could fall from one in three to one in seven. First-time buyers could save an average of £710 through these proposed new rules—a total of more than £180 million a year overall back in people’s pockets. Home movers could save around £400 per transaction.
Professionals will also benefit from a more efficient and competitive system. These sectors currently lose out on £1 billion per year as a result of failed transactions and our proposals will reduce the likelihood of this happening. Digitisation will reduce duplication and speed up processes, while also supporting innovation in the property technology sector, creating opportunities for growth and investment.
Alongside this, we are consulting on material information in property listings. This consultation seeks views on the information that should be included in property listings to support the transition to a system where buyers have the key details they need from the outset. Providing this information up front will help consumers make informed decisions and reduce the risk of transactions falling through.
The consultations will run for 12 weeks, until 29 December 2025. Subject to the outcome of this consultation, we will publish a road map this winter setting out how we will implement changes over the course of this Parliament. We recognise that these proposals represent a significant change for the sector, which is why we are consulting widely to ensure reforms are practical, enforceable and built to last. We know that this Government cannot do this alone. That is why we will continue to work closely with industry to deliver these reforms.
Our vision is for a housing market that works for everyone—faster, fairer and fit for the future; one that delivers the dream of home ownership.
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We are proposing to update the normal minimum pension age in the LGPS age to 57, following the Finance Act 2022, and confirm that we will protect members who had scheme membership before 4 November 2021. This gives clarity to millions of members who want to know when they can retire.
We are proposing to recognise the geographical spread of our schools across multi-academy trusts, and simplify the process of applying for a direction to bring together staff into a single Local Government Pension Scheme fund. We are also proposing that the criteria applications are assessed against is put into legislation to provide transparency to employers.
We are proposing to implement long-awaited Fair Deal protections for workers outsourced from local government, ensuring that they have seamless and continued access to the Local Government Pension Scheme. This will in part be achieved by removing the use of “broadly comparable” schemes, which see workers receiving downgraded pensions when they are outsourced.
Finally, we are proposing to restore access to the scheme for councillors in England and extend it to mayors, bringing England into alignment with the schemes in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. As reorganisation and devolution continue to reshape local government, the responsibilities placed on mayors and councillors are expanding significantly, and access to the pension scheme is key to encouraging talented individuals into those roles.
For 14 years, the Conservatives decimated local government, and working people paid the price. The last Government’s “Westminster knows best” attitude saw power centralised in Whitehall, with local budgets cut to the bone. Communities lost their sense of pride and control. Neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition and local champions were locked out of Government. This Government are putting power back in the hands of communities and their local champions. We are rebuilding and streamlining local government so that working people can once again rely on the regular, high-quality local services they deserve.
Efficient and reliable local services are built on a foundation of hard-working, professional and talented local councillors. While the Tories saw councillors as a volunteer, part-time role, Labour will treat councillors with the respect they deserve as dedicated public servants, handing them the rights at work that they deserve. The result will be a streamlined, efficient and more effective local government, with fewer more empowered local councillors. These councillors will be given the proper terms and conditions they deserve—the certainty of financial stability in older age should be a minimum.
I am grateful to the Local Government Association, the Local Government Pension Scheme Advisory Board, the Government Actuary’s Department, and many others for their support.
The next phase in this continued effort to improve the scheme will include the publication, later this year, of the full Government response to the May 2025 consultation.