The State Opening of Parliament on 17 July culminated in the longest King’s Speech for many years, setting out the new Government’s legislative programme for the next year.  It included 37 Bills or draft Bills, of which four are directly relevant to housing. A Planning and Infrastructure Bill will reform planning and speed up development, including the reintroduction of housing targets in all local authority areas. A Renters Rights Bill will ban so-called ‘no-fault’ evictions and extend Awaab’s Law and a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector. A draft Leasehold and Commonhold Bill will make commonhold the default tenure for new flats, putting an end to the payment of ground rents. An English Devolution Bill will make possible further devolution to combined and combined county authorities, of powers including transport, skills training, employment support but also housing and planning. 

A background briefing published to accompany the speech provides more detail on the proposals to be included in each Bill.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is intended to ‘accelerate housebuilding and infrastructure delivery’ by

• streamlining the delivery process for critical infrastructure by simplifying the consent process for major infrastructure projects and enable new National Policy Statements to come forward and establishing a process for them to be updated every five years.
• reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to ensure that compensation paid to landowners is “fair but not excessive” where important social and physical infrastructure and affordable housing are being delivered.
• improving local planning decision making by modernising planning committees. No further details are given on what this implies.
• increasing local planning authorities’ capacity, to improve performance and decision making.  Elsewhere, Ministers have mentioned the appointment of 400 additional planning officers.
• using development to fund nature recovery where currently both are stalled.

The English Devolution Bill will focus on simplifying the process for devolving powers to combined and combined county authorities. It will introduce a standardised devolution framework including enhanced powers over strategic planning, local transport networks, skills and employment support which will be available to any area meeting the required governance conditions without the need to negotiate individual agreements as has been the case up to now.  The Bill will also introduce “more effective governance arrangements” and a simpler process for creating new Combined Authorities.

The Renters’ Rights Bill covers much the same ground as the previous Government’s Renters Reform Bill which fell when the General Election was called. It will abolish Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions and introduce a number of new rights for private tenants, including the right to challenge unjustified rent increases. It will also extend the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law to the private rented sector.

The Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will be issued in draft so that the Government may consult on a number of its proposals, including the proposal that commonhold should replace leasehold as the default tenure for new flats.

None of these Bills has yet been published. Parliament will break for its summer recess on 30 July, returning on 2 September.