I am grateful for this wide-ranging and interesting debate and to the hon. Members on both sides who have contributed to it. I hope that I shall be able to cover most of the points raised during my remarks, but I am always happy to discuss the points that colleagues wish to raise beyond the Chamber.
In June, the Prime Minister announced the most radical reforms to our planning system since the second world war, making it easier to build better homes where people want to live. These regulations that we are debating
tonight are important levers in our ambitions to build, build, build as we recover from the economic effects of covid-19. They encourage developers and property owners to see the opportunities that already exist to increase housing delivery by the more imaginative use of existing buildings. That includes building in airspace or demolishing and rebuilding vacant buildings.
During these difficult times, we want to ensure that the construction industry continues to increase the delivery of the new homes that our country so sorely needs. We cannot sit back, as the Opposition seem so fond of doing, and just wait. We have to be fiercely proactive in helping communities and developers to bring forward these much needed new homes through carefully controlled permitted development rights. Removing red tape from the application process will encourage developers to step up and build out, providing a real boost for the construction industry while also delivering new homes in our existing towns and cities.
The three statutory instruments being considered today introduced new permitted development rights to allow the upward extension of buildings, creating new homes and extra living space, and they came into force in August. They also allow for the demolition and rebuild of vacant commercial, light industrial and residential buildings, enabling decaying properties to be redeveloped for a new generation of good-quality housing. This builds on our national planning policy to boost housing density and make effective use of existing land and buildings without the need to use and build on greenfield sites. We encourage these moves toward gentle densification.