Liberal Democrats face housebuilding target row at conference

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has told the BBC his party has not changed tack on housebuilding targets in order to win votes from Conservative supporters.

The party is considering dropping a pledge to build 380,000 new homes a year in England, in favour of a promise of 150,000 new council or social homes.

It will be debated at the party conference in Bournemouth on Monday.

The Young Liberals group is pushing for the target to be kept, saying ditching it would send the wrong message.

In 2021, the Liberal Democrats overturned a 16,000 majority to take the Conservative seat of Chesham and Amersham in a by-election.

The unpopularity of Boris Johnson's government's housebuilding plans and the Lib Dems' ability to capitalise on this were seen as key factors in the result.

Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, presented by Victoria Derbyshire, Sir Ed denied opposing new housing in Tory-run areas where parliamentary and council seats were being targeted, saying he was against "developer-led" schemes without proper amenities.

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Young Liberal chair Janey Little said: "We think that having a commitment to an ambitious national housebuilding target... we think that's necessary to signal to young people that the Liberal Democrats are onside, and we understand the scale of the housing crisis."

Leaflets have been circulated at the conference, urging members not to vote for the Young Liberals amendment, to keep the 380,000 target. Ms Little said that was a "shame".

"We have a lot of grassroots members on our side. But equally, people are working very hard on the other side of the argument. I really can't tell which way it will go."

Frontbencher Layla Moran, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said she had huge sympathy for young people "desperate to get on the housing ladder" and the leadership was "on the same page" on this.

There was "a discussion" going on about the best way to deliver more housing, she added.

The party's housing spokesperson Helen Morgan said the proposal would not do away with targets.

She told a fringe event in Bournemouth: "We can not deliver housing at scale unless we build council housing, or social housing - it could include housing associations as well - we have to get that bit right, and then we have to pin councils down so that they do a great of delivering the rest of the housing that that community needs.

"The point of the proposal we're making is to build those targets from the bottom, and to say what's your current level of need, what's your proper forecasted future need, and that would be independently assessed, and it would be binding on those councils."

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Sir Ed said his party backed a "community-led approach" and "local neighbourhood plans" where local residents were involved in the whole decision-making process around new housing.

"Top-down targets lead to developer-led approaches", resulting in "the wrong houses being built in the wrong places", he said.

"You need to take communities with you. So often, you hear people are objecting not to houses, but objecting to the fact there are not enough houses, not enough GPs, not enough schools.

"When you take communities with you, it results in more houses being built" and "houses people want, in places they want, with the infrastructure they want", he argued.

'No coalition talk'

Building more social housing would pave the way for more affordable housing and also free up more private housing for rent, he added.

Elsewhere in his BBC interview, Sir Ed brushed aside suggestions that voters had no idea what his party stood for, saying the Lib Dems were winning by-elections and council seats in Conservative heartlands where people were hearing their message.

Sir Ed was energy and climate change secretary in David Cameron's 2010-15 coalition government.

Asked if he would ever go into coalition with the Tories again, he said "there is no way we could deal with the Conservatives, they've ruined our country".

But he refused to be drawn on whether he might consider a coalition with Labour after the next general election, saying he had learned from his predecessors that "when they have focused on that question, they have been distracted from the task in hand".

He declined to rule out the UK rejoining the European Union at some point in the future, but again insisted the issue was "currently not on the table".

His priority was to rebuild relations and trust with other European leaders, and to put Britain back "at the heart of Europe", he added.

The Lib Dem leader was later heckled about Brexit at conference on Sunday afternoon during a Q&A session.

A member of the crowd called out that the Lib Dems should be working to rejoin the EU, and when Sir Ed responded saying: "We're camp5aigning hard on Europe as you know my friend", a second member of the audience shouted: "No you're not."

Meanwhile the Lib Dems have become the first party to adopt a pre-manifesto for the next election, with a proposal to give everyone in England the right to see a GP within a week a centrepiece policy.The document, which was approved by party members in a conference vote, sets out an early draft of the party's manifesto.