Debate contribution: Housebuilding on Public Land

Debate contribution by Mr Brian Kingston on 31 March 2025.

MLA

Mr Brian Kingston

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

31 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Housebuilding on Public Land

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4871594

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Most MLAs will say that housing is the number-one reason why constituents contact their offices. That is certainly the case for my North Belfast office, which is contacted particularly by people seeking social housing. We are all aware that housing supply is not keeping pace with demand, not just in Northern Ireland but across the United Kingdom and Ireland, so we absolutely need to increase housing supply across all tenures and all parts of Northern Ireland. Over recent months, we have seen that that is a key commitment for the Northern Ireland Executive, with the publication of the 15-year housing supply strategy by the Communities Minister, Gordon Lyons, last December and the inclusion of housing as one of the nine priorities in the Programme for Government published at the start of this month, that priority being:

"Provide more Social, Affordable and Sustainable Housing".

Whilst the Minister for Communities has the greatest day-to-day responsibility for housing matters, it is appropriate that these are commitments for the Executive as a whole. Many Departments and Ministers have important roles to play in increasing housing supply, including the need to speed up our planning system; to ensure that the necessary infrastructure — waste water infrastructure in particular — is in place; to allocate the necessary finance; to identify suitable land; and to provide support services for vulnerable people who are experiencing or are at risk of homelessness due to various circumstances, including health and mental health issues, addiction, coming out of care and coming out of prison. Transforming housing supply will require not only a collective response from the Executive but real collaboration with local government, community groups, the construction industry and financial bodies. Within the three years of our current Programme for Government, the Executive have committed to start work on at least 5,850 new-build social homes. Within the 15 years of the housing supply strategy, the Executive aim to deliver at least 100,000 homes across all tenures by 2039, with one third of them, around 33,000, being social homes. The housing supply strategy has provided a framework for the actions required to increase supply and address the main barriers to supply here. That includes increasing land availability and improving our knowledge of public land that may be suitable for housing. The Democratic Unionist Party's 2024 manifesto outlined our desire to establish a UK-wide national database of public land. That would not only help with housing but ensure that smaller businesses and the construction industry can identify future projects earlier. The use of public land would play an important role in supporting the development of affordable housing across Northern Ireland, and the previous Finance Minister advised that LPS had been developing a centrally held database, the government land and property register (GLPR), to record all government-owned or government-occupied land and property assets in Northern Ireland. Within LPS, Ordnance Survey is providing information on publicly owned land and property for analysis to ascertain suitability for housing development. Therefore, we do not support the motion's proposal that the Minister for Communities should establish a separate public land agency. As I said, that work is already under way, and the GLPR, under LPS and the Department of Finance, will be an asset for the Executive as a whole. On wider issues, the DUP can point to a strong record of delivery in the housing Ministry to increase supply, including by introducing intermediate rent, increasing the upper property value limit for co-ownership, investing in housing stock and removing intimidation points. First-time buyers are under extreme pressure when trying to secure a home. The Chartered Institute of Housing has advised that the number of new houses built here in 2023-24 was the lowest in a decade. That impacts on the affordability of mortgages and deposits. There are clear challenges facing housing in Northern Ireland. However, the DUP and our Minister are tackling the issues head-on.

647 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:15 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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