UK Construction and Law
Section 106 obligations are legally binding and enforceable, the housing minister tells MPs as infrastructure complaints mount
By Staff Writer | 8 September 2026
At MHCLG questions on 7 September, MPs from Cornwall, Grimsby and the opposition front bench pressed the Government on homes built without roads, surgeries and schools. Matthew Pennycook said section 106 agreements can be enforced, that national policy on community facilities has been strengthened, that developer contributions are being strengthened further, and that an emergency package with the Mayor of London is aimed at stalled sites in the capital.
Monday's oral questions returned repeatedly to the same complaint from different constituencies: permissions granted, homes occupied, infrastructure absent. The answers are worth recording because they state, from the Dispatch Box, how the Government expects developer contributions to be treated.
Bodmin, Grimsby and the front bench
Ben Maguire, the Liberal Democrat member for North Cornwall, said a housebuilder was backing out of 350,000 pounds of promised infrastructure funding in Bodmin, where more than 3,000 homes are to be built by 2030, and asked for greater local control over infrastructure levies as part of a Cornwall devolution deal. The minister said communities rightly expect necessary infrastructure to be provided and any commitments made to be met, and invited him to write with the particulars.
Section 106 planning obligations help, obviously, to mitigate the impacts of a development proposal. They are legally binding and enforceable.
Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, House of Commons, 7 September 2026
Melanie Onn, for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, said a 1,500 home proposal near Weelsby Woods, a designated nature corridor, contained no social housing, no surgery and no consideration of road congestion, while 2,000 homes sat empty in the town centre. The minister said he could not comment on a live application but that councils can negotiate infrastructure, amenities and affordable housing through section 106 on particular sites, and that he and the Secretary of State are looking at what more councils need to bring empty homes back into use.
The new shadow minister, Lewis Cocking, said the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 contains nothing to force developers to put schools and GP surgeries in place at the same time as new homes, and asked what discussions the department has had with the Department of Health and Social Care. The minister said there is no single answer, that in some places the constraint is workforce rather than buildings, and that the two departments speak regularly about getting infrastructure up front and alongside development.
Densification and the London package
The minister said the national planning policy framework published on 17 August includes policies to increase density inside settlements, encouraging upward extension of existing homes and new dwellings on existing plots. Councils may justify a lower housing requirement than the standard method on the basis of local constraints such as land availability, and must show they have examined every other reasonable option, including suitable brownfield and underused land, before releasing green belt.
David Simmonds, for the opposition, said around 1.5 million homes already have permission and cited a report that two thirds of London boroughs have seen no net new housing starts. The minister accepted that housebuilders face viability challenges and said London's particular problems are why the Government brought forward an emergency package with the Mayor of London to get stalled sites in the capital moving.
The practical point for anyone negotiating an obligation this autumn is the minister's own description of the instrument. A section 106 agreement is a contract enforceable by the authority, and the Government's stated expectation is that commitments in it are met. A developer seeking to renegotiate one now does so against that statement on the record.