Angela Rayner‘s plan to earmark parts of the green belt for housebuilding will not help Labour meet its target of 1.5 million new homes by 2029, according to a report.

Ms Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, created the new grey belt classification to open up ‘poor quality’ areas within the protected green belt and is part of the government’s overhaul of the planning system.

The scheme has been promoted by the government as opening up locations for up to four million homes.

But a Lords select committee has said the plan is unlikely to help the government meet its target of building 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament.

Lord Moylan, who charied the committee, said it initially believed the grey belt policy ‘could make a positive contribution to meeting housing targets in a sustainable way’.

But, he added, subsequent changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other parts of planning policy were ‘likely to mean that the impact is, at best, marginal’.

Arguing that the policy had been ‘implemented in a somewhat rushed and incoherent manner’, Lord Moylan said changes to the NPPF ‘have now made the concept of grey belt land largely redundant as land will now more likely be released from the green belt through existing channels instead’.

Those changes include a new requirement for councils to review green belt boundaries and propose changes if they cannot meet demand for housing or commercial land through other means.

Angela Rayner’s plan to earmark parts of the green belt for housebuilding will not help Labour meet its target  to build new homes, according to a report

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and deputy leader Rayner during a visit to a housing development in the Nightingale Quarter of Derby

Ms Rayner created the new grey belt classification to open up ‘poor quality’ areas within the protected green belt

The committee said it was ‘difficult to see what the grey belt regime will add in terms of the ability to build on the green belt in light of this requirement’.

Peers also questioned how the Government would track the effectiveness of its grey belt policy amid uncertainty about the number of homes that could be built on such land.

Estimates range from 50,000 to four million, which the committee said ‘suggests that the potential impact of the policy had not been adequately assessed before it was announced’.

The committee went on to raise concerns about the impact of even a reduced affordable housing requirement on the ability of smaller construction firms to take on grey belt sites, and suggested local planning departments still lacked the resources to deal with the many changes to planning policy brought in by the Government.

While the peers welcomed the £46 million announced at the Budget to boost planning capacity, they said they were ‘concerned that the recruitment target of 300 additional planners is insufficient and unlikely to have any meaningful impact’.