National Plan to End Homelessness

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

What my noble friend says is indicative of the issues we have in this area of making sure that we work across government to solve some of these problems. The Home Office has committed to strengthening data-sharing processes with councils for 100% of newly granted refugees at risk of homelessness within two days of a discontinuation of asylum support notification. This supports early intervention by enabling councils to commence homelessness assessments. We will continue to monitor the impact of all the policies, including refugee move-on, hotel occupancy, asylum accommodation costs, local community impacts and pressures on local authorities and public services. It is important that we work across government and with our partners to improve that move- on support and reduce the risk of homelessness.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister will know, one of the groups hit hardest by homelessness has been young people. Many charitable groups, such as Centrepoint, are trying to look at a different size standard so that it can be developed at a lower cost. I want to be very clear that it is only charitable organisations. What work have the Government done to support this work to see whether it is viable?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We had some long debates during the planning Bill about the size of accommodation and the stepping-stone type of accommodation provided in some parts of the country. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, initiated those discussions. We are still discussing those issues because they are very important, as the noble Lord says. Specific content within the homelessness strategy focuses on the issues of young people, building on the national youth strategy, and will give young people the skills, connections and opportunities they need to thrive, with a key focus on prevention of homelessness among young people. We want to develop a cross- government action plan with measurable targets to reduce homelessness, particularly among care leavers under 25. We are working on this. The noble Lord makes an important point about the size of accommodation. It is still under discussion, and I will keep him in the picture on that.

London Boroughs: Financial Support

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bailey of Paddington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to provide further financial support to London boroughs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, we will deliver fairer funding for all local authorities, including in London. This financial year, we made available up to £13.35 billion of core spending power for London. The spending review provides over £5 billion of new grant funding over the next three years for local services that communities rely on. More details on the upcoming multiyear settlement and the Government’s response to the fair funding review will be published later this year.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. Due to rising demand, London boroughs have overspent on children’s social care by £150 million annually for the past two years, yet the Government’s proposal for funding reforms assumes that London’s share has dropped by 40%. This could leave boroughs with a £1.5 billion cut, despite London being the region that uses emergency borrowing the most. Given that the fair funding review aims to match resource to need, will the Minister commit to correcting the children’s services formula or delaying its implementation until a proper review can be carried out?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an important issue around social care. He will know that the Government are committed to delivering reform to children’s social care and breaking the cycle of late intervention so that every child is safe and can thrive. We have already invested £500 million from the transformation fund to bring total funding over the spending review to more than £2 billion, and we are updating the formula to assess the need for children’s social care. The new children and young people’s services formula is based on the latest available data, has been developed in partnership with academics and is supported by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. I know that there are various factors driving the reductions in need share for some London boroughs. We will support local authorities by making sure that there are transitional protections in place if they see their funding fall as a result of the fair funding reform.

Housing Associations: Financial Assistance

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bailey of Paddington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to provide further financial assistance to housing associations.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare my interest as chairman of Faraday Ventures, which is set up to provide social housing and key worker housing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, who I know is passionate about housing, particularly for young people. His question is very timely: just yesterday, we announced our long-term plan to deliver a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing. As part of this, we will provide the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation with our new £39 billion programme, and we will ensure that at least 60% of that programme is spent on social housing. We will also give social landlords equal access to government building safety funding and provide a decade of certainty through the new rent settlement, supporting social landlords to invest in new and existing homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. I have an additional question: at what pace will this money arrive, particularly in London? In London and the south-east, we have the greatest housing crisis compared with anywhere else nationally. How many homes will this money deliver, and at what pace will the Mayor of London have to provide these homes? The Government’s own Deputy Prime Minister was upset with his low level of delivery, and we want to be sure that there is a KPI for how many homes he is to deliver year on year with the money the Government are providing.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We intend to get this programme running as quickly as possible. That is why we have provided £2 billion of funding in advance of that settlement—so that we could kick-start the programme and get it going straight away. The rest of the programme will be open for bidding very shortly, so that local authorities can apply to bid for that fund. To answer the noble Lord’s question about London, 30% of the housing in that programme will be in London.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my register of interests: I am the chairman of Faraday Ventures, which was set up to provide social and key worker housing. Therefore, I am understandably keen to support any measures that will encourage the construction of a large quantity of high-quality housing, particularly if a large proportion is made up of social housing.

I welcome the spirit in which the Bill has been launched as it seeks to build on the progress made by the previous Government in delivering 2.5 million homes since 2010. However, there are some serious concerns, which I shall highlight. I question whether it is possible for the present Government to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament, as they have promised.

The Bill is designed to streamline planning and infrastructure delivery for homes, but in doing so it takes away powers from local councillors by reducing the strength of the planning committees through the national scheme of delegation to be introduced by Clause 51. This specifies at a national level which planning decisions would be decided on by officers and which by planning committees.

As the shadow Secretary of State responsible for housing said in the other place, if the Bill passes in its present form, residents will feel disappointed and disenfranchised when they raise concerns to their elected councillors about proposed developments. I believe that this will break the social contract if local people feel helpless around development; it will lead to less acceptance of new housing. Does the Minister agree? London Councils shares this concern, stating that councillors must retain the ability to scrutinise and influence certain developments, especially where there is significant local concern.

The role of councillors is further diminished through Clause 93, which would amend existing legislation to increase the flexibility and use of development corporations. To be clear, development corporations are, or can be, a very good thing, particularly in the provision of new towns. I believe that they will be necessary to deliver new towns, but here in London we have seen the best and the worst of development corporations. One delivered the Olympics, which was largely considered to be a good thing, and to this day housing is still coming forward. But in the West End, many local people feel that the Mayor of London is using the mayoral development corporation to ride roughshod over their plans, under a Labour-led council, to deliver the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. If we have to vote on corporations, we need to know what type of corporation and what flexibility they will be given above beyond the ones we already recognise.

London Councils is also right to note that the planning system is not the main barrier to delivering new homes and infrastructure here in London, where there is a healthy pipeline of nearly 300,000 homes that have been approved by council planning departments. That is enough to meet future housing targets more than three times over, but those schemes are not coming forward for development, due to viability issues. Viability in a place like London with high land values is a real problem.

Some of the measures in the Bill will help planning reform, and I sincerely wish the Government all the success in the world with delivering their 1.5 million homes—and I personally, through my role here and on the GLA, will do my level best to help. This planning Bill could be a boon to that, or it could be a missed opportunity; it is about the detail, particularly around things such as the levels of social housing that we can expect to get and what we are going to do about development corporations, which will be vital.

Council Tax

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord has made this point in the House before. It is a good point; it needs to be considered alongside further reform of council tax. That is not our priority at the moment, but when it comes to be done, I am sure that his point will be taken on board.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, for the last few years, at the insistence of a Labour mayor, Londoners in council tax bands D and B have had an extra £60 added to their bill to pay for Transport for London. Yet the mayor is about to enter negotiations with the unions for a four-day week and an inflation-busting pay rise. What is the referendum policy for London? With the charges that the mayor keeps heaping on people and these raises in mind, will the Government ask him to give taxpayers in London an opportunity to have their voices heard?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the citizens of London had a chance to express their view in the recent election for the Mayor of London, and they did so resoundingly.