Affordable Housing

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Kerslake

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate and I thank everyone who has participated in it for their contribution, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for bringing it forward and for what was a real tour d’horizon at the beginning. He covered so many different areas of policy. I will try to do justice to his contribution, but some of his points are well above my pay grade and outside my experience. He made some excellent points.

I agree that there is a massive problem here. In fairness, all noble Lords who opined agreed that this problem did not suddenly happen; it has built up over time under successive Governments. That does not make it any less serious, but it means that we to some extent all share the blame. From the contributions I have heard, I am sure that we all want to share in solving the problem. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that there is nothing that we cannot overcome here. There are serious challenges, but there are policy options which should be investigated and many of them were touched on in the debate.

I shall try to deal with the contributions that were made. I may end up sending my speech as an addendum to the points that I have not covered, because I am not sure I have time to make it—that will be horrific for those in my Civil Service team who have spent so much time on it. I will ensure that it is sent round.

First, my noble friend Lord Horam made some points about the cost of land. It is absolutely true that the magnet of the south-east of our country and other hot spots means that the cost of land is prohibitive in some areas. He and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, talked about land value and compulsory purchase powers. That was covered in our manifesto, and we are looking at consultation contributions on compulsory purchase issues. We will certainly be looking at that area.

On land value more specifically, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, we have recently introduced major reforms in planning to help local authorities to capture land value for affordable housing and to make sure that developers know the contributions expected of them. I think that this was in the Neighbourhood Planning Act, from memory. Currently, we are reviewing responses to consultations on reforms to developer contributions. It is important that we explore the options; I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. I also thank her for her kind words about the Prime Minister’s role in this and their sharing a platform. It is important that we are seen to be tackling this together, because there is no partisan issue in seeking to get this put right.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for what she said about the importance of tackling long-term disability issues. As she knows, we have a home ownership scheme for people with long-term disability—the HOLD scheme—but, on the specifics of the standard, she made a very powerful case. I am happy to meet with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, if that is helpful, to see what we could do in that regard. If they can leave it with us, we will contact them to move that forward.

On the disabled facilities grant, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, mentioned, I will make sure that that point is made available to my noble friend Lady Buscombe at DWP. I will also share the Hansard of this debate with other government departments, because it has been so wide-ranging and there are so many issues that have come up elsewhere.

I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Best, who was the next to speak, I think. Few people have greater experience than the noble Lord, though he wears that very lightly, and I take very seriously the specific points that he made. We differ perhaps on the Help to Buy scheme; we take a different view of that, though of course we have to make sure that it is a proper use of government money. I believe that there is an aspiration of people to own their own home—though not necessarily throughout their lives because, sometimes, after leaving college or at an early stage in their career, people will want to rent and have that flexibility; it may be later that the aspiration for home ownership kicks in. It is true that not every country regards home ownership in the same way as we do; it is different in France, for example. So I might differ from the noble Lord on some of the specifics of that.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, who gave something of a historical overview of the issue, perhaps touching on issues of globalisation, which present problems that the Attlee Government would not have had. There is no escaping the way that the Attlee Government tackled the problems at the time; it was outstanding, but it was a very different world, as I think the noble Baroness would acknowledge. Issues of globalisation—also touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—mean that, in London, people come over and buy up huge tracts of land, which would have been unthinkable in the period immediately after the war or even in the 1960s. That is well beyond the narrow scope of my department on its own, but it is a problem for Governments around the world, particularly Governments in this country because of London’s international nature. It is not all in one direction, and it is tempting to say, “Let’s stop it”, but one has to remember that the magnet that brings people to London also brings capital and jobs to London. Many of the people we are talking about who aspire to own their own homes are in that category. There is no easy solution, but I acknowledge that there is certainly a problem that needs tackling.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, asked about our policy on providing greater security to private tenants. It is important that they have appropriate security. Under the Protection from Eviction Act, I think that they largely do, but we have ramped that up in relation, for example, to retaliatory eviction in the Deregulation Act 2015—if I am wrong on that I will write to her. I accept the point that she made. On the basic point of people having a right to housing and whether we accept that as a right for people, yes we do and that is, fundamentally, why we want to eliminate rough sleeping. I will come on to that later—it all links in with the basic point.

I turn to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Many of the issues she raised were not matters for this portfolio but included issues from my previous portfolio in energy and climate change, which I feel keenly. Indeed, I was the person who signed the climate change treaty for the UK in New York in early 2016, following the historic agreement in Paris. I agree very much with some of the points she was making about the need to meet targets on climate change and about this being something that links in, not with the cost of the housing per se, but with the cost of living. I am very happy to look at some of the points she made and to write to her.

There is a company the noble Baroness is probably familiar with in Swansea, South Wales, called Specific, which has done great work in making what it calls BAPS—buildings as power stations—where not only the roofs have solar panels but so, too, do the walls and windows. The Government have given money to Specific via BEIS; it is doing epoch-making stuff that links with work done by an institution she will know, the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth.

Many British companies are doing this kind of work, producing houses using modern methods of modular construction; they are very much something to look out for in the future. They can be constructed very cheaply and are often well-designed. They are not like the old kind of prefabs; they are energy-efficient and in some cases, as with Specific, they feed back into the National Grid. I am keen to support this work and have tried to do so through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; it applies to England only on housing policy, but that does not mean we should not be promoting these companies wherever they are in the United Kingdom.

There are issues of transportation, which is not always simple or energy-efficient. Some of the houses are almost flat-packed, but there is still a need to get permission from police forces to move them around the country from A to B, which can be costly for the producers. It is something we are looking at. I will write to the noble Baroness and make sure the noble Lord, Lord Henley, sees this too. I agree with her comments on integrated design and renewable resources, and on domestic-scale micro generation, very much indeed.

I thank my noble friend Lord Wei for his contribution, which blindsided me a little, on the housing festival in Bristol and the pop-up modular housing happening there. I would like to take that forward with him at a meeting as it sounded very interesting. He mentioned landbanking and housing delivery, which is associated with the Letwin review. That is something we have mentioned previously. Again, I will write a letter to cover where we are with timescales on the housing review.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for bringing up Shelter. I would like to pay tribute to Shelter, which is a valued partner in a lot of what we do, and to Polly Neate in particular, who is excellent in her role just as she was in her last one at Women’s Aid on domestic abuse. She is on the advisory committee looking at homelessness, which is advising Minister Wheeler on this. I will get more details to the noble Lord. I agree that it needs oomph to ensure that we are all over it. I know he had a previously powerful role in delivering in that area.

I agree that rough sleeping is a very important issue. I apologise if any of my responses are out of order. I have already covered the point made about the meeting by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas; I thank her for the matters she raised including on the disabled facilities grant. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, gave a very fair speech; I thank him very much for the way he phrased it and for agreeing over the diversity of what we do now. I will not overwhelm the Attlee Government with tributes, but they did a great thing that was appropriate at the time—on housing estates then, doors had to be the same colour; you could not paint your own fascias and soffits. In short, the challenge is there, but it is different. Now it is a case of diversity, because we have to look at this in the context of where we are now.

Many noble Lords touched on social housing; it was central to this debate. We have said over a period of time that social housing is a central part of what we have been seeking to do. We have perhaps made that more words than action until recently, but many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said that we have moved on this. Indeed we have, partly through the raising of the cap. That has not been immediate; the only reason for that is the need to consult with local authorities on the precise wording of what is going to be done—no more or less than that. But again, I will cover the particular timescales in the letter. In addition, and significantly—noble Lords have been fair on this—there was the Prime Minister’s announcement of the £2 billion from 2022 in partnership with, I think, eight housing associations to deliver social housing. In so far as I have more details on that, I will cover them in the letter.

I have mentioned some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I thank him very much for his kind words. He talked about the massive problems that are there, and was fair in saying that this is about every Government over the last 40 years. That is true, but I reiterate that the problems are not insuperable, and that they are associated with land value, although not in every instance. That was exemplified by points made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on how different parts of the country are in different positions. There are even hotspots in the north where housing is unaffordable, but there are certainly difficult areas in the north where housebuilding is just not on the horizon because of other problems; that probably applies to some parts of the south as well, but more notably to the north. I thank the noble Lord very much for the handout that he gave me, fairly, at the beginning, and I will make sure that we get answers to him on the various points in there that he was unable to cover in his contribution because of time pressure.

My noble friend Lord Suri spoke about the importance of people having a stake in the community they live in, and the desire for home ownership. Not everybody has that desire, but many do, and we should not ignore that. It is easy for most if not all of us, who probably own our own home; we should not forget that many other people want to own their own home and should seek to help with that where we can while ensuring proper use of resources.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, dealt—again, fairly—with the issues of affordable housing from his own experience of Luton, which has pressures on house prices, as do many towns in the east and south-east. He talked of the growth of the private rented sector, which has been a feature of the last 20-plus years and certainly the last 20 years. That is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it is properly regulated. We are seeking to do that and have made some good moves on that—we are currently doing so in the Tenant Fees Bill. It has to be properly regulated, but it is part of a diverse housing pattern, and it is not that people will necessarily want to rent houses for their whole lives. Some might—that happens in France, for example—but most will perhaps see it as a part of their housing journey and may want to do it for a relatively short period. It provides some flexibility and mobility in the job market, which is needed.

I think I have dealt with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I will certainly pick up the other points he made.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, spoke about Persimmon. She is absolutely right that this is part of the issue as well, but it is multifaceted and not just about land value. We have to make sure that we are getting proper value from some of our large builders, and the point was well made. She talked about receipts for council house sales, as did other noble Lords, including I think the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. We had a consultation alongside the Green Paper; I think we are looking at the responses to it but I will cover that in the letter, as I was slightly blindsided by the question of where we are specifically on that.

In a wide-ranging speech the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, talked fairly about and supported the diversity of provision, putting her finger on many of the issues about the costs and land value which I have touched on. She also mentioned design and modern methods of construction which I am very much signed up to; that is very important. She left us with a very lasting phrase in “build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone” and I thank her for that. That is certainly not something we are in favour of, but I suspect civil servants will use that phrase for ever more.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, set out the position and some of the problems very fairly, as always, and I do not disagree with him. He was very fair in saying that we have moved on some of these things. I will get back to him on the specific issue of the co-op; I know that is dear to his heart and the sector does much good work. I will look at that and respond. He knows the position on the rogue landlord database. I am very keen, as is the Secretary of State, to make sure that that is open, and not just to local authorities. We are looking at a particular legislative vehicle to do that, but it is out of scope. I pushed to see whether we could include it in the Tenant Fees Bill, but we cannot. As I say, the Government are signed up to that and want to do something at the earliest possible opportunity.

In order to leave the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, a minute to speak, I thank noble Lords very much indeed for a very worthwhile debate.

[Lord Kerslake]

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive response. There was just one issue I raised on which I would welcome a reply: what is happening to the future of Help to Buy and when will we see an announcement on that?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I think we still remain committed to Help to Buy, but I will cover that in the letter in case there are points that I can add by looking at some of the detail.