Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 72, which addresses the issue of affordable housing delivery. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and I know the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, wanted to add his name to this amendment. I declare interests as vice-president of the LGA and the Town and Country Planning Association, honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I pay tribute to Shelter for championing this amendment.

The amendment introduces a new clause providing for regulations to ensure that affordable housing actually gets delivered where it is a condition of planning consent, usually through a so-called Section 106 agreement. In Committee, I noted the problem—only too familiar for many of us—that housebuilders agree to provide a quota of affordable homes for local people, but these homes fail to materialise in the developments that actually get built. The housebuilders back out of delivering some or all of the affordable homes they promised, with the excuse of “changed viability”. They say they have encountered unexpected problems, choosing from a long list of possibilities, from increased interest rates to unexpected site conditions. They claim it is no longer possible for them to make a clear profit of 20% or more, and it is the affordable housing element that they insist must take the hit, despite that having been a condition of planning permission.

The Minister may say that this is a matter for local authorities to handle but, as a report from the National Audit Office set out in June this year, negotiations between local planning departments and well-resourced developers are hopelessly unbalanced, with the latter employing expensive consultants and legal experts to find ways of negotiating their contributions down. Cash-strapped councils are unwilling to fight expensive legal battles and feel obliged to give in.

This amendment would bolster the position of the planners by ending the arguments and making the agreed affordable housing element non-negotiable. It aims to ensure that developers actually deliver the affordable homes that were a fundamental reason for planning consent being granted in the first place. The amendment adds a safety net by obliging the house- builder to provide a minimum of 20% of new homes in relevant developments to be for social rent, or the percentage set out in the local authority’s policy framework—the local plan, where it has one—if that is higher. Importantly, the definition of social rent housing is that used by the Regulator of Social Housing in its rent standard. Although planners may also require some other forms of affordable housing, such as shared ownership and near-market renting, the baseline of no less than 20% for the all-important social rented housing is secured by this amendment.

The 20% minimum for social rent is also a figure recommended by the New Towns Taskforce, which reported last month. Its report recommends a total of 40% for all the various kinds of affordable housing put together, with at least half of that—20%—for social rent. This important requirement could be applied not just to new towns but to all major developments; this amendment provides for that outcome. Nearly half the nation’s current programme of affordable homes comes from these planning obligations on the house- builders but, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, noted in Committee, the CPRE has found that, despite agreements by the housebuilders to produce an average of 34% of relevant developments as affordable housing, the actual figure has turned out to be just 18%.

Shelter’s research has also shown that, in relation to the core social rent product, rather than the more upmarket versions of affordable housing, over the last 20 years less than 3% of developers’ housebuilding has been for social rent. This is despite the fact that, in most parts of the country, only the social rent accommodation is within the means of households in the lower half of income distribution.

The constant reneging by housebuilders on the contributions they agreed to make at the outset makes this amendment an urgent one. Indeed, I wonder whether it is worth all the time, money and effort to achieve so many new homes if so few of them can meet the acute needs of those suffering most from the nation’s housing shortages. Instead, enforcement of an obligation that delivers at least 20% social rented housing would substantially enhance the value to the nation of building 1.5 million homes by 2030. I hope the Minister will feel able to accept this amendment, at least in principle, and I beg to move.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Best has given an empirical and quantitative justification for this amendment, which I support, and I will not repeat what he said. What I will say, however, is what social rent housing does and why it is a necessity.

It is a living instrument that improves our society in many ways. It creates the opportunity for stability for young families, and for continuing education for young people in those families. It also creates loyalty to the town where they live, and a history that is developed into the future by those who live in social housing. These days we often hear people commenting on the fact that they are the first person who went to university in their family. Many of those people went to university because they lived in social rent housing with the stability that enabled them, with the support of their parents, of course, to be educated to go to university. I believe that in this Parliament there are many people who fall into that category. This is a living instrument that we are trying to create—a system of social rent housing that produces the growth that creates the flowers of our society, or at least many of them, and gives our society a future we can be proud of.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Carlile, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Thornhill, who is unable to be here this evening—she has been got by the lurgy that everyone is coming down with. I will make some of the arguments that my noble friend would have made.

At its core, this is about trust between developers, local authorities and communities to deliver what the developers have said they would. Does it not make your blood boil to hear and learn how often social housing has been promised and how often it has failed to be delivered? Research from Shelter shows that, in some parts of England, as many as 40% of the affordable homes initially promised are never delivered. The Local Government Association has estimated that, over the past decade alone, more than 100,000 affordable homes have been lost because of renegotiations and that absolute panto villain, the viability assessment, which is used and prayed in aid to stop the delivery of social homes for rent, which are so critical and important to society.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, would bring much-needed transparency and restore faith in a promise that has been broken again and again over successive Governments. It would give councils the confidence that when they negotiate for affordable homes, the homes will actually materialise.

I know it is late, but if the noble Lord, Lord Best, moves to a vote, we will be there with him, and I am very hopeful that the Conservative Benches will join him as well. This is an absolute scandal that has gone on for too long. We need to restrict developers to deliver on their promise of social homes for rent.