Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Carlile of Berriew and Baroness Grender

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.