Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts
Tuesday 6th February 2018

(6 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Siobhain McDonagh Portrait Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
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It strikes me that now is the time to act. We have had enough speeches and articles, and enough wringing of hands. What are we going to do to build more houses for the people who need them? In this country there are currently about 128,000 children in homeless families living in temporary accommodation, 86 of whom live in a converted warehouse on an industrial estate in my constituency. There is no single solution to this long-term problem. There are many, but I would like to suggest just three to the Minister that I think are practical, easy and quick, because this has to happen quickly.

First, we need modular homes. Let us go back to the prefab. We have wonderful designs for modular homes in my constituency, including the Y:Cube set up by the YMCA, which provides units at a cost of about £56,000 a year. They have a 60-year life, and incredibly low gas and electricity bills because they are so well insulated. They can be put on small sites, and because of the way in which they can be plumbed in and connected up, it is always possible to get the land back at a later date. This can be done. The private and the charitable sectors are actively doing this now, and we can do it on small sites because the buildings are constructed in a factory rather than on site. One company that I met a few months ago, Ilke Homes, can provide three houses per day once the foundations are built. That is a solution that can be provided quickly.

Secondly, at the moment, public bodies such as local councils and health authorities have an incentive to sell their sites to the highest bidder. Many councils of all political persuasions hide behind the need to get best value. I suggest to the Minister that we need to change the planning framework to ensure that public bodies give first preference to residential development involving social and mixed developments.

Thirdly, we have been talking about the green belt, but, as we all know, the green belt is not always the green belt. The term does not necessarily apply to areas of outstanding natural beauty, parkland or “lungs” in cities. It can apply to the tatty bits of land that it is hard to believe are part of the green belt. I was amazed to discover that there are some 19,334 hectares of undeveloped green-belt land around train stations in London. If we were to develop only those sites, we could build 1 million new homes. Rather than sticking to one side of the argument or the other—building private housing or building public housing—we need a solution and we need it now. I offer just three, but there are many more and I could have a chat with the Minister over a cup of tea at any time.

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Bob Seely Portrait Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
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I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) for calling this important debate. I am delighted to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

Does the Minister know how many affordable houses were built for Islanders two years ago? Thirty-five. Would the Minister hazard a guess at the number of affordable houses built for Islanders last year? Thirty-four. Just 79 affordable houses were built in two years for an Island with a population of 140,000. This is utterly unacceptable. It is proof of a system in need of reform and, judging by the many voices here, in need of much greater local flexibility and the support from the Government that that would entail. I would like briefly to outline the problem and to suggest a few thoughts on the situation, locally and nationally.

Like many areas, the Isle of Wight needs sustainable, intelligent and sensitive regeneration to drive economic and social development. The current housing system does not serve the Island well. It is a system of developer-led housing, which generates only a small number of affordable houses. It fails to deliver the right type of housing. It is not sustainable. It encourages urban sprawl and all the transport problems identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) and others. It forces communities to accept unpopular local developments. And in a place like the Isle of Wight, which has a visitor economy and an important tourism industry, greenfield development actually damages our economy.

A better system would be one where there is a funding scheme to support housing associations and others to build—as a significant, if not near-100%, solution to our housing problems—genuinely affordable housing for local people in small-scale developments in existing communities. That would ensure that we were able to provide housing for our people and to protect our environment at the same time. The wrong type of housing actually damages our society, because what developers want is not what my constituents need. It is not designed for local people. And, frankly, even so-called affordable housing is not really affordable for many people who earn the Island’s average wage.

Siobhain McDonagh Portrait Siobhain McDonagh
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May I say how much I support the line that the hon. Gentleman is taking about the use of the word “affordable”? Does he agree that applying the word “affordable” to housing that is 80% market rent probably means that it is unaffordable for most?

Bob Seely Portrait Mr Seely
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I thank the hon. Lady for her suggestion. I would say semi-affordable, rather than affordable— and, even then, people are reliant on the bank of mum and dad.

Housing associations tell me that what they need is one-bedroom or two-bedroom housing, but what is built, because we are part of a south-east market where people come to retire, is three-bedroom and four-bedroom housing, which is not what Islanders need. One of the most painful experiences of the last election was hearing the desperation of young people unable to find anywhere to live. I want a system that prioritises housing for Islanders at prices they can afford, and specifically for young Islanders. Indeed, research that I commissioned from the House of Commons Library a few months ago shows that an increase in our population on the Island has not led to an increase in prosperity—quite the opposite. Our gross value added per head has actually gone down slightly since 2000, while adult social care costs threaten to bankrupt us on a near-annual basis.

Throughout Britain, especially in island communities, in national parks, in areas of outstanding natural beauty, and perhaps even in the big cities nowadays, our country needs a system of building that is sensitive to the environment, caters for the resident population, and has much greater local flexibility. In considering these housing proposals, I am thinking not of the next five to 10 years—where to stick a housing estate now— but of what my Island is going to look like in 50 or 100 years’ time. Its landscape has inspired people for generations, and, frankly, I do not want that disappearing just to fulfil Government targets.

Our housing policy should oppose, in principle, all greenfield development unless it has strategic advantage for Islanders. Our housing target is 640 houses a year. Few of those houses will be for people who currently live on the Island. For me, that is difficult to accept; in fact, I do not want to accept it. I have yet to meet a single person on the Island who supports it. It is much better for us to have a system that builds what we need. Working with Government and the Housing Inspectorate, we should aim to support the building of, say, between 200 and 400 properties a year, overwhelmingly funded by housing associations who will be given the support to do that. If that means social housing, council housing, or whatever we want to call it nowadays, then yes, that is what we need.

This housing should be built overwhelmingly for two groups of people: first, young people, for whom we need to build social housing, starter housing and shared-equity housing—we should also include key worker housing in this—and secondly, elderly people who are seeking supported and sheltered housing. We need to make sure that our elderly do not face a choice between an expensive nursing home, which very often the council ends up paying for, and staying in a bungalow or house that they cannot quite manage to run. By having that midway point, we can free up more housing as part of a more sustainable model of development. I hope to work on this with the Campaign to Protect Rural England, as well as other green or green-oriented groups, to develop a sustainable model that I can work on with the Minister and with the Government.

I envisage that some of this housing may be for, say, an old lady or an old gent who moves out of a bungalow that could then be purchased by a housing association who would have a planning assumption whereby they were allowed to repurpose the building, perhaps by adding a second storey or creating two properties on the site, so that we meet increased housing targets without eating into our precious landscape, and provide perhaps a home for old folks on the bottom and a younger couple on the top.

We need intelligent, sustainable and sensitive development. We do not have that at the moment; I do not feel that the current system provides it. I will do what I can in the coming months and years to work with the Minister, perhaps using the Island as a test case for a sustainable model of development that accepts some increase in population but also accepts that in unique environments we need to protect that landscape rather than just see green fields as further housing developments of the future. I look forward to working with the Minister on this.

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Siobhain McDonagh Portrait Siobhain McDonagh
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May I suggest that that will happen only if the Government force—or encourage—public sector bodies to do it? Extorting their good will will not work.

Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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I know that the hon. Lady has a great deal of experience in this regard and she is right. I suspect that what is needed is a mixture of coaxing and cajoling, carrot and stick. We must try to ensure that there is a win-win. However, it seems to the Government, and certainly to me, that there is a huge opportunity not just to build more affordable homes, but to control the process to ensure that those homes are for key workers on low and middle incomes.

We have heard a range of excellent speeches. I shall try to do justice to as many as possible in the time available. The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) raised the issue of funding and, in particular, the issue of the homes infrastructure fund. As I have said, we want to encourage the building of more homes, but we know how important it is to provide the infrastructure that will enable us to carry communities with us.