Emma Reynolds
Main Page: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the Government has failed to tackle the acute housing shortage which is central to the cost of living crisis and over the last four years has presided over the lowest level of new homes being built in peacetime since the 1920s and the lowest number of homes for social rent being built in at least 20 years; further notes the recent reports that housing starts are forecast to fall this year with a large fall in affordable housing starts; and calls on the Government to tackle the housing shortage and commit to increasing house building to at least 200,000 homes a year by 2020, including by boosting housing supply by creating a Help to Build scheme for small and medium-sized builders alongside a reformed Help to Buy, by reforming the development industry and introducing measures to tackle land banking, by bringing forward plans to deliver a new generation of new towns and garden cities and by giving local authorities a new right to grow to deliver the homes their communities need.
We have called this debate because we are in the midst of the biggest housing crisis in a generation. We are not building even half the homes that we need to keep up with demand, and regrettably the current Government are presiding over the lowest level of house building in peacetime since the 1920s. The shortage just keeps on growing. According to figures that I obtained from the Library recently, the backlog of demand since the Government came to power is 500,000 homes, which is equivalent to Birmingham, England’s second biggest city. Individuals, couples and families are being priced out of home ownership, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1987. Average house prices are now eight times average incomes, and in some high-demand areas the ratio is even higher.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
I recognise that there is a crisis in housing. I am therefore shocked by the lack of ambition in the motion. Not only does it commit to only 200,000 extra homes each year, but it gives no commitment whatever to a target for social homes. We should not be surprised, given that for 13 years the Labour Government presided over year-on-year decline in social housing and an overall decline of 200,000 social homes.
Emma Reynolds
I will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman, because in 2012-13 his Government built only 107,000 homes. We are talking about doubling that number. [Interruption.] Actually, the number of social homes has not gone up—I will come to that.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I was somewhat surprised by the intervention that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) made. Can my hon. Friend confirm that under the Labour Government, not only were there 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders and half a million more affordable homes, including 256,000 in the last five years of the Government, but 1.6 million social homes were brought up to standard through the decent homes standard, transforming the lives of millions of tenants?
Emma Reynolds
The decent homes programme was one of the Labour Government’s proudest achievements. It transformed the homes and lives of millions of people in council houses. I say to the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) that in our last year in office, we started 39,000 social homes. In the past year, the current Government started 3,900. I will come later to the affordable homes cliff edge over which they are presiding.
Millions of people across the country face the insecurity of private renting, not knowing whether they will be evicted from one year to the next or even one month to the next. Young people and families are watching as their dream of home ownership, which their parents and grandparents were able to achieve, slips out of reach.
The housing shortage is central to the biggest challenge facing Britain today—the cost of living crisis. We know that on average, working people are more than £1,600 a year worse off under this out-of-touch Government, but the problem is about more than just the pound in people’s pocket. It is about the insecurity that people feel, often in their workplaces and sometimes in their homes, and about the prospects of the next generation, with many parents feeling that their children will be worse off than they are.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I am glad that my hon. Friend mentions the impact on families in the private rented sector. As the Education Secretary has slipped into the Chamber, I wish to make the point that another real problem is the effect on children now of the uncertainty that she describes. It has long-term consequences, because children need stability and they need to be able to stay in the same school. If their parents have to keep moving, that stability is undermined and so are their long-term prospects.
Emma Reynolds
In fact, academics have conducted interesting research showing that one driver of a child becoming a NEET—being not in education, employment or training—in later life is being shunted around from area to area. That constant churn and change in their schooling means that they do not attain what they need to educationally.
One thing that the Government are good at is making announcements, although I must say that the current Housing Minister is not quite as keen on rhetoric as one of his predecessors, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). Ministers come to the House armed with an array of statistics designed to dazzle and to distract from the Government’s real record. I am sure that that is what the Minister will try to do this afternoon. He is fond of telling the House that the Government have delivered 445,000 new homes since 2010, but if we do the maths we see that that is just over 111,000 a year on average—hardly a record to be proud of. In the Queen’s Speech a few weeks ago, the Government promised to increase housing supply and home ownership, but in truth home ownership is falling under this Government.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Since we are talking about statistics, will the hon. Lady welcome the approximately 2,000 new homes that are being built as a result of the previous Conservative administration of Crawley borough council, and will she condemn the same local authority’s current Labour administration for prevaricating on the local plan?
Emma Reynolds
When I was last in Crawley I saw the white elephant of the free school there, which was refurbished and then was open for just two years. Apparently, millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent on it, and for what good?
We learnt last week that the Minister’s own officials have recently forecast that house building will fall, not rise, this year, but the Minister himself seems to be in two minds about whether forecasts exist. In a written answer, he told my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) that no such forecasts exist, before going on to publish his own forecast in that answer—albeit a partial one—claiming that he expected private house building to rise, with no mention of affordable homes. I am curious as to whether his Department publishes forecasts or not. Does the Minister believe they exist? The “Newsnight” leaked document seemed to suggest that they do.
In the same written answer, the Minister acknowledged that the Government are worried about presiding over a “hiatus” in affordable home building, which is probably a neat and euphemistic way of describing the Government’s record. Perhaps he could have been more direct—levels of affordable housing are set to fall off a cliff, and it is an open secret that housing associations are reluctant to bid for the Government’s affordable homes programme. No wonder Ministers are worried.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
When the Work and Pensions Committee visited Bedfordshire in connection with its work on housing benefit, housing associations told us that in order to get grants to build so-called affordable housing—which will be at 80% of market rent—they were required to place some of their existing stock into that category as it became available for rent. This housing is not truly affordable, so what effect will that have on the housing benefit budget in due course?
Emma Reynolds
My hon. Friend makes a significant point that I was about to come to. I am sure the Minister will talk about the number of affordable homes that the Government are delivering, but 40% of those were commissioned by the previous Labour Government. Furthermore, “affordable” in the Government’s terms is 80% of market rent. That is clearly not affordable for many families up and down the country—indeed, the National Audit Office has estimated that housing benefit will end up costing the taxpayer £1.4 billion because of the short-sightedness of this Government.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
In Northumberland, significant housing is being built on the former hospital sites at Stannington and Prudhoe, both of which lay idle for the entirety of the previous Government’s time in office. At Prudhoe, 80% of new purchases are made under the Help to Buy scheme and with help from this Government. Does the hon. Lady accept that that regional success is an example of the Government turning things around at local level?
Emma Reynolds
I do not accept that because the figures speak for themselves. We are not building even half the number of homes that we need to keep up with demand. That is an appalling record, and not one the Government should be proud of.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
We have one of the oldest district plans in the country partly because there was huge resistance to Labour’s over-heavy housing targets. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that we will be going back to much higher levels? What impact will that have on the district plans that have emerged in areas that have finalised them?
Emma Reynolds
No, I am not suggesting that we go back to regional spatial strategies. We will not do what this Government did and throw all the pieces in the air and see where they land. We will largely keep the national planning policy framework in place. Where local plans come forward and are voted on, they can be successful. There are problems in areas where local plans have not been passed, and there is also a problem with not using common methodology in some of the local plans.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I welcome this debate and the motion is a step in the right direction. The hon. Lady must acknowledge, however, that the previous Labour Administration’s understandable focus on decent homes meant that they took their eye off the ball for council housing. The last year of the Labour Administration saw just 370 council homes built. Will she explain why the official Opposition do not call explicitly in the motion for a complete lifting of the borrowing cap?
Emma Reynolds
We are not calling for a lifting of the borrowing cap, but we think that councils and housing associations have a key role in delivering a step change in the number of houses for social rent—that is real, affordable rent, not the affordable rent that we have seen from the Government.
Emma Reynolds
I will make some progress because a number of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to speak.
For all their hot air, Ministers cannot escape the truth that, on their watch, the number of homes built for social rent is at its lowest level for at least 20 years—hardly surprising since the first thing the Government did when they came to office was cut the affordable homes budget by an eye-watering 60%. The Government will no doubt try to say that all their success is due to the Help to Buy scheme, and the Opposition are clear that we support help for first-time buyers. Crucially, however, Help to Buy must be matched by help to build if prices are not to rise further out of the reach of families who want to get on the housing ladder.
The Government have announced and re-announced schemes, but failed to deliver. We had the NewBuy scheme, the Build to Rent fund, Get Britain Building— all failed to deliver their targets and all are part of a piecemeal approach by this Government. With such a record of delivery, it is no surprise that the Governor of the Bank of England said recently that housing is the “biggest risk” to our economy.
Unlike this Government, Labour understands the scale of the challenge we face and that real leadership is needed at central and local levels. That is why we have made a bold and ambitious commitment to increase house building to 200,000 homes a year by 2020. Our housing commission, chaired by Sir Michael Lyons and supported by a panel of experts from across the industry, will deliver a road map to help us to achieve that step change in house building. Unlike this Government, we understand that the market is simply not delivering. It is clear that there are deep structural problems in the land market and the house building industry. That is why Labour will take action to reform the development industry, tackle land banking, boost the role of small house builders, give communities the right to grow and deliver a new generation of new towns and garden cities.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I am pleased that my hon. Friend mentioned land banking. She must be aware that, particularly in London, a considerable number of houses, newly built flats and other places are being deliberately kept empty on the expectation of a rapid rise in value, so that they can be sold on without the encumbrance of someone living in them. Does she agree that it is a disgrace at a time of housing shortage to deliberately keep places vacant? If she becomes Housing Minister will she intervene to end that disgraceful practice?
Emma Reynolds
Land banking is a real problem. It is not just developers who are sitting on land, but middlemen, promoters and agents. The Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, recognised land banking as “pernicious”, and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), also recognised that before he was given his job as Planning Minister.
Emma Reynolds
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
It is clear that land banking is an issue. We have set out specific proposals to deal with it. First, we will give more power and flexibility to local authorities to escalate fees where land banking is taking place on land with planning permission, and as a last resort we will ensure that local authorities have proper compulsory purchase order powers so that they can sell the land to developers that want to built the homes we so desperately need.
One key challenge in the house building industry is that it is now dominated by a small number of large players. In the 1980s, two thirds of homes in this country were built by small builders, but by 2012 that figure had fallen to below a third. As the number of small builders has declined and the big firms have grown even bigger by acquiring more firms and land, it has become easier for those big firms to buy up land. As Kate Barker found in her report 10 years ago, it is not always in the interests of big builders to build out sites as quickly as the nation needs. We must get more firms and players into the industry to build homes and provide competition. The high cost of housing is driven by the high cost of land. Often, the cost of land means that only big house builders are able to manage the risks. Let me be clear: big house builders play a crucial role in building the homes our country needs, but we need a much more diverse and competitive industry to deliver a step change in house building.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)
Let me ask the hon. Lady about leadership in this business. Some 30% of local plans were approved when this Government took office and that figure is now approaching 70%. Does that mean that we can expect much more house building to occur? Furthermore, let me press her on the structure of the building industry. The fact that we have larger and fewer house building companies is hardly a surprise when the Labour party so mismanaged the economy that—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be short. Speeches must come after the Minister has spoken, and I do not want the hon. Gentleman to use up all his ammunition at this stage.
Emma Reynolds
I thought the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) was starting to deliver his speech. I say gently to him that the last global financial crash was not caused by the Labour Government’s spending on schools and hospitals, and for him to tell us otherwise is completely fatuous.
Labour has set out plans to boost the role of small house builders, self-builders and custom-builders, who tell us that access to finance and access to land are the key barriers to getting homes built. We have proposed a help to build scheme, which will help them to access finance through the banks—crucially, to get them building—and on access to land we have said that we will ensure that local authorities allocate land in their five-year land supplies, while giving them guaranteed access to public land.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The hon. Lady knows that I have a private Member’s Bill on the subject of affordable housing. In an area such as mine—not a nimby area—the housing stock has more than doubled in the last 40 years, yet the housing problems of local people have got significantly worse. She will be aware that the situation is complicated and requires a more sophisticated answer than simply producing thousands more homes. Does she not accept that we need to look at, for example, controlling the number of second homes, which have increased greatly in areas such as mine? Do we not need to deal with issues such as that as well as simply build more houses?
Emma Reynolds
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point and I know that this is a particular issue in his constituency. I think that this whole debate around second homes is difficult. How do we prove which is someone’s first or second home? Many right hon. and hon. Members here, for example, split their time pretty much equally between London and their constituency. I am not entirely sure that the measures suggested by the hon. Gentleman would be fair or effective. I recognise that the problem is not just a matter of building more homes; it is also about whom we are building those new homes for. That is why it is crucial that the homes we build are truly affordable, which I believe is part of the hon. Gentleman’s private Member’s Bill. I agree with him on the key point that it is not just about the numbers; it is about quality, affordability and place making. It is right not to focus only on the numbers, but in my view the numbers are important.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Over the last four years, the problem has been the failure to build affordable homes and social homes. The truth is that what are defined as “affordable homes” are unaffordable to most people on or below average incomes. Sadly, although I have great respect for the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), the Liberal Democrats have propped up a Government who have destroyed affordable housing in this country.
Emma Reynolds
I am delighted to say that in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Hammersmith and Fulham, we now have a Labour council that is committed to affordable homes and ensuring that developers deliver their fair share of truly affordable homes, particularly in areas of high demand, such as my hon. Friend’s, where average house prices are, frankly, eye-watering. It is different from the situation in my own constituency.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I am listening with interest to the hon. Lady’s proposals, but will she outline what additional resources she would attach to them?
Emma Reynolds
I am not in the business of making spending commitments in this Opposition-day debate. All I would say is that we recognise that local authorities have a key role to play in delivering the homes we need, and that it was thanks to the reform of the housing revenue account, brought forward by the last Labour Government, that we have seen councils building many more homes than they used to. In fact, Labour councils are outbuilding Tory councils when it comes to affordable homes.
There are also issues to be resolved between local authority areas. Where local authorities are land-locked, as in Oxford, but their communities need to expand due to high demand, the Government’s duty to co-operate is, unfortunately, simply not working. It seems to be a duty to talk and talk, to stall—and then to do nothing. Labour, in consultation with the affected local authority areas, will give communities that need it the right to grow, and we will ensure that local authorities and housing associations have the tools they need to get on with the job of building more homes.
We are determined to ensure not just that existing communities are able to expand; we understand the need to build new communities, too. The Government have said they support new settlements—they have been saying that for four years, but it has taken them four years to do anything concrete about it. Of course we welcome the proposal in the Queen’s Speech for an urban development corporation to support the building of Ebbsfleet garden city, but it is worrying that it seems to have escaped the Chancellor’s attention that he promised 15,000 homes at Ebbsfleet, when his Government had already committed to 20,000 homes on the same site just two years earlier. It would appear that there is not going to be much “garden” or “city” in the proposals for this garden city. A core principle of such garden cities is a commitment to social and affordable homes, yet the Minister with responsibility for planning, in a written answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), said that there will be no such commitment. I am thus left wondering what is garden and what is city about these proposals.
In contrast to this Government’s four years of inaction on new towns and garden cities, we are determined to get going from day one. That is why the shadow Chancellor has already made a commitment that our plans will be supported by a Treasury guarantee. It also crucial that we secure greater institutional investment in housing, including, crucially, in the private rented sector. We are committed to doing so to increase supply, quality and choice in private renting. We must also act to secure a better deal for those 9 million people—couples and families, and including 2 million children—who are renting from a private landlord. Unlike the Government, we are prepared to act to give them much needed stability and peace of mind by legislating to make longer-term tenancies with predictable rents the norm, and banning letting agent fees charged to tenants.
It is regrettable that this Government not only lack determination and leadership, but have taken a piecemeal approach to housing that is clearly not delivering. The numbers speak for themselves. We understand the urgency, commitment and leadership needed to deliver a step change in house building. The next Labour Government will rise to that challenge from day one, delivering 200,000 homes a year by 2020 and providing a home for this generation and the next. I commend the motion to the House.
Kris Hopkins
I am not going to take any lectures about affordable or social housing. The last Government failed to deliver sufficient social housing at a time of economic boom. They did not build the housing required. They did not address the issue of social need. In the most difficult times, however, this Government have stepped up and are delivering those houses. We need to deliver more, but we are setting about delivering that.
Kris Hopkins
No, I am going to continue.
The key aim is to expand capacity, and one of the ways we are doing that is by encouraging—right across the country—the private rented sector. Thousands of individuals rent their homes, and the vast majority of them rent their homes from good landlords, but there are a few who are damaging the market and failing their tenants, and that is why this Government have set about introducing powers to pursue those individuals and have put moneys out there for councils to make sure we can pursue and prosecute those individuals who fail their tenants.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to follow the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who made some interesting points about the particular demand for housing in London. It has already been said in this debate—but it needs to be reiterated—that London is the key to the national housing supply. There is a chronic shortage and it is having a ripple effect, not only in the south-east, but more widely.
I suppose the situation is an echo of developments after the war and during the post-war era, when the so-called London overspill moved out from the slums of many parts of the metropolis into the bright new housing provided, among other places, in Swindon. I have the pleasure of representing estates that were very much part of that London overspill planning. Indeed, many of those Londoners still live in the houses they occupied in the 1950s and ’60s. The 1950s were a time of mass house building in this country, presided over by a Conservative Government and a Conservative housing Minister, Harold Macmillan. As the result of a pledge at a Conservative party conference, 300,000 houses were built every year in the early 1950s.
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman’s history is very interesting, but will he confirm that it was under the Wilson Labour Government that house building actually reached its peak?
Mr Buckland
The hon. Lady is talking about 1968—the year of my birth. I agree that house building reached its peak at that time, but I also remind her that in the immediate post-war era, between 1945 and 1951, about 700,000 houses were built, which is only just over 100,000 a year, and that Aneurin Bevan’s record on housing does not match that of Harold Macmillan.
It is important to make such points, historic though they may be, because neither of the main parties in this House can claim a moral authority when it comes to house building. It ill behoves the hon. Lady and her party to make intemperate criticism of this Government when the previous Labour Government’s public house-building record speaks for itself as poor. The year 2008-09 saw the lowest level of house building since, I think, 1923, which is hardly a record of which the Labour party can be proud. If Labour’s record was so poor then, why on earth should we believe its pledges now about house building from 2015? Please forgive me, but, to be frank, I am sceptical of those claims, though I am sure they are well-intentioned.
Swindon is a town that continues to grow—it now has in excess of 200,000 people—and we have delivered house growth for much of the past 30 to 40 years: first, in the form of the London overspill estates, such as Park North and Park South, and then through developments in the ’70s and, indeed, the ’80s in west Swindon, which comprise the constituency that I have the honour of representing today.
We are no strangers to, or shy of, house building, and we continue to do it. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who has responsibility for planning, is familiar with the Wichelstowe development in my constituency. It is one of the biggest developments in the country and it continues to be rolled out. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and the Government for contributing £800,000—nearly £1 million—to allow a joint venture to be set up, which will enable the local authority, Swindon borough council, together with a private partner, to start developing homes specifically geared towards retired people who wish to downsize and live in homes that, while they do not meet the criteria of sheltered housing, are designed with the needs of older people in mind.
I am talking about homes with fewer bedrooms but larger living accommodation and that are adaptable for the disabilities that sometimes come with old age. That detailed work has been commissioned by the local authority. It has identified a growing ageing population in Swindon who will need that type of housing, and I look forward to the joint venture being set up in the early part of next year and to houses being delivered in Middle Wichel. A new Waitrose supermarket has been opened on the site, which is welcome. We already have shops and infrastructure, which I hope will match the housing to be built there. I am delighted that this week’s announcement of local growth funding has earmarked more than £20 million for the development of infrastructure to facilitate the development of Wichelstowe, which will include the enhancement of junctions 15 and 16 of the M4. That is vital if Swindon is going to be able to sustain the housing expansion expected of it.
In recent years, planning and development have not had the best of reputations. Accusations have been made that developers have land-banked. Until a few years ago, I think there was a case to be made, but the evidence is shifting. My recent experience of the granting of local planning applications is that developers are, in fact, keen to get on site and start developing. I am no longer as convinced as I was about the accusations of land-banking. I have read the detail of the Opposition motion and think that they are a little behind the curve when it comes to the real evidence. They are quite right to be concerned about land-banking—I do not approve of it at all—but I think the evidence is moving against them as the economy picks up and construction development continues.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)
This has been an illuminating and at times arresting debate. We have witnessed a near domestic in the household of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has tantalised us with talk of an amendment that seemingly never was, and the contribution by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) had, I fear, the absolute opposite of his desired effect because it made us all want to move to his constituency and put ourselves on the list of the excellent Chelmer housing authority.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) spoke movingly about the particular issues facing areas that are attractive to people who want second homes. He sits next to my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who will have similar issues in the beautiful end of the country that he represents. I hope that both my hon. Friends will be able to explore the potential for community land trusts to provide a form of housing for sale that can be secured in permanence for people on typical average local incomes.
I believe that the best contribution in this debate came from the Chair of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. He enjoined us all to recognise that we as a country, one Government after another, have been building too few homes for 30 years. He urged us to put aside debates about statistics—endlessly tedious debates, I might add—and instead to focus on a long-term cross-party strategy to correct our common failure. It will be hard—not least because the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) fired quite a few political bullets over the Dispatch Box in his winding-up speech—but I am going to try to follow the injunction of the distinguished Select Committee Chair. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman makes the point that this is the first time I have tried to do that. I feel that is a little harsh. But I promise not to do it again.
To build houses, we need a few basic things. As everyone has pointed out, the first thing we need more than anything is land. I am delighted that this Government have done the hard work of reforming planning policy to create the national planning policy framework, and I am even more delighted that the Labour party has agreed not to scrap it and to continue to work within that framework.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) is about to leave his seat, let me say that I am very pleased that the Mayor of London and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer have announced housing zones, working on ideas drawn up by the excellent organisation, Shelter, to bring forward brownfield sites in areas of desperate housing need. I look forward to a successful housing zone in my hon. Friend’s Enfield constituency.
I am delighted that the Chancellor is spearheading the right to build—a proposal included in the Budget—which is intended to provide small blocks of land for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who would rather not rely on a big house builder, but want to get on, hire a local builder and an architect and build themselves a house—and they often find that they can get it built a good deal cheaper, too. Again, I am glad that the Opposition have indicated their support for this initiative.
Proposals to bring forward land, then, are the first key step. I believe that this Government have done a lot, although it is taking a long time to come through—longer than any of us would have wanted to deliver the houses we need. It is right and proper that we have that as part of our long-term strategy.
The second thing we need is lots and lots of different institutions building homes. Sadly, as a result of the crash—I shall not get into the debate about where it came from; there was a crash and it was one of the worst this country has ever faced—where 5,000 firms were building between one and 10 houses a year in 2007, a few years later, there were fewer than 3,000 such firms. We have thus seen a collapse in the small and medium-sized builder market.
Every Member has talked about the falling off of council house building. I do not believe that any of us should be ideological about this issue. I want as many institutions that have the money and want to build houses to be able to do so. That is why I welcome the relaxation of the HRA borrowing cap announced by the Chancellor, for which bids are now being sought.
We need institutions to be able to get working capital in order to buy the land and to carry the land on their balance sheet while they are working through the planning process. That is why the Government have introduced a builder’s finance fund, and I am glad that the Opposition also have proposals to provide finance for small and medium-sized builders. In that long-term strategy, as well as a common approach on bringing forward land, there can be a common approach on ensuring that as many institutions as possible and as many individuals as possible are able to get on and build houses.
In addition, we need people who want to buy houses to be able to get mortgages. I am afraid that that is another thing that was entirely devastated by the crash. It was devastated perhaps for good reasons, with the banks, having over-extended themselves by lending people too much money off slightly flaky asset values and having gotten themselves into terrible problems, having to retrench and pull back their balance sheets to rebuild their equity reserves. As a result, for love nor money, people could not get a 95% mortgage—unless their daddy was very rich, in which case the mortgage probably was not needed in the first place. That explains why this Government have brought forward Help to Buy.
I know that the Opposition like to snipe about Help to Buy, but there is no question about it. Every house builder in the country will say that they are building again because they have people to sell to who are able to get mortgages. That is why I trust that once the heat of the election has subsided, the Opposition will acknowledge that Help to Buy is a key part of the long-term strategy for house building.
Notwithstanding my attempts to be bipartisan and ecumenical, I shall be urging my hon. Friends to oppose the motion. My reason for doing so is simply this: in the Opposition motion, there are some glib proposals, which I hope might work, but I fear that Opposition Members have not thought them through and that they might do more harm than good.
There is the proposal, simply named, for a “right to grow”. We heard a complaint about the duty to co-operate—the complaint that it involved endless conversations—but, when challenged on whether the “right to grow” meant a right just to impose, the Opposition said “No, of course there will be consultations.” What are consultations? Consultations are exactly the conversations that are happening as a result of the duty to co-operate. The boroughs surrounding Oxford have got together with the city of Oxford to produce a joint housing market study, so that they can understand jointly what their needs are and decide jointly how they will meet them. That is the duty to co-operate in action. Either we continue that approach, or we become more heavy-handed and we impose. I think it important to be honest: the right to grow certainly sounds more like an imposition, and I fear that those who apply it will find that they are building resentment, not houses.
I am troubled, too, by the glib approach to garden cities. The Government have been very clear about the fact that they are dying for local authorities to come forward with proposals for large new settlements which we could help to fund with a mixture of guarantees and other support, and which would deliver substantial amounts of new housing. We have made that plain for many, many years, but I have to say that we have not been overwhelmed with proposals as yet. The one place from which we did receive a proposal is the one place where we are providing that support: Ebbsfleet, where both local authorities want a garden city and absolutely see the need for it, and where we have responded by arranging for an urban development corporation to provide it.
The Opposition policy on garden cities means one of two things. Either it means that local authorities are invited to come forward with proposals for new garden settlements, in which case it is precisely the same as the Government’s current policy, or it means a proposal for Sir Michael Lyons—or some other distinguished gentleman or lady—to get out his red marker pen, look at a map of England, and start drawing his own maps of where those garden cities will go. It must be one or the other. Either it is a voluntary process in which local authorities—
Nick Boles
Oh, it is in between! Everything is “in between” when the detail becomes awkward, but the detail is the responsibility of Government. We cannot smoosh around the words and hide among the vagaries when we are in government, which is why that policy, too, is a dangerous one.
There is also the proposal to confiscate land from builders who do not build. There is nothing more frustrating for any of us than to see a site that has had planning permission for a while not being built out, but it is important that we ask ourselves what the fundamental reasons are for that. Usually, it is because the site will not make money if it is built out and sold on now. We must also ask ourselves this: what will be the result of our saying to builders “We are going to force you to build out, or else we will take the land away from you”? I fear—and not as a result of any ideological prejudices—that there will be fewer applications for planning permission and fewer houses for which development is proposed, and that we will have made the problem worse.
The Chairman of the Select Committee is right. On either side of the House, we have not yet succeeded in solving this problem. We must work together to establish a long-term strategy in order to do so, but I do not believe that the proposals in the Opposition motion will achieve that, and I therefore urge the House to reject it.
Question put.