Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

62: Clause 68, page 30, line 31, at end insert—
“( ) In making a determination under section 67, the Secretary of State must exclude housing in rural areas.”

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[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, once again, I am very pleased to report that I am aware that, after discussions, as the Minister has already hinted, the Government are minded to accept the case for the amendment, with a view to bringing forward their own at Third Reading, which I hope will go most of the way to catering for the problem that we are trying to resolve—we being me and the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for whose support for the amendment I am very grateful.

First, let me spell out the problem as I see it. There are two issues. The first is that we are desperately short of affordable housing in rural areas. As has already been said, our rural England affordable housing stock consists of about 8% of overall housing, compared with 19% in urban areas. Our villages need far more affordable housing, not less, if they are to remain as vital, vibrant communities, with all the self-supporting social fabric that many of us have already described in debate on the Bill. We absolutely do not need to be selling one set of rural affordable homes from the public sector to pay for the replacement of mostly urban affordable homes belonging to the charitable sector.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I shall start with the noble Baroness’s point because I think it probably refers to the previous group in terms of local authorities and agreements with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State and I, on behalf of the Government, absolutely acknowledge that local authorities know their own local communities. In the spirit of the approach that this House has taken, that is what I am trying to articulate today. Rather than it being central government’s suspicion of local government, we are head-on acknowledging that local authorities and local leaders best know the needs of their communities. I know the Secretary of State respects that.

I now move on to Amendments 62 and 63. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy, Lord Best and Lord Cameron. No, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, did not make any points on these amendments. He is so good that I think he has spoken. I have been particularly struck by the points that have been made about housing that is located in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty by the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Best. Greater planning constraints apply in these areas, which would make it more challenging to replace homes that are sold off with new housing. The Government want affordable housing in rural areas to continue to provide for those who need it the most, and in certain cases I agree that we should be clearer about how we can best protect it. Therefore, I hope the noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I am making a commitment—although the noble Lord kind of preceded me—to exclude local authority housing that is located in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty from the housing to be taken into account under this chapter. Housing in these areas will be excluded under regulations.

More broadly, throughout the passage of the Bill I have heard many powerful arguments about the need to protect rural housing. Amendment 119, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, who is not in her place, emphasises the need to protect rural areas more widely. I commit to look at the detailed points that have been raised about housing in rural areas during the remainder of the passage of the Bill to consider how we might use existing powers to make further exclusions to ensure that we reach a reasonable balance. I hope noble Lords will agree that these two commitments go a long way to meeting their concerns. In light of these undertakings, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, will withdraw his amendment.

Turning to Amendment 63, I agree that local authorities should make the best use of housing stock to meet people’s needs. This includes transferring tenants to alternative vacant social accommodation when it suits their circumstances—for example, if they are underoccupying or overoccupying a property. That is good stock management. However, I am concerned that Amendment 63 could open the door to local authorities seeking to reduce or minimise their payment. This would mean that there would be a lower level of receipts to build additional homes and fewer housing association tenants would realise their dream of home ownership. That said, I am not in a position to make a decision about whether to exclude transfers from the types of definition of vacancy using the regulation-making powers in Clause 77(2) until we have concluded our data analysis and understood the impact of such an exclusion. I assure noble Lords that we will use the views expressed to help inform decisions regarding situations when housing would not be considered as becoming vacant. With these assurances, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

I thank all Members of the House who have supported the amendment. I again thank the Minister and, indeed, her Secretary of State for the compromise position that they have offered. I look forward to discussing the details of the government amendment that will be provided at Third Reading. It is quite clear that the process in national parks, AONBs, the Norfolk Broads and other special areas is quite a simple matter to deal with. Housing in communities of fewer than 3,000 people where it is impossible to replace sold housing due to planning regulations, either as spelled out in the National Planning Policy Framework or where they have been interpreted by a local plan, will be the key to whether the government amendment will be acceptable. I look forward to the discussion and, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 62 withdrawn.