Richard Bacon
Main Page: Richard Bacon (Conservative - South Norfolk)(8 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Brandon Lewis
On this occasion I am afraid I have to “disagree with Nick”. We are expanding Help to Buy, as I will say in a moment, and I do not think that giving 1.3 million more people the chance to own their own home is a small percentage. A lot of people have the right to aspire to that, and we will support them in their aspiration.
Our plans for housing are delivering, but I agree that we must do more. We are still dealing with Labour’s deficit in public finances, and we must now tackle the housing deficit with that same determination. Both are required to ensure that this is the turnaround decade. We must build more, but this is not only about the number of new homes; we are also determined not just to halt, but to reverse the slide in home ownership that began in 2003, which the shadow Housing Minister said was not such a bad thing. With so many people kept off the housing ladder for so long, we are determined to deliver our promises quickly. That is why in the spending review the Chancellor announced the biggest investment in housing for 40 years. We are investing in what matters most to young people and British families, with £20 billion set aside for housing.
Our work includes major investments in large-scale projects, including garden towns in places such as Ebbsfleet, Bicester, Barking Riverside and Northstowe, and £7.5 billion to extend Help to Buy. The equity loan scheme through to 2021 will support the purchase of 145,000 new-build homes. I notice that the new adviser on housing to the Labour party wants to end that, so perhaps the shadow Minister will say whether Labour is supporting the end of Help to Buy, as its adviser has suggested.
Last week we doubled the value of equity loans in London to 40%, and 50,000 people have already registered their interest. We will ensure that the scheme continues, and we will deliver on our promise. A quarter of a million people are already investing in our Help to Buy ISAs so that they can save for a deposit. The brand new Help to Buy shared ownership scheme will deliver a further 135,000 homes, by removing many of the restrictions that have held back shared ownership. For example, an aspiring homeowner in Yorkshire could get on the housing ladder with a deposit of just £1,400. In the south-east, it will cost under £2,500, and in London, £3,400. Those possibilities will be open to anyone of any occupation who earns under £80,000, or £90,000 in London. Our plans will improve the housing market across all tenures: a £1 billion housing delivery fund to support small and custom builders; £8 billion to help build 450,000 affordable homes; and 200,000 starter homes available to young first-time buyers with a 20% discount at least. We make no apology for this innovation in the delivery of affordable homes—it is what people want, with 86% of our population wanting to buy their own home—and for making sure that they can reach that aspiration. The reality of home ownership can be within their grasp. It is right that we help to make their aspiration more affordable.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister talks about the many excellent things the Government are doing. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) did not know it, but he is right that the Government have made a radical departure. Does the Minister agree that the Government are providing legislative support to self-build and custom housebuilders, building on the, if I may say so, excellent Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015 with further measures that will require local authorities to provide service plots for people who want to build their own dwelling for social rent and for ownership?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, particularly on the excellent Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015. He put a great deal of passion and determination into that. He is delivering something that the Housing and Planning Bill builds on and underpins to ensure a real step-change. It will help not just by providing people with more opportunities to own their own home, but by providing an opportunity for the reinvigoration of small and medium-size local builders that we all want to see. A few weeks’ ago, we announced an expansion of direct commissioning, which will go even further to deliver that.
It would be simply old-fashioned political dogma to insist that Governments should intervene in the market only to support renters, when most people want to buy. To persist with an outdated mind-set risks creating a generation of young people exiled from home ownership; young people worse off than their parents, compelled to leave communities they love and grew up in, and forced to decline good job opportunities all because local housing is too expensive. That is bad for our economy and bad for society. Starter homes have the potential to transform the lives of young people. Just think about it: a first–time buyer able to get at least a 20% discount from a new home with just a 5% deposit. That really does change the accessibility to affordable housing for thousands more people. Starter homes will help young people and ensure that more homes are built.
We must not fall for the lazy assumption that there is a contradiction between supporting the dreams of homebuyers and ensuring that more affordable homes are built. Nowhere is this lazy thinking clearer than in the opposition to our extension of right to buy for housing association tenants. In the previous Parliament, we improved dramatically the right to buy for council tenants. Some 47,000 tenants seized the opportunity, with more than 80% of those sales under the reinvigorated scheme, and yet 1.3 million social tenants in housing association properties continued to receive little or no assistance and continued to be trapped out of ownership. That cannot be right. We promised the electorate that we would end this unfairness and we have. Housing associations have also recognised this inequity. They have signed an historic agreement to end it, and I congratulate them on coming forward with that offer. They are giving tenants what they want: an option to buy their home and a ladder to real opportunity. I am delighted that we have five pilots already under way across the country. Every property sold will lead to at least one extra property being built.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend highlights an important point. What the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale seems to be asking for with the right to buy and, to an extent, in the arguments that he made about starter homes, is second-class ownership, and I do not support that. If someone owns their home they should have the same rights as anyone else. It is sometimes tiresome to hear people who own their home explain why we should not let someone else have the chance to do so. The Housing and Planning Bill is part of our work to drive up the housing supply and home ownership, and it will give house builders and local decision makers the tools and confidence to deliver more homes.
Mr Bacon
Before the Minister moves on, this issue riles a lot of us, as it riles him. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made the point that buying a house and renting it out at some point in the future was bad per se. At the same time, we are supposed to take measures to encourage the private rented sector. Is it not a good thing if more houses are made available for rent? Particularly in the light of what has happened with City of London pensions for 50 years, it is hardly surprising that people are looking for good investment alternatives to safeguard their future and provide more housing for rent.
Brandon Lewis
It is always good to see the institutional money to which my hon. Friend refers investing in the British property market and playing its part in driving up housing supply. I am keen to see, as I have said before in the House, an increase in supply across all tenures. We have to make sure that we build the right homes in the right places, with the right tenures for the people who need and want those homes.
Teresa Pearce
When figures are quoted on social housing, it is often council housing that is being talked about rather than the full social housing register, which includes housing association properties. When we have these debates, we trade statistics back and forth every time, but the problem is that trading statistics does not build homes and it does not take people off the housing waiting lists. Simply saying “You did this, but we did that” will not help anybody.
Mr Bacon
I completely agree with the hon. Lady that trading statistics does not help. I have listened to a lot of housing debates over the last three or four years, so I know that most of the debate has been of that ilk—and it is very unhelpful. Will she therefore elevate the debate by explaining why she thinks the supply of housing does not rise to meet demand?
Teresa Pearce
I could say a lot about that, but I would rather get on with the points I intended to raise, which are about the private rented sector—a subject that has hardly been mentioned and one that did not appear in the Conservative manifesto. It is an issue that affects my constituency and London constituencies in particular. Supply has not risen—you are right—and I believe it is because parties of all colours have not done as much they could have done. I hope that this debate will be elevated above the “You’re bad, they’re worse” level, which gets us nowhere. It is very macho, but it really does not help and it does not play well outside this Chamber.
Mr Bacon
I do not think that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have an opinion on this matter at all, but I share the hon. Lady’s view that supply does not rise to meet demand, which she has just repeated. I am asking her why she thinks that is the case. I have a view; I wonder whether she has.
Teresa Pearce
I imagine that the hon. Gentleman’s view is that not enough people self-build. What has happened with supply reflects problems with the availability of land, although some land has now been released. I believe that the hon. Gentleman still sits on the Public Accounts Committee, as did I when we looked at the parcels of public land that were disposed of, supposedly to build 100,000 homes—yet it appears that hardly any have been built. There is not just one problem. I should like to continue with my speech, if the hon. Gentleman would not mind, and talk about the fact that more needs to be done than providing a supposedly simple fix of helping people on to the housing ladder. More definitely needs to be done than that.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and I led the scrutiny of the Conservative Housing and Planning Bill—for 55 hours, I am told, and at times it felt like 55 hours. There was much to scrutinise and much that we were concerned about, although we welcomed some parts of the Bill.
The Government’s answer to the shortage of housing seems to be starter homes. To be fair, these homes are a solution for some young people, but only for young people who could have got on to the housing ladder anyway—people who have an income of £70,000 and a deposit of £98,000 in London or an income of £50,000 and a deposit of £40,000 outside London. This helps the few and not the many.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), because her leader at Westminster, the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), was one of the sponsors of my Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill, which became law on 26 March 2015.
If the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) thinks I am going to talk about self-build and custom house building, I would not want to disappoint her. There are many good reasons for engaging in self-build and custom house building, and I will come to them shortly.
First, however, we have to analyse why so many Opposition Members—I have listened to them drone on for a long time—appear to think that the current housing system is, give or take, more or less, in reasonably good shape and that it just needs a few tweaks, give or take, more or less, to sort it out. The truth is that our housing system—the one we have endured for 50 years— is intellectually, socially and morally bankrupt. It is intellectually bankrupt because the supply of housing does not rise to meet demand—the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead could not give me a reason why, but she accepted that that was the case. It is socially bankrupt because not having enough housing is so extraordinarily divisive and limits opportunities. Finally, it is morally bankrupt because it is a disgrace that a rich country such as ours cannot supply enough decent housing for everyone to have somewhere to live, and that, in a country where the vast majority of people want to own their own house, homeownership is going down rather than up. This Government are starting to address these problems with the radical solutions that will make the difference.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), did not talk about self-build at all, although his motion refers to it. Yet that is by far the most radical suggestion in the Housing and Planning Bill, which amends the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act to take it further. Under the Act, local authorities will have an obligation that cuts in on 1 April this year to maintain a register of people who want to develop their own self-build project—individuals or groups of individuals. The Bill, which is currently in the other place, will place an obligation on local authorities—I do not think most of them have realised this yet, to be honest—to provide serviced plots commensurate with the demand as evidenced on their registers.
James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend speaks with great passion on this issue, and that is wonderful. If councils take these lists seriously, will not that offer the opportunity that, when significant development sites come up, whole areas can be set aside for self-build?
Mr Bacon
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The only thing I would question is his use of the word “if”. Councils have a legal obligation to take the lists seriously. A planning inspector would be quite right to find a local plan unsound if it failed to contain provision for serviced plots commensurate with demand as evidenced on the register.
When Councillor Barry Wood, the leader of Cherwell District Council came to our self-build summit in Downing Street last month, he talked about one of the sites in the National Audit Office report that the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead mentioned, which has 109,500 potential houses. I spent some time explaining to the permanent secretary of the Department that our constituents liked living in real houses rather than potential houses. The list is a bit distorted, because on some of that land nothing has happened at all, and on some of it a great deal has happened. There are 1,900 serviced plots in Bicester, at Graven Hill. Anybody can look at that scheme by going to gravenhill.co.uk. Once it gets off the ground, as Councillor Wood explained in his presentation, it will make a significant difference to the marketplace because people will start looking at it and saying, “They have that in their area—why can’t we have it in ours?”
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
As always, my hon. Friend is speaking as a passionate advocate of self-build. He talks about local authorities taking this seriously. He will pleased to hear that my authority, Torbay Council, is already looking to identify sites for self-build projects.
Mr Bacon
I am very pleased to hear that. There is quite a lot going on in the south-west, and I hope it will spread right across the country to all corners of our great kingdom.
According to a YouGov survey, 75% of people do not particularly want to buy the product of the volume house builders. That probably has something to do with the quality of the offer and the fact that there is not enough choice. However, they sometimes have to do so even though they would prefer to do something else. An Ipsos MORI survey discovered that 53% of people would like to build their own house at some point in their lives, that 7 million people would like to do it in the next five years, and that 1 million would like to start in the next 12 months.
There are a whole range of benefits in this approach. We get much better quality building standards—I am sure the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead would approve of this—because people who are investing in their own homes are not doing it to get a margin that they can sell on in the way that, perfectly understandably, a volume house builder tries to do. Rather, they will try to get the highest quality fabric, and the highest thermal performance standards, that they can possibly afford. It also helps the skills agenda. Some people are doing it themselves, while some are commissioning others to do it but often still get involved at some level or other. There is a tremendous opportunity for the apprenticeships programme. Locally built housing causes money to stay in the local economy.
Self-builders are often much more community-spirited. They are much more likely to stay and to become pillars of their local communities; they are the ones who get on to the parish council. It is great for helping the vulnerable. What I find so depressing about the droning I have heard from the Opposition Benches for some years now is that there is no sign of radicalism. Somebody who goes on to the Community Self-Build Agency’s website—I encourage anyone to do this—will read the following on the front page:
“I was encouraged by the local council to apply for the CSBA Scheme, I rang them and said; ‘I am disabled, unemployed, on benefits and I know nothing of building.’ They said; ‘You fit all the criteria!’ I have never looked back.”
Rod Hackney said:
“It is a dangerous thing to underestimate human potential and the energy which can be generated when people are given the opportunity to help themselves.”
That is what this is really about.
I recently spoke to the headteacher of a small, rural high school in my constituency. It is always going to be a small school, because of the demographics, and it finds it difficult to recruit teachers. I told him, “You and the governors could tell a potential recruit in a difficult-to-fill subject, ‘If you come to our school, we’ll help you create your own house, which you could either rent or perhaps buy from us in the future.’ A history teacher could have a library for a couple of thousand books, and an arts and crafts teacher could have a workshop. Do you think that would help you recruit teachers?” He said, “God, yes, it would.”
The head of children’s services at Norfolk County Council recently told me that it is very difficult to recruit senior social workers with lots of experience of leading teams. Under the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act, a county council could register as an association of individuals; a planning authority would then be required to provide them with serviced plots. The potential of the Act is extraordinary. It gives us a chance to change the equation and how things are done.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said in his opening remarks that we cannot rely on the dysfunctional market. Of course we cannot. It is touching that there are people who think we have a functioning housing market, and the fact that he refers to the market in that way suggests that he is one of them. What we have to do is fix it. In markets, people have real choice. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) said earlier that there have been decades of under-investment. I was going to intervene on him, but I did not, to ask him why he thinks we have managed to have enough shoes for everyone without decades of Government investment in the shoe industry. No one says that we need a national shoe service in order to solve the problem of not having enough shoes. What we need is a market that actually works.
Alison Thewliss
Perhaps that is because shoes are not particularly expensive, whereas a flat in London can cost £500,000.
Mr Bacon
The word “expensive” is a function of supply and demand, and the word “affordable” is itself deeply laden. If there were enough supply, the price would not be as high relative to income. At present, the average cost of an average dwelling in South Norfolk and in Harlow is about 8.2 times the average income, while in Hertfordshire the average cost is 13.6 times the average income. If we had a market in which supply rose to meet demand, those statistics would not be so out of kilter. That is what we need to fix.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said that it takes bravery to take the community with you. No, it doesn’t! It does not take bravery to stand up for one’s constituents and say, “I want you, your family and your children and grandchildren to have somewhere to live, and if we make it beautiful and somewhere that people would welcome, the people in your community would welcome it, too.” We have a revolution on its way, and people should get with the programme or get out of the way.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The long-term strength and vitality of the housing market is of great importance to North West Leicestershire. It is the base of three of the UK’s leading house builders—Barratt, Bloor and Davidsons—and it is also the home to aggregate industries such as Midland Quarry Products, Breedon Aggregates and Lafarge, which produce a considerable amount of the UK’s aggregates requirements. In addition, we have two of the largest and most efficient brick factories in Red Bank and Ibstock Brick. Indeed, it could be argued that no constituency has a greater vested interest in the health of the UK housing market.
With that in mind, I am proud of this Government’s housing record, compared with the lamentable one of the Labour party. I can ably demonstrate that with figures from my own constituency. Only 186 new homes were built there in 2010-11, but that figure had more than tripled to 678 new homes completed in 2014-15. I and my council fully expect the figure to be even higher next year—well in excess of 700 new homes a year.
The previous Labour Government’s lamentable record extends to social housing. The last social housing built in my district council area was back in 1991. None was built when the Labour party was in power, either nationally or at district level. Indeed, the former Labour-controlled North West Leicestershire District Council wanted to dispose of the council’s property portfolio in a stock transfer. Had the newly elected Conservative district council not cancelled the previous Labour administration’s planned stock transfer on taking office, we would not have been able to get Government funding to upgrade the 75% of the council housing stock that was left below the decent homes standard after 33 years of Labour neglect, as I mentioned in an intervention. That has been corrected under the Conservatives, and all our houses have been brought up to the decent homes standard and are now equal to the best in the country. I am pleased to tell the House that, instead of disposing of our homes, my council will, under this Conservative Government, build new council-owned homes during its present term. They will be the first council houses to be built in my constituency for 25 years.
One factor we must consider is that this is not just about the quantity of houses built—many hon. Members have spoken about that—but about the quality of homes we are building. We have all seen the social problems that have in some ways been compounded by poor housing design from the 1950s onwards. We still have at least 140,000 households with children in this country who live on the second floor or above, despite lots of evidence that multi-storey flats attract higher crime rates and social breakdown, potentially offering our children a poor start in life. This Government have wisely scrapped the previous Labour Government’s Whitehall targets, which forced local authorities to build high-density flats, rather than family homes and attractive terraces.
In addition, the Government have embraced Building for Life, a hallmark of quality design pioneered in my very own constituency of North West Leicestershire. Building for Life now offers a planning process based on what people care about.
Andrew Bridgen
Indeed. My hon. Friend will know that a couple of years ago I hosted the Building for Life function in the House of Commons, which was attended by the Housing Minister of the time. This is something that I very much believe in. One of my sayings is that Building for Life is not just about building houses, but about building communities. That is what we are doing in North West Leicestershire.
People care about privacy, private space, amenities and safety. Building for Life focuses on such fundamentals. It offers community-focused design tools that aim to ensure that existing and new residents are happy with the development and, therefore, raise minimal concerns about the impact of the new development. Importantly, it also offers home builders the opportunity to work with the planning authority ahead of an application to make sure that those shared objectives will be met, which makes for a more streamlined planning process. It is clear that good design is vital to avoid the mistakes of the last century, which have led to ugly and crime-ridden tower blocks and sink estates.
With that in mind, I encourage the Government to do all they can to help local authorities lodge their local plans and to offer clear guidance on what is required of them. My authority is having problems ascertaining what house building levels are expected of it and in calculating the five-year land supply. I urge the Minister to consider whether the Planning Inspectorate should look at the number of permissions that are granted by a council, rather than simply at the build rate, which is not necessarily within the council’s control. I would appreciate a meeting with the Minister at his earliest convenience to discuss these matters.
Turning to the Liberal Democrats’ housing plans, their manifesto claimed that they had a target to build 300,000 homes a year and 10 new garden cities, but there was no credible detail on how that would be delivered in reality. They say that this Government have chosen to keep the broken market broken, without acknowledging that since 2010, partly with their help, more than 700,000 additional homes have been provided, the number of empty homes is at its lowest level since records began, the number of affordable homes is growing at the fastest rate since 1993 and council house starts are at a 23-year high.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
The crux of the problem that we face, and which we have faced for many years, is the fact that we do not build enough homes. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we have built enough homes to meet the formation of new households, whether that is the result of divorce or the fact that we lead more solitary lives with more solitary households. Perhaps migration features around the edges, but those are two quite major issues. That means that we have not built anywhere near enough houses. This is not a new phenomenon, as it is a generational issue.
Many social aspects have been touched on by other hon. Members, so I shall discuss the considerable economic damage caused by building too few homes. It exacerbates the north-south divide, and means that demand for land and housing is concentrated in the south-east and they become more expensive, which damages the mobility of labour. It also leads to boom and bust. The recession of the late 1980s and early 1990s was domestically driven, and was caused by the shock of interest rate rises to combat inflation caused by an asset bubble.
An asset bubble in housing skews the way in which people invest in other assets. We have a low propensity to save partly because of the housing asset bubble and the fact that it predominates in our personal finances. It drains money away from other assets, and interest rates are kept artificially low, because of the debt that comes with housing. That is why we have so few savings, and so little confidence in our pension system. The housing asset bubble also divides the generations, and we can see that acutely today—many of us will have seen it in our surgeries.
Owning a home is a great thing, and is a moral good that has raised the wealth and life chances of millions. Like many Conservative Members I am from a council house background. Without the property-owing democracy of the 1980s, I would not be standing in the Chamber today, such are the opportunities that have arisen in my lifetime for my family.
Mr Bacon
Does my hon. Friend—by the way, I was born in his constituency, in Browns Coppice Avenue—think that it is instructive that we have heard a number of contributions from Conservative Members who were brought up in council houses? Those who strongly oppose the right to buy, although some of them are no longer in the Chamber, come from a wealthy background, and have been to top public schools. Whether or not they might one day have the chance to own their own home has never been an issue.
Julian Knight
I completely agree. It is ridiculous politics for people on the housing ladder to seek to pull it up and not allow others on. That is terribly two-faced, and entirely wrong.
Help to Buy is a fantastic innovation and is a good measure for an emergency. Our housing industry was dying, which is why we introduced it. The Government should be commended for continuing with that policy. Social mobility is aided by the measure, but this is not a demand issue. It is a problem of supply.