Housing and Planning Bill (Third sitting)

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We should probably move on. I should perhaps remind you that the witnesses are here better to inform the Committee, rather than necessarily agree with us. That is an important thing to remember. I call the shadow Minister, Roberta Blackman-Woods.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Q 239 There seems to be a supposition underpinning some of the clauses in part 6 that the reason we are not building enough homes in this country is that planning departments are too slow. Do you agree with that supposition? What do you think could be done to improve the planning system, without bypassing local communities in that decision-making process, as the Bill suggests?

Trudi Elliott: As I said, we commissioned Arup to look at this issue in the north-west. They looked at all types of authority in the north-west. They concluded that, where there were statutory targets, local authorities’ performance, despite the cuts, had actually improved. We are getting planning permissions through the system quicker and the absolute number of planning permissions has gone up—we are now at 242,000.

What they identified is the crisis in resourcing in planning departments. I acknowledge the comments of one of the Committee Members that this is a matter for local authorities to determine, but the reality is that the crisis in resourcing is impacting on speed in two areas. It is impacting on pre-application discussions, particularly where there is no agreement with an individual developer. They are also impacting on post-grant planning permission matters—the negotiation of section 106 conditions and so on—because there are simply not enough people, and not just in the planning department, because there are associated challenges in legal departments and the need for legal input into some of those issues.

The swiftest way to speed up the system would be for us collectively to ensure that there were sufficient resources in local government planning departments to work the system. What we have got at the moment is a system that requires a level of resourcing in local authorities that they have not got.

They are also having difficulty retaining and recruiting staff. That is something we are trying to address in terms of the overall supply of qualified planners. It is now one of the top five professions for getting a graduate job, so we are doing our bit at that end, but local authorities are having difficulty recruiting and retaining. That is partly because it is less attractive there. It is not just about salaries; it is about whether you pay your professional subscriptions, continuing professional development and all of that. The quickest way to improve the system is to get more resource into local planning authorities. Every one of my members, 50% of whom are in the private sector and are trying to get developments done, will tell you that that is the quickest way to speed up the system.

[The Chair]

Can I encourage everyone to be as brief as you can? We have 10 minutes left and quite a lot of questions still to go. Can we have brief questions and answers, please?

Mike Kiely: On the resourcing of planning departments, we have been here before. When we came out of the previous recession, we were not in the realms of severe cuts to local government. The planning sector was able to gear up with help from the Government, which had a bursary system to meet that challenge. It is a cyclical industry, and we regularly go through cycles and do not learn the lessons.

There are things that the Government can do to increase resources in planning. The development sector and the British Property Federation are lobbying you to increase fees or give us the ability to increase fees for development management work, and that needs to happen urgently. It varies a lot, but on average the fees cover only between two thirds and three quarters of our costs.

Outside London, some of the local planning authorities are quite small, and I question whether they are viable as local planning departments and whether they are able to do the development planning work. That area also needs to be looked at. Authorities combine, but only at the officer level. There is a limit to their efficiencies if they still have to manage 120 or 180 members because they are not combined at the political level. There are things that can be done to improve the effectiveness and resourcing of planning departments.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q 240 I have a brief follow-up question. The Government’s preferred development model seems to be urban development corporations. We are being asked to pass legislation that will enable them to come through the Houses on a negative instrument. Do you think that is a good model, and should we be doing more to make UDCs locally controlled?

Dr Hugh Ellis: The development corporation model can be successful, but it is interesting that UDCs, compared with new town development corporations, have much less opportunity for public involvement, particularly on the designation process. New town development corporations were designated only after a local public inquiry, which seems to us to be very important. The UDC model is designed for smaller scale regeneration.

The point we will go on making is that development corporations were the great legacy we gave to the world to deliver new places. They were the positive part of planning in the post-war settlement, and they were really effective. They are a great vehicle, if they are delivered in the right way and to the right standards, for boosting housing supply, but they need other things. You need a national spatial vision for England, and you need to be able to join demographics and housing infrastructure. One of the most extraordinary things about this nation is our complete inability to join major transport infrastructure with demographic change. There is no overview of England in that sense, which leads to much more unsustainable outcomes for people, the environment and, ironically, the economy.

It is a great shame that the most effective tools—this is about the tools in the toolbox—for delivering high-quality new places, particularly in relation to harnessing land tax effectively, were the new town development corporations, which were locally led. Buckinghamshire asked for the designation for Milton Keynes in the 1960s. It was not imposed on them—that was news to me and is fascinating. It was worried about piecemeal, badly serviced development all over the county, so it undertook a study and asked the Government at the time for the designation.

That is the choice that England faces. It either faces 340 small authorities attempting to do this in a fragmented way, or it seeks the support of proper, strategic approaches. It is not an imposition, but a recognition that the geography of England is really—

[The Chair]

I think we have got the general gist. Thank you very much.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order. Thank you very much, Dr Ellis. Sorry to interrupt you in mid-flow, but under the rules of the House we have to stop at precisely 10.15 am, when Big Ben chimes. I apologise for that. I thank all four of our witnesses for an extremely interesting and lively session, which I am sure has better informed the Committee. Thank you very much to the witnesses for coming, and for their evidence.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

On a point of order, Mr Gray. The witnesses are here to give us evidence. It is really important that we are allowed to hear that evidence from the witnesses, and that their evidence is not crowded out by members of the Committee shouting. I do not think that is a sensible way for us to continue.

[The Chair]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for that point of order. Certainly, if any member of the Committee were shouting, I would be the first to call them to order. I tend to agree with the hon. Lady, because quite frankly, once or twice during that evidence session I felt that we were tending to disagree with our witnesses. It does not matter if we disagree with them; we should not say so. I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point of order, and certainly, if there were to be any such disturbance I would be the first to come down very heavily indeed on it.

Examination of Witnesses

Shaun Spiers, Duncan Wilson and Duncan McCallum gave evidence.

[The Chair]

I welcome the next panel. We have half an hour to speak to the Campaign to Protect Rural England and to Historic England. Sadly, one of the CPRE witnesses was unable to make it, I think because of ill health. We wish him a speedy recovery. I am sure that Mr Spiers will do a doubly good job. First, I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record.

Shaun Spiers: I am Shaun Speirs, the chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. I am a generalist, and the person who is missing is the planner.

Duncan Wilson: I am Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England.

Duncan McCallum: I am Duncan McCallum, policy director at Historic England.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q 249 The CPRE has expressed concern that the starter home developments contained in the Bill will crowd out other forms of affordable housing. Clearly, the Minister has said that he thinks local authorities will be able to negotiate for other types of development as well. Will the members of the panel say whether or not they are convinced by that?

Shaun Spiers: No, we are not convinced. We think that it will crowd out other forms of development. The local authority will have a duty to provide starter homes. Local authorities find it hard enough to negotiate section 106 agreements, very often from a position of weakness in which they have to meet extremely high—really, implausibly high—housing numbers. If they have to negotiate starter homes as part of their agreement with developers, it is highly unlikely in many cases that they will also be able to negotiate any truly social or affordable housing.

Duncan Wilson: I am not sure that that question is particularly for us, but more generally, anything that increases pressure on local authority resources is going to make life more difficult for us in arguing the case for the historic environment.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q 250 The CPRE has also expressed concern about the affordability of starter homes. Do you want to say anything more about that? Do you think the discount should be in perpetuity? Also, do you think that it will deliver more homes for rural areas?

Shaun Spiers: Our concern is particularly about rural affordable housing. The deal between the National Housing Federation and the Government to sell off rural affordable homes, which are affordable in perpetuity, will make it extremely hard to replace those rural homes, because it costs more to build a social house in a village. There is less land available, and there are relatively few specialist advisers. So if you sell the social housing in villages—in four fifths of villages there is no opt-out at all, and in one fifth of villages there is an opt-out but not a full exemption, so some of the larger providers who have only a few rural homes will have an incentive to sell them—it will be extremely difficult to replace those homes. Replacing them with starter homes that can be sold on the open market within five years, and which in any case will cost an average of eight and half times median rural wages—that is median rural wages, not lowest quartile wages—is no substitute.

The question for the Government and the Committee is, are we content to see villages become the preserve only of people who can afford to buy a home, or do we hold by the idea we have all had of villages for centuries, that they are genuinely mixed communities?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Q 251 Mr Spiers, on that point, you have obviously read the voluntary agreement between the Secretary of State and the National Housing Federation. It details the fact that housing associations would have discretion not to sell, for example where a property was in a rural area and could not be replaced. Does that ease your concern?

Shaun Spiers: It does not ease it at all, I’m afraid, for two reasons. One is that it is a discretion. Some specialist rural providers, such as Hastoe Housing, which gave evidence to the Committee last week—the chief executive of Hastoe and I are meeting the Minister tomorrow to discuss this point—have said that they will not sell. Other, larger providers, who have a few really high-value properties that are harder for them to maintain, because most of their stock is in urban areas—they might have those properties because of transfers or takeovers over the years—will be quite likely to sell them.

The other thing is that in the agreement between the National Housing Federation and the Government, the definition of “rural” is extremely narrow. It excludes about four fifths of what we would regard as rural areas, and it is almost impossible to get a rural area designated as rural by the Secretary of State under the current agreement. So the Rural Coalition, a group which includes the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the Country Land and Business Association, has proposed a much more comprehensive and much clearer definition of “rural” to the Government, but unfortunately the Government have not so far adopted it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q 267 We come to the high point or the low point—I am not sure which—of our deliberations: the Minister will address us. It is the high point of our deliberations, no matter which party we come from.

I take this opportunity to welcome to the panel the Minister, Mr Brandon Lewis, who I know wants to make a few opening remarks. I remind the Committee that we are here not to disagree or, indeed, to agree with the Minister, but to enlighten ourselves about his views with regard to the Bill.

Brandon Lewis: Thank you, Chair. I am not quite sure I can live up to the introduction of being the high point, but I will be happy if Members decide to support and agree with me. I appreciate the chance to say a few words about what we have heard so far and the purpose of the Bill. I want my comments to match the main themes of what we have been talking about so far, so I will begin by looking at starter homes and housing supply and management.

We have heard a lot about the importance of affordable housing, which I have no doubt we will return to over the next few weeks. I want to clarify, from the outset, that affordable housing is a priority for the Government. That is why we have committed to build more new affordable homes than in any equivalent period in the past two decades. Hon. Members on Second Reading and those who have given evidence and spoken in Committee so far have underlined the need for affordable homes, including for social tenants, which we agree with, but as Ian Fletcher said last Tuesday, we cannot look at the Bill in isolation from wider Government policy on housing. We are already making social housing more affordable by cutting rents for housing association and local authority tenants. That is equivalent, by the way, to £12 off the average weekly social rent. Indeed, we have seen more council homes built in the past four years than in the previous 13 years.

It is now the turn of those who want affordable housing to buy. Starter homes are the next stage in our package of affordable housing support for everyone across tenures. I found it helpful therefore to hear Richard Blakeway confirm that the GLA welcomes the introduction of starter homes and the Government’s focus on promoting home ownership, with a real role for starter homes in London. We heard fears from those such as Councillor Philip Glanville, who said that starter homes would cost £420,000, but as the Committee has heard, the Council of Mortgage Lenders says that first-time buyers purchase properties costing an average of £280,000 to £290,000 in London, as well as across the country. There is also a 20% discount for starter homes. I hope that puts those concerns to rest once and for all.

I will give a couple of examples. In my constituency, you can buy a two to three-bedroom new build home for £145,000 to £160,000. In the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), you can buy a two-bedroom apartment for £125,000 or even £95,000, and a three-bedroom house for £150,000. When you then put a 20% discount on those homes, let alone linking them to the Help to Buy scheme that the Government have brought in, it really makes home ownership affordable for people again.

Tim Pinder and Mark Patchitt expressed their concerns about the amount of compensation the Government will give to housing associations. I want to assure the Committee and be very clear that we will provide full compensation for the discount and that housing associations will retain the sales receipt, enabling them to invest in the delivery of new homes. They also asked why such a commitment was not in legislation. We heard comments this morning from Shaun Spiers about things he would like to see in the legislation around the voluntary agreement for the right to buy. It is worth remembering the exact words of David Orr, who made it very clear that this is a “voluntary deal” and that the “core principles” will be the basis on which it operates. I will be very clear: we legislate only where we need to.

We have heard a lot from London over the past few sessions. Witnesses from the LGA and London local authorities gave strong evidence about the scale of the housing challenge in London. The LGA said that we need to build at least 230,000 homes in the capital. I was pleased to see a number of witnesses agree that the measures in the Bill will increase housing supply and, indeed, housing supply in London. Amendment 1 and new clause 1 propose a way of going further. I look forward to discussing those at the appropriate time over the next few weeks.

Whether we talk about one home extra being built for every one sold, or two built for every home sold, let us be clear: before the extension of right to buy, a relevant social property might not have gone to someone new for another 20 or 30 years, or even longer. Now, not only will that home help somebody into home ownership, but the sale will deliver at least one extra home within three years. It is a good deal for Londoners and for the rest of the country. We heard concerns about how it will be funded. Richard Blakeway believed the sale of high-value council houses would cover at least the cost of the discount and the cost of re-provision in London. We are doing complex thinking about how to best implement this and we are working and liaising with local authorities. As you have heard, I am still meeting various bodies.

On ensuring social rents better reflect income, we will flesh out various provisions in secondary legislation. Putting the detail in regulations allows the policies to be influenced by the debate in Committee. Further analysis and the views of local people will also be taken into account—those people will implement the policies on the ground—which is something Governments have practised for generations.

We welcome thoughts, as always, but, as we debate the clauses, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I will be clear that we owe it to housing associations, councils and those on the ground to resist any amendments that will limit our ability to adapt the detailed implementation of the policy. We need to do this based on the feedback that we get on various issues over the next few months. When we get to clauses that give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations, the Committee may wish to reflect on the flexibility of those and how adaptable they can be. Many of our witnesses, including this morning’s, have expressed support for the approach in that flexibility.

I want to touch briefly on our reforms to the private rented sector. We have heard from Campbell Robb and Jon Sparkes, for example, how important it is to have a secure home. I know many witnesses want us to go further to crack down on rogue landlords. David Smith, for example, wanted the most serious offenders to always go to court, and I know that many already do, but I am happy to look into how we can go further to get the worst representatives—those rogue landlords—driven out of the sector. The vast majority of landlords support those who rent their homes, and the Bill will help them go further to do so.

We all agree that the planning system needs to be streamlined in order to deliver more homes to rent and more homes to buy. We want developers to know where suitable brownfield land is, and we will make the planning process more predictable by allowing planning permission in principle to be given. We want those who wish to build their own home to know it will be easier to do so, and therefore boost the economic recovery of small builders, too. We are improving neighbourhood planning. Local plans have been around for more than a decade. Despite some of the reasons given in evidence so far, the time for excuses is over. If plans are not in place, I make no apologies for intervening and making sure that we work with communities to get them done, representing people in their communities.

Finally, as I said earlier, the Bill is part of our wider package to help people into home ownership and to deliver a full range of affordable housing across all tenures. I hope we will not have too many Divisions over the next few weeks. On clauses where we divide, I ask Members to consider this: everyone on this Committee wants more homes for people to buy or rent. We all want to make it easier and safer for people to live in their properties or to manage them effectively. Every clause in the Bill helps such things to happen, and every vote against helps to prevent or delay it. I am happy to take any questions the Committee may have and I look forward to debating the Bill with everybody in the next few weeks.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q 268 We have heard from a number of witnesses—perhaps not the ones mentioned by the Minister—who pointed out that starter homes, although welcome, are not an alternative to genuinely affordable housing. On what evidence base did the Government decide to prioritise the delivery of starter homes above all other types of affordable housing, and what do they mean for our meeting the delivery of affordable housing targets locally?

Brandon Lewis: They are part of the mix. The recession has meant that first-time buyers have been very hard hit. I am proud of the fact that we now have roughly double the number of first-time buyers that we inherited back in 2010. That is good news, but we want to go further and do more to help first-time buyers get the chance to own a home of their own. Help to Buy was a part of that and has played a huge part in the more than 200,000 helped since 2010 by Government-supported schemes.

Help to Buy has meant that people can get a home with a 5% deposit, but does not deal with whether homes are affordable to purchase. We are making it clear that an affordable home is not simply a home to rent; many people—86% of our population—want to own their own home. One of the things that I find most disappointing is people arguing against that. With great respect, Shaun Spiers—whom I like and meet with regularly—spent a long time making a case for why people in villages should not have a chance to own their own home. I absolutely refute that. I want to do everything possible to ensure that people who aspire to that chance to own their own home get the opportunity to do so, whether through the extension of the right to buy or through creating starter homes.

Starter homes will give people the chance to buy a new home of their own at a 20% discount on the market value. New two-bedroom homes, including white goods, are being built in parts of the country for £129,000. A two-bedroom home can be under £150,000 in my constituency and, as I said, in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Marcus Jones), under £100,000. With a 20% discount and perhaps a link to Help to Buy, buying a home is affordable again. That is an important thing to be doing.

Furthermore, that is only part of the mix, which is one of the points that I have made in response to questions and before the Communities and Local Government Committee only last week. No one is saying that the Bill in and of itself deals with the entire housing market. The Bill does part of the job and the Government are doing a lot of other things. The housing market includes people with shared ownership, the affordable rental sector and social renting, market-priced housing, and private rented sector housing, as well as the retirement housing that is coming forward—there is a whole range of tenures. Starter homes are only part of the mix.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q 269 We all accept that starter homes are part of the mix, but what will the Bill do to ensure that the whole mix is delivered? From witness after witness, we have heard that the prioritisation of starter homes will crowd out other sorts of affordable housing, which are needed as well. On what evidence base did the Government come up with the plan to prioritise starter homes over everything else?

Brandon Lewis: I am sure that we will debate such matters over the first few sittings in the next week or so, but I draw attention to my opening remarks in answering your question. When first-time buyers are the hardest-hit part of the housing sector, it is entirely appropriate for us to do what we can to help them. I am slightly surprised at your comment, which I would reverse: why for so many years has no one been making the case for people who want to own their own home being crowded out of the affordable housing market by other forms of affordable housing? For the first time we are able to introduce a product that will create new homes for people who want the chance to be able to afford to buy their own home, alongside affordable rent as part of the mix. To say that something that does not exist yet is crowding anything else out seems anomalous.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q 270 However, do you accept that it is quite unusual to come up with a policy where witness after witness says that we all think it is good to support starter homes, but not at the expense of other types of housing, which are very much needed as well?

Brandon Lewis: You have also had people making the point that this is not necessarily at the expense of other things and is part of the mix. For example, Dr Ellis from the TCPA made your point today as well, but, with the greatest of respect, this is also someone who tried to make the case that the regional spatial strategies worked, despite the delivery of the lowest level of housing starts since 1923; argued that the Bill brings back segregation; and at other times argued that Hull is about to disappear as an area. I therefore do not give that a lot of credibility. A lot of other people have made the case for starter homes being a good thing, not least the tens of thousands of people who have registered to buy one. We will do all we can to deliver for them.

[The Chair]

I now have eight Members who have caught my eye for the 25 minutes left to us. With mutual respect and by keeping things as short as possible, we can get everyone in.