Roberta Blackman-Woods
Main Page: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)Housing and Planning Bill
Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts
Mr Streeter
I do not agree because it is important that these schemes are given the kind of Government backing that the amendment would ensure. Developers will not need to negotiate and explain their case to every individual planning authority, because they will know that they have the backing of someone as significant as the Housing Minister. If that wording is included in the Bill it will give those schemes a flying start and help us to meet the Government’s challenging targets.
In conclusion, I believe that this amendment is a win-win, and I hope the Minister will think seriously about adding it to the Bill. If that cannot be done on Report, I hope that serious thought will be given to including it in another place. I do not see a downside to this; I see only more young people meeting their aspirations to own their own home in our country in years to come.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendments 31 to 35, 37 to 39, 40 to 45 and 46, although given the time available, it is most unlikely that I will get to speak to them all. I start by welcoming new clauses 1 and 2. They seem to be sensible measures and I hope the Minister will take them on board.
Amendment 31 would
“change the purpose of the Bill to one that would enable the supply of more housing across all tenures rather than just starter homes.”
As we argued continually and strongly in Committee, the Bill is a huge waste of an opportunity to get the housing that we so desperately need across all tenures to solve our housing crisis. The Government have so far dismissed evidence from charities such as Shelter, which has said that these measures are unwise, but perhaps they will take note of The Economist, which argued that this policy would have “unhappy distributional consequences”, and fewer homes to rent for low-income families—the same families who cannot afford the deposit on so-called starter homes. As a result,
“poor households may find it even harder to find a place in Britain’s affordable housing market.”
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that the starter home discount, combined with Help to Buy, which requires only a 5% deposit, makes starter homes extremely affordable to almost everybody?
Dr Blackman-Woods
As the hon. Gentleman will know because he sat through the Committee stage, evidence from Shelter suggests that starter homes will be unaffordable to people on low incomes in 98% of the country, and unaffordable to those on middle incomes in 58% of the country. For that reason we think that local authorities should have more flexibility to deliver other forms of affordable housing alongside starter homes.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
On affordability, does my hon. Friend agree that in places such as London where starter homes will be priced at £450,000 if the market value before discount is £560,000—[Hon. Members: “Up to £450,000!] In central London it is inconceivable that many, if any, of those properties will cost under £450,000. Someone would need a household income higher than that of a Member of Parliament to afford one.
Dr Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point that we reiterated again and again in Committee, but alas the Minister took no notice.
These concerns are spread across all parties and are reflected in the amendments tabled by the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). We broadly support those amendments, as they very much back up the arguments we made in Committee.
In Committee, we attempted to point out very clearly to the Government that we need to build houses across all tenures if we are to address the housing crisis. The largest number of houses we built recently was the 214,000 houses built in 2006-07, but that compared unfavourably with 1969 when 357,000 houses were built. What that demonstrates is that if we are to get something like the 250,000 homes we need, about half of them should be delivered by the public sector. However, there are simply no measures in the Bill to produce those much needed public sector homes. That is why we have tabled amendment 31 on Report.
Amendment 32 seeks to ensure that additional housing is supported with adequate infrastructure. This is a really important amendment.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Before my hon. Friend moves on to the substance of her remarks on amendment 32, she will remember that on amendment 31 one of the few chinks of light in Ministers’ otherwise disappointing responses to our amendments was on housing co-operatives. Does she not think that tonight, in the Minister’s wind-up to this group of amendments, there might be an opportunity for him to update us on the progress he has made on offering local authorities useful guidance on how more mutual co-operative housing stock can be built?
Dr Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, one I hope that the Minister listens to and responds to this evening.
Dr Blackman-Woods
The hon. Gentleman is being uncharacteristically unfair. Many Labour Members argued strongly for more co-operative housing. In fact, I am sure the hon. Gentleman is very well aware that we had a whole section on the Lyons review that addressed this very topic. I think we are doing our bit.
Amendment 32 is really important. Indeed, the Minister himself acknowledged on a number of occasions that not only do we need homes as places to live in, but that they need to be built in communities that people want to live in. New homes have to be supported with the right infrastructure so that those who rent or purchase them have access to good quality healthcare, schools, further and higher education, transport links, employment and so on. It would be very useful to hear from the Minister this evening what he intends to do to address the concerns raised by a number of local authorities, including Milton Keynes, which pointed out that, because of the lack of community infrastructure levy applied to starter homes, there is a very real risk there will not be enough money available to support the infrastructure that is needed.
Amendment 33 would ensure that starter homes are affordable at locally determined rates of income and on a multiple of median incomes within the local area, rather than set centrally, which puts the homes out of the reach of many people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said. Homes that are priced at £250,000 outside London or £450,000 in London are simply unaffordable for too many people.
Amendment 34 seeks to exclude buy to let property from the definition of a starter home. In Committee, we thought this was a really, really important issue to address. We assumed the Government’s intention is for these to be starter homes for people and not starter homes for landlords. In Committee, we did not get the assurances we sought from the Minister. This is a straightforward amendment, and we would like to hear how he intends to give us the reassurances he indicated in Committee he would. At the moment, nothing has come forward.
Mr Prisk
What estimate has the hon. Lady made of the loss in the number of homes built? If the price is capped and the discount extended into perpetuity, it will almost certainly increase the unit cost, which will mean fewer homes. How many fewer homes would she be happy to see built?
Dr Blackman-Woods
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s logic. The new starter homes would be coming up for resale, as well as the additional starter homes still being built, so I am not quite sure of his logic.
Amendment 40 would ensure that local authorities can ask for planning gain measures providing for a range of affordable homes, rather than just starter homes.
Amendment 41 suggests that the Government should really ask local authorities to provide a full assessment of housing need in the area and then deliver the number of homes that meet that housing need, rather than prioritising starter homes above all other types of affordable housing. It does not seem to us that the Government are proposing a sensible measure here, and again we need to hear from the Minister why he is moving away from the NPPS requirement to ensure a full assessment of housing need locally and subsequently that local authorities plan to meet it rather than go off at a particular tangent.
Amendment 42 is designed to secure an exemption from the requirement “to promote starter homes” where a site has a scheme that is either a “build to rent” scheme or one that contains some other sort of
“supported housing for younger people, older people, people with special needs and people with disabilities”,
for example—or otherwise one that contains a “homeless hostel”, “refuge accommodation” or “specialist housing”. This is another very important amendment because we feel these sites could be exempted from the requirement to promote starter homes on the grounds that they already delivering a scheme that brings about enormous community benefits.
Amendment 43 asks for information about starter homes to be displayed on a local authority’s website and updated annually. It should also be put in the context of all other types of housing being built in an area. To provide an example, there might be 640 starter homes produced in an area, but how many affordable homes that are social homes for rent might actually have been built? We think that people need a full range of information about the type of housing and the applicable tenure in order to make sense of starter home information.
Amendment 44 is designed to ensure that the land set aside for starter homes
“is not needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use.”
It is important for ensuring that starter homes do not crowd out other forms of development.
Amendment 45 would remove clause 6 from the Bill, as we think it is an imposition on local authorities, which takes away important community rights to have a say about what is happening in an area, while amendment 46 would ensure that in moving to promote self-build, the cost of servicing plots is not unreasonable for local authorities.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Jackson
It was longer than one of Britney Spears’s marriages—that is what I wanted to say, Mr Deputy Speaker.
What was depressing about our Committee sittings was the conservative nature of the debate and the stasis of what we got from the Labour party, which did not move on. If there is a housing crisis, we need to find radical ways forward to deal with it. It is not as if we are leaving it simply to the private sector. This week’s announcement of the building of 13,000 units on public sector land provides an example of where we are using the might of Government to work with the private sector to deliver. To appreciate that, one needs to look only at Help to Buy, Help to Buy ISAs and other Government initiatives to help small and medium-sized builders, for instance.
The fact is that we have a mandate for starter homes. The hon. Member for City of Durham asked what changed between March and May. With all due respect, let me tell her that we won the general election and her party lost it. We have a mandate to deliver starter homes, and the hon. Lady does not do justice to the wider issues in housing, planning and development. She fails to take into account some pertinent issues. When in power, her Government failed to deliver infrastructure planning properly. We had housing information packs and we had eco-cities. All those things failed. We had density targets. We had regional spatial strategies, which were a disaster and did not deliver homes. Under that Government, the smallest number of homes were built since 1923, there was the largest increase in young people in temporary accommodation and housing waiting lists increased massively.
Dr Blackman-Woods
The hon. Gentleman needs to accept that we built 2 million more homes.
Mr Jackson
It says something about their priorities that, in five years, the previous Government built more local authority houses than the hon. Lady’s Government did in 13 years, with a much more benign financial regime. She fails to take into account how difficult brownfield remediation is and that about a third of local planning authorities do not have a local plan in place, despite the Government’s encouragement—the local plans have not gone through the inspection process. It is not either/or. Starter homes are a radical boost to ensure that more young people in work who need homes and are languishing in band 4 and band 5 council housing and housing association lists get the opportunity.
If a local authority has produced a decent plan—a structure plan or a deposited local plan—it will, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), be in a position to effectively put in place intermediate housing and social rent provision working with registered providers. We are not in the business of squeezing that out. It is up to local authorities to do that.
The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) was right. We are not here to discuss the London housing Bill. This is about the whole of the country. In fact, this is a historic Bill because I think it is the first Bill that is subject to EVEL, so we did not have the dulcet tones of our Caledonian friends helping us on the Committee or on Second Reading.
The starter homes policy is about delivering homes to people who need them. If the hon. Member for City of Durham remembers, when the expert witnesses were challenged in Committee, they could not produce the figures, either on the day or afterwards, that showed definitively, beyond any reasonable doubt, that, from the Bristol channel to the Wash, in Chorley—Mr Deputy Speaker’s seat—in Leyland, in most parts of Lancashire, in Yorkshire and Humberside and in the east and west midlands, for most people on an average income—I accept that there is a difference with the national minimum wage and that the city of Durham is perhaps a different example—the homes would be affordable. Conservative Members on the Committee were not indulging, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said, in some ideological pursuit. We were looking at the evidence brought before us. The evidence did not demonstrate, with all due respect, the hon. Lady’s position.
This is a radical Bill. I was disappointed by the lack of coherent, cogent alternatives from Her Majesty’s Opposition. May I end on a slightly cheeky note? I listened with interest to the hon. Lady’s plaintive cry that she was badly treated by the programme motion. My understanding is that the usual channels came to an agreement but, because of the incompetence of Her Majesty’s Opposition, they truncated or elongated various new clauses because they had forgotten to table the appropriate amendments. That is why they had to pad it out—which I am obviously not doing.
This is an excellent, radical Bill. It will deliver. It will complement other forms of tenure. We won the election. We have a mandate. I look forward to many more starter homes in my constituency and others throughout the country to give young people in particular the start in life that they deserve in the property-owning democracy that we should be building.
Mr Betts
That is true. I am pleased that the Government seem to want to increase the fine levels. I hope that eventually the banning orders will kick in, and a number of civil penalties will be imposed over a period. That is the intention of one of the amendments, and it, too, is welcome. I think that banning orders will have an impact if they are properly effective, along with other measures in the Bill that will help to deal with rogue landlords.
Before I say a few words about the ombudsman, I want to say something about new clause 5, which we heard about from the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson). I think that it is an excellent measure, and the Government ought to think seriously about it. It is very simple, and would be very light on public sector resources. Indeed, it would probably save public money, because it would not be necessary to chase around finding out who owned properties when there was a problem with them. The information would be readily available, at little cost to the public purse. Local authorities would be able to do their jobs more effectively, as they would spend less time trying to find out who was the owner or the letting agent. Tenants often do not have that information, but by the time a problem occurs, authorities want to have it to hand so that they can take immediate action against those who are responsible.
The hon. Lady also put her finger on a very important point. In the case of the licensing scheme in Sheffield, I suddenly realised why landlords were so opposed to it. There was, of course, the possibility that local authorities would carry out more inspections of their properties, find faults and take action, but what most disturbed them, in my view, was that HMRC would know that a property was tenanted and rent was being paid to someone, and one or two further inquiries might follow. I think that is absolutely right: that should be done—the taxpayer ought to be paid their tax on rent that is collected. Very often in these properties there are not proper tenancy agreements, the rent is simply paid cash in hand and the taxpayer receives none of it. Having that information in the public domain that can be used for any proper purpose—I hope that would include being able to pass it on to the tax authorities—has another benefit to the public purse. That is a very sensible and simple measure, and I hope the Government will be prepared to support it.
Finally, I hope the Government will give further thought to the housing ombudsman covering the private rented sector. I know there may be the view that this is a private sector and therefore a public sector ombudsman should not be looking at these matters, but let us draw a comparison. The coalition Government extended the remit of the local authority ombudsman to cover social care homes even when the person in those homes was paying for themselves, so there was no direct public sector involvement. That remit was extended to social care homes because it was thought that it was somehow wrong that some people could not take an element of social care provision to the ombudsman for a decision while other people in the same care home could.
For example, if a local authority discharges its homelessness duty by allocating or placing someone in a private sector property and it all goes wrong, the local authority element of that, where it makes the placement, would presumably be under the jurisdiction of the local authority ombudsman. However, if it is the private landlord who does not deal with that tenancy properly, there would be no remit for the tenant to go to any ombudsman at all. Once the local authority discharges its duty and makes provision to have someone housed in the private sector, at some point in the transfer from someone being homeless to them receiving a private tenancy, there would be a switch from an individual having recourse to go to an ombudsman and their not having recourse to do so. There could be great dispute about whether the action of allocating someone a house in the private sector as part of a local authority’s homelessness responsibility was covered by an ombudsman or not. I therefore hope that the Government will reflect on the fact that this may be one of the gaps in the provision of the ombudsman’s service. I know that they are looking overall at reconfiguration of the service, and they might give some thought to this extension as a sensible way of covering one of the gaps.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I wish to make some comments about the Government new clauses on deregulation of housing associations and ask the Minister some questions.
In Committee we raised several probing amendments relating to clause 78, which covered reducing regulation but did not specify what measures the Government would be taking to deregulate the social housing sector. Of course, we understand that the Government are now seeking, under amendment 4, to leave out clause 78 and replace it with new clause 6 and new schedule 1. As the Minister said in Committee in response to probing amendments:
“I intend to introduce a package of measures on Report. The ONS announced the reclassification decision on 30 October, which has not yet given us the time to carefully work through a package in time for the Committee.”––[Official Report, Housing and Planning Public Bill Committee, 1 December 2015; c. 465.]
This is our first opportunity to see these new measures.
We welcome replacing the general with the specific. Removing clause 78 and replacing it with new clause 6 and new schedule 1 is primary legislation. Clause 78 gave Ministers a sweeping open power to repeal regulations affecting housing associations. At least new clause 6 and new schedule 1 have the merit of being precise—but they are very long. In total, the new clauses and schedules in this group amount to 34 pages of new legislation—almost a quarter as long as the Bill itself. They were tabled close to the deadline for debate on Report, and over the Christmas recess, so there is no way that this House, or the organisations and experts that have a direct interest in these provisions, can properly scrutinise or challenge the Government on the content of this newly introduced legislation. We can see that the new clauses and new schedule contain several elements that address some of the issues raised by the ONS as part of the reclassification of housing associations. They will address the issues through the removal of the Government’s consent power over how housing associations hold their assets.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I shall speak to new clauses 40 and 41, which stand in my name and those of some of my hon. Friends. To some extent, the proposals follow on from the ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced last January and are designed to bring a greater element of fairness to the planning system, while giving our local communities a greater say in their future. It could indeed be described as localism in action. Many of the proposals are in line with those advocated a few minutes ago by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert).
Our constituents often and in very large numbers oppose planning applications that they feel would change the character of their village or the part of town in which they live and to which they feel very attached. Campaigns build up and residents groups are formed, but at the conclusion many people rightly feel aggrieved—they know that the decision would not have gone against them had they been the applicant, who of course has the right of appeal. For the objectors, it is the end of the line. How can it be fair for only one party to have the right of appeal?
This feeling is particularly evident when the local planning authority has no adopted local plans in place. In reality, this means that the democratic process has let people down. The local council might well have turned down an application, but without a local plan in place, it would then find it almost impossible to defend the decision in front of a planning inspector, particularly when the applicant appeared with lawyers, expert witnesses and all the resources needed to ensure a successful outcome.
I do not suggest that every planning application that has attracted objections should automatically have the right of appeal. It is possible to argue that case, but in reality an application to extend a home by building a conservatory, for example, might irritate a neighbour, but it will not change the whole character of an area. If, however, the development of a new housing estate is approved, that could change a semi-rural, edge-of-town parish into an extension of the town itself. Strategic gaps between town and country are vitally important.
In my ten-minute rule Bill, I suggested that a hard-copy petition from local residents should be able to trigger an appeal to the planning inspector. What should the threshold be? I suggested 10% at that time, but I am not hung up on the mechanics; I would like to hear the Government concede to the principle.
Something must be done to protect residents when they have been let down by their local authority. Such a situation exists in the part of my constituency where North East Lincolnshire Council is the planning authority. Residents have suffered for many years because there is no up-to-date local plan and it will be at least another year before such a plan exists. That is unacceptable and leaves villages such as Humberston, New Waltham, Waltham, Laceby and Habrough open to a stream of applications. Some of those applications might be speculative, but they cause endless discontent among local people.
It is not necessarily the quality of the proposals that is in question, but the fact that local services and infrastructure are inadequate—school places, GP services and so on. There is a point at which the whole character of an area can be changed and strategic gaps between town and country may disappear. It is only right that local residents should have an opportunity to appeal.
If the Government reject a wider right for objectors to go to appeal, the very least they could do is allow parish councils the opportunity to lodge an objection with the inspectorate for significant-sized developments. Too often their opinions are squeezed out. I do not seek to stop development. We all appreciate that we need new homes, but we need them in locations that carry the full blessing of local people.
Of course there must be a balance. The system must not stifle development or become a tool to promote nimbyism. My new clauses are designed not to prevent building, but merely to allow development in locations that carry a broad measure of public support. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, it is a matter of fairness. Of course the appeal may be lost, but both sides will have had the same opportunities to argue their case.
The new clauses are an opportunity to extend the claim that we are the real party of localism. We must do more to involve local people in shaping their communities—indeed, some local people know better than the planners. We need only consider some of the properties built in high-risk flood areas: had more notice been taken of those who serve on internal drainage boards or as flood wardens, or members of the farming community, and had they had a second opportunity to contribute, we might have had better decision making.
The Government have done and are doing a great deal to help. They are ensuring that in future local plans are delivered in a more timely way and they offer support for producing neighbourhood plans, but that only goes so far. Parish councils and neighbourhood groups find that their resources are limited. It is not just financial support that can help them produce such plans—they need the expertise of an experienced official. What I want to hear from the Minister when he sums up—always assuming that he is not going to congratulate me on a far-sighted, well-crafted new clause that the Government feel obliged to accept—is that through existing structures, within the context of the Bill and with appropriate guidance to planning authorities and inspectors, the same result can be achieved.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am going to speak in support of a number of new clauses and amendments and speak briefly to the Government’s new clauses.
New clause 50 would incorporate minimum space standards in building regulations for new dwellings in England. It seeks to ensure that new homes are of a high standard and are built with the realities of day-to-day life in mind.
In October 2015, the Government introduced a new housing standard called the national described space standard. That was supposed to improve the quality of new-build housing by ensuring that it was built to an adequate size. Unfortunately, it is voluntary and too complicated for most authorities to introduce.
Royal Institute of British Architects research shows that more than half of new homes being built today are not big enough to meet the needs of the people who buy them. The squeeze on the size of our houses is depriving thousands of families of the space needed for them to live comfortably. Moreover, establishing the standard within building regulations could minimise the bureaucracy at a local level and mean that councils had a ready-made measure that they could adopt. It is a straightforward proposal and I hope that even at this late hour the Minister will tell us that he is going to adopt it.
New clause 51 would allow local authorities to develop a planning fees schedule that would enable the full costs of processing planning applications to be recovered. Since 2010, local authorities’ spending on planning has almost halved, falling from £2.2 billion then to £1.2 billion this year. That decline is second only to the decline in spending on cultural services. We heard from the Royal Town Planning Institute, which gave oral evidence to the Select Committee, that it believed that councils should be allowed to recoup the full costs of providing planning services. The point has rightly been made that good, well-run planning departments contribute to economic growth and development, and that they should be supported in that role.
The issue of overstretched local authorities was raised several times on Second Reading and in Committee. Local planning departments are experiencing reduced resources and greater pressure, as well as increasing insecurity, because people do not know when the next round of Government cuts will cause them to lose their jobs. The only way in which to address that is to ensure that planning departments have the resources that will enable them to work effectively.
I am pleased to note that what we said during all that time in Committee did not fall on completely deaf ears. Ministers appear to agree with us, in theory, that planning needs additional resources. However, new clause 45 is such a poor execution of that notion that it might as well not be there. We must ask why the Government have acknowledged the need for the full recovery of planning fee costs, but will allow that to happen only when the service is contracted out. Why have they not considered allowing local planning departments to do the same? What can they possibly mean by increased devolution if they do not even trust local planning authorities to set their own fees? I hope that the Minister will do something about that tonight.
New clause 57 would empower local planning authorities to impose a planning obligation when giving permission for the construction of new housing for sale by requiring a proportion of the housing to be marketed exclusively to local first-time buyers.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will know how fed up Londoners are with the current record low level of home building and what a con the Government’s £450,000 starter homes are, but is she aware of the scale of the problem caused by developers selling homes in London to investors in Asia and the middle east before they have been completed and made available for purchase by Londoners? Will the new clause go some way towards ending that scandal?
Dr Blackman-Woods
My right hon. Friend has made an excellent point. We are, of course, entirely aware of that issue, which affects those in London and elsewhere. New clause 57 would enable a proportion of new homes to be held back exclusively for Londoners, or local people elsewhere, who wanted to buy their first homes. Anyone who supports the ability of Londoners to buy their own homes must surely support the new clause. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will want to ask the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) whether he will support it, given that it seeks to ensure that a number of new properties in London and elsewhere go to local first-time buyers. We know that this is a particular issue in London, because so many of the new properties are sold off plan to overseas investors before local people have a chance to enter the housing market.
Sadiq Khan
May I just make clear that I have nothing against foreigners? Some of my best friends and the families whom I know are foreigners. However, this is about fairness, and about giving first dibs to Londoners.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Absolutely, and that is what new clause 57 seeks to do, for Londoners and for a percentage of local people in all areas of the country where there is acute housing pressure. We want to ensure that some new housing is reserved, at least for a period, so that local people have a chance to get on to the housing ladder.
Amendment 100 would ensure permission in principle is limited to housing on brownfield land in England. We know that the Government’s productivity plan indicated that the proposals for permission in principle would relate specifically to brownfield land, but the Bill itself places no such limitations upon it.