Planning: Retrospective Applications
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I do not need reminding; I shall never forget the first day of the Housing and Planning Bill. It has not become a recurring nightmare yet, but I certainly heard the feeling of the House loud and clear. I totally concur with my noble friend’s point that regulations should be in draft and ready on time for proper consideration by this House.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, at a time when local authority budgets are stretched and planning departments are often underfunded, does the Minister agree that it is time for the setting of planning fees to be delegated to local authorities, alongside the ability to impose heavy fines with enforcement action for those who knowingly flout planning regulations?
Assets of Community Value
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I will certainly undertake to meet the noble Lord—I have seen a lot of him over the last few months—and conversations like that will inform the development of the policy.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that such assets have often been the only public house in an area? Often, local communities have plans to continue that use and expand to include accommodating a shop, post office or community library, but their plans are thwarted by the breweries giving insufficient time for them to raise the necessary cash. What plans do the Government have in place to support such communities in their ventures?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Baroness is absolutely right: things such as pubs, shops and post offices are the hub of community life, particularly in rural areas. One thing that is being considered is the length of the moratorium for sale. I am sure that some of the feedback we will get will inform our thinking on this.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for their amendments, both of which relate to agreements with local authorities in respect of the delivery of new homes. The powerful points that have been made in your Lordships’ House today show just how important this issue is.
I turn first to Amendment 6 from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I am grateful to him for working with me over the past few days on the issue of additional homes. I hope that he will agree that in our discussions we were clear that the agreement process was the best way to ensure that new housing is built using these receipts, giving local authorities the ability to build additional homes to suit their local communities—I press that point quite firmly. As I said earlier and on Report, we intend to give authorities with particular housing needs in their area the opportunity to reach bespoke agreements about the delivery of different types of new homes. Responding to the diverse housing needs in this country is at the heart of the Government’s drive for localism. The Government’s aim is to support this through agreements, taking into account other normal considerations of funding such as value for money and delivery plans.
Amendment 6 focuses on social housing. This regresses to the discussion that we have been having on developing the agreement process to acknowledge the potential desire for many different types of housing that would best meet local housing need, and it is not in line with the commitments that I made in Committee and on Report.
Amendment 3 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, would require new housing delivered under these agreements to be within the same local plan area. I understand the concern that the noble Baroness is seeking to address—that new homes should be reasonably local to those that were sold. However, in my view the best way to address this is for local authorities to decide where the new homes should be delivered, as part of the agreement process. This could be within the local authority’s boundaries or it could involve working with a neighbouring authority to deliver homes across boundaries, as my noble friend Lord Lansley says. This enables a local approach to decide where the new homes should be. This co-operation may be important particularly in places where there is less available land, and flexibility is needed for local authorities and partners to deliver the new homes that they need. Through our engagement, local authorities have been very clear that they are looking for this flexibility, and it is important that we do not put an additional barrier in the way.
Rather than restrict flexibility at the local level, the Government want to allow local authorities the opportunity to work with neighbouring authorities to build new homes, as they already do on a number of developments. Many local authorities already own housing outside their own boundaries, and many are working together across areas such as mine in Greater Manchester—where 10 local authorities are working together—or Oxford or Cambridge, as my noble friend Lord Lansley says. As my noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham said in Committee, the location of new housing should not be imposed in the Bill. The amendment would be unnecessarily restrictive because it predetermines the type and tenure of the housing, as my noble friend Lord Lansley says, and it removes the ability of local authorities to work together to find the most appropriate solution for their area.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, raised the issue of receipts from the sale of high-value assets, and she quoted from our proceedings on Report; I think that she was speaking about the high-income social tenants policy. On Report, I recall making it clear that receipts from the sale of higher-value vacant houses will be used only to fund voluntary right to buy and the provision of new homes. Where a local authority enters into an agreement with the Secretary of State to retain a portion of the receipts to build new homes, where the authority does not enter into an agreement, those receipts will be returned to the Government and will be used to build new homes. I hope that clarifies things for noble Lords this afternoon.
We need to build new homes in this country, and these amendments would limit the ability of the Government to ensure that they are delivered. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord will not press their amendments.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response and thank other noble Lords who took part in this debate. I am aware that local plan areas are not necessarily as neat and tidy in other areas of the country as they appear to be in my area. I have also been influenced by my noble friend Lord Shipley, who tells me that in Newcastle the division between two local plan areas runs down the middle of one street. I can imagine that this causes a great deal of hassle and complication for those involved. I am committed to local authorities having flexibility on all housing matters and I am reassured by the Minister’s comments. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 3.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord raises a reasonable point, and it is clear across a number of policy areas that it is not always possible to be absolutely accurate on either anticipated income or income in retrospect—but I will write to the noble Lord to clarify exactly what the framework for the policy will look like.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I am sorry, but I want to raise a point of clarification. I had understood that the pay-to-stay provision was intended to move tenants on social rents towards a market rent, but I thought I heard the Minister say that the Government are moving them towards paying a third of their income in rent. Will she clarify that please?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
What I said was not in order to move them to paying a third of their income in rent; it was quite something else. I can repeat what I said: the households I described are in the top 40% of household income and, at a 20% taper level, most high-earning social tenants will be paying no more than 20% of their income in rent—much less than the average household in the PRS, and lower than the 33% of income often used by housing providers as a rule of thumb for what is considered affordable. I was making the point that we were not doing that.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
In the spirit of the discussion that we are having, I am very happy to seek clarification on the issue raised by the noble Lord. In fact, we will be working through many issues for Third Reading. I am sure that noble Lords will tell me if I have got it wrong—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, will.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing forward the amendment that we have all been asking for—that there should be one new affordable home for each one that is sold, and that that will be in the Bill—and for responding to the debate in Committee and on Report. I urge her to let us see the detail of it before we get to Third Reading, which I understand will be a fortnight today. I am really pleased that local authorities will be able to make the case for the type of housing that is needed in their area. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Affordable Housing
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am not sure what the question was, but I think it was around affordability in different parts of the country. The noble Lord is not wrong at all: you could fit my flat in London into my front room up in Manchester. That is the whole point: the Government are absolutely determined to build more homes of different types of tenure for people.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister tell the House how many people are in need of affordable homes—or products, as she is now branding them—and whether these are for rent or to buy?
Fire and Rescue Service: Thomas Review
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Thomas review into conditions of service for operational staff in the fire and rescue service in England will be published; and whether they will provide an update on the progress of that report.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are looking at the detail of the review’s findings and will publish it in due course in the light of the proposed governance changes for the fire and rescue services resulting from our consultation, Enabling Closer Working Between the Emergency Services.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. I hope that the transfer of fire and rescue services to the Home Office may bring about some urgency in the publication of this important document and that the new Minister will set out a timetable for publication of the review before the anniversary of the original deadline for the submission of the report to government, which was in February 2015. The delay in publication is causing unnecessary problems in forward planning. Will the Minister agree to meet me and the chairman of the LGA’s fire services management committee as soon as possible to discuss this important matter?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am certainly very happy to meet the noble Baroness, but she may like to meet my noble friend Lord Bates—or perhaps she can meet both of us.
Housing: Office Conversions
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord raises a very interesting question, and he will not be surprised to learn that I do not have an exact answer to it. I thought he meant garages attached to homes, as there is evidence that they have been used as dwelling space. However, I will get him that figure if it exists.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister say whether the Government are prepared to review the waiver on Section 106 contributions for office conversions for much-needed sports, arts and public realm contributions, and whether she feels that the absence of a requirement to provide car parking spaces is wise given the huge reduction in bus services in some areas of the country?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I can give the noble Baroness an answer on that in due course, if she does not mind.
Allotments
Debate between Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right, and I understand that consents have been granted. I will provide him with the exact figure, however.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, given the rise in obesity and the need to encourage people to take more exercise and eat a healthy diet, does my noble friend agree that encouraging local planning authorities to allow fewer houses per hectare with proper gardens might reduce the need for allotments?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. Going back to the second question that I answered about neighbourhood plans, the way that local communities work with local authorities will be crucial in moving this forward.