Future Homes Commission Report

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Maddock]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for initiating this important debate. I do not know if she is aware of it but today the leader in the Times led on the need for more housebuilding and highlighted some of the issues which she has already highlighted tonight and we will discuss further this evening.

We on the Lib Dem Benches find that there is much to support in the report to the Future Homes Commission. As Lib Dems our party policy is developed by our party members and is vigorously discussed before being voted on at our party conferences. Last September we passed a policy paper called Decent Homes for All. In it we set out plans to get to building 300,000 homes a year. The Future Homes Commission report also calls for this.

Perhaps I may highlight a couple of things that we have done in coalition Government. The Government have allocated £500 million to the Growing Places Fund, which is aimed at kick-starting stalled housing projects. The Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act earmarks £10 billion of Treasury investment to go towards helping what we call “shovel-ready” housing projects to get started. I am pleased to say that in the recent issue of Inside Housing, which I get every week, figures showed that,

“the decline in new house building has stabilised after more than a year of steady falls”.

That is some good news on this front.

The commission report suggests that more land be made available, and makes a convincing case for suggesting that this is achievable without damaging communities, as is often feared. I think that the noble Baroness referred to that. In our Liberal Democrat policy paper we also identified the need to increase the supply of land and we suggested a pilot of community land auctions where local authorities could designate an area for auction. In addition we proposed a stronger consideration of “use it or lose it” in planning policy. At the moment people can just start on a site and it is assumed that development is going to go ahead and that they have continuous permission. I understand that the Government have looked at this and that trying to draw up a workable policy is proving rather difficult.

There are other areas where the commission report, our party policy and government policy coincide, including one of the areas to which the noble Baroness referred—the use of pension funds. The policies do not all look specifically at local authority pension funds, but in the 2012 Budget the coalition Government, of whom we are part, announced plans to establish a new pension infrastructure platform owned and run by the UK pension funds. This was to help invest an initial £2 billion in UK infrastructure, which may include housing, by early 2013. I understand that seven funds are already signed up and expect to deliver this initial £2 billion in January. The Government are also working with other private-sector pension funds to encourage them to invest in UK infrastructure projects. We heard from the noble Baroness that this has been very successful in other countries.

Given that the Liberal Democrat Party is the only party that has always been in favour of localism—the devolution of decision-making to local authorities—we strongly agree with the call for local authorities to take a leading role in housebuilding, using their powers to work with local people, organisations and developers in their area to create attractive developments that people want to live in. This is also in line with what local authorities are calling for themselves. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I understand that it is having a conference on 19 December which is entitled, “Housing the Nation, Financing New Homes”. I know that my noble friend Lord Greaves will touch on this, but I am aware that the ability of local authorities to deliver affordable housing in all parts of the country is not the same. As he will point out, in some areas it proves rather difficult.

One of the areas with which I strongly agree in the commission report is the need to improve design standards and for sustainable, aesthetically pleasing developments. Again, the noble Baroness referred to this. In my experience British builders have traditionally been conservative in their approach and often kicked against new building regulations and ideas. In addition, as a nation we have never developed a system where you are required to have qualifications to operate as a builder. Any one of us in this Chamber could set up as a builder tomorrow. No specific qualifications are needed.

This is an important debate and we have only a short time to deal with it. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s answers, particularly on the issue of how we can deal with improving standards, not only aesthetically but also making our houses sustainable and making the sort of houses that people want to live in.