Housing: Accessibility

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My noble friend will know that I am very keen on good models of behaviour and codes of practice. Is it possible for the Government or the universities to construct model homes that show developers, including small developers, how they can build accessible, safe and attractive homes—and lead the way in areas such as energy conservation, and therefore reduce people’s bills?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend. It is indeed possible, and modelling is being produced for us on a range of issues. It is important, as my noble friend said, that we look at that in terms of energy conservation and ensuring that we have lifetime standard homes and improved accessibility. These things are happening.

Tower Blocks: Cladding

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I understand that that is the position but if I am wrong, I will write to the noble Lord. The most important thing, as I say, is that the Government are determined that the safety of individuals comes first. As he knows, we have committed the £400 million to that, of which I think only £248 million has been deployed. There therefore remains a significant amount of money that will help in this process.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I commend my noble friend the Minister for keeping us well informed on the wide-ranging progress on Grenfell. Has there been a clear conclusion as to the original cause of the fire, and are there any implications for the safety of electrical and other household goods?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much. The position on possible criminal charges remains outstanding, so I must be careful what I say in that regard. I do not think the cause has been established, as it were, by a court of law. My noble friend is right that there are wider considerations here, and they will certainly inform the Hackitt review on safety requirements, in which we are engaged. It is of course not just on buildings that Dame Judith has reported. We have a very wide-ranging response to the safety considerations, which will inform our process in many other areas as well.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that valuable point. I asked questions about that when I saw the draft Statement. First, I should reassure noble Lords that I do not think that there is any cause for concern at this stage. As I understand it, there are proposals on behalf of some local authorities and one can understand that, where this involves borrowing, it might cause concern because it would be unfair to place this on local authorities and council tax payers if it were to turn south. As the noble Lord—quite understandably—requested more clarification, I will write to him and place a copy in the Library.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my shareholdings as in the register. As it happens, they are in both retail and digital. I also welcome the overall settlement and the real-terms cash increase of 2.8% announced by my noble friend, particularly at a time of growing demands and a growing population. But, to be blunt, I am not happy with the Budget settlement on business rates and on high streets—and I suspect that my noble friend might share some of my concerns. Large companies such as Debenhams at the heart of my local town of Salisbury need help with their physical outlets, given the ever-growing vibrancy of digital sales and the digital economy.

Better transport is also important to our towns and cities, and indeed to productivity. Could my noble friend give me some examples of towns where the £420 million that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned will make a difference—and not just to potholes?

Housebuilders

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Best, on securing this fine debate and pay tribute to his lifelong work on social housing. Although I do not agree with some of his detailed points, I do agree that the present situation is unsatisfactory and has been for far too long. To my mind, to understand what has gone wrong we need to look at both demand and supply.

I start with the demand side, because it always receives much less attention. In 1960, the population was 52 million; by 2000, it was 60 million; and today it is 66 million and growing rapidly. The scale of growth has been very fast, mainly because of the scale of immigration, especially since Labour gained power in 1997 and the opening up of eastern European borders following enlargement. This growth was encouraged by the Government of the day for political reasons, as insiders have since admitted, but its scale was not admitted at the time, nor planned for, despite the party’s advocacy of planning.

Secondly, the average household size has reduced from 3.01 in 1960 to 2.33. Thirdly, add in our ageing population and, fourthly, the purchase of many properties in the south-east by overseas investors and one can understand why we face difficulties. Demand has also been exacerbated by the assistance the Government are giving, notably Help to Buy, and I fear will be further exacerbated by much of the generous £44 billion of support in the pipeline from 2017 to 2022—I cite that from the excellent Library note produced for this debate.

That brings me to supply and some findings from a fine report that Chris Philp MP recently produced for the Centre for Policy Studies. In the 38 years from 1970 to 2007, housing starts averaged 234,000 a year. They declined to 125,000 in 2009 and were still only 192,000 in 2016-17. There is a huge shortage of housing in London and the south-east that has built up for nearly 20 years, with a cumulative undersupply estimated at 439,000 homes. There are now 1 million more people living with their parents than in 2000 and all too frequent cases of immigrants living 10 to 15 in a small house.

Housing costs are very high, especially in and around London and, as has been mentioned, it takes 10 years for a first-time buyer to save for a deposit. Yet home ownership remains a near universal aspiration, and the net present value of owning compared with renting is materially better on all reasonable assumptions, so young people are right to feel anxious.

So what should our Housing Secretary do? He needs to show unwavering leadership and build trust between the key stakeholders: notably between government departments, metro mayors and local government. He needs to use the funding made available to better effect. To take one example, the thinking behind the national productivity investment fund for roads was that it could free up land for housing as well as eliminate blackspots, but the bureaucracy around the funding is delaying investment. He needs to engage the major housebuilders, but I agree with other speakers that we sorely need the small housebuilders, who have melted away since the plan-led system came in in 1990. I have called before for a tax break for small builders, and I do so again. He needs to identify and tackle the barriers to success. Like other speakers, I single out the weakness of construction skills among the UK population and our slowness to develop modular homes.

Planning has got a bit easier, but it is bureaucratic and difficult, and I believe in easing restrictions rather than just imposing duties on councils—for example, planning around stations, motorways and public buildings with build-out clauses in the sale of land to accelerate the process, and allowing taller buildings and schemes on low-density housing estates. Two ideas from the CPS report are to require new developments over 20 units to be 50% purchased by UK residents, and requiring mortgage lenders to extend offers to 12 months for first-time buyers, so that they can buy new homes off plan.

The ministerial team needs to review and report on how it is doing and learn from success and failure. The Budget target of 300,000 homes is a good start, but it needs to grow. Above all, the plan needs to be simple and well communicated. I wish my noble friend the Minister and all those charged with this important task every success.