New Homes

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Best

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is quite right about the stuck sites but, in spite of the very difficult Budget round this year, the Government have put £500 million more into affordable housing. That takes the total for affordable housing up to about £3 billion. Homes England is working through its programme of how it is going to support the delivery of those affordable homes. I am sure that support for registered providers will form part of that.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be very unwise to rely on the oligopoly of volume housebuilders to produce all the homes that we need? Has the time come and are the Government now ready to promote the model of the development corporation? It is an arm’s-length body controlled by local authorities which buys the land. It then has a master plan and parcels out the sites—yes, to the volume housebuilders, but also to housing associations and those building for students and older people and the SME builders. Is not that model now really necessary rather than reliance on those major volume housebuilders?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Lord is aware of my great passion for development corporations and the way that they work. It is true that we are encouraging Homes England to break down the great big contracts it had been issuing more, so that there is more opportunity for smaller developers to take those on. As well as that, we recognise the very challenging conditions that SME housebuilders have faced to deliver homes in recent times. They are essential to our housebuilding targets, build out quickly, train the workforce and are embedded in local communities. We will announce further support for SMEs next year, but this breaking down of the great big development organisations is key to delivering the homes we need in the places that people want them.

Landlords: Long-term Rentals

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Best

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord that we need more long-term lets— I think I made that very clear—but there is no evidence of an exodus from the market. A study from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence looked at whether regulation and tax changes over the past 25 years in the UK and internationally had affected private rented sector supply. The report concludes that there is no evidence that that has had an impact. In fact, the PRS has doubled in size since 2002 and is now the second largest housing tenure, with over 11 million people living in the private rented sector.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, rather than incentives for reluctant landlords, could the Minister say whether the Government are considering incentives to landlords who want to exit the market to sell to the social housing landlords who can modernise the properties and let them long term on a secure basis at affordable rents to people who will not be able to afford the private rented sector?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I could not agree more with the noble Lord that for some people in the housing market, the only affordable housing is social rented. The Chancellor set out in the Budget that we will make an immediate one-year cash injection of £500 million into the current affordable homes programme. I can confirm that that can be used to purchase property on the private market. That will support the delivery of up to 5,000 new social and affordable homes. In addition, at the multiyear spending review next year, we will set out details of new investment to succeed the 2021 to 2026 affordable homes programme. That will deliver a mix of homes for sub-market rent and home ownership, with a particular focus on delivering homes for social rent. I hope our Deputy Prime Minister’s promise to deliver a revolution in the delivery of social homes will come to fruition.

Social Housebuilding

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Best

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

At the risk of repeating my noble friend Lord Livermore, the content of the Budget is of course a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, the package we announced in July included flexibility in the current affordable homes programme to help with delivery and extended the 2021-26 affordable homes programme. We have been clear that we will bring forward details of future government investment in social and affordable housing at the spending review. We know how important it is to enable providers to plan for the future as they help to deliver the biggest increase in affordable housing in a generation.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on the priority it is giving to new housebuilding for social rent, but we are still losing more homes each year than we are building, mostly because of right to buy. Some 2 million homes have been sold so far and 40% are now in the hands of private landlords, who are letting homes at rents two or three times higher than at which they would have been let as council properties. Would the Minister accept either or both recommendations from the Devon Housing Commission, which I have been chairing? The first is that the level of discount should be set by the local authority and not at the national level, where 70% discounts are available, which is not good value for the taxpayer. The second is around whether 100% of the proceeds from sales of right to buy should be allocated to new housing that replaces that which has been lost.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his work with the Devon Housing Commission; I have been very interested to read about its work. The Government believe it is right that long-standing social tenants should retain the right to purchase their property at reasonable discounts, and so we will not be ending the right-to-buy scheme. However, many of the homes sold since 2012 have not been replaced and, as our manifesto said, the Government are reviewing the increased right-to-buy discounts, introduced in 2012. We will bring forward more details and secondary legislation to implement changes later this year. We will also review right to buy more widely, including looking at eligibility criteria and, in particular, protections for newly built social housing. We will bring forward a consultation on that shortly.

Building Homes

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Best

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments and question. The point is that, without growing the economy, as we need to do, we will not be able to afford any of the public services that we need. That is the first priority of this Government. But we have an immediate housing crisis, so we will do what we can to solve it now, and develop things further as we begin to create the economic growth we need to solve it. But it is not just a problem of government funding; we need to create that affordable housing. The noble Lord will be as aware as I am that it has been more and more difficult to deliver the social and affordable housing that we need through things like Section 106 agreements and other forms of planning gain, so we will need to assist with that as well. But it is a priority that we tackle the homelessness crisis now and we start on the journey of improving the housing supply, because that is the only long-term way to solve the housing crisis in this country. It will take some time to develop the economic background to do that fully, but we can make a start right now.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, this is my first opportunity to welcome the Minister to her role. We are very lucky to have someone in your Lordships’ House who has a real understanding of these issues, with her years of experience on the front line of local government. I also greatly welcome the Government’s commitment to easing the real crisis that faces so many people under the age of 40 who need a secure, decent home and not only cannot buy one but cannot find an available, affordable rented home either. Things are desperate, and the Government’s mission is enormously encouraging.

Last week, in the debate on the King’s Speech, I listed seven suggestions for achieving success on the planning side—points for the planning and infrastructure Bill—and I can now put a tick against a number of those. I am delighted with the Government’s ambitions, starting with the long-term housing strategy, which is good news, but there remain some items on which I would be grateful for some further commentary by the noble Baroness the Minister.

First, in terms of restocking the hugely depleted planning departments, will the Government allow local authorities to cover the full cost of an effective, speedy, local planning service by charging fees to the developers that cover all the costs?

Secondly, I have not heard quite as much as I had hoped about the opportunities to use new development corporations with simplified compulsory purchase powers to capture the uplift in land values by acquiring strategic sites, not just for new towns but on a much wider scale. These local authority-owned but arm’s-length bodies, advocated by Sir Oliver Letwin in his seminal report previously, could implement a proper master plan. They could install the infrastructure and parcel out sites to SME builders—who used to account for 40% of new homes, but now barely reach 9%—to housing associations, to providers of housing for older people and so on, amid properly planned green spaces, schools and facilities. These development corporations would help us end the nation’s unhealthy dependence on a handful of volume housebuilders that have consistently let us down on quantity, quality, speed of output and numbers of affordable homes.

I heartily welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s Statement. Can the Minister give me any words of encouragement that these two issues will receive due attention in the weeks ahead?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, not just for his question but for his long-term championing of housing in this Chamber. I look forward to working with him, particularly on the provision of some of the specialist housing which I know is of great interest to him.

In terms of restocking—or should it be restaffing?—planning departments, there are plans to allow full cost recovery on residential applications, which is one part in the detail of the Statement today and is really encouraging. We have plans to increase the number of planners. I know that planners take a long time to train and are experts in what they do, so it is not an overnight job, but we are determined to strengthen planning departments, which are responsible for the whole of this process.

On development corporations, further announcements are coming forward tomorrow on the issue of new towns, but I take the noble Lord’s point on the wider aspects of development corporations. With his permission, I will take that back, give it some further consideration and respond to him in writing. But I think he will be interested to hear the announcements on new towns tomorrow.