Residential Accommodation: Empty Homes

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question; I am sure she is aware that the LGA published a report in September which clarifies and helps focus on the practical tools that councils can use to bring empty properties back into use. However, not only the measures I just referred to are available to local authorities; they can of course use money from the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme to bring empty properties back into use. They can benefit from the new homes bonus, incentivising them to find ways to reduce the number of empty homes and to make sure that they remove as many barriers as possible. Local authorities can also use compulsory purchase orders to acquire empty properties where there is a compelling case in the public interest. Lots of tools are available to councils, and we are trying to make it easier by working with them to identify what those barriers are and how we might eliminate them.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, the recent Crisis report indicates that if we had a national empty homes initiative, at least 40,000 genuinely affordable homes could be brought back into service by 2028, enabling families to move from bed and breakfasts, and indeed some homeless people to find single accommodation. How will the Government ensure that this happens?