Future Homes Commission Report

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Whitaker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the report by the Future Homes Commission Building the Homes and Communities Britain Needs.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, when I first became interested in housing decades ago, the late and much lamented Victor Rothschild, then head of the Government’s first think tank, the Central Policy Review Staff, said, “Is it impossible to have a sensible housing policy?”. That problem has never seemed solved to me, and this is confirmed by the very good Library note rounding up government initiatives—of which there have been several—ideas from many experts and some very sad statistics.

However, this new report, by an independent commission set up by the Royal Institute of British Architects, makes a very good stab at a large part of the solution. Its members are neither developers nor architects nor planners, but an eminent businessman and public servant as chair, Sir John Banham; a retired civil servant of great distinction, Dame Mavis McDonald, whom I remember as a rising star in the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government; and two more very distinguished members, the criminologist and film-maker, Roger Graef, and the property analyst, Kate Faulkner.

This commission took a sharp and clear look at what is generally recognised to be a dire housing situation: nearly 2 million households currently on the housing list, well over 50,000 homeless, and more than that in temporary accommodation. As Professor Steve Nickell put it, the queue for social housing has doubled since the turn of the century. The private sector is not delivering either, and planning laws are not the problem: there are 400,000 outstanding planning permissions for residential housing. We have been underinvesting in domestic housing for a long time.

The commission found another problem, less often commented on: the quality of new-build homes is now so poor that only one in four people would consider buying one. Most people would choose to buy a century-old home, with all its high running and maintenance costs, rather than one of the poky and poorly designed homes, with too little storage space, too little natural light, poor privacy and noise protection, difficulties in adapting to different needs and general dinginess, which are all too common now in this country, which was once the envy of Europe for its domestic housing but is now falling far short of the space standards in the rest of Europe.

The commission’s remedies are equally clear. To summarise very crudely, it points out, first, that we must have a threefold increase in the number of new homes built every year, from 100,000 to 300,000—and incidentally, the idea that there is insufficient space for building is proven to be a myth, with only 11% of our land built on and plenty of brownfield land; secondly, that funding for this could be kick-started by a pooling of 15% of local authority pension funds assets into an independently managed local housing development fund, investing in both rental and shared ownership housing; thirdly, that we can no longer try to provide proper homes without strengthened design standards; and, finally, that home buyers and communities must have the kind of information that enables them to make an informed choice, and that local government is the paramount institution for taking all this forward.

This very quick summary hardly does justice to the well argued and well evidenced proposals of the commission. The investment proposals are particularly well worked out. I urge noble Lords to read the report for themselves. It is not long and it is written with exemplary clarity.

I would like to move on to what can be done now. The funding process is all-important in these hard times. The Pensions Institute’s latest report draws attention to the deficit suffered by many funds, so a 6% return, likely under the commission’s proposals, would be very welcome. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government have looked at what barriers there might be to local government pension funds pooling their assets and how these could be overcome? Can she set in hand a review of local government pension fund investment regulations to make wide investment in local infrastructure and housing a practical possibility? My noble friend Lord Rogers, who very much regrets that he cannot be here tonight, told me that in Canada pension funds invest in development. Perhaps the department could have a look at the Canadian system.

As for quality, do the Government acknowledge the extraordinary importance of good design, of the total place as well as the home itself, for the well-being, security and prosperity of our citizens? If the Minister accepts this—as I am sure she does—will she look again at the need for space and storage standards? If the Mayor of London can achieve them in London, why should the rest of the UK be deprived of their benefit? Will this form part of the current review of housing standards? Let us also acknowledge that if a new housing development is attractive and of high quality, sensitively attuned to place, residents are very much less likely to object.

There are other powerful recommendations relating to transparency and better information, and which address the current fragmentation of the development process, which noble colleagues will deal with. I welcome the great expertise of the speakers in this debate.

I simply want to draw the attention of this House and the Government to the supremely well informed and clear pathway out of the quagmire of our senseless housing situation presented by this report, and urge action. It was the planning Minister himself, Nick Boles MP, who said last week that having a house with a garden was a basic moral right, like healthcare and education. While I am not too sure about the garden, the idea that a decent home for everyone is fundamentally important does not seem to be comprehensively lodged in government policy. Someone tweeting a response to the report said:

“I think the important thing would be to ensure that appropriate accommodation and shelter is recognised as the human right that it is supposed to be”.

Now can we have a sensible housing policy?