Housing and Planning Bill

Duke of Somerset Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Somerset (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the Minister for my failure to put my name down in a timely manner. Time allows me to comment on only two topics in the Bill.

First, on the right to buy in rural areas, I speak as a landowner and private landlord in the West Country. Surely, the aim of this part of the Bill should be to enable young and low-paid people to live in the countryside at affordable costs. The right to buy, if applied to small communities, will have the opposite effect. Where a right-to-buy grant is given the house will eventually be resold at full market value, possibly as a second home. Either way, it will no longer be available to local people. The one-for-one replacement policy has not worked historically and it is hard to see how it is going to work in the future. A vague regulation that proceeds from sales should be reinvested in the parish will be utterly dependent on the good will and permission of the local landowner, or do the Government envisage compulsory purchase powers to enable this? Such a landowner is unlikely to offer sites, even altruistically, without the provision of perpetual affordability.

The same must be true of starter homes. Landowners will hesitate to promote low-value land just to enrich an individual, rather than a community. The requirement for these to be on rural exception sites, with permission to resell after five years, is counterproductive and not very sensible. Can the Minister clarify where the money for the right-to-buy discount is going to come from? A great many local authorities no longer own any housing stock, so they will not be receiving the proceeds. The formula proposed is neither clear nor logical.

The sustainability test currently applied by many planning authorities stymies otherwise logical sites from being brought forward for much-needed housing. The aspiration to make everyone travel by public transport or bicycle is just not realistic. Although I applaud the Government’s plan to build more houses, this must be done holistically: that is, hand in hand with proper infrastructure provision, such as doctors’ surgeries, schools, road improvements and buses.

Secondly, I turn to the compulsory purchase regime, which the Government quite rightly seek to improve. However, I do not think they go far enough. The Bill should unequivocally ensure that land is paid for before entry. For later payments due for unforeseeable losses of entry, a proper commercial interest rate should be specified—certainly more than the 2% proposed.

Finally, the abusive ability for NSIPs—nationally significant infrastructure projects—to compulsorily purchase land for unconnected housing at existing-use values is extremely unfair and should be resisted. As many noble Lords have said, many aspects of the Bill are to be welcomed, but it needs much improvement in places.