Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Barwell and Kevin Hollinrake

Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

The national planning policy framework is very clear on that point. When local authorities conduct their assessments of housing need, they should not just look at the total number of homes required, but the right mix of housing to cater for the demographic profile including, for example, the number of elderly people who might need specialist housing. The hon. Lady is quite right to draw attention to that issue.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I very much welcome the increase in housing starts, the number of which has doubled since the first quarter of 2009. To get to the level we need, we need a resurgence of small and medium-sized house builders. Does the Minister agree that we need local authorities and local communities to allocate more small sites in their local plans and neighbourhood plans?

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are far too dependent, at this point in time, on a small number of large developers. Therefore, we need to ensure that the land that has attracted small developers is released and that those developers have access to finance.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Kevin Hollinrake

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I want to say a few brief words on new clause 5 and to get a thorough understanding from the Minister about a particular situation that I, and I am sure others, might have in my constituency. This is about a local authority’s ability to use new clause 5 or possibly new clause 4 to avoid its responsibility in terms of required housing in its area, and how the Minister or Secretary of State will determine why one local authority is determined not to take its fair share of required housing.

I have a number of local authorities in my constituency, some of which are very keen to deliver houses and are doing so. One or two are not. How do we deal with a situation in which one errant local authority does not appear to want to produce a local plan that meets its objectively assessed housing need, and so uses new clause 4 or new clause 5 through the back door? I have not dreamed that situation. It is not that production of the local plan is being prevented, but there might simply be a political reluctance in the local authority to put housing in its area or there might be an ongoing battle to deliver a proper local plan.

That authority could argue, “We haven’t got the land in our local authority area, so we think all these houses should go in the adjoining local authority area”—which has a sound local plan and is delivering on its housing numbers. It might say, “Houses shouldn’t go in my local authority area. They should go in this adjoining one because they’ve got lots of space and lovely green fields to put the houses in.” The errant local authority might argue that houses should go into another local authority. We then come along and use new clause 4 or new clause 5 to say, “This has to be a joint plan, and these houses will have to go into the other local authority area that’s doing its job properly.” How will the Minister or the Secretary of State determine situations in which a local authority is not carrying out its duty to assess need and deliver those houses? Will the Minister look into that situation?

[Gavin Barwell]

It has been a useful debate, and I hope I can provide some clarification. Perhaps a mistress of understatement, the hon. Lady said that district councils were not terribly happy and county councils were reasonably happy. My message to district councils listening to this debate is that it is completely in their own power to ensure that this new clause is never used. All they need to do is produce local plans that address housing need in their area, and there will never be any reason at all for the Secretary of State to make use of this power. The only circumstances in which the power could ever be used would be if a district council somewhere in the country were failing to produce a local plan that met need in its area. To county councils, I would say, “Don’t get too excited,” because I do not think the intention is to make regular use of this power.

I will make one observation. When you become a Minister, you get given a mountain of brief to read into your subject. Something that stood out from one brief was the powers that the Government have taken to intervene on local planning authorities that are not deciding a high enough percentage of major applications within the specified timescale. That was quite contentious when the powers went through Parliament. What is interesting about it is that it has, I think, been used only three times. The existence of a power that says that the Planning Inspectorate is now going to determine planning applications rather than the relevant local authority determining them, has acted as a real spur to people to raise their game. It has not been necessary to use the power very often at all, and I suspect that this power might serve the same purpose. If it has provoked a strong reaction among district councils that do not ever want to see this happen, and that leads to more of them adopting their plans on a timely basis, I will be very happy never to have to use the power.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Lord Barwell and Kevin Hollinrake

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gavin Barwell]

Well, it may be that the hon. Lady and I are not as far apart as I thought we were, because I agree with that. People have different requirements at different ages, and it is certainly important that adequate space is provided for family housing. She may agree with the point that I am going to make. I was going to close by giving an example of a permitted development conversion that I had the opportunity to see in Croydon. She may want to go and have a look at it herself.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I quite agree with the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood about family homes, but where the opportunity exists to innovate and create homes for young people and first-time buyers, particularly in areas of high house prices, should we discourage that purely on the basis of space standards?

[Gavin Barwell]

I suppose the story I told that prompted the hon. Lady’s intervention interested me because one might to a degree expect private developers to look to maximise the units that they can build on a site and their commercial return, but what was striking about that conversation was that the chief executive of a housing association also wanted that flexibility. He saw clearly that there was a trade-off between having homes that were fully accessible and fulfilled the space standard and maximising the number of homes for vulnerable people that he could have on the site. There is a debate to be had, but I do not think that the hon. Lady and I are as far apart on this as I thought we were.

Let me give an example. There is a building in Croydon called Green Dragon House, which was a fairly old office building that was not wholly vacant but had very limited use. It has been converted into 119 homes—a mixture of one and two-bed homes. It is a little like the Pocket housing schemes. It is very high-spec—the quality of the finish is very good—but the rooms are smaller than the national space standard. Interestingly, what is not taken into account is that there is a huge amount of communal space. Virtually the whole of the first floor of the building is given over to a high-standard communal lounge, and the whole of the roof is a terrace, which is communal space for residents. In a way, it is a different vision of how people might live, and it is targeted very much at young professional people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Barwell and Kevin Hollinrake

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

That obviously makes some contribution towards our delivery of affordable housing but, as I said, the Government have committed £8 billion. That will deliver starter homes, shared ownership homes and more affordable and intermediate rent housing. This is the largest programme that we have seen in more than 40 years and it will make a big contribution to tackling the housing issues that we see in our country.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to his new post, and I welcome the Government focus on affordable homes to buy through the starter homes programme, but we also need affordable homes to rent. Does the Minister agree that as we have made the decision to leave the EU, now is the right time to consider more investment in social rented homes to meet local needs and local affordability?

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend is right to say that we need a mix of tenures—a mix of offers. That is what the programme provides. He tempts me into decisions that will ultimately be for the Government and for the Chancellor at the next Budget, but he makes a powerful case for further investment in affordable housing.