Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. The rural situation is different from the urban situation and it demands a degree of care to put this proposal into operation. I am not sure the noble Lord’s proposal is the right answer but the question is one that has properly to be asked. Again, it emphasises the problem we have when we do not know the regulations or the details, because the Government may well have thought about all these things and we are going to have regulations and details that will cover it. However, until we have those it is very difficult not to talk about all the possible computations that may arise. There is no other way we can do it.

One of the difficulties of employment in rural areas is simply that it is extremely volatile and families can have very different incomes at different times. It is difficult for families to think other than that. Of course, the reason they are living together in one of these houses is that there is no alternative. In rural areas the moment that a house becomes available, it is sold at a price that cannot be reached by these people. I make the point to my noble friend that the number of second homes in the village of Walberswick in my former constituency has now risen to four in ten. Any house for sale is sold to somebody from outside. That is why homes provided by the local authority or others are so important in the rural economy. That is why so many families have a number of wage earners within the family living in the same house. However, their wages are not easily computed one year to another. If we have a system that does not take that into account, then it will bear more unfairly on rural areas than elsewhere.

Any of us who have represented or live in rural areas recognise it is very often true that as a nation we do not take rural areas as seriously as we ought because they do not have the megaphone of the city, or the metropolitan voice—most journalists come from towns. I beg again that the Government take this situation seriously and arrange for an answer—it may not be this one—that recognises the volatility in rural wages.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with everything that has just been said. One other point might complicate matters. Should we leave the EEC, the effect on subsidies to farming would make this whole area even more volatile.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 79A in this group, along with that of my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. However, I also support Amendment 70A and other probing amendments.

Amendment 79A is our attempt to consider the threshold, which the Government had defined as £30,000 outside London and £40,000 inside London, and which the amendment increases to £40,000 outside London and £60,000 in London. It is a probing amendment. However, our view is that the taper starts too low at the figures that the Government originally decided on. Therefore, I hope there is an opportunity for them to look carefully at whether there is a good case, as we think there is, for the minimum threshold to be much higher. That would save a great deal of administration and associated costs. Be that as it may, I hope the Minister will explain why those figures are deemed too high, because I suspect they are more reasonable than the ones on which the Government have decided.