Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 281CB to 281CE. These amendments are aimed at creating greater opportunities for those people who want to build their own home by ensuring that local authorities make sufficient provision for self- and custom-build sites in their areas.

The Government believe that self- and custom-build housing can play a crucial role as part of a wider package of measures to boost home ownership and diversify the housing market, as well as helping to deliver the homes that people want. Self and custom build improve the design and quality of homes as they are built by the people who will live in them.

We are aware that, under the current legislation, some development permissions that are not necessarily for self- and custom-build housing are being counted towards a local planning authority’s statutory duty. This has meant there is an incomplete and inaccurate picture of self and custom build at a local and national level, which can distort the market and have wider impacts on small- and medium-sized enterprises and developers.

In the other place, the Government introduced Clause 115 to ensure that a development permission will count in meeting the duty only if it is actually for self-or custom-build housing. The Government have brought these additional amendments forward to further tighten up the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015 to ensure that the intended policy aim of the original legislation is being met in practice.

Amendment 281CB ensures that only land made available explicitly for self-build and custom housebuilding qualifies towards the statutory duty to grant planning permission et cetera and meets demand for self and custom build. We have tabled the amendments to give the power to the Secretary of State to define in regulations the descriptions of types of development permissions that will count towards meeting this duty. This will ensure that only development permissions that are intended to be built out as self or custom build will be counted. The regulations are likely to require any permissions granted for self and custom build to be characterised by a condition or planning obligation making that requirement explicit. Amendment 281CE specifies that any regulations made under this new power will be subject to the negative resolution procedure.

Amendment 281CC ensures that any demand that a relevant authority has accrued for self and custom build through its self and custom build register that has not been discharged within the three-year compliance period will not dissipate after this time, but will roll over and remain part of the demand for the authority to meet under Section 2A of the 2015 Act. Amendments 281CA and 281CD are consequential, minor and technical amendments that amend the 2015 Act to ensure that Amendment 281CC works in practice. Overall, the amendments proposed ensure that the 2015 Act works as intended, without ambiguity.

These amendments, accompanied by our other interventions, including the launch of the Help to Build equity loan scheme and the Government’s response to Richard Bacon MP’s independent review into scaling up of self-build and custom housebuilding, will help to mainstream the self- and custom-build sector. This will allow more people to build their own home, help support SMEs and boost housebuilding. I therefore hope that noble Lords will support these amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support this group of government amendments aimed at increasing the number of homes built or commissioned by their future occupiers. I had the pleasure of piloting the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015 through your Lordships’ House. It started as a Private Member’s Bill from Richard Bacon MP, who has tirelessly—I would say relentlessly—pursued his campaign to get the sector to scale up. Most recently, he has produced an independent review to boost the building of self-commissioned new homes across all tenures, and these amendments flow from the Bacon review to which the Minister referred.

In countries as diverse as Germany and New Zealand, much of the new housebuilding is done in partnership with its future occupiers who, if not actually building the homes, are specifying the form they take and working with an SME builder to meet individual requirements. The result in other countries is that homes are more varied, personalised, affordable and energy efficient. These amendments attempt to give this still fledgling sector further impetus by helping self-builders and custom housebuilders to get their hands on the land on which to build, rather than leaving the volume housebuilders to gobble it all up. The sector would be an important beneficiary of my earlier amendment on diversification on larger sites, but a shift to that Letwin-inspired development model is not going to happen immediately. Bolstering the existing means to get local authorities allocating land for self-build and custom housebuilding is eminently sensible. I congratulate Richard Bacon on his continuing tenacity, the Right to Build Task Force on getting the Government to take forward these amendments and the Government on accepting them.

Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st April 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Best]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am honoured to be piloting this Bill through your Lordships’ House and am grateful to noble Lords for attending this Second Reading debate today—especially, if I may say so, the Minister, for whom this Friday afternoon engagement follows an extremely heavy week of seemingly endless debates on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, apart from many other important engagements.

I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, which has backed the Bill and is keen to engage with the Government, alongside other local government representatives, on the details of its implementation.

The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill comes to us as a Private Member’s Bill initiated by Bob Blackman MP in the Commons. We all already owe a deep debt of gratitude to Bob Blackman for his previous Private Member’s Bill—I had the honour to take it through its House of Lords stages—which became the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. This has proved a seminal piece of legislation, significantly improving measures to address homelessness. Now we must thank Bob Blackman for his sterling work bringing forward this Bill. Support for both his Private Member’s Bills has been provided by the charity Crisis, which does so much good work in this field. Crucially, as with the earlier Bill, government backing for this legislation has been forthcoming. This essential help is much appreciated. As a Cross-Bencher, I am delighted by the cross-party support for the Bill, and I hope noble Lords will today also express their approval.

What does this Bill seek to do and why is it necessary? As its title indicates, it makes provision for regulation of supported housing and for related enforcement of proper standards for accommodation of this kind. In fact, it is concerned with only a subset of what is known as supported housing. “Supported housing” covers all accommodation where there is additional provision of assistance for the residents—including, most significantly, specialist housing for older people. The Bill concerns itself only with that part of the supported housing spectrum that comes with the extra label of “exempt”, meaning it is exempt from the usual restrictions on rent payable for those in receipt of benefits. Indeed, the Bill could have been called “the Supported Exempt Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill” if that was not too much of a mouthful.

It is this exempt accommodation that over recent years has become problematic. The rents are exempt from housing benefit limits—in particular from the rental caps imposed by the local housing allowance ceilings, which were frozen in 2020 for privately rented properties. Landlords have been able to charge much higher rents for exempt accommodation and get them covered by the taxpayer on the understanding that these properties would be let to vulnerable people with special needs who would receive proper care and support.

Most supported exempt housing is performing an extraordinarily difficult role for people in extreme circumstances. Often, a registered housing association is the landlord and a specialist organisation provides the care, funded by local authorities and the occupiers. Schemes serve people with learning difficulties, survivors of domestic abuse, victims of modern slavery, people released from prison with nowhere to go—which links this debate with our previous debate today on the problems for offenders released with no accommodation —and many others. Higher rents are justified by the need to pay for extra housing costs: from greater turnover and higher maintenance and repair costs to longer vacancies between lettings.

The majority of these schemes deserve high praise, with staff who are often positively saintly in their caring roles. Decent supported housing certainly merits a lot more funding to maintain and extend this essential work, but on the other side of the same coin is a system subject to appalling abuse. Because of the higher rents from the exempt status, the arrangements have attracted the very worst kinds of landlords. These businesses can be so lucrative that one MP in the Commons debate on the Bill commented that the profits were higher than for dealing drugs.

The House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, under the exemplary chairmanship of Clive Betts MP, produced a full report last October on exempt accommodation. This has acted as a very helpful substitute for pre-legislative scrutiny. The committee found that unscrupulous companies were making excessive profits by capitalising on the loopholes: in essence, charging exorbitant rents for low-quality housing with little or no support for the residents, using untrained staff and lacking management. Cases have been uncovered of rooms in close proximity being allocated to those recovering from addiction and those still dependent on drugs, women fleeing domestic abuse next to men with violent histories, and other management horrors. The Committee noted that

“the current system offers a licence to print money to those who wish to exploit the system”

and said:

“This gold-rush is all paid for by taxpayers through housing benefit”.


Properties with unsupervised, unsupported, vulnerable occupiers can also cause problems for the neighbourhood: anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, rubbish and vermin, and crime, including involvement of organised criminal gangs. The health and wellbeing of those living in these overcrowded and poor conditions can deteriorate drastically. Despite much-inflated rents, residents are often required to pay for “services” from their non-housing benefits, yet taking a job is not an option because that would jeopardise access to higher housing benefit levels and therefore lead to the loss of a place to live.

The problem has been compounded by landlords obtaining planning consent under permitted development rights for the lowest-quality conversions of family houses and ex-commercial buildings. Bob Blackman has highlighted a two-bedroom property converted into a house with eight bedrooms, no living rooms and only one shared bathroom. Then there are the property deals that have cashed in on the exempt status of supported housing. The Commons Select Committee cites the case of 12 properties in west Devon that were sold to an intermediary body for £6 million and re-sold the same day to an offshore investment company for £18 million, because of the high yields expected to be gained from leasing the properties for exempt accommodation.

It is hard to be precise about the scale of this problem because of the lack of data collected locally and the complexity of the different overlapping housing types and providers. As the House of Commons committee noted:

“The Government does not know how much exempt accommodation there is or how many people live in exempt accommodation”.


The overarching problem of a desperate shortage of affordable rented homes lies behind the opportunities for some operators to abuse the system. Because councils must meet their obligations towards those who would otherwise be homeless, they are sometimes forced to refer people to supported exempt housing which they have not commissioned, and which lies beyond the scope of very light-touch regulation. There are two ways of escaping this dilemma for local authorities. The first is for the real supported housing sector to be enlarged. Better government resourcing from the Department of Health and Social Care, as well as the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, is needed, not least to replace the loss of the previous Supporting People revenue grants. Secondly, the sector must be rid of the cowboy operators that take away resources and undermine the rest.

In its report, the House of Commons Select Committee made a series of recommendations covering the collection and publication of data, accreditation of providers, and enforcement of national standards by local authorities, alongside more intervention by the Regulator of Social Housing. The Bill before us takes forward this reform agenda from the Commons Select Committee and learns lessons from five pilot schemes successfully trying better regulatory arrangements, as well as from the amendments proposed during the Bill’s Commons stages. It now paves the way for a full and robust response to the issues.

The Bill sets out duties for the Secretary of State to appoint within a year a supported housing advisory panel, which would represent the interests of local housing authorities, social service authorities, registered providers of social housing, relevant charities and residents themselves. The panel’s job would be to provide the necessary information and advice to the Secretary of State and local authorities, to improve provision and regulation of supported exempt accommodation.

The Bill requires local authorities to review provision in their area, to publish and regularly update a supported housing strategy that assesses what is available and what is needed, and take this on board in local policy-making. The Secretary of State is empowered to set out national supported housing standards covering the necessary requirements for the housing and support that must be delivered.

The Secretary of State is given powers to require operators of supported exempt accommodation to be licenced by the local housing authority. Licensing would enable councils to see that the national supported housing standards are met and that only a fit and proper person can be in charge of the accommodation. Licensing would incorporate a range of conditions relating to the quality of both the accommodation and the care, with penalties for failure to comply.

The Commons Minister has made an ambitious commitment to lay the regulations for the licensing regime and publish the national standards within 18 months of the Bill passing. The Bill requires the Secretary of state to review the position three years on and consider whether a further measure would be helpful, specifying supported accommodation as a planning use category—that is, requiring planning consent.

These measures add up to a firm response to the need for a regulatory framework to cover this neglected part of the housing sector.

Before concluding, perhaps I may address two anxieties that have been raised as the Bill has progressed. I will ignore the concerns of the speculative investors and property traders, who will, no doubt, protest the death of this golden goose. First, there is concern from local authorities that they will be taking on additional burdens in producing their local supported housing strategy, collecting and sharing data, and introducing and enforcing a licensing scheme. I believe this fear has been allayed by the Government’s clear commitment to compensate local authorities accordingly and I know that the Local Government Association, in supporting the Bill, will work to make sure that extra costs are met. It remains a matter for further consultation whether all councils—including those with little or no supported exempt housing—will be required to participate in the new scheme. The advantage of the Secretary of State requiring every local authority to have a licensing scheme is that rogue landlords cannot simply move their business from a licensed area to one without such regulation.

Then there are the worries of the hard-pressed housing and care providers themselves, who fear that regulation will increase their costs and risks with no comparable gains. Their supported housing schemes are often on a hand-to-mouth basis at present, with insecure, short-term contracts for the care providers and, consequently, poor pay and conditions for care workers. One large housing association explained to me the financial hazards of working with a number of care providers who are desperately trying to do a good job. There is always a danger that a heavy-handed approach to regulation, with too high a regulatory fee, could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and means that fewer bona fide players continue to operate.

These fears from the decent providers should not materialise if the licensing scheme is handled with care. I am delighted that the major providers and the National Housing Federation—a statutory consultee for the process—have supported the Bill. Sensitivity is needed to avoid any unnecessary burdens at this time when other operating expenses have risen dramatically, but the Government’s recognition of this danger will be a core component in making the legislation succeed.

To conclude, my hope is that ensuring supported exempt housing is brought under local authority control and abuses are ended will lead to the release of funds, restore faith in supported housing and enable growth in a properly regulated sector. Then the Bill will lead to greater protection and real support for people living the most difficult lives imaginable. I commend the Bill to your Lordships and I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am deeply grateful, as I know Bob Blackman MP will be, for all the support that noble Lords have shown for this measure. I shall pick out one or two points that might still be hanging in the air. I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his support on this as on so many other housing matters. He makes the point that, if we close down some of the bad guys, where will people go, unless we also build up the good guys at the same time. I think that is an important lesson. As for the Government’s reaction to it, it is well worth bearing in mind that the cost in housing benefit terms will reduce when the rogues are no longer being paid excessive amounts for their accommodation. It is a reproportioning or reallocating of resource, rather than simply an extra burden for government.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, spoke with great authority from having chaired the National Housing Federation for many years. The loss of the housing transformation fund of £300 million is painful. I hope that the consultations that relate to this Bill will reveal the need for that sort of sum to be put back into play. We have three departments involved here—the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; the Department of Health and Social Care; and the Department for Work and Pensions—and the trouble is always that the gains are found on one side and the losses in another department’s budget. We need those three to be thinking of these things together; I hope they will and that we will not see this as a net loss at the end of the day.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his very powerful analysis of what has been going on. I thank him for quoting “beyond disgraceful” as the real adjective that should be used for some of this ghastly accommodation. It is worth bearing in mind, in terms of following through on this, that there are quite significant commitments on timescale; we do not always get Ministers explaining that they will not only endeavour but will succeed in achieving the national standards and having the details of the licensing scheme fully consulted on and brought together within 18 months, and that the licensing scheme itself will start up in a year. So, we have some timescales there and after three years we will see whether a planning power is needed, after evaluation of how things have gone. There is back-up in terms of a timescale that Ministers have put on the record and I think that is helpful.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who welcomed this measure from the Lib Dem Benches. Like so many others, she mentioned the local authority workload, which will be a sore point if there is no compensation. I took it from the Minister that there will be a new burdens assessment and that this is likely to cover—I hope very fully—the extra costs of getting involved with a licensing scheme, collecting and sharing data and the rest. That will be important; as we know, with the underfunding of local authorities more generally, it is a difficult time to add burdens unless they are fully paid for.

I must not dwell on all the contributions of other noble Lords, but I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, for his support. He too made those points about new burdens, which are absolutely valid.

I conclude by thanking the Minister very much for her comprehensive and entirely sympathetic response to the issues raised. We really are on the right road; we have a framework that we can now polish and improve upon in the consultative processes that will follow. I thank the Minister for her personal support, which will be invaluable in taking things forward.

I conclude by once again thanking my colleague Bob Blackman. None of this would have happened had he not been absolutely tenacious in seeing this through all its Commons stages.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Supported Housing

Lord Best Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, for initiating this debate and I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. I declare a strong interest in the debate as the sponsor in the Lords of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, the Private Member’s Bill from Bob Blackman MP, which has cleared its House of Commons stages and comes to your Lordships’ House with the backing of government next month.

The supported housing story is one of two halves: first, the story of supported housing brilliantly provided for very vulnerable and homeless people by highly effective and sensitive teams from housing associations and charities; and, secondly, the story of the ghastly, so-called “supported” housing, exploited by some unscrupulous private operators. These two extremes require contrasting responses: first, a significant boost to the wonderful work being done by some exemplary non-profit and charitable bodies; and, secondly, some fierce regulation, diligently enforced, to rid the country of appalling private providers abusing the system to make substantial, undeserved profits at the expense of both the taxpayer and people in desperate need of somewhere to live.

The National Housing Federation and the reputable providers have given strong support for weeding out the private operators who have discovered a loophole enabling rents to be paid by housing benefit, often for overcrowded and substandard properties, without regard to the local housing allowance ceilings, by claiming untruthfully to supply proper care and support. One MP in the debate on Bob Blackman’s Bill suggested that returns on this investment are more profitable than dealing drugs. Mostly the activity is not commissioned by the local authority, but councils have been forced to make use of these lettings by a shortage of genuine supported housing. It is clear that a robust regulatory regime is overdue and the forthcoming Bill is intended to put this right.

Nevertheless, I see the danger that much-needed regulatory measures, if handled without sufficient care, could make life more difficult for commendable providers. This comes at a time when we need the proper provision of supported housing to be boosted following loss of funding from the old supporting people grants, to which the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred, and while the freeze on local housing allowances means that the option of normal private renting is increasingly unattainable. The worst possible outcome from new regulation would be to deter action by the bona fide organisations by adding excess cost or bureaucracy. Already there are anxieties that this vital sector has been diminished by cost pressures over recent years and its insecure and inadequate funding means that any deterrent to continuing to provide good supported housing could be disastrous. We absolutely must not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The forthcoming Bill does not rigidly prescribe the new regulatory system but rather enables this to emerge from consultation with an expert new advisory panel. I hope that this approach will ensure that a licensing regime emerges with national standards that can end the abuses while enabling growth in this Cinderella sector to produce more of the superb supported housing projects that are clearly so badly needed.

Housebuilding

Lord Best Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.

[Lord Best (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that, of the 300,000 target, 10% or 30,000 homes ought to be for older people’s housing—retirement housing—because this gives us terrific gains in terms of health and care facilities? It also means two for one because, for every one of those homes, another is released by an older person moving on. Can we in the levelling-up Bill therefore insist on local authorities including provision for older people—retirement housing—in their local plans?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The Bill makes it clear that local authorities, in their local plan, have to include housing for older people and for disabled people and other vulnerable groups. The Government want to deliver the best possible outcomes for these groups by helping them to live independently in safe, appropriate and good-quality housing for as long as they can possibly stay in it. The £11.5 billion affordable homes programme includes the delivery of new supported housing for older, disabled and vulnerable people, and our planning rules already mean that councils must consider them in their plans.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 484. I thank my supporters: the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I also declare my interests as a director of Peers for the Planet, and as a project director working for Atkins.

It would be helpful if I started with some definitions; I hope I am not teaching too many noble Lords to suck eggs. There are two types of emissions from buildings: operational carbon, which is those emissions due to energy and water use; and embodied carbon, which is those emissions related to construction materials. Operational carbon emissions are already limited by Part L of the Building Regulations, but there is no such parallel regulation limiting embodied carbon emissions.

For a long time, operational carbon emissions have accounted for the majority of buildings’ emissions. However, with decarbonisation of the grid, operational carbon has reduced in recent years and that trend is set to continue, particularly with the introduction of electric heating. As such, the embodied carbon emissions in construction contribute an increasing proportion of the whole-life carbon emissions for most buildings, with one study indicating that over two-thirds of a low-energy new building’s emissions are embodied.

UK embodied carbon emissions represent some 50 million tonnes of emissions per year, which is more than aviation and shipping combined—a huge quantity of emissions that is completely unregulated and has increased in recent years. We think of the huge effort that is going into mitigating the carbon emissions of aviation and shipping: we have a sustainable aviation fuels plan, jet zero and plans for corridors for emission-free shipping based on ammonia and hydrogen. But for embodied carbon the current plans in place are sparse—although industry is making some good progress in reporting—so we have a problem.

Lord Boyce, who sat on these Benches but passed away, sadly, late last year, had a saying which went something like, “There is no such thing as problems, only solutions in disguise”. The solution here is a fantastic campaign, which has been under way for a number of years, to add a new part, Part Z, to the building regulations; this would start with reporting and then move on to regulation of embodied carbon emissions. It has wide support across industry; 200 of the country’s leading developers, clients, contractors, architects, engineers and institutions have written statements of support. These include organisations such as British Land, Willmott Dixon, Sir Robert McAlpine and Laing O’Rourke—I could go on—and industry bodies such as the Construction Industry Council, the Concrete Centre and the Steel Construction Institute; so there is wide support right across industry.

Industry already has the tools necessary to respond to Amendment 484 and, indeed, is voluntarily using them. Regulation would simply unlock the final door to enable the existing mechanisms to run smoothly and to ensure a level playing field. It has already been the subject of a Private Member’s Bill put forward by Jerome Mayhew in another place, which has enjoyed wide cross-party support.

Many countries in Europe are already proceeding with the approach outlined in the amendment. These include France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Norway. It is not only about the emissions cost; we risk being left behind in the opportunities that the amendment will unlock if we do not proceed with it soon. These opportunities include the benefits of a standardised approach to reporting—rather than the patchwork quilt of the many approaches that exist currently—which would reduce overall costs to industry, and the treasure trove of data that would be generated and could then be used to inform further decarbonisation efforts, both in voluntary targets and in leading towards eventual regulation.

To add to this, the policy signal provided by this amendment would mean that the UK could then develop in growing markets such as steel recycling, an important area that could be developed in the UK. Rather than exporting scrap and importing recycled steel as we currently do, we could invest in that industry in the UK, as is currently done in the US and Europe. Low-carbon cement is another example; if the signal were given, attracting investment and moving that from lab scale to implementation would be much more of a priority—likewise, low-carbon building materials such as non-plastic insulation and the retrofit and reuse market.

So what is currently going on within government? The Government’s construction playbook calls for carbon assessments on all public projects. However, it provides no details as to how that should take place or what an appropriate carbon emissions level is. This leads to many inefficiencies in differing approaches to assessments, increasing overall costs to the taxpayer.

The key ongoing activity is a DHLUC consultation on embodied carbon reporting, which is due to report later this year. Our amendment has been drafted to align with that consultation; it states that regulations must be made within six months of the Act being passed. This amendment would give the Government a ready-made legislative vehicle to implement these regulations once the outputs of the consultation have been defined. All the pieces of the puzzle would then be in place; otherwise, I fear that we would have much longer to wait to make parliamentary time available—we need to move quickly and seize the opportunity here.

Working in business myself, one area of concern that I am very conscious of is to avoid placing additional burdens upon small and medium-sized enterprises. Whole-life carbon assessments will involve some additional costs to businesses, at least initially while tools and approaches are being refined. This is why we have placed limits within the amendment; it applies only to building works with a total useful floor area of 1,000 square metres or over and to developments with more than 10 dwellings. This shields smaller developers from the initial costs of undertaking whole-life carbon assessments.

Finally, I will go into a little more detail on how the amendment would work. The overall strategy is to “report first, limit later”. This follows the precedents set elsewhere in Europe and makes the transition towards zero-carbon construction easier, while sending a clear signal that legislated limits are coming. The amendment deals with the initial reporting aspect, with the intent that later regulations would cover embodied carbon limits, which would in themselves be informed by the initial reporting phase. As I alluded to earlier, approaches to many of the aspects in the amendment have already been developed and are being used voluntarily by industry; for example, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has defined a methodology for calculating embodied carbon.

The emissions footprint that embodied carbon represents means that we need to move forward with urgency and help to enable industry to bring forward solutions. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is an ideal and timely enabler to make this happen.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 484 in the name of my noble friend Lord Ravensdale, which was so comprehensively and expertly laid out before us. I declare my interests as president of the Sustainable Energy Association and a member of the Peers for the Planet coalition.

This amendment would require housebuilders and other developers to produce an assessment of the amount of carbon for which the construction of a proposed project would be responsible over its life. This includes the carbon embodied in the building materials used and the construction processes deployed.

Everyone recognises the necessity of building in ways that limit carbon emissions once the building is constructed, but that is only half the story. Half of total emissions—possibly more—associated with new building come from the carbon embodied in its construction. Concrete, steel and other materials use vast quantities of fossil fuels, as does transportation, sometimes across continents, of heavy building materials.

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has shown that—as the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, said—the embodied carbon in new buildings accounts for more emissions than aviation and shipping put together; that is a great statistic. Yet this huge contributor to climate change is virtually invisible. Measuring and assessing embodied carbon alongside the subsequent emissions over a building’s lifespan should make all parties think harder when choosing building materials. There are many alternatives to the worst-offending components. This amendment will provide the basis for eliciting the evidence for more sophisticated decision-making.

The amendment could also lead to greater priority being given to making the best use of the buildings we already have before demolishing and replacing existing structures and adding to landfill. Demolition and construction also create dust and air pollution on a massive scale, amounting to some 30% of harmful particulates in urban areas. Retaining—rather than clearing and replacing—existing housing can also have social and community benefits. Demolition of Victorian terraced streets in the 1960s and 1970s is now seen to have been, in many cases, an unfortunate mistake. The amendment forces us to pay more attention in the wider levelling-up agenda to the regeneration of the homes we have today, rather than concentrating, as the Bill does, on the planning and delivery of new homes.

Action to upgrade existing properties—with green grants, regulations on energy efficiency for lettings, tax incentives and more—does not only address the decarbonisation challenge, it improves quality of life, reduces fuel poverty and saves NHS budgets. Recent research by the Building Research Establishment found that excessively cold homes, for example, are costing the NHS £540 million a year. The improvement of existing housing would also be accelerated, and the stock of available affordable homes increased, by the introduction of a national housing conversion fund to finance acquisition and modernisation of poor-quality, privately rented properties.

As the levelling-up programme moves onward, these regeneration measures will demand more of government’s attention. In the meantime, this amendment would achieve a more credible basis for judging the environmental impact of building practices and I strongly support it and the creation of a new Part Z to the building regulations.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

I could make an exceedingly long speech on this matter, but I suspect your Lordships would like to move on a bit. When we get to Report, we have to get clear exactly where this House is headed on this matter, because the centralisation of power in the hands of the Secretary of State—it could be any Secretary of State of any political party in government—seems to me distinctly unhelpful, and I think the Bill will need significant amendment on Report.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 221; I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for adding their names. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, gave a brilliant exposition of many of the things I was prepared to say, and this amendment is really a prelude to later Amendments 207 and 336. For those two reasons, I will be very brief and save some powder for later debates.

I speak as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People, and this is about older people’s housing and the local plan. The amendment enables the Secretary of State to require local authorities to bring forward an assessment of the local need for housing for older people as part of the documentation in preparing their all-important local plan. Sadly, such an assessment is currently a rarity in local plans, despite the ever-increasing number of older people, for whom opportunities to downsize, to rightsize, can meet so many health, care and social needs.

Tailor-made housing for older people preserves independence, prevents or postpones the need for residential care, helps people to maintain fitness, combats loneliness and isolation, keeps people out of hospital, saves the NHS and care budgets, frees up family homes for the next generation and more. But we have a national shortfall in homes being built specifically for the older generation. Production is running at fewer than 8,000 homes per year, but demand is estimated at 30,000 to 35,000 homes a year.

The trouble is that the volume housebuilders are not interested. Given the choice, they will stick to building for the less discerning, more profitable market of young buyers and will avoid having to organise the ongoing management arrangements necessary for developments for later living. Since these housebuilders dominate the industry, nothing will change unless there is some pressure on these developers to do better. This amendment would start the process of getting on top of this key issue and is very much part of levelling up in extending healthy life expectancy and reducing health inequalities. It represents a key step in getting greater momentum behind a national effort to see local plans incorporate requirements for older people’s housing of different sorts.

I hope to build on this case in subsequent amendments but, in the meantime, I give notice that I will pursue the question asked by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, about the task force on housing for older people. It would be great to hear what progress has been made in that direction. The task force was announced on 25 May 2021 by Chris Pincher, the then Housing Minister, at my all-party parliamentary group meeting. It would be great to hear how that is going, having been launched some two years ago. On that note, I commend this amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I support Amendment 221 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, to which, as he indicated, my right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford added her name. She apologises for being unable to be in her place today; in my own brief remarks, I will make a number of points that she would have contributed had she been here. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who, like the noble Lord, Lord Best, has a long and honourable history of leading the thinking on housing matters in this land.

I declare my interest in housing for older people: as set out in the register, I am a board member of the Wythenshawe Community Housing Group. In fact, it is more than an interest; it is a passion. In my time as chair of the association, we have opened a flagship development of 135 apartments for older people with mixed rental, shared ownership and outright purchase. Developments such as this enable local people to live in dignity in old age. They provide social space as well as private dwellings. In many cases, they allow residents to remain close to their family networks and former neighbours—the support networks that they need in later life. We can do well for older people but that should not have to rely on episcopal passion or potluck. It needs to be part of how we plan housing provision at a strategic level.

Research by BNP Paribas Real Estate published late last year found that there is a shortfall of more than 487,000 senior living housing units. As our population ages and the housing crisis continues, this housing shortage is set to grow. The 2021 census confirmed that there are more people than ever in older age groups. Some 18.6% of the total population, more than 11 million of us, were aged 65 years or older—an increase from 16.4% at the previous census a decade earlier. There is expected to be a 31% increase in those aged over 65 over the next 15 years. I reached that milestone myself a few months ago; I have a real interest in remaining part of these statistics for many years to come.

Furthermore, as has been indicated, housing is not just for fully able people. Some 91% of homes in England fail basic accessibility standards. Not only do we need more housing but we need to work to improve the suitability of our existing and new housing stock. In doing so, it is important to note that, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, reminded us before the dinner break, older people are not a homogenous group so needs will vary.

The recent Mayhew review suggested that 50,000 homes are designed for older people annually. Providing suitable housing for seniors not only addresses their housing and care needs but reduces demand for NHS services, as people stay healthier for longer, and frees up housing and surplus bedrooms for younger families. Amendment 221 would facilitate an important part of the solution to these issues, enabling the Government to consider older people’s housing needs in drawing up plans. These should include more integrated retirement communities, such as the one that I referred to in Wythenshawe. They foster social connection, especially for people living alone in the latter years of their lives. This would help to counter the epidemic of homelessness, since over 6 million people will be living in single person households by 2040, half of them over the age of 80.

There is a real opportunity in this Bill for His Majesty’s Government to work more comprehensively to address the housing needs of our ageing population. I urge them to take it.

Housing: Conditions in Rented Sector

Lord Best Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: local councils are responsible for enforcing standards in the private rented sector and have a duty to take action where they find hazards at the most dangerous category 1 level. The Secretary of State has asked all local housing authorities to do everything in their power to improve the conditions for tenants and to have particular regard to high-score category 2 damp and mould hazards when enforcing current standards. The Secretary of State has also asked councils to provide an assessment of damp and mould issues particularly affecting private rented housing in their area. The department is currently analysing their responses to determine what needs to be done to address the issues raised by my noble friend.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, has the Minister’s department had a chance to look at the recommendation from the Affordable Housing Commission for a national housing conversion fund that would finance local housing associations to acquire from private landlords properties that need a lot of attention? This would increase the amount of safe, affordable, secure social housing at the same time as improving the property, ending or reducing fuel poverty and having an impact on climate change as well. Is this a real bargain for government?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I have not got an answer on that specific report, but I can say that this Government are investing £11.5 billion in new, good, affordable housing, £8.6 billion of which had already been allocated. So we are looking at more good housing and, at the same time, we are challenging to ensure that those responsible for social housing in particular are making sure that those houses are in good condition.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Finally, I offer our support for the remaining amendments in this group—on housing, from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and on education, from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. All these things are important and should be in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 15 in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Watkins of Tavistock, and me. For this stage of the Bill, I draw attention to my housing and planning interests as in the register, including as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and president of the Sustainable Energy Association.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London is not able to be with us on this Ash Wednesday, but I know she feels deeply about this issue, not least from her distinguished career within the health service. I hope that I can cover some of the points that she wanted to make, and I know the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds will join in the debate.

Amendment 15 would ensure that health disparities are included in the Government’s levelling-up missions by getting this issue into the Bill. Improving public health and reducing health inequalities was a centrepiece of the original levelling-up White Paper. Two of the original missions, seven and eight, were aimed respectively at covering the gap in healthy life expectancy between localities and addressing determinants of mental and physical ill health, but these ambitions do not feature in the Bill. Ominously, it now seems that the promised health disparities White Paper may not see the light of day. There seem to be delays, too, in producing strategies for tackling the so-called obesity epidemic and for smoking reduction.

However, health inequalities in the UK have grown worse over the past decade after centuries of increased healthy life expectancy. Gaps have widened: the Inequalities in Health Alliance of 155 member bodies, convened by the Royal College of Physicians, notes that there is now a 19-year gap in healthy life expectancy between the least and the most deprived communities, and health inequalities cost the country £31 billion to £33 billion a year.

I declare an interest as the chair of the Oxford University Commission on Creating Healthy Cities, which reported last year. We concluded that, if central and local government gave priority to achieving better outcomes for physical and mental health, they would simultaneously address wider inequalities in society, improve productivity, support efforts to tackle climate change, and reduce the escalating costs of the NHS and social care. The Oxford study, driven by Kellogg College’s Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation and the Prince’s Foundation, recommends that health creation should be the key focus of efforts to level up. Our commission supported the Government’s White Paper and its health objectives, and these deserve to be incorporated into the legislation before us. The whole levelling-up agenda can be a massive contributor to improvements in health and well-being.

This amendment is a necessary precursor to later amendments that link specific policy measures for the built environment—for planning, housing, transport and the environment—to the core issue of health. These important amendments would be greatly assisted by a backdrop of the Bill having a clear focus on health inequalities as one of its key missions. This would match advances in Scotland and Wales, where the emphasis on the health dimension in public policy and guidance has been strengthened over recent years.

Finally, in support of the right reverend Prelate’s amendment, I add that using health as the touchstone for levelling-up policies increases wider understanding and public support for the varied local projects that will follow enactment of the Bill. What assurances can the Minister give that we will see a focus on health, and specifically on health inequalities, in the levelling-up missions? What can the Minister tell us about the missing health disparities White Paper? I support the amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, at Second Reading, I remember applauding, broadly speaking, the ambitions of the White Paper. However, I share the concerns of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who of course brings to this much more experience than I do.

I am pleased that, already, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has alluded to the interconnectivity of all these different missions; they cannot be seen in silos or in isolation. For example, if you have children who are turning up at school unfed or living in poor housing, you can try teaching them what you will but it may not be very successful, and that has an impact not only on individuals but on communities and their flourishing.

I will speak to Amendment 15, tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, and briefly to Amendments 7, 30 and 31. Health disparities require discrete attention in the Bill. It is not an optional extra. The Bill as it stands states the missions but does not provide mechanisms for action or accountability. How will we be able to measure whether they are effective or not? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London has said that, although assurances by the Minister are very welcome, they are not enough; they have to be backed up in the Bill with measurable implementation gauges.

Good health is key both to human—that is, individual—and social flourishing. As I said, we cannot separate out such things as housing, education, health, transport and so on as if we can solve one without having an impact on the other. However, there are inequalities between the regions in many of these areas. I speak from a context in the north: the whole of west Yorkshire, most of north Yorkshire—but do not tell the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of York that—a chunk of Lancashire, one slice of County Durham and a bit of south Yorkshire. The inequalities are serious. The economic squeeze, in the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, is an incubator for inequalities, and we know the impact that inequality has across the board.

The White Paper rightly recognises the centrality of health to levelling up, but the actions by which this will be achieved could be argued to be lacking—and we certainly need long-term solutions and not quick fixes or slogans that sound good but do not lead to content. Can the Minister therefore offer assurances of the Government’s commitment to health within the levelling-up agenda in ways that can be measured and accountability upheld?

Leasehold Charges

Lord Best Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The Government recognise the strength of feeling in this House in particular, and the other place, on the leasehold issue, but it is complex and needs careful consideration. The Government have said that we will bring a Bill forward in this Parliament and that is what we intend to do.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that proper consumer protection is particularly important for older people, who may be downsizing or rightsizing to retirement apartments and feel totally confused by the plethora of service charges, exit fees, commission fees and commission on insurance? Is this vulnerable group not particularly important in leasehold reform? Otherwise, who is going to downsize or rightsize ever, knowing the difficulties they may well face?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This is an important issue, particularly for older people who may be considering downsizing. It is just too complex at the moment. That is what we will be dealing with as we move forward, and I thank the noble Lord for all his help in doing so.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests, as on the register, and I have three points to make on the Bill. I preface these comments with the overarching observation that it is admirable for the Government to be bringing forward a range of measures with the ambitious goal of levelling up geographic inequalities, health inequalities and other disparities in society. I commend the honourable intentions of the Bill.

My three Second Reading points all relate to the housing agenda, since the levelling up of housing opportunities and outcomes is so fundamental to addressing all the other inequalities in health and well-being, as well as in productivity and economic success. First, although “regeneration” features so prominently in the Bill’s title, the proposed legislation’s housing content is concerned almost exclusively with the building of new homes. For social housing, Homes England has pursued a policy over recent years of funding only projects that add extra homes, not those that upgrade the existing stock. But many areas need a big injection of funding—a second decent homes programme—to modernise down-at-heel social housing. The recent Rochdale tragedy demonstrated the urgent requirement to improve outdated ex-council housing.

In the private rented sector, with more landlords now looking to exit the market after the interest rate rises, this is surely the time to support social housing providers to step in and acquire and modernise low-grade rented housing stock. For substandard owner-occupied housing, mostly owned by older people with few resources, we have not yet made progress in achieving greater energy efficiency and decarbonisation while addressing fuel poverty and tackling miserable conditions.

Secondly, in terms of new development, the Bill has provoked huge anxiety in the world of housing, as we have heard already in this debate, about the way that obligations on housebuilders to provide affordable homes will be affected by the switch from Section 106 agreements to the new infrastructure levy. The Government clearly wish to see at least as much affordable housing after this Bill is enacted, particularly for social housing at rents affordable to those on lower incomes. We need to strengthen the legislation to underpin that intention. It would be a tragedy if “levelling up” led to a diminution of the already hopelessly low level of supply of truly affordable housing. There will be some important amendments here.

Thirdly, and finally, is this to be the Bill that goes a step further and achieves some fundamental change to our housing system, which for decades has failed to meet the nation’s needs? It will not make sufficient difference just to improve the ways in which we coerce reluctant housebuilders to develop the housing that our communities require. Could this be the Bill that enables local councils themselves to take back control and achieve what their locality needs in terms of quality, affordability, speed of build-out and more?

The bold step to achieve that would be to adopt the recommendations of the 2018 Letwin review, with development corporations established at arm’s length by councils with CPO powers and the capacity to borrow. Will the Bill enable these corporations to acquire sites, prepare masterplans and parcel out the land to fulfil locally determined objectives with a variety of development uses, from homes for first-time buyers to retirement developments, from social housing to green spaces and so on?

So, there must be more emphasis on regeneration, amendments to the Bill to bolster the vital affordable housing element in new schemes and, more fundamentally, government backing for development corporations that capture land value and return us to building what the nation actually needs.