Housebuilding

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Evans of Rainow

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My noble friend and former Chief Whip is exactly right. He is a formidable campaigner on issues of home building. I pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Minister for Housing, who is absolutely right; the current Spelthorne local plan is nearly 15 years old, meaning that the policies in it will not be up to date. Withdrawing the plan from examination could lead only to significant further delay and additional expense while a new plan is prepared. Local authorities are more at risk from appeals and speculative planning applications being successful if they do not have a local plan setting out an up-to-date housing requirement, as the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies. Intervening in this plan will accelerate plan production, given that the current plan is submitted and an examination will ensure that an up-to-date plan is in place sooner, therefore preventing speculative developments taking place. Local plans should be reviewed every five years. The good people of Spelthorne should expect better from their local politicians of all colours.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, the Government are absolutely right to try to put more resources into the hands of local planning authorities, because that is what they desperately need to process all the applications. But with house prices falling and interest rates rising, a lot of big housebuilders are pulling back and reducing their output. They are selling off some of their big sites. Is this not the perfect moment, while prices are falling, to get a really big programme of social housing on the go? Let us have a real go at it now.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. Our £11.5 billion affordable homes programme will deliver thousands of new homes across the country, and a large number of these will be for social rent. Local authorities have a key role to play in increasing the supply of social housing; in 2021-22 they delivered nearly 800,000 affordable homes, which represented 13% of the overall affordable housing delivery and the highest recorded number of local authority completions since 1991-92.

Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Evans of Rainow

3rd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for taking the Bill through the House. I thank noble Lords from across the House for their valuable contributions through its passage. I thank and pay tribute to my honourable friend Bob Blackman MP for his tireless efforts in guiding this important Bill through the other place. The Government are pleased to support this crucial Bill, and I am personally very pleased to continue to support it today.

The measures in the Bill will drive out the rogue operators in the supported housing sector and ensure that the vulnerable people who rely on supported housing services to help them live as independently as possible can be confident that they are living in good-quality supported housing.

I want to be clear that, in taking the measures in the Bill forward, the Government will work with the sector, local authorities and others to make sure that good providers can continue to deliver excellent supported housing. The Bill contains a number of measures that will deliver the objective of driving out rogues. These include two very important measures that I will mention today.

The first is a power enabling the Secretary of State to set out national standards for supported housing. The standards will mean that both providers of supported housing and residents will know precisely what good-quality housing with care and support looks like. These standards will need to work across the complex and varied types of supported housing, and will need to be flexible enough to promote innovation and avoid stifling supply.

The second measure is the supported housing licensing regime. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to consult on the detail of the licensing schemes and enables him to make regulations to put them into action. Providers of supported housing schemes will need to meet conditions in order to be licensed; not least, they must comply with the national standards. The Government have already started on a comprehensive programme of stakeholder engagement so that the views of providers, residents and statutory consultees are taken into account. This work will include looking at the costs to local authorities, so that new burdens assessments can be completed.

In conclusion, I want to be very clear that the Government value supported housing; we know that it plays a vital role enabling vulnerable people to live independently. I once again thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his sponsorship of the Bill, and my honourable friend Bob Blackman in the other place for his hard work and dedication in putting the Bill forward.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Thornhill, for their support. I thank the Minister for his support, and for underlining the Government’s support for the Bill and their willingness to fund the extra burden it involves for local authorities. The true supported housing sector needs significantly more help to reach vulnerable people in real need, and the hard work now begins to put in place the regulatory framework that banishes the bad landlords and strongly encourages the good.

I underline our thanks to Bob Blackman MP, who has now consolidated his position as a leading advocate for better housing for homeless and vulnerable people. I hope he soon comes high in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills for a third time.

My sincere thanks also go to Crisis. As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, it has, as always, provided invaluable backup. I record my appreciation to the Bill team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for their patience and painstaking work on the preparation and passage of the Bill. It is always a joy to work with talented civil servants on a Private Member’s Bill. This is my sixth and, once again, as a Minister for the day, it is revealing and gratifying to see the quality of the work that goes on behind the scenes.

In conclusion, I am sure the Bill will make a real difference to people living in the most unenviable conditions we can imagine. I wish the Government, in partnership with the supported housing sector, every success in making a reality of the promise contained within the Bill.

Leasehold Properties: Building Insurance

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Evans of Rainow

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Lord for the work he has done on this subject and for his many years of public service, for his party and his community, as a councillor in Southwark.

We are committed to working with industry to bring down premium increases in the first instance. The Secretary of State has asked the FCA to do whatever it can to press insurance brokers to reduce unreasonable fees ahead of government action to ban managing agents, landlords and freeholders taking commissions when they take out buildings insurance. The Association of British Insurers is planning to launch a scheme for buildings with fire safety issues and very high premiums by summer 2023 at the latest. Ministers will continue to monitor the progress of the scheme and have made it clear that they expect the scheme to be delivered by summer 2023 to provide urgent assistance to affected buildings. I am very happy to meet with the noble Lord and engage with members of the National Leasehold Campaign; I pay tribute to the work it has done.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, taking commission surreptitiously on insurance premiums is one of the many ways that managing agents, unfortunately, sometimes behave very badly, and that includes exit fees, permission fees and service charges that go up. I think there is now almost universal recognition that we need a regulator for property agents—estate agents, letting agents and managing agents—and that is certainly what the industry itself is asking for. Would the Minister welcome an amendment to the Renters (Reform) Bill or a leasehold reform Bill, when we get it, to introduce a regulator for property agents?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This Government are committed to promoting fairness and transparency for tenants and homeowners and to making sure that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. I assure him that we remain determined to drive up professionalism and standards among all property agents, and we continue to work with the industry on improving best practice across the property agent sector.