Housing: Permitted Development Rights

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord and apologise for misleading him yesterday: it is not in the NPPF but in the accompanying notes. There are powers that local government can use, including completion orders and so on, to encourage developers to build out when necessary. I will provide him with a detailed written response about all the powers that are available to local government to do that.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us what steps her department is taking to ensure that enough of the homes being built under the PDR are affordable for local people in rural areas?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. PDR tends to apply where there are brownfield sites to be developed because they are conversions, usually, from existing buildings. There has been a change to introduce that principle for agricultural buildings as well. I will try to get back to him with a specific answer on whether the department knows how much take-up there has been of that provision. We have made provision in the new national planning policy framework for ensuring that planning policies and decisions are responsive to local circumstances in rural areas and support housing developments that reflect local needs. That is a more general requirement. I will get back to him on whether the agricultural permitted development has had any traction.

Housebuilding Targets

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that the Church Commissioners are keen to have discussions, and that will be the case. All land within a local plan area is ready for consideration, but I understand the point the noble Baroness is making. I know that the most reverend Primate who was on the Benches previously was very keen to encourage those discussions, and we will continue those. I hope the Church will continue to be keen to support us in our aim to deliver the housing that the country needs.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, if the potential of rural exception sites were to be fully realised, it would make a transformative change for small rural communities, not least in providing the additional affordable housing that is desperately needed. It is frustrating because just before I came in I was trying to read the NPPF response to the consultation but I could not find it. Are His Majesty’s Government committed to introducing a national development management policy for rural exception sites?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Right Reverend Prelate for that question. We understand the need for particular consideration of rural sites and rural exception sites. I apologise that he was not able to access the NPPF on the GOV.UK website. I hope it is there now and that he will be able to look at it later on today. In the spring, we will produce a long-term housing strategy that will contain detail of how we think rural sites should be considered. In order to give him a specific answer on the NDMP, I will go back and make sure he has a written answer.

Planning Committees: Reform

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right to mention that. The Government have a stated intention of making sure that all local authorities have an up-to-date local plan in place. That was not the case when we came into government. A great deal of work has gone on with local authorities to ensure that they are making progress on their local plans. In the National Planning Policy Framework publication today, we see more enforcement steps that we intend to take if local authorities have not produced their local plans. The Secretary of State has been quite clear that, if encouragement does not work, we will use our powers to step in and do it for people. I hope local authorities will realise that the best way to make their local plans is with their councillors and their local communities.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I welcome many of the announcements from the Government today in the NPPF, especially on flooding-risk policy. However, I am concerned about the protection of agricultural land, not least around the vital need to keep the highest levels of food security in this country. Therefore, why was the decision made not to include in the NPPF explicit protection of the best and most versatile land?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

When authorities do their housing needs assessment, they will have the opportunity to state why they think that the housing numbers they have been given are too high. If one of those reasons is that they have high-grade agricultural land for food production then they can put that forward as part of their mitigation for having some reduction in the housing numbers. The process is in place to allow authorities to do that; in the same way as would be done for large areas of national landscape in an area, they will be able to put that forward as a mitigation.

Housing Supply and Homelessness

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, for securing this important debate. I declare my interests as president of the Rural Coalition and vice-president of the LGA. I offer my thanks to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for his valedictory speech. During his tenure, he has been a champion of housing, and we have already referred to the Coming Home report, which is pertinent both to today’s debate and to His Majesty’s Government, with their very good and ambitious targets to build more housing. I hope we can assist the Government in achieving that.

Homelessness and rough sleeping are on the rise. Government statutory homelessness figures, released last week, reveal that 159,380 children are now homeless and living in temporary accommodation, a 15% increase in a year and the highest figure since records began in 2004. More particularly, the November 2023 CPRE report on the state of rural housing showed that rural homelessness has increased by 20% since 2021 and 40% since 2018-19.

There are a number of particular challenges around the housing crisis in rural areas which are often overlooked in national policy, and that is where I want to focus my remarks. There is an acute shortage of affordable housing, particularly in smaller rural communities. Only 9% of the housing stock in parishes with a population of under 300 is social housing, compared with 17% of the housing stock in urban areas. Between 2019 and 2022, rural local authority affordable housing waiting lists were up by 31%, compared with an increase of 3% in urban areas. There are still not enough affordable housing developments being delivered on rural exception sites. Very few affordable houses are being provided in settlements with a population of under 3,000. The impact on rural communities is immense and often overlooked.

I turn to the difficulties in planning policy that are holding back the development of rural affordable housing. In 66% of smaller rural communities, the National Planning Policy Framework prevents local authorities taking an affordable housing contribution from small sites. Will His Majesty’s Government respond favourably to the calls from many rural organisations to allow local planning authorities to seek affordable housing contributions from sites of fewer than 10 dwellings in communities with a population of 3,000 or fewer?

There is also the untapped potential of rural exception sites. The rural exception site policy, as it stands, is poorly implemented. There is a lack of consistency in its application and a number of risks and costs associated with its development. Between 2021 and 2022, only 17% of local planning authorities used the rural exception site policy. In 2023-24, 56% of rural exception site completions were in only two local authorities. There is a really great opportunity here, and we need to work out how we can develop it. Can the Minister say whether the Government will introduce a national development management policy for rural exception sites, as well as a bespoke planning passport, so we can speed up delivery?

Defra’s evaluation of the Rural Housing Enablers programme has allowed people to return to their communities, maintain support networks, provide care and support for the elderly and vulnerable, and help with childcare. RHE programmes have been supporting community engagement on housing developments, funded by Defra, for the past two years at a cost of just over £2 million annually. This was a great initiative by the previous Government, and I commend them for the work that was done. Such work has led to an increase in schemes in the pipeline, with the potential to deliver over 2,000 new affordable homes, but this is in jeopardy as the funding is due to end in March 2025. Can the Minister update us on whether there are any plans to renew that funding?

I have just one more request of the Minister. Developing rural affordable housing involves a number of challenges specific to the rural context. Will she therefore commit to ensuring that the housing strategy contains a positive rural element—rural proofing—so that we can include delivering more affordable rural housing in order to increase the level of sustainability in the countryside?

Religious Hate Crime

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to reports that religious hate crime has increased, what steps they are taking to tackle religious hate crime and strengthen community cohesion in the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, religious hatred is a stain on our society. Recent events, such as the domestic impact of tensions in the Middle East and the appalling violence we saw on our streets over the summer, have exposed weaknesses and divisions in our society. This Government are developing an integrated, cohesive approach to tackling these challenges, which will address racial and religious hatred and strengthen cohesion across all communities. We will say more soon.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for his reply. Many of us are deeply worried; post the 7 October attacks, the dramatic rise in religious-motivated hate crime and the strain on social cohesion have been deeply worrying. Of course, at the same time they have spurred a whole range of grass-roots initiatives. I am thinking, for example, of the work that our local MP in St Albans has undertaken with local imams and rabbis, who have produced a document—five reasons for dialogue; why Jews and Muslims refuse to hate one another—which they are taking around our schools. It is making quite an impact. I wonder whether the Minister and his officials are aware of this and other initiatives and whether they are being integrated into a national strategy so that we can try to address this at the youngest age possible.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate and ask him to pass on my appreciation for the work that has gone on in different faiths to bring the community together in St Albans. I made community visits on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to discuss these issues, and tomorrow I will be in Cambridge visiting the Woolf Institute to hear from Jewish, Muslim and Christian community voices. These important initiatives are all part of a package to make sure that our country rejects hate, has unity and works together to deal with these challenges.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I rise with a certain reticence to speak, partly because of my own lack of experience of family members or others being involved in the Holocaust. I am aware that many Members of this House will have personal reasons why this is so raw and important. I underline that I am not trying to speak on behalf of the Church of England or the Lords spiritual. We hold a number of differing views on the Bill.

It hardly needs repeating, but I personally know of nobody who opposes the Bill because they are against the concept of having a prominent Holocaust memorial in this nation’s capital. As someone who has visited a significant number of Holocaust memorials in other parts of the world and other capital cities, I am well aware of their importance and how moving they can be.

I agree with much of what the Minister said in his assessment of remembering the horrors of what happened and the need to do everything we can to make sure that a holocaust can never happen again, not least because so few Holocaust survivors are still with us and because of the strategic importance of learning about the Holocaust—especially now, given the ongoing scourge of anti-Semitism. It has been deeply saddening and distressing to read of the increase in anti-Semitic incidents this year, and of some of the hate-filled violence in riots across the country this summer. So it is even more urgent for us to find a way to address the division and prejudices that are damaging our communities, and we need to do all we can to highlight the great evil of these things when they happen.

It is of course deeply regrettable that the establishment of a new Holocaust memorial in London has been so long delayed, but I do not believe that rushing things through without proper public consultation is the right answer. Having said that, I do not support the proposed site of the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens and the removal of the protections conferred by the 1900 Act that the Bill seeks to enact. Surely it is unnecessary to disrupt and decimate one of the few peaceful public green spaces in Westminster, particularly for residents for whom this is their main neighbourhood park and who have a right to access green space. I have been contacted by more than one member of the Buxton family—a very old Hertfordshire family whose forebear is commemorated in the Buxton memorial—who is deeply concerned about this.

I underline what the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said about the need for His Majesty’s Government to be absolutely clear about how much of this space will be taken up by the new memorial. We are told it is 7.5%, but this has been contested by the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust, which claims that it is 20.7% of the total area of the gardens. I cannot see how this cannot be resolved, and we ought to be clear about what it involves.

There are further concerns, which I am sure my noble colleagues will outline in more detail and more persuasively than I could possibly hope to. There are security issues and increased costs, as well as the abandonment of many of the original recommendations for an educational centre, which came from the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission in 2015, simply due to space constraints. I note that 18 petitions have been submitted to the Lords Select Committee for the Bill, and I will follow the consideration of these closely after today’s debate. It is for the reason I have outlined here that I am minded to support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

It seems to me that the values guiding both sides of this debate are in fact rather closely aligned—an interest in the public good; public education and access for all; and a belief in the value of preservation of, on the one hand, our collective memory and, on the other, a vital shared green space at the heart of this city.