Local Housing Need

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Filkin

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for her characteristically honest and candid contribution on the shared blame we all have relating to the problems we face and why we must all move forward together. As she rightly said, this is about seeking to build more in less-affordable areas. As I said, that should have a beneficial effect in those areas, particularly for people struggling to buy. As I said, the cut-off date for existing local plans is that if they have gone in before 1 April 2018 they will not be subject to the new, consulted-on regulations. That is the cut-off deal.

The noble Baroness referenced the need for more local authority building. I agree. She will know, and I think I mentioned this previously, that we are seeking to do bespoke deals with authorities up and down the country. We are in discussion with many authorities. We are certainly at a fairly advanced stage with Leeds and the West Midlands, but there are others.

The noble Baroness then mentioned the construction industry. Obviously we consult it, particularly on employment issues and the impact of Brexit on the workforce, where we have concerns, as set out in the Farmer review, which was an independent review but commissioned by the Government on the industry. It is something we look at very closely and we are in discussion on a regular basis with developers about the industry’s needs.

[Lord Filkin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to radically increase the supply of housing. I declare two interests as chair of the Centre for Ageing Better and as a member of the Intergenerational Commission. The problems of insufficient housing are borne by both ends of the spectrum. Younger people face significantly higher housing cost and significantly lower quality of housing because we have failed to build enough housing in the last 20 years. The greatest growth in the number of households and the percentage of households is in people aged 65 plus. Clearly, the housing White Paper makes some reference to this, which is welcome, but there is an urgent need to recognise the importance of the million new homes, many houses being provided that are suitable for older people or people as they get older, and ensuring a supply of suitable accommodation for people to move into in urban and rural areas as they wish to adopt more suitable housing for their later years. What will be done about this?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for that contribution. I reiterate the point he quite rightly made that this is about cost, but we must also have regard to quality. He refers quite rightly to the great growth in the housing needs of people aged 65 and over, not least because people, thankfully, are living longer. Their needs will be very different as they age. He will recall that on the then Neighbourhood Planning Bill there was discussion on this, prompted initially by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, I think. As a result of discussions on that, the Government were keen to ensure that we placed an obligation in the National Planning Policy Framework relating to elderly housing, which has been taken forward. It is very much at the forefront of our thinking and therefore places an obligation on local authorities to make provision for that age group when they present their plan.