Local Housing Need

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, very much for that and give him this assurance: I certainly was not blaming local authorities. I went very much out of my way to say that action was being taken on the system as it was and that it was intra vires their powers. As I have been at pains to say, successive Governments have brought us to the position that the market is broken—bust, as they apparently say in Pendle. It is right to say we are going for a uniform approach, as he indicated, but issues about where the housing goes and the type of housing is a matter for the local authority. We seek to set out a framework here and we are of course consulting on it.

Regarding the dates for when this comes in, if there is an existing plan as of now or an existing plan goes in before 1 April 2018, or later if the national planning policy changes later than that date, that plan is the valid one until it runs its life. New ones will come in and take over from the old plans.

In relation to the issue of some authorities wanting to be or being in a position where, on the formula, they will require less housing, if they want to go further than that then of course the Government will be delighted, but they will need to justify that to the Planning Inspectorate on examination. Once again, that will be an independent process. That is the essence of what we are consulting upon but, as I say, we are very much open to this discussion, which will end on 9 November.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for the Statement. I admire his expertise on the subject—I admit that I have none. I welcome the Statement to the extent that I understand it and as far as it goes. I am a member of the Economic Affairs Select Committee under the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, which produced the report referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. The two things that struck me most in that exercise were that, first, if one approaches the problem from the basis of the crying need for more social housing, it really is necessary to allow local authorities to borrow to build and that, secondly, if one approaches it looking at the development by the private sector, one really has to think of a way to tackle the problem of three-quarters of a million permitted houses not being built. The big developers were very clear that their business model does not depend on land banking. Yet their results are very good at the moment and the markets might well think that they are doing pretty well on large land banking and not building the houses for which they have obtained permission. As we approach the budget season, can the Minister talk to his colleagues in the Treasury about the possibility of incentivising, taxing or penalising builders to build the houses for which permission has been obtained?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Lord for the reference to the excellent report from the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hollick. The Government are of the view that there is sufficient headroom on the borrowing at the moment which is not utilised, so there is no need to look at the cap. There are considerable reserves held by local authorities as well. Obviously this is something that we review but, just at the moment, there does not seem to be any need to move on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, also referred to the issue of land banking, which I think also came up in an Oral Question today. Obviously it is something that was tackled and mentioned in the White Paper; we are analysing the responses and will come forward following the consultation on that. I am very grateful to him for exaggerating my powers with the Treasury, but I think that that will be a matter for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. It is obviously an option that is canvassed and talked about, as we certainly want to encourage builders to ensure that we do not need to take that action by not sitting on great reserves of land.