Housing: Shared Ownership

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, we value shared ownership very much. That is why we are looking at it in the private context as well as the social one, where it was focused previously. As I have indicated, Help to Buy has been extended for a further two years. It is very easy for those in this House, most, if not all, of whom will own their own homes, but we should recognise that this is an aspiration for a lot of people and that is exactly what the Government have done.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, does the route to affordable homes consultation—which I think the noble Lord was referring to—include looking at the price of land, which is at the heart of the problem?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, a consultation on the social housing Green Paper, with which the noble Lord will be familiar, has closed today. On shared ownership, we have announced a consultation that will look at private shared ownership and how we can encourage that. Necessarily, one of the matters it will look at is the price of land.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

But when land in the London area, or outside London, costs anything from £3 million to £5 million an acre, and could previously have been purchased for perhaps £20,000 or £30,000 an acre as agricultural land, is there not a real problem that has to be sorted out before we can resolve this difficulty?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The noble Lord is right in seeking to identify the problem; what we do about it is another issue. But we are looking at issues around land value, such as compulsory purchase. These are part of the mix, but if it were a simple problem, it would have been solved by Governments long ago.