Housing (Built Environment Committee Report)

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Haselhurst

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, an error on my part has led me to speak in the gap in a truncated contribution and I apologise. This report is a comprehensive canter round the course of housing demand. The committee is to be congratulated. I want to speak narrowly. Paragraph 180 states:

“The Local Government Association set out proposals to help councils encourage faster build out rates”,


including

“a streamlined compulsory purchase process to acquire (at pre-uplift value)”.

The words “pre-uplift value” need interpretation if the public are to understand this report.

I have previously argued that some development land valuation should not be based on planning decisions but on agricultural value, with an uplift for administrative and infrastructural redevelopment costs, which means CPO. I see no reason why huge profits to landowners at the cost of house buyers should turn on the granting of planning permissions. I further argue that while Section 106 agreements are helpful, they are a complex alternative: even where they sit alongside community infrastructural levies, they often cannot deliver.

According to the report, at paragraph 54, the Affordable Housing Commission reports a substantial increase in the private rental sector and a contraction in social housing. Due to the timing, the committee was unable to comment on the recent explosion in interest rates and the consequent increased demand for cheaper public sector rental property. The problem here is that pressure on housing availability is being used not only by heavily indebted landlords but also by others carrying little debt to take advantage of housing shortage and force up rents. We have reports of 25% to 30% increases at a time when working families are under heavy pressure due to wider cost of living increases. The truth is that the table in paragraph 53 of the report on average monthly housing costs is now totally out of date as the impact of inflation feeds through into increased rent levels.

Finally, I have just a few words on the taxation of rental income. In a debate in 2017, I drew on work by the London Borough of Newham, which has established a licensing system not only to protect tenants but to ensure that tax is paid on landlord rental incomes. The IPPR had recently estimated that the Revenue lost £183 million in a single year in London alone. In Newham, only 13,000 out of 26,000 landlords had registered with HMRC for self-assessment. I wish the Revenue well as it follows this up—I hope it does so.

This is a brilliant report providing an abundance of research material to be used in the year to come. I will certainly use it again in further debates.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I too am on restricted time. Nevertheless, I record my thanks to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and the staff of the committee—