Housing Market

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a relatively short debate so far, but it has been a privilege to be here and listen to contributions and, inevitably, to the magnificent introductory speech of my noble friend Lady Taylor. I think it has set a difficult standard that not all of us reach.

We have a very broad subject before us. I am going to focus on the private rental market in London. It is arguable that, because of the nature of London, the private rental market is particularly important because of the people who come to London, how long they stay here and the sort of people they are. The problem is that the private rental market in London is failing.

First, I will say a word about London. It is, of course, the greatest city where all human life can be found. To pick up a point from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, we welcome people to London from all over the world. They are welcome and we regard them as being a net benefit to our life—even taking account of the decent housing with which they must be provided. The important point is that the success of London is not counterposed to the success of the rest of the country. I would argue, though it is not always a popular argument, that the success of the rest of the country depends on a successful London. To a significant extent, because of the particular and distinct importance of the private rental market in London, the success of the country depends on a functioning private rental market in London. This echoes the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that it is an economic issue; decent housing is not just about accommodation but about the whole economy and its success.

The 2021 census estimated that London’s population stood at 8.8 million. It is forecast to grow, heading towards 10 million on some estimates. Of course, that is a churning population: people come, and people leave. I find it difficult to understand why they leave—I have stayed. The private rental housing market in London does not serve the purposes of this rotating population. This is in the context of our worsening cost of living crisis; the fiscal Statement earlier today forecast that things are going to get worse over the next few years.

Already, more and more Londoners, particularly those in private rental accommodation, are finding it such a struggle to make ends meet and to afford their basic needs. They are faced with a situation where, as the GLA reported this year, in

“March 2022, the median rent for a privately rented home in London was £1,450 per … month, … twice as high as the median in England as a whole … London’s rents are so much higher than those of other regions that the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom home in the capital (£1,225) is higher than the median rent for a home with four or more bedrooms across all of the North and Midlands.”

Following the success at moving away from Covid—I am not suggesting that we have solved the problem, but we are in a favourable trend—rents are now increasing faster than the temporary respite they had during the Covid pandemic. Zoopla reports that average rents in London were 17.8% higher this July than they were in the year before.

As I have explained, London’s economic success depends on a successful privately rented housing sector, alongside an important role for social housing. I gave a speech on social housing in this Chamber last week on the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in which I emphasised the importance of council housing. I will not repeat that, although it is worth repeating it again. I discussed Harold Macmillan’s success, when he was Housing Minister, of achieving the then Conservative Government’s target of 350,000 new houses a year, many of which, I assume, were in Stevenage—so it can be done. However, I will not address that on this occasion; noble Lords can read my detailed contribution in Hansard.

Instead, I will continue to focus on private rental housing. I do not go along with the idea of demonising private landlords. I do not assume that they set out to provide poorly maintained stock at excessive costs, but clearly there are problems. The GLA, which I will cite again, has undertaken a survey of private tenants, finding that

“55% of private renting households in London”—

only 55%—

“said they were satisfied with … their accommodation”.

In other words, 45% were dissatisfied—representing an increase from 33% two years previously. The underlying problem we must confront is the inevitable tension that arises between, on the one hand, the provision of a human service—in this case, housing, which should be a social right that is available, of a good standard and affordable—and, on the other, a service that is being provided commercially. As we operate it at the moment, it is to the detriment of the people who are in the private rental sector.

I am glad that the issue of Airbnb was mentioned, because that is creating particular tension in some areas of London. However, I am not talking about Airbnb or the high-value rentals available to those on high incomes; I am talking about the lower-cost housing for people on incomes that are lower than average and who cannot afford to buy, but who need or want to work in London for employment, family or other reasons.

There is the oddity and counterintuitive fact that it is often more expensive to rent than it is to buy the house, provided that you have some capital in the first place. People are in the fix that they cannot afford to save to buy a house, because they are paying too much in rent. It is in that light that, again, these GLA figures tell us that 40% of London’s private renters are likely to struggle to make their rent payments in the next six months—so we have an immediate crisis.

The mayor, Sadiq Khan, held a housing crisis meeting earlier this week with representatives of the housing sector, and they are calling for greater security and safety for London’s private renters. I support the mayor’s call on the Government to introduce a two-year rent freeze, analogous to holding down the cost of energy, to address the soaring costs of living in London. Such a freeze has been introduced in Scotland. The Government should represent the democratic mandate that the mayor achieved; he fought on the basis of achieving this rental freeze, and we should look to the Government to support him in achieving this policy.

Housing (Built Environment Committee Report)

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for introducing this report. A bit to my surprise, I found myself agreeing with virtually everything he said. I mainly thank the committee for its hard work in this important area. Given the nature of an all-party report, it is excellent, covering the whole territory. There is much to learn.

I will focus on one part of the report, which simply states:

“There is a serious shortage of social housing”.


I want to make one straightforward point on the importance of council housing. We face some public policy problems to which there is no obvious solution, but we have other problems to which we do know the solution. History tells us what the solution is but, for some reason, we avoid the obvious. We know from history that the way to obtain a bigger supply of social housing is to build council houses.

I could quote the experience of the 1964 Labour Government—there is justification for that—but I am going to look at the 1951 Conservative Government. I have been rereading Harold Macmillan’s autobiography. There is much to learn. As I read, I had to ask myself whether he would have a place in today’s Conservative Party. I think the answer is no, but I do not know; obviously, he was a man of many parts. He was the Minister for Housing from 1951. He inherited a decision of the Conservative Party conference that it wanted to build 300,000 houses a year—an interesting figure. Of course, it is worth stressing that this was new-build and at the same time, it was having to undertake a massive restoration of the housing stock, which had been destroyed or run down during the war.

Macmillan set about achieving that objective. In 1953, there was a White Paper, Houses: The Next Step. I will quote for noble Lords the biography of Harold Macmillan by Charles Williams, which says that, after the White Paper, Macmillan realised that he would

“have to persuade his own colleagues that the only way to meet the promise given to the electorate”—

the manifesto promise—

“was to engage in a sustained programme of local authority housing.”

He goes on to explain that

“the only way to achieve the housing target was by subsidising local authorities to build for rent. In other words, council housing was to have the top priority.”

By way of background, during the subsequent debate in the Commons, Macmillan gave a routine acceptance of a property-owning democracy. His whole argument was that, as a long-term aim, property ownership was fine. However, Williams states:

“Council housing for rent was the only way to meet the political objective he had been set—and which he was determined to achieve.”


We have the same target now and the same means of achieving it; that is the true meaning of the shift.

Many years ago, when I was a member of a local authority, people said, “We shouldn’t be subsidising bricks. We should be subsidising people”. That is clearly wrong. The only way to solve a housing shortage is to build houses, and the most direct and simple way to achieve that is through a massive council housing programme.

Inequalities of Region and Place

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I join in the congratulations to my noble friend Lord Stansgate. I wrote that it was an “excellent” maiden speech in my prepared notes, but we should change that to “outstanding”. It is such a pleasure to join him once again after our time working together on the late, lamented Inner London Education Authority. He will be a considerable asset to the House as someone who is clearly in command of his subject and who will stand up for science.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Liddle for initiating this important debate on a matter that is central to our country’s future. He has brought a necessary note of realism to this issue. I agree with his conclusions and one point I add, where I am sure he shares my concerns, is the need for greater involvement of trade unions in the process of renewal.

The approach of the Motion, in contrast to the bluster from the Prime Minister, is stark. The Prime Minister claims to have a policy—levelling up—but in truth all he has is a slogan in search of a policy. We all know this. I never thought I would say this, but I find support in that view from the Adam Smith Institute, the right-wing think tank. Commenting on the Prime Minister’s final speech at the Conservative Party conference, the Adam Smith Institute’s head of research, Matthew Lesh, said:

“The Prime Minister’s rhetoric was bombastic but vacuous and economically illiterate.”


I also agreed with the Adam Smith Institute when it said that:

“Levelling up so far consists of little more than listing regions and their local produce”,


and that the Prime Minister

“throws out impressive-sounding economic terms like ‘Pareto improvements’ to hide the fact that he lacks policies to drive growth.”

I do not agree with all the institute’s comments, but it went on to say that the Prime Minister’s policy

“was an agenda for levelling down to a centrally-planned, high-tax, low-productivity economy.”

We already have a low-productivity economy, and apart from the rhetoric there is nothing to suggest that the Government have got to grips with this issue. But when we come to the suggestion that the Prime Minister’s policies represent a move to a centrally planned, higher-tax economy, your Lordships might think that this is something I, as a socialist, might favour. Unfortunately not, at least not in the version presented to us by the Government. To the limited extent that there is a policy hiding behind a slogan, it consists of expecting water to run uphill—futile and ignorant.

Of course, as the Motion suggests, we need a coherent, cost-effective and long-term strategy. I have one note of caution, as mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. Casting this as a regional issue runs the risk of ignoring the real problems we face in London. All human life is in London, from great wealth to extreme economic hardship. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours correctly mentioned the injustices of the rating system, but north Westminster encounters as great social problems as the north of England, and any policies instituted need to recognise that.

In conclusion, I end with another quote from the Adam Smith Institute:

“Shortages and rising prices simply cannot be blustered away with rhetoric about migrants. It’s reprehensible and wrong to claim that migrants make us poorer. There is no evidence that immigration lowers living standards for native workers. This dogwhistle shows that this government doesn’t care about pursuing evidence-based policies.”


In no area of policy is that more stark than the vacuum that fills the space which purports to be levelling up.

Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development etc.) (England) (Amendment) Order 2021

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and my noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lord Berkeley for setting out so clearly what is wrong with this statutory instrument. I agree with all they have said about its shortcomings, and in particular, I share the anger of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. I want to add my voice on a couple of key issues.

The Government pay lip service to the idea of localism. We know that the Conservative Party pays no heed to its manifestos, but the 2019 version says explicitly:

“Local government is the bedrock of our democracy.”


It also promises

“beautiful, high-quality homes with every community able to decide on its own design standards for new development, allowing residents a greater say on the style and design and development in their area, with local councils encouraged to build more beautiful architecture.”

Really? Are these proposals going to lead to more beautiful architecture? What nonsense. The reality is that this approach is not localism, it is that the Secretary of State knows best.

I am another ex-councillor who believes in local government, warts and all. These regulations are wrong in principle. There is no doubt that changes which are this fundamental and will have an impact on the look of our towns and cities for decades to come should be enacted in primary legislation. It is clear that in practice, these new rules will limit the role of the local planning authority in determining the appropriate uses for its particular area.

The fundamental problem is actually more than a problem—it is a catastrophe. The new rules will allow residential development in potentially unsuitable locations. That is the whole point of the proposals because otherwise this statutory instrument would not be required. What we know is that these will be the slums of the future. More specifically, the new rules will allow commercial frontages on high streets to be converted to residential use in a way that will wreak even more harm on the traditional function of town centres, already under so much pressure. Albeit that there will be a need for separate planning permission for the external treatment of buildings, we know from experience that there is always considerable room for uncertainty by gaming the system, in particular about the vacancy requirement.

We all know that developers cheerfully agree to include shops and pubs within a development and then ensure that they remain vacant until the local authority gives in to the effective blackmail. Of course we need more housing, but this is the wrong way of providing the high-quality stock that we so desperately need. History tells us how to achieve the massive new-build housing programme we need, and it was provided, surprisingly, by a former Conservative Government in the 1950s, summed up in an adequately resourced programme of council housing.

Then there is all this stuff about statues, memorials and monuments. How will the Minister present this with a straight face? We know what they are doing, they know we know what they are doing, and we know that they know, et cetera. Where is the problem that this is supposed to address? It is there only to play to the ignorance and prejudice of the base. The giveaway is in the press release by the Secretary of State on 17 January 2021 under the heading “New legal Protections for England’s Heritage”. It says:

“New legal safeguards introduced for historic monuments at risk of removal. All historic statues, plaques and other monuments will now require full planning permission to remove, ensuring due process and local consultation in every case. The law will make clear that historic monuments should be retained and explained”.


The giveaway is that the Secretary of State will be able to call in any application and ensure that the law is followed. The threat is clear: it will be the Secretary of State who decides, not the local authority and the local community. That is made even more manifest in the statement in the Explanatory Memorandum to the effect that the Government will introduce a requirement for local planning authorities to notify such planning applications to the Secretary of State. Really? Does he not have better things to do?

What needs to be understood is that saying that monuments should be retained and explained is a political statement, taking one side in a deeply contested debate. It is a view that members of the Conservative Party are fully entitled to hold, but it is wrong to write such a political statement into the law of the land.

Finally, as an aside, free ports are a pointless zero-sum gimmick, and there really is no more to say.

Social Housing

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Affordable Housing Commission’s September report proposed a fund to support social housing landlords to acquire both existing private sector stock and new-build stock from private developers. Through the affordable homes programme, we already allow social housing providers to use grants to acquire from developers market-sale properties that are above their existing planning requirements.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister’s initial Answer was a masterpiece in obfuscation—he referred to affordable housing, but the Question quite clearly relates to social housing. The Minister has also referred twice to 32,000 additional social housing units. May I draw his attention to the relative success of the Conservative Governments in the early 1950s, when they built more than 200,000 social housing units? They did so because they gave a leading role—the powers and the finance—to local authorities. What we need is a thoroughgoing council housing programme to get the number of social houses that we require.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, in the last 10 years we have built more affordable homes than in the previous 10. We have seen around 148,000 homes built specifically for social rent in the last decade, and through this programme we are proposing to build more. The real revolution that has occurred is in the number of council homes: councils have built 29,993—nearly 30,000—affordable homes in the last decade, up from a paltry 2,994 over the previous 13 years. That is a record to be proud of.