New Housing Supply

Debate between Lord Foster of Bath and Nick Raynsford

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Raynsford]

I will not prolong this exchange, because we have already discussed the matter at length and I wish to cover other issues. All I say to the hon. Gentleman is that we should watch what happens, but I am not confident that we will see a large upsurge in the number of planning applications and consents.

[Mr Foster]

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was the Liberal Democrat administration who introduced the plan, that they did so during the by-election campaign and that the Liberal Democrats won that by-election?

[Mr Raynsford]

I am interested by the agreement between the coalition partners but it reinforces my point about the lack of certainty being a deterrent.

[Mr Raynsford]

When the regional spatial strategies were in place, the housing output was substantially higher than we are seeing now. Government Members sometimes forget that from 2000 to 2007, before the impact of the recession, there was continuing year-on-year growth in the supply of housing. It reached 180,000 new starts in 2007, since when it fell—not because of planning but because of the recession—so that we are now seeing starts of fewer than 100,000. I would not say that the regional spatial strategies were entirely satisfactory, but the output of housing under them was substantially higher than it is today.

I have spent too long, I think, on those issues and I need to move on. Behind the statistics I have talked about are a huge number of human tragedies: all the young families unable to get a home within their means, all the people trapped in hopelessly overcrowded or squalid conditions, the huge numbers languishing on local authority housing waiting lists and the number of homeless households, which has been rising again after many years in the noughties during which the numbers came down.

Quite apart from the human consequences, there are economic consequences, too. As our economy is in difficulty— everyone who has spoken has acknowledged that housing has a critical role to play in helping to boost the economy—we must consider ways of helping to increase the output of housing. What should we do? First, we must ensure that the economic climate is one in which people can feel more confident about investing, in which people are willing to buy homes and in which house builders are willing to invest more in development. That is fundamental. Whatever else we do will make some difference, but it will not make an adequate difference if the economy is not strong. We need to turn around the economy first of all.

Secondly, we must ensure that housing is directly assisted by measures that can ensure that confidence returns and that houses are provided by developers and bought by people who want to get a mortgage. I have talked about the tight restrictions on mortgage availability and the fact that it seems to me that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction after the boom years when the restrictions were excessively loose. We must send a powerful message that the test should be whether people have the means and the capacity to repay the debt, rather than the loan-to-value percentage that is too often used in a mechanistic way by lenders to determine credit-worthiness. If we focused more on people’s ability to repay, we could relax some of the restrictions that prevent people without the adequate means for a deposit from getting into owner-occupation.

We also need to do a lot more to assist those people who cannot afford outright home ownership but would be happy to buy a share in a property. Over 30-odd years, various schemes for shared ownership, shared equity and low-cost home ownership have had some success, but they have tended to be marginal. Although NewBuy and Firstbuy are perfectly admirable schemes in their way, they are still relatively marginal. The Prime Minister talked about NewBuy helping 100,000 people when it was launched, so when we hear from the hon. Member for Meon Valley that some 3,000 homes have been delivered so far that puts it in context. It is important and significant, but it is relatively marginal.

We must also ensure that there are other options to help people who are not looking for a new home purchase. I am cautious about the idea of extending the NewBuy formula to existing homes. I think about—I am sorry, it is one of the problems of being old—a scheme known as DIYSO, do-it-yourself shared ownership. Those who have long memories of housing will recall it. It was very popular. People liked the idea of being able to go out and select their own home and get a shared-ownership mortgage on that home. It did, however, prove extremely expensive. It also had an element of risk because there was no guarantee that it would be a newly completed home that was subject to the various checks that apply to a new home. In some cases the properties that were being bought under the DIYSO scheme were not suitable. I can hear the attraction of the message. I read it, like the hon. Member for Meon Valley, in today’s Financial Times, but I caution against putting too many eggs in that basket. However, it is important that we renovate existing homes and make them available for people, possibly through shared-ownership/shared-equity means, as well as building new homes.

I shall talk briefly about energy efficiency and housing. This is an area where there has been a great deal of poor information, inadequate information and prejudice. I feel very nervous that the voices that are hostile to improving the energy efficiency of housing are getting in the ascendancy. Some rather pernicious views are being put forward that somehow this is putting an impossible burden on house builders. The example that I will take is a simple one. It is a scheme known as AIMC4, which has been put together with the participation of some of the largest house builders, including Barratt. The purpose was to demonstrate that they could build a code level 4 home under the code for sustainable homes for no more than the cost of a code level 3 home. That scheme has succeeded; they have demonstrated that it is possible.

That is the challenge we should adopt to ensure that our new homes are built to a high standard, that they achieve energy efficiency, that they contribute to our commitments to reducing global warming and that they do so in an economic and cost-effective way. We should not to try to ditch the whole commitment to the greening of our existing housing stock and improving the standard of our new housing. That is a very important message. Also, there is the economic message that this will help the economy, because green investment and the development of some of the industries that will support more energy-efficient housing will be helpful to the UK economy.

I agree very much with the hon. Member for Meon Valley about the importance of housing for older people and providing them with appropriate housing which, in turn, can release homes that are currently under-occupied. There is something rather unfortunate about a Government demonising many tenants in social housing who are occupying one bedroom more than they might need, on some pretty tight definitions of need, when two children of the same sex are expected to share a bedroom right up to the age of 16, and two children of different sexes under the age of 10 are expected to share a single bedroom, so no single bedrooms for children are allowed.

That definition is being used to justify some pretty punitive cuts in benefit while at the same time there is a huge level of under-occupation among older people, particularly in the owner-occupied sector but also in the rented sector, on which no action is being taken. That seems to me to be unfair and it is a policy that will not achieve the effect that it should.

[Mr Foster]

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the very rules that he is deriding are the ones that applied to those in receipt of housing benefit in the privately rented sector through all 13 years of his Labour Government?

[Mr Raynsford]

I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. Can he tell me whether elderly people are exempt from those rules in the private rented sector? They are not. That is the point that I was making. If this was a serious policy to try to reduce under-occupation, it would apply more widely, as I said, and it would also apply to people over retirement age. The rules being implemented by the Government apply only to people below retirement age, even though the Government know that it is predominantly among older people that under-occupation is a problem. I will be quite open and say that the right policy would have been to consider a deduction, but only if two factors apply. First, there should be an option to move to smaller accommodation, but in many cases there simply is not that option and it is grossly unfair to cut people’s benefit where they have no chance of moving to smaller accommodation. Secondly, it should apply only where people have two bedrooms more than they require because of the tight space and occupancy standards that apply. That should apply to everyone, including those over retirement age. That would be a far more effective policy in achieving the objective of getting better use of our stock than the policy that the Government are pursuing. I make that point in addition to my general point about providing more suitable accommodation for older people in order to free up accommodation that is under-occupied.

I support what the Chair of the Select Committee said about removing the cap on council investment. That is nonsense. When councils have the scope to borrow more under the prudential borrowing regime, when there are safeguards in place through that regime, and when local government debt is at an historically low level, it is absurd to deny the option of creating the means to get further investment in new housing. There should certainly be more support for that and a removal of the cap. There should also be a willingness to engage with housing associations about what happens in the post-2015 world, because they are literally running out of time and running out of scope for continuing development. It will be an utter tragedy if one of the more successful organisations producing housing in this country in recent years simply grind to a halt in terms of their traditional product of social housing because of the absence of a Government programme. There are real needs in terms of the social housing sector as well as the owner-occupied sector.

I come now to the strange beast of the new homes bonus. This is a rather expensive element of Government policy. Already it has cost £1.3 billion. Some of that has been taken from Peter to pay Paul because some of it is recycled from local authorities to other local authorities, but about three quarters of a billion is additional Government money. That £1.3 billion will rise to £3.3 billion because the scheme involves payment over six years. That commitment to £3.3 billion is a lot of money and, at the present rate of growth, the scheme will involve more expenditure than the total Government investment on affordable homes over the lifetime of this Parliament, so it is worth examining how it is operating. I have already referred to the disastrous and declining level of new housing starts, so it is clear that the scheme is not affecting those. The total level of new planning consents last year was 115,000, and in the first three quarters of 2012, 95,000. It seems likely that it might reach a level of about 125,000 when we have the figures for 2012, but that compares with 212,000 in 2007 and 134,000 in 2010. The Government will have been presiding over a lower level of consents for residential planning than ever before, which is extraordinary when they are spending £3.3 billion in supposed incentives to encourage more planning consents.

Building Regulations (Electricity and Gas)

Debate between Lord Foster of Bath and Nick Raynsford

Thursday 6th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Foster]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The Chairman of the Select Committee said that when it studied the issue, it was on a steep learning curve, although it had several weeks in which to do so. I am on an even steeper learning curve, having had less than 24 hours to try to master the brief. In doing that, the one thing that I have learned is that the issue really is very important.

I am grateful that, as well as part P, the Committee looked at part J. Although it did so, we have concluded that, as the regulations in part J were most recently updated in October 2010, there is probably no need to change them. That is why I want to concentrate on part P, which covers the safety of electrical installations and applies, of course, only to dwellings in England. Certain types of work need to be notified to a building control body unless they are carried out by an installer who is registered with an authorised competent person self-certification scheme. Such schemes oversee the competence of their members, and membership allows the members to certify their own work.

Our proposed amendments to part P, set out in the 2012 consultation, were aimed at reducing bureaucracy and costs for electricians and DIY-ers, particularly for those who do simpler jobs, such as installing additional socket outlets. We also looked at how local authorities could be allowed to step away from a situation in which they currently act, unnecessarily, as an administrative middleman.

The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) deserves huge praise for his work on the introduction of part P, and I thank him for it. I especially want to thank him for giving me some advance notice of what he intended to say today. I know that he is concerned about changes to the type of work covered by the regulations. He is also concerned about the weasel words that have been used so far. Although I must disappoint him in this area, I will try to give him a degree of comfort. While we are looking at changes to what work is notifiable, they will not affect the general requirement that all work must be carried out safely. I hope that that gives him a little comfort, but we will have further discussions about the concerns that he has raised.

The right hon. Gentleman has also been concerned about the defined competence scheme, which, for those who are not entirely familiar with it, relates to specific types of electrical work that are often carried out by general trades people, such as the electrical works associated with the installation of a boiler. We are aware of the calls to end such a scheme, which would effectively force people to join full competent person schemes. As with so many issues that we are debating, this is a complex matter. I can only assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will consider very seriously his comments on that issue, and we are grateful to him for making them.

[Mr Raynsford]

Let me push the Minister a little further. He said that although he had an open mind and was still considering whether there might be changes to part P, there would be, if I remember his words correctly, an obligation that all work should be carried out safely. However, without the remit of part P, that guarantee cannot be met. If works are outside the remit of part P, no one will necessarily know whether or not they have been conducted safely. Will he clarify those remarks and say whether I am interpreting his words correctly, because that would give me great comfort?