Housing: Private Renters
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I always appreciate my noble friend’s eagle eye. We do not want landlords gaming the system, and we want to make it very clear that any abuse of the future system will not be tolerated. We are committed to ensuring that local councils will have the right powers to crack down on any rogue practices such as those that my noble friend has outlined.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, on Monday, in response to my letter about landlords leaving long-term lettings in favour of the more lucrative Airbnb, particularly at a time of increasing demand, the Minister replied that the English Housing Survey says that we are seeing some landlords leaving but an equal number coming in. Can the Minister tell us the source of the statistics that allow the Government to make that assertion, against mounting evidence to the contrary? I could not find it in the quoted English Housing Survey, nor the Government’s Private Landlord Survey, and the National Landlords Association could not help either. This is a vital piece of data, given what we believe is really happening on the ground.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I suppose I should always be very careful about giving data. In response in the other place, the Minister—who was driving forward with the 12-point plan—made it clear that we are seeing as many landlords leaving the sector as we are seeing entering the sector. I will go back and find the data that underpinned my remarks in the debate we had earlier this week.
Private Rented Sector
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I say to the Minister that there is general support across all sectors for these reforms in the White Paper, which we too broadly agree with. In fact, I agree with so much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has said that I could just say, “#MeToo” and sit down—but I am not going to. I will not go through the proposals and rationales for each point in the White Paper, because I believe that there will be opportunities to do that later. I want to stress our key points that we would seek a chance to influence and explore.
First, we are disappointed by the speed at which this has gone. We are now only going into consultations and pilots, not legislation—at a time when homelessness and evictions are set to rise. Does the Minister have any timelines or milestones for us?
Our greatest area of support for these reforms—and, paradoxically, of concern—is around evictions. We totally applaud the ban on no-fault evictions, but ask whether any lessons have been learned from Scotland about the application in reality of the new grounds for eviction. How tightly are they drawn, and how have they measured success? Let us take one example which the noble Baroness mentioned: eviction because the landlord wishes to sell the home. How will that be proved and dealt with, or are the Government considering recourse, as happens in Ireland?
We know that revenge evictions are more common than we might like and hope that the decent homes standard and the annual rent rise will discourage such evictions, as do the Government. But even after a year, a tenant can still be priced out of a flat by an unreasonable, excessive rise in rent that they can ill afford. Have the Government considered encouraging rent rises only in between tenancies—a practice that many good landlords already do? Given that the cost of living crisis will not be short lived, what, if anything, will the Government do to curb excessive rent rises, or will it all be left to the market? Why have the Government yet again decided to freeze the local housing allowance?
The Government’s commitment to extending a legally binding decent homes standard to the sector is a potential game-changer, but only if there is enough capacity in the system to monitor and enforce it. Local authorities are definitely down on capacity and funding. What reassurances can the Minister give us that there will be capacity and resources within the system to enforce this standard—a vital part of the reforms?
Regarding capacity, the proposal for a private sector ombudsman is a good one. After all, there is one for the social housing sector. But we know that the social housing ombudsman is under pressure due to capacity issues already, so how will this one be any different? After years of stressed budgets and the demands of the pandemic, will the Government use one of the pilot schemes to review the available capacity of all the partners whom they will need on board to make sure these reforms work, and look at how their roles effectively all knit together?
Finally, there is a legitimate concern in the sector that these changes will force landlords out of the system at a time when we need more, not fewer. Is there a danger of unintended consequences? There is some anecdotal evidence that this is happening in areas popular with tourists, such as Cornwall, the Lake District and Edinburgh. Homes once for long-term let are now seen on more lucrative Airbnb sites. Consequently, locals are priced out of the housing market due to second home owners and they are unable to rent due to a lack of supply. Do the Government recognise this as an issue? If so, are there any possibilities of looking at ways to incentivise landlords to stick with longer-term lettings? There will be time to go into detail in the future, but hopefully not too far in the future.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Opposition and Liberal Democrat Front Benches for a constructive critique of this important Statement. There is a recognition on all sides of the House that the private rented sector is the most expensive, least secure and lowest quality of all housing tenures. A fifth of renters are paying a third of their income to live in substandard accommodation, which is completely unacceptable. I think that is why the chief executive of Shelter described the proposals around the 12-point plan as a game-changer for the 11 million private renters in England.
This White Paper really is the biggest set of reforms in a generation. It seeks to ensure that tenants have access to safe and decent homes; to increase security and stability by abolishing Section 21, which I know is supported by the vast majority of people in this Chamber—I have not come across anyone who is against that; to improve dispute resolution but, importantly, ensure that there is better compliance and robust enforcement; and to improve the renting experience for private rented sector tenants.
I turn to some of the points raised in this short debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, raised enforcement of the decent homes standard, which is a centre point of the reform programme. We will consult on applying the decent homes standard to the private rented sector shortly and carry out a number of pilot schemes across the country to explore different ways of enforcing the standards, because it is important that we do not have the decent homes standard just defined but with an inability to enforce.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, also wanted to know why these reforms have taken so long to come forward. It is a legitimate question, but we have had a global pandemic and in the last couple of years we have been focused on supporting tenants during the pandemic with longer notice periods, a ban on bailiff evictions and unprecedented financial support. We have made the very clear commitment to bring forward this renters reform Bill in the third Session, and this White Paper is an important part of getting this right. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get these reforms right.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, quite rightly wanted to know how these new reforms would be enforced. I have talked about the pilots, but equally the property portal will make sure that local authorities have the information they need to enforce the standards so that we are not relying, as we currently are, on tenants coming forward to point out when there is an issue.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Hayman, both raised the cost of living issue. The Government do not support rent controls. When this was introduced in the 1970s, we saw a disincentive and a private rented sector that did not get the quality of housing and investment that we needed. That is why we feel that focusing on allowing an increase in rents only once a year and ending rent review clauses are ways of ensuring that we get a more reasonable approach to rent increases.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, raised an interesting question around the burdens on landlords and whether we are going to get the unintended consequence of more Airbnbs and fewer people wanting to let. The English Housing Survey says that we are seeing some landlords leaving but an equal number coming in, so there is no evidence from the survey yet of an exodus of landlords. It is important that we think about landlords in these reforms, though, and that is why we have strengthened the repossession grounds for landlords, including in cases of serious anti-social behaviour and persistent arrears, and for landlords who wish to move back to their property.
I think there was a strong element of a briefing from Generation Rent in some of the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. Certainly, I am aware of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, about the no-fault moving and selling grounds, wanting to extend that to 24 months and not seeing a Section 21, if you like, by the back door.
As a Government we feel that it is important to protect tenants, and that is why we are limiting the use of moving and selling grounds in the first six months of a tenancy. To mitigate any abuse, we are also restricting landlords from remarketing or reletting the property for three months when they use these grounds. It is about getting a balance between landlord and tenant.
Overall, it is fair to say that there is a fair wind behind these reforms. It is important, as they say, to get things done and better late than never.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I am sure the Government are happy to look at ideas. We have had ideas from Wales, Scotland and Ireland that I am sure the policy officials can look at and advise Ministers on. We have to recognise that there are often unintended consequences on supply if you tinker too much in the private rented market and try to control rent levels. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that you might find it more lucrative to use Airbnb than to have longer term rents. I think that what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is really saying is that to tackle the affordability crisis we need a fair amount of taxpayer subsidised housing, whether that is affordable rent or social rent. We recognise that as a Government. Not every person can own their own home or afford market rents. That is why we need a steady supply of affordable housing available around the country. We need communities of mixed tenure to allow households with different incomes to live cheek by jowl. That is good social policy and something that the Government certainly support.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
In that case, may I ask why the Government have frozen the local housing allowance, which was the question I asked, if they have what sounds like a very sincere commitment to social housing? Following what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said, I was thinking that the people we are really concerned about, with the grottiest landlords and flats and the worst deals, in the past would have been in the social housing sector being looked after by good councils and housing associations. We are really trying to play catch up but let us not kid ourselves; it is a huge task that we have.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
It is fair to say that we raised the local housing allowance and maintained that raise. What the noble Baroness is saying is that we have not increased it further. Let us give the Government credit for having raised it in the first place and having maintained it. The reality is that it goes back to getting the balance of tenures right. We have far too many people who cannot afford to live in market-rate accommodation and therefore they need taxpayer support. The housing benefit bill has effectively ballooned from when I was first a council leader from around £7 billion to around £30 billion, I think—or at least, that is what the projections are. That is completely unsustainable. We need more affordable housing and social housing to mitigate the unintended consequences of getting the taxpayer to fund these very high-cost homes for people who cannot afford to live in them. That is why there is a need to look at other ways of answering that point.
Leasehold Reform: Forfeiture Provisions
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I always thank my noble friend for his interventions. We want to move forward with the second stage of leasehold reform. It will not be part of the third Session but there is a commitment to this Parliament. My noble friend is right that we can use this time to get a Bill drafted. We will take time so that we can get it through Parliament as soon as possible at the beginning of the fourth Session.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I look forward to the leasehold reform.
Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting of leaseholder residents in a block of retirement flats. It will be no surprise to the Minister that their main complaint was the exorbitant increases in management fees, with no transparency of cost or answers as to why the increase had in one year gone from 5% to nearly 16%. When will the Government finally put a stop to this obfuscation and general bad practice by regulating management companies, as advised by the Government’s own expert working group, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best, back in 2019?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Once again, the noble Baroness is right that we need to sort out some of the practices that we see among managing agents. We are still considering how to take forward the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Best, but as noble Lords know, there is also a move to introduce voluntary codes, which I hope will elevate this. Overall, we need to see professionalisation of managing agents.
Social Homes for Rent
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
The noble Lord is right that we have seen a spiralling increase in housing benefit costs—staggering increases over the past decade or so. Of course, taking poor-quality private rented accommodation and turning it into high-quality affordable housing is a good thing and provides value for money for the taxpayer.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
The Government’s recent announcement that right to buy is being extended to housing association properties will even further deplete the stock of homes for social rent. Is it now time to allow councils to keep 100% of their receipts from right to buy in order to rebuild and to give them the ability to set the discounts locally that their particular circumstances dictate?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I have some sympathy with the point that the noble Baroness makes, but we should point out that there are now greater flexibilities around right-to-buy receipts—not necessarily 100%, but they are greater. We have also removed the cap on borrowing for the housing revenue account, and that is why we are seeing councils building far more homes than they previously did.
Levelling-up Report
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Local government has a critical part to play in levelling up the country. I would point out the commitment through both the UK shared prosperity fund and the levelling-up funds to turbocharge the 12 missions outlined in the Bill.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I am particularly interested in the aspirations around housing that are implicit throughout the levelling-up agenda. Given the northern consortium’s recent report on the fact that it is actually the quality of existing homes in the north that is a key factor in poverty and other indicators, what plans do the Government have, besides building brand new houses, to look after the existing stock that is in poor condition?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
It is important that we think about our existing stock. As Building Safety Minister, I think that the quality of housing is incredibly important. One of the key headline metrics is the proportion of non-decent rented homes and ensuring that we continue to drive this down and increase the number of homes that have achieved the decent homes standard, which will be adopted within the private rented sector as well.
Leaseholders: Costs
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
We will move from principle into practice in a matter of months, but this problem has occurred over decades. Sadly, every decade, there has been a significant fire in a high-rise where there was a loss of life: Garnock Court in 1999, Lakanal House in Southwark in 2009 and the tragedy of Grenfell in 2017. Governments knew that cladding was often the cause, as it was in Garnock Court, and the regulations were actually dampened down under a previous Labour Government, who inserted the word “adequately”. It is a mess that took decades; give us months to sort it out.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
Notwithstanding the Minister’s earlier comments, housing associations and councils too face a challenging situation. Both the LGA and the National Housing Federation have evidenced the double whammy of the financial burden to remedy the fire safety issues for the tenants and, consequently, less money to invest in their existing stock—in particular, to build new social and affordable homes. In the recent rethinking, please will the Minister agree to look specifically at the situation faced by housing associations and councils and consider widening the criteria for support for any money that is available? This is their tenants’ rent money, after all, and they too should not have to pay for 20 years of industry failure.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Of course we want to protect leaseholders and ensure that social landlords can build new homes of high quality but, far too often, they as developers were in charge of building homes of poor quality, and they need to fix those homes. The figures are that, as of 31 October, £97.3 million has been approved from the building safety fund, and there is the £200 million to remove cladding of aluminium composite material. We are doing what we can to protect leaseholders, but we recognise the challenges faced by registered providers.
Levelling Up White Paper
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I agree entirely with my noble friend. We do not want anyone to have to leave somewhere they love in order to have a truly fulfilling career. That is why we are investing £3.8 billion in skills by 2024-25 and have just set up our new adult numeracy programme, Multiply, to get hundreds of thousands more adults with functional numeracy skills across the United Kingdom.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
Minister, successive Governments have grappled with this one under various names and the consensus is that they have largely failed. Do the Government recognise that the fragmented system of funding and bidding is part of this failure? Recently, the LGA found evidence that £23 billion of public funds aimed at regeneration were fragmented across 70 different funding streams and managed by 22 different departments or agencies. Are there any signs that the Government will change this scattergun approach?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, just because previous Governments have failed does not mean that this Government will not succeed. However, I take on board the importance of ensuring that there is appropriate streamlining and that we do not have a scattergun approach to funding. The point is well made.
Council Tax: Second Homes
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
I recognise the noble Baroness’s interest in this issue. The Government have confirmed that we will legislate to require that holiday rentals meet an actual letting threshold before being assessed for business rates. This will ensure that only genuine holiday businesses can access the rate relief for small businesses. We will set out further details shortly in the Government’s consultation response.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
Minister, this at last is a Cornish/Cumbrian Lib Dem campaign success—I can see the leaflets now. Can he explain why it has taken so long and say when we will get a timetable and conclusions of the 2018 consultation that was never actually published? Does he agree that salt has been rubbed into the wound, given that unscrupulous second-home owners have also received £104 million from Cornwall’s Covid aid pot, thus reducing the amount available to legitimate businesses?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I should have registered my residential and commercial property interests, although I have not tried to use this loophole. The Government announced in March that we will legislate, and we have been working very closely with the Treasury and the Valuation Office Agency to finalise the details of how and when this will be implemented. This of course takes time and we will publish our consultation response shortly.
Building Safety Defects: Costs
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My noble friend is right that we need more detail. Details of the residential property developer tax will be announced at the Autumn Budget on 27 October, so we will have to wait till then. However, I want to make it clear that the figure of £2 billion over 10 years is an absolute minimum and I hope that we will go far further than that when the rates are finalised.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
As has already been stated, social housing providers are having to pick up the bill for all of their properties. These sums are having a significant impact on their budgets and are detrimental to their ability to provide more, and better-quality, social housing going forward. Are the Government monitoring the impact of this on providers’ budgets, in particular the opportunity cost that is lost to the sector, and looking at how this will affect their ability to do the jobs that they want to do to improve their social, affordable and supported housing properties in the future?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we are working very closely with the sector. I point out that there was a £400,000 fund specifically for providers in the social sector to remove aluminium composite material, the most serious form of unsafe cladding. In addition, where social landlords are thinking of passing costs on to leaseholders, there is an opportunity for them to apply to the building safety fund, which many of them have indeed done.
Supported Housing: Funding
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, as I set out in my original Answer, the focus has been away from ring-fencing of funding, but of the £12 billion that has been provided during this pandemic for local councils to deal with the pressures, £6 billion was non-ring-fenced, and a lot of that money can be prioritised for the issues around housing-related support services to ensure that the quality of the services can be continued.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, there is genuine concern among councils that there is abuse of the exempt accommodation status, which grants housing run by a supported housing provider additional housing benefit. Does the Minister agree that, to do right by the majority of good providers, more must be done to increase the transparency of such accommodation costs and to give councils greater flexibilities and powers to act against those who are failing their most vulnerable tenants? Does he have any feedback from the supported housing pilots that were working on this important issue?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
The noble Baroness is right: we are concerned about quality issues, and that is why we carried out some pilots in Birmingham, Blackburn, Darwen, Hull, Bristol and Blackpool. We do not have the results from those pilots, but that is why we invested £5.4 million—to ensure that there is no drop in quality.
Mortgages: EWS1 Form
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, that is quite right: we have committed to a £700,000 funding scheme to train up to 2,000 surveyors. That has already begun, and I will write to the noble Lord with the precise number that have been trained up to this point. We have also announced a bespoke insurance model to ensure that professionals have access to professional indemnity insurance cover. Details will be published in due course.
Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
At the heart of this is a very simple question, which I do not believe the Minster has actually answered: what action do the Government intend to take in the event that mortgage lenders continue to insist on this form being obtained for buildings that do not actually need one, according to the RICS criteria, with sellers finding themselves in a classic Catch-22 situation?
Housing: New Developments
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
We know that the planning system has a poor record of community engagement and can often be adversarial. That is why our reforms have effective engagement at their heart. By ensuring that communities are meaningfully involved in preparing plans and local design codes, they can have real influence over the location and design of development. This will be supported by digital transformation, with new tools to make planning more transparent, accessible and engaging.
Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
I thank the Minister for what he said, but could he explain how involving the public only every five years when a plan is drawn up, alongside so many sites under the new reforms having automatic permission in principle, will restore trust and confidence in the system? As a former council leader, how does he think this will work in reality years later, when work actually begins?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it is not just involvement in the local plan that happens every five years but producing the design codes. But, importantly, communities will have a say in detailed aspects of planning applications.
Leaseholders and Property Management Companies
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I am aware that there are sharp practices across the board. But, by law, service charges and other charges have to be reasonable, and costs have to relate to the work or services undertaken, which need to be of a reasonable standard. We will take the noble Lord’s point and advice to see how we can address that issue.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, the housing complaints resolution service was proudly announced in January 2019 as a portal system to overcome what James Brokenshire, the then Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government, called the “complicated and bureaucratic system” we have currently. Could the Minister update us on progress? Will this new body have new powers to enforce decisions in court by statute, or will it be a crocodile with rubber teeth?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, this is clearly a wide-ranging question that raises all kinds of issues. I will have to write to the noble Baroness on the progress of that matter.
Planning: Net Zero Emissions Targets
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, the Government recognise the benefits of retrofit ahead of demolition. Reuse and adaption of existing buildings can make an important contribution toward tackling climate change. The national planning policy framework already encourages this.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, core to this issue is the forthcoming future home standard, which currently threatens to remove the discretion of local authorities to set zero-carbon policies that go beyond current building regulations. Does the Minister agree that the future home standard should be a floor to those authorities struggling to keep up rather than a ceiling constraining what the most ambitious authorities quite rightly are doing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new development and lead the way for other councils?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it is quite clear that the future home standard is there to provide a floor rather than a ceiling in respect of ambition for local authorities. The Government will set standards that will require the avoidance of fossil fuels in future homes.
National Planning Policy Statements: Climate Change
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, there is a tremendous commitment to the objective that my noble friend—well, not my noble friend; sorry, I am not good on the protocol yet, but I consider the noble Lord a friend, even though I cannot say so. The Prime Minister set out his ambitious Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. It covers clean energy, transport, nature and innovative technologies. There is a real ambition in this Government to ensure that we meet our climate change commitments, and we will continue to work on delivering that plan. It is no good having a plan unless you implement it.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I too am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The White Paper proudly proclaims to be sweeping away red tape and simplifying requirements for environmental assessment and mitigation. How will the Minister guarantee that this deregulation will not lead to a rollback of environmental standards? What will be the role of the local authority—if at all—with regard to monitoring and enforcing new standards when they eventually arrive? They do not appear to be involved in the drawing up of them, according to what I can read in the White Paper.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, that is a misrepresentation of the thrust of the planning reforms. We need to engage with communities. The idea of the planning reforms is to ensure that engagement happens up front and that it works within a framework to make sure that we get sustainable development and that we also hit the objectives that we have set as a Government.
Housing Delivery Test
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
The housing delivery test plays an important role in providing transparency about where housing is or is not being delivered. It helps to identify the reasons behind underdelivery through action plans, which are required when delivery falls below 95%. Through these, we can see that, on the whole, authorities are taking the right steps to identify the causes of reduced housing delivery and are working proactively to address these issues.
Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
I thank the Minister. I understand what he said, but what powers do the Government believe that a council has for the delivery of a scheme once planning permission has been granted? This annual test not only monitors but also judges and punishes a council for the developer’s failure to deliver. Should this inequitable test finally be scrapped altogether or, given the uncertainty that the pandemic is causing in the construction industry, should it at least be suspended for this current year?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, speaking as a former council leader, I know that planning permissions are only extant for a certain period. The policy appears to be working. We have seen an uptick in the numbers of homes built; there have been more than 241,000, which is a greater number than before the introduction of this housing delivery test.
Devolution in England
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I will take a careful look at the No More Tiers paper published by Policy Exchange some 14 years ago. I can assure my noble friend that there will be no blanket abolition of districts and that we will take a locally driven approach and ensure that decision-making is taken as close as possible to the people we are serving.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I am glad to hear the Minister say that, because my question is around unitary authorities. Obviously, the rumour mill is rife at the moment that this is causing some delays. The Minister will be aware that many councils are already working on plans for this, either with a positive frame or negatively, and that any delay or uncertainty is unsettling and demoralising. It has financial and practical implications. If we take recruitment, who wants to move to an authority that might not exist in two years’ time; and who wants to waste taxpayers’ money working up economic models that are never going to happen? Can the Minister reassure us that the Government recognise that this is a real issue for local government, and that these very important decisions will be made swiftly, as soon as possible?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes the important point that we need to move quickly and make decisions so that we are clear about the future. I have assured the House that unitarisation will not be a topdown, blanket approach and we will not see the wholesale abolition of districts.
Planning
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, there is absolutely no intention to divert funding to prosperous areas from more deprived communities. I am meeting with the National Housing Federation later this week and I will take this up and make relevant representations to the department, but that is certainly not the policy intention of the proposed reforms.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest: I too am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Minister referred to building beautiful and quality. The reality is that every single day, planning officers encourage, argue with, and even go to battle with developers to produce high-quality schemes according to their local policies. Will the Minister explain how things will be different with the nationally proposed, one-size-fits-all design codes? Does he not agree that the answer might be not government-devised design codes, but giving local councils more power to enforce their own?
Housing: New Homes
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is right in highlighting the importance of boosting the use of modern methods of construction, and we are helping to create a pipeline of opportunities to give confidence to the sector and investors. We are providing financial support for the sector through our £4.5 billion home building fund, and a further £450 million was announced for the home building fund this summer in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, in my experience of local government, I found the public to be very resistant to new development, changing from nimbys into BANANAs—build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. Planning for the Future further reduces their ability to object, preferring instead to front-load the process involving residents in master planning and the local plan. From the Minister’s own experience, how realistic is that assertion? Given that even Conservative MPs are now concerned about the proposals, how will imposing more top-down targets result in more homes and a happier public? How do we actually engage with the public in this very serious issue?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the antipathy for development in some places that the noble Baroness has pointed out, but two-thirds of local authorities are building in line with their housing need. The current approach and the consultation on housing need to take into account a number of factors and provide a start point for a dialogue about the number of homes that are needed to be built in next decade.
Planning Rules
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
The new permitted development rights and changes to the use classes order that we announced on 21 July will reduce planning bureaucracy, speed up housing delivery, support homeowners and families, and help to renew our town centres. We keep all new policies under review, including in respect of their impact on housing delivery and the wider community.
Baroness Thornhill [V]
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does he share any of the concerns expressed by a wide range of professional bodies, including the LGA and others, that the cumulative impact of these PDRs is to create the slums of the future? That is evidenced most recently by research from the noble Lord’s own Government which shows that four out of five units already created in this way do not meet the very low national minimum space standards? Can the Minister say what action the Government are taking to ensure that this does not continue in the absence of local planning permissions? Can he see how the continuous erosion of local councils’ plans and policies is undermining public confidence in the planning system, as any councillor will confirm?
Lord Greenhalgh
My Lords, I point out that permitted development has yielded 60,000 homes that would not otherwise have been available. On the point on quality, the report raises some concerns about the quality of some of the schemes developed under permitted development rights. We have made changes in respect of requirements for adequate natural light, and that should deal with some of the issues raised in the report.
Covid-19: Planning System
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh
The situation at the moment is that there is a planning commission that has started under my right honourable friend Chris Pincher, the planning Minister. I cannot make any further comments about what the noble Baroness has read in the media.
Baroness Thornhill (LD) [V]
I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Given that much development is controversial and provokes much local opposition, should the Government not be working more with local authorities to win popular support for major developments and housebuilding, not undermining them by a further removal of planning powers?
Lord Greenhalgh
I am not sure how this relates to the original Question. All the proposals from the Government around making the existing planning system work pragmatically are on a temporary basis. There is certainly no intention to take away planning powers from local authorities within these measures.
Covid-19: Housing
Debate between Lord Greenhalgh and Baroness Thornhill(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh
That is a many-pronged question, if I may say so. On the last point, having taken 5,400 people—over 90% of rough sleepers—off the streets, we have a great opportunity to work on a big, bold plan to ensure that those people stay in settled and secure accommodation. Louise Casey is working with officials, local authorities and homelessness charities—this involves all layers of government—to develop the necessary measures to achieve just that. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The noble Baroness raised other technical points; I will write to her on those and place a copy in the Library.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. My noble friend Lady Grender mentioned councils and right-to-buy receipts, but unfortunately she did not get a reply, so I will reiterate her point. To prevent the currently lamentable provision of social housing getting even worse, will the Government seriously consider the following three points with regard to right to buy? Will they consider allowing councils to keep all their right-to-buy receipts; or allowing an extension of the time limit in which councils must use those receipts, preferably to up to five years? Finally, only 30% of the receipts that the Government currently allow councils to spend can be spent on building replacement homes. Surely it is time to allow all the money to be spent on building much-needed social homes.