Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is right, but perhaps he should address his remarks to the Secretary of State. In the previous Government the Tories built the smallest number of affordable homes in this country for more than two decades—10,920 affordable homes for social rent. That compares with three times that number in the last year of the last Labour Government, which, incidentally, was when I was Housing Minister.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Surely the right hon. Gentleman would concede that this time five years ago he was making the same arguments against the affordable homes regime, which has given more financial autonomy and authority to registered providers, and delivered 260,000 affordable homes.

[John Healey]

It is quite the contrary. I was a strong supporter of the affordable homes programme, and I negotiated with the rest of the Government an unprecedented switch of £1.5 billion from other Departments so that we could build more genuinely affordable rented homes to help bring the country through the recession. If the hon. Gentleman looks at his Government’s record, he will see that eight out of 10 of the affordable homes for social rent that they claim they have built were started and funded through decisions that I made as Labour’s last Housing Minister.

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[John Healey]

Eight out of 10 of the genuinely affordable rented homes that the Minister claims credit for were started under Labour—commissioned under us and paid for with a commitment of investment under us.

[Mr Jackson]

The shadow Minister is extremely kind to give way. May I put to him a straightforward and honest question? Without the direct intervention of the Secretary of State, how would he deal with the situation where 35% of local planning authorities have not taken their plans through the whole system, and one in five has no land supply plans for the future? That is a major supply-side issue. How would his party deal with that?

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[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I strongly welcome the Bill. It stands comparison with some of the finest examples of progressive Conservative policies on housing in the past 100 years. It is a radical, yet pragmatic Bill, and it draws on the Government’s success in areas such as Help to Buy and the fact that in the past five years we have delivered 260,000 affordable homes, with 140,000 housing completions in the last financial year. I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I read very carefully his piece in The Observer yesterday. It was long on complaint, but very short on coherent, costed and cogent alternative policies. He complains about the 32 new planning and housing powers invested in the Secretary of State, but in the same breath he says that we have a housing crisis in terms of supply, and that we need to deal with it. Well, we are dealing with it and needs must. We also have a manifesto commitment to deliver 1 million starter homes by 2020 and the right to buy for housing associations.

I, for one, make no apologies for being very proud that right to buy in the 1980s delivered the biggest transfer of capital to working people of any policy ever in British political history. I am very proud of what we did.

We have the right policy on starter homes. It was a little bit of an afterthought emerging from the ministerial fiat inserted in March this year into the NPPF guidelines, but now it will be on a proper legislative basis. I welcome the new legal duty on local planning authorities to promote the supply of homes and proper monitoring. I welcome, too, the flexibility between the number of homes and areas, because they will not be the same everywhere. We have discrete housing markets, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) said. I would perhaps challenge the Minister to consider the fact that there is, unless I am mistaken, no specific reference in the Bill to the insertion of starter homes in the affordable homes criteria. I might be wrong, but he might need to look at that in terms of the NPPF or in Committee. There may be some discrepancy with section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, where local planning authorities have to give proper cognisance to their adopted plans.

I support the introduction of a brownfield register. I welcome clauses 102 and 103 and the “permission in principle”, in particular. Only last year, the Campaign to Protect Rural England told us that 975,000 homes could be delivered by virtue of utilising brownfield sites properly. We must, however, have a coherent cross-government policy on this issue. The Public Accounts Committee only very recently looked at the failures of the Department to properly co-ordinate and use its methodology to follow through on the provision of land to the actual building of houses.

[Oliver Colvile]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that if we are to encourage people to develop brownfield sites, we must ensure that if they have planning permission they should not just sit on it? Should we not consider ensuring that they start paying business rates on land which is potentially to be used for development?

[Mr Jackson]

I have long been an advocate of a fiscal disincentive from Government to land banking, but the idea of land banking is apparently an urban myth. We need to do more work on that and I hope the Minister will take on board my hon. Friend’s comments.

[Mr Bacon]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jackson]

On this occasion, I will.

[Mr Bacon]

Did my hon. Friend notice in the National Audit Office report a reference to 109,500 potential homes from the land that was sold? Does he agree that our constituents do not live in potential homes but actual homes and that they need to be sure that they actually get built?

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend, in his normal astute and erudite way, puts his finger on it. One lesson was that the methodology was not as robust as it should have been in following through from the allocation of land to the actual construction of houses that people live in.

On tackling slum landlords, I strongly support and endorse part 2 of the Bill. In Peterborough, we have an issue with the degradation of large residential areas by slum landlords, which is very bad news for vulnerable tenants. This provision and the database are very welcome news, along with selective licensing, which is already in place under the Housing Act 2004.

We have scarce resources in government, and we need to focus them in the most efficient and effective way. We need to provide supported housing for people with long-term needs, such as mental illness. We need to look at extra care facilities and we need to keep our bargain or contract with working families who struggle to get on the housing ladder. In order to drive the market, it is vital that we look at removing SME builders from responsibilities and obligations on the community infrastructure levy and on section 106. There has been too much consolidation by large oligopolistic construction companies. We need to bring some of those smaller companies back into the market. I urge the Minister to look again at vacant building credit and to challenge the High Court decision, because this is about getting marginal brownfield site developments that will deliver hundreds and thousands of homes to people. It is a grave disappointment that the Conservative council saw fit to challenge the Department on that issue.

I agree with permitted development rights for the conversion of commercial and office premises to residential development, and there should be greater clarity on that before article 4 is used by some local authorities to prevent such a move. I welcome part 6 of the Bill, and challenge the shadow Minister to say what else could be done when 18% of local plans have not been published, 35% are not fully adopted, and one in five local authorities does not have a land supply plan. Needs must—we must tackle these issues. I am not in favour of big government, but I am in favour of more homes for people in my constituency and across the country. I support clause 107 on nationally significant infrastructure projects, but we need more clarity on that.

We must also consider the wider context and the demographic changes that are affecting our country. The number of single person households doubled between 1961 and 2014, and immigration is an important issue. I accept that owner occupation may not be for everyone, and we must look at residential estate investment trusts and give tax breaks to extra care facilities to help with that hugely important issue of adult social care and acute care in hospitals. We must tackle the skills crisis in construction. Two thirds of small construction companies said in August that they turn down work because people do not have the skills—plasterers, carpenters, bricklayers, scaffolders and apprenticeships are important.

We must consider access to capital, infrastructure, brownfield regeneration, complex remediation issues, and bringing on to the market many more intermediate mortgage products so that we support do-it-yourself conveyancing, shared ownership, and other forms of intermediate tenure. Social renting is important in some areas, but we are moving away from that model.

In conclusion, the Bill is much needed and will revolutionise construction, housing, and planning in our country. I will be supporting it tonight.