Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Lord Carrington of Fulham
Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, gave an extremely eloquent description of the Churchill Estate in Westminster and the various problems it faces, which are very real. It is possible to look at other estates across central London that have quite similar problems and a trajectory that has led to the same type of housing tenure and ownership. However, many of the problems he described come from the overall shortage of housing supply in London and would be not necessarily eliminated but largely cured if many more houses were provided in London.
That is why the provision of two-for-one replacement in London is so welcome. It is not without its problems. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, mentioned that the replacement housing should be in the same local authority or general area. There is a tradition that London boroughs build social housing outside their own areas. I return to the City of London Corporation, which owns social housing spread out over quite a wide area across London. It has traditionally always done so. It is important that the replacement housing should be where the people who will occupy it wish to live. That is a critical deciding factor, and one that can be dealt with only by the local authority. It is not one that we can impose in the Bill, nor one that we should even contemplate imposing.
Lord Kerslake
I will make two points. I am not suggesting changing anything in the Bill for London. I support the two-for-one and the collective approach across London. Indeed, I am advocating the same kind of approach for other combined authorities. I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s general point that we should allow choice about the location of housing where there are combined authorities, and, indeed, in London. My point is simply that wherever you locate it, there is an intent in government of one for one, which should be in the Bill.
Lord Carrington of Fulham
There should certainly be an intent to replace housing; quite how prescriptive we should get is a different matter. Frankly, I do not think we should get terribly prescriptive about it at all, except possibly in London, where there is such a particular housing crisis that it has caused us to look to alternative means of solving it. It has been intractable for so many years.
There is one problem with the two-for-one proposal: the need for flexibility as to how that is funded. We have talked about raising borrowing powers for local authorities to enable them to fund any shortfall that comes from the retained receipts from sale of their housing, but we also need the flexibility to be able to fund it from other sources. Many London local authorities have other assets—other land they could sell or buildings they could convert. There are lots of ways of handling this, other than just using the resources that come from selling the high-value properties that they are required to sell under the Bill.
I suggest that we and my noble friend the Minister should contemplate allowing a great deal of flexibility as to how the two-for-one provision will be achieved, because its financing could be done in any number of ways. We need the creativity of the local authorities to be brought to bear to solve a problem that is in urgent need of resolution.