Affordable Housing

Debate between Lord O'Shaughnessy and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right to the extent that we need a balance with social housing. As I have indicated, the Autumn Statement has concentrated on ensuring that a balance of different tenures will be looked at. We recognise the role of social housing, which is vital. We recognise the role of affordable housing as well. On affordable housing more widely, of the 893,000 homes that have been built since April 2010, 313,000 were affordable and two-thirds of those were for affordable rent. However, the right reverend Prelate is right that social housing is also crucial.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government should be congratulated on doubling the amount of housing starts since the crash, but still not enough houses are being built. The cost of land is one issue but one of the other barriers is local residents’ concern about the look, feel and quality of design of new housing. What is my noble friend doing to ensure that these aesthetic considerations are at the centre of the Government’s housebuilding strategy?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My noble friend is right about starts, which are up considerably, particularly local authority starts. The number of local authority starts in 2014 was running at just under the level of the number of local authority houses built in the 13 years under the Labour Party, so we are getting council home starts right.

With regard to the issue he raises about design, it is undoubtedly a factor that people want to see designs that are aesthetically pleasing. I think self-build will help to contribute to that; the evidence from the Continent is that self-build, for obvious reasons, tends to be better. Perhaps counterintuitively, the modern prefabs are actually very attractive. I saw a poll in the Daily Mirror suggesting that even when they were called prefabs, support for them ran at 67%. So they too will help to better design homes, which helps the general agenda.