New Home Building Programme

Debate between Lord Rooker and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

It is a serious issue. He will know that we moved to ban combustible cladding very quickly when the evidence was there. We will bring forward regulations in relation to electrical safety. With regard to the Hackitt review, I have indicated that within the next year we will review all the documents relating to building safety with a view to ensuring that we minimise—and, I hope, eliminate—the number of accidents in the home.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that this is really a branch of preventive medicine? In respect of the Government’s review, will they talk to Sir Nicholas Wald, professor of preventive medicine at the Wolfson Institute, where there are lots of good ideas in this area? While they are doing so, they might well ask him his views on the preventive medicine aspect of fortifying flour with folic acid, as in 1990 he headed the UK’s Medical Research Council, which discovered the link with the nutrient deficiency. That recommendation has been adopted by 80 other countries as a preventive measure.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, it is obvious that the noble Lord has been going to the same seminars as the noble Lord, Lord West, with regard to framing Questions, but I am sure that that point will have been picked up. On his general point, of course we are very happy to hear about prevention, which is indeed better than cure. A public health budget is held by the Department of Health and Social Care and that is the other side of the coin. We have the building regulations but money also needs to be spent on promotion to make sure that people are aware of these issues.

Homelessness

Debate between Lord Rooker and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, it has been central to the Government’s thinking that we make more use of the private rented sector in seeking to ensure that people who are homeless have somewhere to go. This was extended from the social sector so that appropriate private rented sector property can be used for homeless people in temporary accommodation. That is very much at the heart of what we are doing. However, at the same time, it is important that we increase the supply side. Therefore, we are building more houses to take in more people from the temporary accommodation list, so that we can ensure that everybody has a home. That is central to our thinking.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does the Minister recall that in about 2002 the then Labour Government persuaded Louise Casey to come from Shelter into the Government and that, with the programmes she set up, we virtually eliminated rough sleeping by 2010? What is the main reason it has come back again?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, this is not a problem unique to the United Kingdom.

New Towns

Debate between Lord Rooker and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate brings in the important element of the necessary range of tenure and types of property. In garden town and village status applications, various things are looked at: the value-added aspect, need, particular aspects of community, green spaces, and design. All those things are weighed when awarding the status. I think 51 applications were made for garden villages; 14 were awarded. Those are the criteria we look at.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

As new towns, by definition, will not be built on brownfield sites, I urge the Minister, with the government machine, to constantly put the case for the building needed, because only 12% of the land of England is built on. We are not short of land; it will have to be what people call the green belt. I do not think that we as a Government did enough—nor have the current Government—to propagate the fact that there is more than enough land for the building needed.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The noble Lord has a point, though of course it is not always in the right places. Very often, we have great areas of green land where it would not be appropriate to put a new town. He is right about the pressures that exist and the fact that we often overstate the amount of built-up land, even in the south of England. That said, we are using brownfield sites, for example in Ebbsfleet.