Social Rented Housing: Construction

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Young is absolutely right: of course there are circumstances. As I have indicated on two occasions this morning, we are discussing with local authorities the headroom available. Obviously, that depends on circumstances; they differ very much from area to area. We have reached a good agreement with the London mayor and the GLA, but there may be such circumstances and we will react to them. It is a pragmatic approach and not an ideological one.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register, particularly as a member of Sheffield City Council and a vice-president of the LGA. The £2 billion that the Minister referred to will on average build 11 new council homes in each local authority area each year. As it is estimated that 85,000 council houses per year will need to be built by local authorities, this will not solve the housing crisis. What new powers and borrowing powers will the Government give to local authorities to deal with the housing crisis?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, in relation to the £2 billion the noble Lord mentioned, obviously we will come forward with additional information on how that money is to be deployed; much of it will be for social rent, but it is an additional amount, as he rightly says, on the affordable housing budget. Nobody is suggesting that there is a single silver bullet here. There is much ground to be made up, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made absolutely clear. However, we have considerable powers, as shown in the White Paper, which we will be exercising through, in many cases, secondary legislation. We have infrastructure money that we have invested. We have money releasing funding for separate pieces of land. We are doing bespoke deals with local authorities, such as Leeds, Manchester and the West Midlands. We are using many different weapons in the armoury, but I agree with the noble Lord that there is no single silver bullet. That is certainly the case.