Social Tenancies: Home-working

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, that is a detailed question about the planning rules and I shall have to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, in 2008, in the rural housing review that I conducted for the previous Government, I precisely recommended that no social landlord should require a tenant to seek permission to run a business from their home if doing so would cause no nuisance. I am glad to say, as chair of the National Housing Federation, that that is the recommendation that we make to all our housing association members and that most of them agree. However, does my noble friend agree that in order to access the opportunities that running your own business from home can provide, it is almost universally necessary these days that you have internet access, but that whereas 90% of those in the private sector have access to the internet, fully 30% of those in social housing do not? Is there anything that Ministers can do to help social tenants get access to the internet—and to do so as a matter of right in the modern world, not as a matter of whether they can afford it?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we are acutely aware of the need for internet access. I am sure that my noble friend is right about the percentages, but I do not think that it is that difficult to secure an internet connection. He suggested that landlords should not have the right to restrict people from starting up businesses. It is right that landlords should be involved in such decisions on behalf of other tenants in order to make sure that undesirable businesses are not started up in residential accommodation.