Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Williamson of Horton and Lord Shipley
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I shall contribute briefly to this debate, although I, too, had not intended to do so. From my perspective, immigrants are welcome and underpin our economy. I say that because our wealth as a country has been dependent over many generations on those who come to live here.
Perhaps I may take us back to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. In Committee I said that I had some sympathy with calls for a housing strategy. However, I am less certain that the timescale which the amendment describes—a 10-year rolling housing strategy—is sufficient because, as my noble friend Lord Newton pointed out, things change quickly. We are well aware that we have a growing rented sector; that in some parts of the country rents are rising well above the rate of inflation; that mortgage repossessions are rising, and that household formation is running at twice the rate of our new house-building programme. As we all acknowledge, the Government’s plans for 170,000 homes at affordable rents will not be sufficient to bridge that gap, which is why the growth in owner occupation matters so much. However, people have to be able to get a mortgage. At present, with signs of rising unemployment and rising homelessness, there is a very real danger that more people will go into the private rented sector and that there will be a reduction in the quality of that housing stock.
There is a case for local councils here. Surely good local councils will have some awareness of what is lacking in their area, what the market needs, what private house builders will want to build and what the social housing needs of their area are going to be. They are going to have to be aware of that, otherwise I do not think that another part of the Localism Bill—the part relating to neighbourhood planning—will work. Neighbourhood planning requires some kind of evidence base to enable decisions to be made by neighbourhoods and, more broadly within the authority as a whole, about what the plans for that area should be. Housing and the use of land are central to that.
I hope that there is a way forward and that my noble friend will be able to reassure us. You do not actually need a 10-year housing strategy. You do need an acute, local awareness of housing demand and trends and an ability to be much more fleet of foot in meeting those trends than we have seen over the past two decades.
Lord Williamson of Horton
My Lords, we are now coming to the vital questions of homelessness and overcrowding, but this amendment is a little different. It is a general amendment dealing with housing strategy. It does not deal only with the problems of homelessness and getting on the housing ladder: it deals with the whole structure in a local area of what is happening in the housing domain.
I see a lot of merit in this amendment for ensuring that in one way or another we can guarantee that this sort of information is available at the local level. No doubt the Minister will comment on that point because that is the issue underlying this amendment. Is this information seriously available at a local level? For myself, issues such as employment trends, not in the country as a whole but in a region or local area, are quite different. These issues are important for the planning and future analysis of how we can have the houses that we need for the population in individual areas.
Similarly, there is the question of empty properties. We now have town centres with hundreds of empty shops which could easily be converted into housing. Will they be converted into housing? We do not know, but that should be featured in the knowledge available to the local authority. I am not pressing for the exact words, but I am sympathetic to this idea and I hope that the Minister will comment on that in his reply.