Housing: Long-term Plan

Debate between Tim Farron and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, particularly on the excellent Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015. He put a great deal of passion and determination into that. He is delivering something that the Housing and Planning Bill builds on and underpins to ensure a real step-change. It will help not just by providing people with more opportunities to own their own home, but by providing an opportunity for the reinvigoration of small and medium-size local builders that we all want to see. A few weeks’ ago, we announced an expansion of direct commissioning, which will go even further to deliver that.

It would be simply old-fashioned political dogma to insist that Governments should intervene in the market only to support renters, when most people want to buy. To persist with an outdated mind-set risks creating a generation of young people exiled from home ownership; young people worse off than their parents, compelled to leave communities they love and grew up in, and forced to decline good job opportunities all because local housing is too expensive. That is bad for our economy and bad for society. Starter homes have the potential to transform the lives of young people. Just think about it: a first–time buyer able to get at least a 20% discount from a new home with just a 5% deposit. That really does change the accessibility to affordable housing for thousands more people. Starter homes will help young people and ensure that more homes are built.

We must not fall for the lazy assumption that there is a contradiction between supporting the dreams of homebuyers and ensuring that more affordable homes are built. Nowhere is this lazy thinking clearer than in the opposition to our extension of right to buy for housing association tenants. In the previous Parliament, we improved dramatically the right to buy for council tenants. Some 47,000 tenants seized the opportunity, with more than 80% of those sales under the reinvigorated scheme, and yet 1.3 million social tenants in housing association properties continued to receive little or no assistance and continued to be trapped out of ownership. That cannot be right. We promised the electorate that we would end this unfairness and we have. Housing associations have also recognised this inequity. They have signed an historic agreement to end it, and I congratulate them on coming forward with that offer. They are giving tenants what they want: an option to buy their home and a ladder to real opportunity. I am delighted that we have five pilots already under way across the country. Every property sold will lead to at least one extra property being built.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister refers to housing associations and the National Housing Federation’s involvement in discussions in putting together the Housing and Planning Bill. Will he confirm that this agreement with housing associations is voluntary? Will he confirm that housing associations that look at the needs of their community and decide, on balance, that the right to buy would be a negative for that community, will be allowed to maintain that position?

[Brandon Lewis]

It is a voluntary agreement. The Housing and Planning Bill does not legislate for that. It underpins the agreement by providing the legal ability to pay the housing associations for discounts. Exemptions are outlined in the voluntary agreement, so I suggest the hon. Gentleman reads it. In rural areas, for example, housing associations will be able to use the exemptions. After we reinvigorated the scheme in 2012 for council tenants in London, 536 additional homes were sold in the first year, and 1,139 were built. For clarity, that is two-for-one replacement. That success has the potential to be repeated on a much grander scale. Where buyers can buy, builders will build, and we can support the aspiration of hard-working people. That will be true for right to buy, starter homes and Help to Buy. Those plans are at the heart of our ambition to build 1 million more new homes, but we have made it clear that we must do more in all areas of housing supply.

[Tim Farron]

After this, I promise to leave the Minister alone for a while. Is he aware that one in three homes that have been bought under right to buy are now privately rented, so they do not help people to get on the housing ladder? They help other people to make a living from renting out property. What will he do to ensure that any homes that are sold under right to buy belong to people who need an affordable home, and do not end up slipping into the private sector, becoming less affordable and more insecure?

[Brandon Lewis]

With those kind words, I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to intervene, as it gives me an opportunity to highlight another good scheme that the Government have introduced. With the voluntary right to buy, and with right to buy more generally, I defend the homeowner’s right to do with their home what any other homeowner can do. I do not know why he thinks that a particular part of society that owns their own home should have fewer rights than he or any other hon. Member has in a house that they own. After that short period of five years, when that home is protected and has to be that person’s home, it is absolutely right that they should have the same rights as any other homeowner. It is disgraceful that he wants to stop that.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

Probably not, because there is not much time left and I do not want to prevent others from speaking.

In addition, the replacement home should in most cases be equivalent to the one sold off. It should be located in the same local authority area and there must be an initial presumption that the replacement home would be the same tenure unless there is a strong case for changing it, based on local need. This would avoid the squeezing out of social homes for rent, which are often occupied by some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, in favour of other potentially more profitable tenures. My amendment would provide not only a one-for-one replacement of homes, but in many cases like for like. I urge Members to support it.

[Brandon Lewis]

I support the amendments tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I want to say from the outset that I am proud to support amendments 112 and 130. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), as well as to colleagues across London not just for inspiring these amendments, but for working so passionately and diligently to ensure that we get a good result for London. That is quite a contrast to Labour, from whose Members I have received no direct approaches about doing anything positive to increase the housing supply in London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

I will not give way at this stage, because we are short of time and I want to respond to the points that have been raised by those who have spoken.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale spoke about amendments 107 and 108. I trust that the housing association tenants in his constituency who want to buy their own homes will note his comments, and will remember them when they are home owners at the next general election.

[Tim Farron]

Is the Minister aware that in the 1980s the late Willie Whitelaw expressed concern to the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, about the impact of the right to buy, unmitigated, in rural communities such as the Lake district? Thirty years on, will he at least take note of what was said by the great man?

[Brandon Lewis]

I appreciate that one of the problems of the right to buy is that for 13 years, for every 170 homes that were sold the Labour Administration built only one, which is disgraceful. That is why, under our reintegrated scheme, there is one-for-one replacement. I think it right to move to two-for-one in London, given the higher-value asset sales there. The Labour party neglected to replace supply for 13 years, but Labour Members still think that the public will believe their rhetoric.

Let me return to chapter 4, part 4. Government new clause 59 and amendments 119, 120 and 128 will ensure that tenants who do not provide information on income cannot then have their rent raised any higher than the maximum chargeable under the policy as a whole. Government new clauses 60 and 61 and amendment 111, 113 to 118, 121 to 127 and 129 are part of our wider deregulatory package for housing associations. Amendment 111 removes clause 64, which is no longer needed.