Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew George and Lord Stunell(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
The private rented sector has already responded flexibly to housing need over the past few years. By 2010 it had expanded to house some 3.4 million households in England, an increase of 1 million since 2005.
Andrew George
I am grateful to the Minister for his response and apologise for any delay, which was caused by my train. In view of his response, what assessment and modelling has his Department undertaken on the impact of the change to the thirtieth percentile for housing allowance and the extension of the single-room rent to those under 35 years of age? Many private landlords are extremely concerned about the impact on their viability.
Andrew Stunell
I thank my hon. Friend and am grateful that his train got him here on time. The Department for Work and Pensions has published a full assessment of the number of residents projected to be affected by the changes that have been brought forward and has presented to the House the facts of the situation.
Unauthorised Encampments
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Andrew Stunell
For every sign of distress, I saw 10 signs of joy.
I want to make the point that we are also committed to addressing the discrimination and poor social outcomes experienced by Traveller communities. Some of those issues have been mentioned—schooling, health and the security of their living accommodation. In the longer term, we want to see a plan, policy or strategy that can deliver the Travelling community authorised sites, where they can live in harmony with the settled community and with the access to health and education that everyone else has and is entitled to.
As the hon. Member for East Hampshire said when introducing the debate, some of the figures are dramatically bad—length of life, maternal and child mortality, educational attainment—and ought to fill us with despair and a determination to do something about the situation.
Let me come back to the core of what has been said today. We have already written to local authorities, reminding them to be alert to the particular risks of unauthorised development over bank holidays and to be ready to respond to that. The revocation of regional strategies means that the decision making about housing of all types, including Traveller sites, will come back to local communities. We have announced our intention to revoke circular 01/2006 and to bring local authority Traveller sites into the Mobile Homes Act 1983, which was on the verge of happening before the general election, as the hon. Member for Blackpool South correctly pointed out. We believe that it is right that that should go ahead.
I have been asked to give more detail about the New Homes Bonus scheme, but I must hold back and refer hon. Members, once again, to the statement on 20 October. However, the work is there and everything is ready.
I now turn to exactly what the problem is. Under the previous Government, the number of caravans on unauthorised developments increased from 887 in 1997 to 2,395 in 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) drew attention to that—the problem has not been getting smaller. The problem is not a reducing, residual one, but a continuing and, in some ways, growing one. We will ensure that the planning laws provide fairness between the settled and Travelling communities.
Andrew George
Given the vacuum following the removal of the RSS requirements and the Minister’s statement that local authorities must now provide adequately for the Travelling community in their own areas, what do the Government propose if the need is clear but the local authority is unable or refuses to ensure such provision? How can the need be met in order to avoid circumstances in which such illegal and unauthorised encampments occur?
Andrew Stunell
I am not announcing the details of the Government’s policy on Gypsies and Travellers in today’s debate—I cannot pre-empt such an announcement. However, we are looking at such matters carefully, with some policies to be made explicit in the localism Bill, together with what we are doing about planning powers and enforcement, and some policies from other directions, as we work through the implications of providing incentives for local authorities to provide sites where needed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew George and Lord Stunell
Andrew Stunell
The coalition Government and the agreement make it clear that we have a firm commitment to dealing with social and affordable housing to bring housing up to standard. We have the job of making sure that we can do that in an affordable way while getting Britain back on its feet. The hon. Gentleman’s Government caused the problem; we are giving the solutions.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
It is a question not just of the standards of housing but of the legacy. After the last couple of decades of development in social housing, there is a desperate shortage of three and four-bedroomed family houses. There are a lot of families in my constituency and throughout the country who are crammed into one and two-bedroomed houses. It is simply unacceptable. It has an enormous impact on their lives and children’s life chances. Will the Government be addressing that as well?
Andrew Stunell
The question is about social housing, and of course my hon. Friend is right that we must have the right mix of accommodation in each local area. One thing that we are making clear is that local areas should take the decision, and that local bids should be made.
Housing policy
Debate between Andrew George and Lord Stunell
Andrew Stunell
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am sure that he will pursue it in debates in future.
We need to recognise that the under-supply of housing has consequences. It impacts on the affordability of homes. I will not rehearse the arguments, but the fact is that first-time buyers are pretty much out of the market at the moment unless they have the support of parents or friends, or there are outside circumstances; the average age of a first-time buyer is now 37, and that is obviously not acceptable. We have a problem with housing market stability, too. A volatile housing market can quickly translate into instability in financial markets and the wider economy.
Andrew George
I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says in respect of the national picture and the national figures. I understand that the coalition agreement talks in national terms about such patterns, but as I understand it, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the coalition agreement are giving local authorities the power and ability to interpret the national standing and to ensure that local need is met in the way that the local authority deems best. The local authority is surely in the best position to know how local need might be met.
Andrew Stunell
It is certainly in a better position to do so than the devisers of regional spatial strategies; I think that we can agree on that. We need to increase supply.
My hon. Friend has brought me neatly on to the abolition of regional spatial strategies, a phrase that has to be said carefully and articulated clearly. Regional spatial strategies have gone. The Secretary of State has written to planning authorities telling them that it is now a material consideration for them to take account of his letter saying that regional spatial strategies are to be disposed of. The legal decision must await legislation, but clearly we are there already. It is not just a question of telling local authorities, “You’re on your own”; there will be clear incentives for local authorities that permit the development of housing, and a reward system that will give them the opportunity to develop infrastructure and services to match the investment that they are allowing.
My hon. Friend had plenty to say about second home ownership. I have had the privilege of listening to him speak on the subject in debates for a number of years. He asked for some specific things. I cannot deal with capital gains tax—that is definitely well above my pay grade—but he also asked whether we could use the planning use class of second homes. The Government do not believe that there is a way forward on that. I would be interested—I do not suppose that I have the choice—to receive further representations from him and from others who think differently, but there are serious difficulties over how that can be done, not least because, for the first time, we are bringing the ownership of an asset into consideration of whether it was a material planning use or not. [Interruption.] I can see that my hon. Friend wants to engage in debate, and I look forward to doing so over the coming months.
My hon. Friend will have received a parliamentary response from the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), probably this afternoon, to say that we have no immediate plans to change the discount on council tax for second homes. However, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives has raised some interesting issues, and some of us have great sympathy with them.
My hon. Friend asked about rural exception sites, and there seems to be a bit of a flurry: perhaps PPS3 and rural exception sites might, in some mysterious way, be at risk. I want to assure him that there is nothing in the coalition agreement or in the Conservative Green Paper on open source planning—I did not think that I would be likely to be standing at the Dispatch Box defending it—that would to change rural exception sites. The Government believe, as he does, that they are important and very material, so I hope that he accepts our assurance.
My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to the need to put in the missing rung in the ladder through the development of the intermediate market. Again, I refer him to the words of my hon. Friend the Minister at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors this morning. We are committed to supporting that intermediate sector and making sure that it flourishes. We want to promote shared ownership and help social tenants and others to own or part-own their home. Shared ownership is a way of helping lower-income households purchase a share in a home, perhaps for as little as 25%, which is what the current HomeBuy offer says.
Andrew Stunell
I am keeping an extremely close watch on the time, Mr Speaker, as I am sure you are, but I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives.
Andrew George
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I apologise for catching him at the close of his speech. The Government own two banks, but mortgage finance is the big stumbling block in developing this sector. Is there anything more that he and the Government can do to enable the sector to move forward?
Andrew Stunell
Again, I do not think that that can be dealt with at my level, but the whole Government are committed to putting the British economy back on its feet and to restoring the health of the financial and business sector. That is going to be the fastest way to get the financial market working properly. I know that my hon. Friend, like me, is committed to dealing with that.
Finally, may I deal with the private rented sector? The House will have been appalled to hear of the case that my hon. Friend drew to our attention and of the callous words of the letting agent as they affected his constituent. We must recognise that the private rented sector is significant: 13% of households are in the private rented sector, and some tenants in that sector face problems of overcrowding, poor-quality accommodation and difficulties with the letting agents themselves. I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who suffers as a result of poor practice by a letting or managing agent.
We advise anyone contemplating renting or letting a property through an agent to use one who is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors scheme, the Association of Residential Letting Agents or the national approved letting scheme. About half the agents are members of those organisations. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend over the coming months and years to make sure that what he wants, what I want and what the Government want—