Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Housing is a central area of policy that must be a priority for the Government. On adult social care, I share the disappointment of many across the House and country that there is no detail about the future of adult social care in the Queen’s Speech. I still believe that the solution is the one that has been effectively argued for many times by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), which involves an insurance component and has long been in use in countries such as Germany. What is obvious to me and to others who have been involved for many years is that a—very much in quotes—“solution” for adult care that is in fact simply an addition to general or indeed even hypothecated taxation and a power grab into local government by the NHS is no solution at all. It would disempower not only local government, with its ability to tailor offers to those in need of care to local needs and circumstances, but local charity and private sector partners. Those partners include Anchor Hanover, which I met last week, with its innovative work in housing for the elderly, including an extraordinary number of centenarians, and with stepped-up levels of care according to need—a model very much like the one Derbyshire County Council was working on under my leadership and has been again more recently.

Housing is central to good adult care solutions in the future, but housing is not, to put it mildly, an NHS specialism. An example of this needed innovation is buyer shared ownership, a mechanism often regarded as being for young people, but something with a valuable application for older people too, in their being able to trade down, retain equity and fund their care in both the housing and nursing sense. I look forward to the Government bringing forward their vision of the future sustainability framework for adult social care in this country, and I hope the MHCLG stays involved.

One of the main themes of this Government is levelling up the country, but I do have some concerns about the introduction of a levelling-up Bill rather than, instead of as well as, a devolution Bill. Local government needs to be just that—not just local administration for central diktats or a vehicle for the bidding-in culture for Whitehall funding pots. As a board member of Northampton Forward, I see how much time, effort and resources go into bid proposals from central Government funding pots, with plans changed to fit the criteria for each. Of course, as MPs we welcome the award of funding for our areas from these bidding rounds—I certainly do for mine—but it does not stop us simultaneously suggesting that there may be an even better way.

As a Conservative, I have always believed that increased home ownership is something that should be within the reach of an ever larger number of British people. It is one of the reasons I founded and chair the all-party parliamentary group on SME house builders. As a result, I know at first hand the willingness to build more houses that sits at the core of the SME sector, so I am encouraged to see the planning Bill brought forward in the Queen’s Speech and the emphasis on SMEs within it.

Time prevents my discussing the need for more details on a renters reform Bill, particularly for a housing court, and concerns about the affordability of the environmental measures, such as ending gas boilers, especially for the elderly, not to say my welcome for the Bacon review—another time—but I do hope that the Government will listen to those with expertise in these areas as the details of their plans are worked on.