Healthy Homes Bill [HL]

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for sponsoring this Private Member’s Bill. We have had a very interesting, wide-ranging and meaty debate. I too am sorry that my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh is not here on this occasion to answer; his knowledge in this area far surpasses mine, but I will do my best to respond to noble Lords. I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and many other noble Lords are quite right to emphasise the link between health, healthy living, homes and places; the inequalities in this sector have been highlighted in his and other noble Lords’ contributions.

The Government oppose this Bill, not because they take issue with the premise of noble Lords’ arguments, but rather because they believe that the problems highlighted in the Bill are already being dealt with via alternative policy routes. Delivering homes in places that support healthy and safe lifestyles is a key element of the planning system. Many of the proposed healthy homes principles are already covered by the National Planning Policy Framework, which sets out the Government’s planning policies for England and how these should be applied. The NPPF must be taken into account by local authorities in the preparation of their development plans, and it is a material consideration in planning decisions. The purpose of the planning system is clear: to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.

Our National Planning Policy Framework sets out three overarching objectives to achieve sustainable development: economic and, in particular, social and environmental. The social objective focuses on supporting strong, vibrant and healthy communities by fostering well-designed, beautiful and safe places with accessible services and open spaces. More specifically, the framework is clear that planning policies and decisions should aim to achieve healthy, inclusive and safe places. This should support healthy lifestyles, especially where this would address identified local health and well-being needs. We are intending to review the NPPF to support the programme of changes to the planning system. This will provide an opportunity to ensure that the NPPF contributes to sustainable development as fully as possible.

To ensure that sustainable development is pursued positively, the presumption in favour of sustainable development is at the heart of the framework. This means that all plans should promote sustainable patterns of growth to meet local need, align growth and infrastructure, improve the environment, mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects. It also means that planning applications which accord with an up-to-date plan should be approved.

Transport should also be considered from the earliest stages of plan-making and development proposals, so that opportunities to promote walking, cycling and public transport use are identified and pursued. Significant development should be focused on locations which are, or can be made, sustainable through limiting the need to travel and offering a genuine choice of transport modes.

In addition, open spaces can provide health, well-being and recreational benefits to people living and working nearby; they have an ecological value and make an important contribution to green infrastructure. Planning policies should be based on robust and up-to-date assessments of the need for open space and opportunities for new provision. Local plans should seek to accommodate this.

I will speak only briefly on building safety because it did not form a major part of today’s debate and noble Lords will already be aware, from the Building Safety Act and other statutory instruments, of the amount of work the Government are doing in this area. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, focused particularly on this issue. The Government are clear that there must be a strong regulatory regime in place to ensure that buildings are built and maintained safely. As the noble Baroness knows, and other noble Lords will agree, the Government are implementing the majority of the recommendations in the 2018 Hackitt review through the Building Safety Act. In particular, the Act sets out a clear pathway on how high-rise buildings should be designed, constructed, maintained and managed, while ensuring that residents have a stronger voice in the system. The Act also establishes two new regulators: the building safety regulator and the national regulator for construction products.

I turn to building standards. Health and safety in buildings is a founding principle of the Building Safety Act, which underpins building regulations. Building regulations in England set requirements for a range of matters relating to the health and well-being of people in their homes. The regulations also set requirements for issues raised in the Bill, such as security and energy efficiency. We have recently reviewed and updated building regulations standards for ventilation in homes and introduced a new requirement to reduce the risk of overheating. The highest fabric standards we set as part of the 2021 uplift will markedly increase the energy efficiency of new homes. This will help households to minimise their energy bills and to make homes warmer and more comfortable. The building regulations also contain requirements for ensuring that new buildings are made secure against unauthorised access.

We have clear plans for ensuring that new homes meet the highest levels of energy efficiency. From 2025, the future homes standard will ensure that new homes will be future-proofed for net zero, with low-carbon heat and high levels of energy efficiency. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, while the zero-carbon homes policy proposed changes to the energy performance standards of new homes, it also included a carbon offsetting scheme, allowable solutions, to enable homes to become zero carbon. Consumers would not have benefited from allowable solutions as this would not necessarily have increased the energy efficiency of their homes, or indeed reduced their energy bills.

The future homes standard is a major improvement on this policy because it will deliver homes that are genuinely zero-carbon ready. The future homes standard will deliver carbon reductions through the fabric and building services in a home, rather than relying on wider carbon offsetting. This footprint will continue to reduce over time as the electricity grid decarbonises. In the interim, we have tightened energy standards, including for insultation, for new homes by 30%. As well as improving the energy efficiency in the short term, these improvements will ensure that construction professionals and supply chains are working to higher specifications in readiness for the 2025 future homes standard.

In addition to the policies I have mentioned, the National Planning Policy Framework is also clear that a key aspect of sustainable development is good design and that the creation of high-quality, beautiful and sustainable buildings and places is fundamental to what the planning and development process should achieve. In July 2021 we issued revisions to the framework which place greater emphasis on beauty, place-making and good design to create better places in which to live and work.

The framework also contains national policy relating to many of the aims of this Bill. In particular, it asks that planning policies and decisions should: ensure that developments will function well and add to the overall quality of the area, not just for the short term but over the lifetime of the development; accommodate green spaces; support local facilities and transport networks; create places that are safe, inclusive and accessible; and promote health and well-being for existing and future users.

My noble friend Lord Young stressed that two objectives of the Bill relate to natural light and year-round thermal comfort. The National Design Guide and National Model Design Code illustrate how well-designed places can achieve this in practice.

On liveable space in new homes, the Government believe that ensuring a good standard and quality of internal space is vital to achieving well-designed and healthy homes for all. National planning policy includes a nationally described space standard, which means that councils have the option to set minimum space standards for new homes in their area.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, touched on staircases, and I am sure that she knows the action the Government have been taking on staircase safety. They have now put in motion a review of Approved Document K, which is the statutory guidance for building regulations dealing with protection from falling, collision and impact. The review focuses primarily on Section 1, which considers the safety of stairs, ladders and ramps. This review will run in parallel with the review already under way of Approved Document M, which looks at accessibility. This review will consult on raising the safety level of staircases to that achieved by meeting British Standard 5395-1, on staircases.

The National Design Guide reminds local councils that the quality of internal space needs careful consideration in higher density developments, particularly for family accommodation. I was, like many noble Lords, appalled to hear of buildings being adapted into flats with no natural light. The guide also places importance on access, privacy, daylight and external amenity space. I hope this relates to some of the “S”s that the right reverend Prelate mentioned in his contribution.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, mentioned the housing for older people task force. Further details on panel membership and the scope of the task force will be confirmed in due course. The noble Lord also mentioned the Commission on Creating Healthy Cities. The Government welcome its report and we are going to look closely at its recommendations as we take forward our work on levelling up, including the reforms set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. A full review of the National Planning Policy Framework is also likely to be required in due course to reflect our wider changes to the planning system, subject to decisions on how they will be taken forward. Any changes to the NPPF will be subject to a full public consultation, which will provide an opportunity to submit comments on the proposals.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Hayman of Ullock, both mentioned the Centre for Cities think tank. I am afraid that I have not seen this report yet. I will make sure to bring it to the attention of the department and will definitely look at it myself as well.

To conclude, although the Government support the Bill’s objectives of ensuring that homes across the country are healthy—indeed, our Levelling Up White Paper has set out our mission to reduce the number of non-decent homes in the private rented sector—we believe that, because of our existing laws and measures, the Bill is unnecessary. We therefore oppose it, but this has very little to do with the costs that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned.