Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Beith
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, the housing situation in the villages of rural Northumberland leads me to want to support any amendment and any mechanism that will encourage and not discourage the continued provision of houses to rent in villages. The atmosphere here today, when Members in all parts of the House are showing a genuine concern for the problem of rural housing, reminds me of my early days as a councillor on a rural district council in Northumberland, at a time when members in all parties were absolutely convinced of the need to provide rented housing in villages. It was not a political issue.
Unfortunately, in the intervening years, many of the council houses that were built in those villages have, because of right to buy, gone into either the second home or the retirement market—because they are in beautiful places, by the seaside or among the hills of Northumberland. Therefore, I encourage Ministers to continue the discussions in which they have engaged and offer us some assurance before the Bill goes much further that we will not see the loss of one of the mechanisms by which we can get some rented housing into villages: a mechanism that brings housing associations into the management of these properties, and therefore protects them for future rented use in a way that local authority housing no longer does.
It is my fervent hope that this House will ensure that Parliament makes provision for the future of rural housing by understanding that it requires different mechanisms from what may be appropriate in urban areas where we are dealing with larger estates and more housebuilding. Rural areas are different and their needs are very serious.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I have not spoken on this Bill before. However, I would like to add a practical point from the part of the West Country where I live, where there is both very large building going on—5,000-plus houses, some on a flood plain—together with very small building on small sites. What we are being told locally is that the various builders, particularly those on the larger sites, are now going back to the council to ask not to have to provide as much affordable housing as they were originally asked to do. It really is a very serious matter down in our part of the West Country. As everyone knows, affordable housing is so important that every step that can be taken to support it, I would hope that this House would support.