Local Authority (Housing Allocation) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 8th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, it was really good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mann, introduce his Bill. To me, it seems eminently sensible and practical as a way forward, so I assure him that we fully support it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, asked a couple of quite important questions, so I will swing in behind her on this and look forward to the Minister’s response. The first was on the housing targets; I know we have had questions across the Floor on this before. Alongside that is the issue of quality—of meeting the requirements of the people who will actually live in the houses, rather than just what suits the developers. That is an extremely important point.

The noble Baroness also talked about affordable housing, which concerns me particularly because of where I live in Cumbria—and I know it is exactly the same in other areas with high tourism. What tends to happen is that you have this huge problem of second homes or holiday homes, where local people, particularly young people, struggle to find houses they can afford because the prices are forced up by people from outside—who basically have more money—buying the houses. The other thing that happens then is that, because housing allocation is still required for the area, the houses get shoved around the edges, and you get far too much housing in areas where GPs, transport and so on really cannot cope, and then no housing in some of the smaller villages, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said, where people want to work and live in the area where their families are.

I was really pleased that the noble Lord talked about the fact that neighbourhood development plans have been created and have been working very successfully, and about how local control and oversight can make a real difference in delivering the building of new houses. That is what we need in some areas that are almost set in aspic, which is not what our villages should be like.

The Bill addresses important issues. It will ensure that targets for local housing allocations are agreed in consultation with local communities. As the noble Lord demonstrated extremely well, that is more likely to achieve the building of houses that are actually needed, in the communities where people want to be, rather than overloading certain areas because you cannot get planning permission in other areas.

We need to be much clearer about what we think our communities are, particularly in areas with national parks and other environmental concerns. It is not just about setting somewhere in aspic because it has been given national park status; it is about how you work with local communities to make their communities what they need to be. Housing has to be part of that.