Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not going to intervene. I certainly do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, will do with his amendment. I want to follow up on the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, by saying that this is not a wise Bill. Some of us have been in this House for many years and have handled many Bills. The problem is that, in process terms—leaving aside the content—this is the worst Bill I have seen in 25 years. It is a skeleton Bill in which we do not know the detail; this will be carried out by regulations. I do not blame the Minister at all but we do not know—and the Minister does not know—what will be in the regulations because they will depend on consultation exercises. We do not know what these consultation exercises will say because they were started only two-thirds of the way through the parliamentary process.

Noble Lords all around this House have been trying to scrutinise properly and fairly, as we should, a Bill in which there are huge gaps. We do not know the costs, the statistics, the land requirements or the burdens on local authorities. We know none of this. Yet, we, who scrutinised the Bill, are being told that the Commons has overturned our amendments. In a very truncated debate last night, it barely touched half the issues that we had discussed, having read every word of it. The Commons really did not.

This leaves some of us, who respect the conventions of this House, in a very difficult position. This is a half-baked, half-scrutinised, quarter-digested Bill. We are being asked, in the name of constitutional propriety, to allow the Commons to have the final say on something that is, frankly, not fit for purpose. It should not have been introduced this year; it should have been deferred until next year, until all the detail was in place so that we could scrutinise and amend the Bill, as this House should do. Then, and in that context, we would respect the will of the Commons. The Commons is sending through on a conveyor belt a half-baked Bill that it has not scrutinised. It puts many of us who really value the scrutinising role of this House in a very difficult position. I am sure I speak for many noble Lords, including, perhaps, some on the Benches of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who share my concerns. We are being asked to scrutinise a Bill that is not fit for purpose.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I endorse my noble friend’s remarks about the issues perfectly properly raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. From the Minister’s remarks, one might have thought that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, was going to utterly sabotage the Government’s proposals for starter homes. There is no evidence to support that as a potential outcome if his amendment were to be approved. It does not replace the principle that the Government seek to advance; it complements it. We seem to be invited to adopt the Government’s position on starter homes, failing which we are going to get some starter Peers. We have probably had a few of those in the last few years but that is not a matter that ought to weigh too heavily on us.

I think noble Lords on all sides of the House endorse the Government’s ideas for promoting home ownership, particularly—but not necessarily exclusively—among younger people. After all, this is the week in which we are talking about mortgages for people up to 85 years of age. There are people above the age of 40, who have been on the housing ladder for decades, for whom this Bill will do very little. Whereas, a slightly more relaxed approach of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is advocating, would assist them, without damaging the prospects of those aged 40 and under, for whom this part of the Bill seeks to provide some hope and action. I agree with that.

I sympathise with the noble Lord’s amendment. I regret that the Government do not appear willing to move towards something that would make a modest difference to the provision of housing for more people in a rather different way but not one which, in my judgment, would damage the Government’s intentions. It certainly would not contravene their manifesto commitment.