Economy

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Haskel on securing this debate in our first week after the Recess. He focused on productivity and that word resonates with the debate we had on Tuesday on the Government’s plans to boost productivity. Indeed, much of what I want to deal with underpins productivity.

In his Budget speech, the Chancellor said that,

“our weak productivity shows that we do not train enough, build enough or invest enough”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/15; col. 321.]

I will focus on the second leg of his argument: building enough. He talked about the confidence that comes from getting our house in order. I will talk literally about getting our houses in order and to rise to his challenge that one key to raising productivity is building more homes.

In doing so I declare an interest as the soon-to-be chair of the National Housing Federation. The NHF represent England’s housing associations, which provide homes for the most vulnerable and help so many people to get into home ownership and get on the housing ladder for the first time. They should be welcomed as a key player in driving Britain out of austerity and into a prosperous future, both as an economy and as a society. It is generally accepted that, for most people, having a stable place to live improves life chances and employment.

The Government have said that housing is a national priority. We are in the middle of a housing crisis. We need 250,000 new homes each year and the country is not building even half that number. Housing associations are a secret weapon in building a better Britain. I say “secret” because few people seem to realise what housing associations are and how much they do. I wonder how many members of this House, like me only a few months ago, do not realise that last year housing associations built one in three of all new homes.

They are the UK’s most successful social enterprises; they are independent of local authorities and government but work closely with both. They build houses for rent, for shared ownership and for outright sale. They are ambitious, they want to do so much more across every tenure, and they could do so if government would work with them—and indeed, to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, if private investors would work with them as well.

In their plan for productivity, the Government complained that expenditure on physical investment had been persistently low. Yes, that is generally true, but housing associations are doing something about it. They have secured £75 billion in private investment for new homes over 30 years. Their efficiency and ability to create surpluses have persuaded the money markets to invest. So they have delivered desperately needed affordable homes in every part of the country. They are a great boost for the Treasury, too. For every £1 invested by government, associations put in £6. They add an extraordinary £14 billion to Britain’s economy every year.

In my new role, I have seen for myself some of the amazing developments they have made possible across the country. Time does not allow me to talk about how inspiring they are because I do want to ask some urgent questions of the Minister. I would add only that in areas where deprivation remains a huge problem, housing associations offer exciting developments and give local communities optimism and hope.

That is because they do more than build houses; they invest to build resilient communities. In partnership with the NHS, GPs and local authorities, they provide outreach health care and redesign local care services; they deliver government programmes for helping people back into work—which is, of course, the most effective way of cutting the overall benefits bill—and last year they supported 12,000 apprenticeships. They could do so much more with greater flexibility, so I will ask the Minister some specific practical questions in the new and tougher environment set by the Chancellor’s Budget.

Will he encourage the Government to invest to deliver homes that meet locally defined needs and customer choice, not inflexible national housing programmes? Will he undertake to look at extending the Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme beyond 2017, given its boost to long-term competitively priced finance and the fact that, because of the sector’s no-default record, it comes at no cost to the taxpayer?

Will he look at empowering local public bodies, which have shown that they are effective in using their assets, to take more control over mapping public land and property locally and setting out how much can be released to deliver the homes and infrastructure needed to make communities thrive?

I conclude by saying that housing associations stand ready to work with government to end the housing crisis and, with the right conditions, can help drive us out of austerity to economic growth.