Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

On the other hand, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will forgive me for saying that I do not understand how his proposed discount in perpetuity would work. If you have in perpetuity two different classes of housing, eventually the market will somehow arbitrate between houses that do not have a discount and houses that do. Eventually, someone—an estate agent—will say, “Well, if you want this other more attractive one you can buy it but, of course, it will cost a bit more, even if we head it as ‘furniture and fittings’, or whatever”. There will be a means of the market arbitrating between the two and the advantage will eventually disappear. Although I understand the idea behind Amendment 5, it is impracticable so it should not be supported. However, because Amendment 1 would bring in a flow of cash to the housing market, that seems to have a great deal of merit.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak very briefly to Amendment 1, so powerfully moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and to comment now on the closely associated Amendments 8, 10, and 11. I shall focus on the impact of starter homes on the provision of affordable housing and on the effect starter homes could have on the long-term future of rural communities. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, which represents England’s 1,000 housing associations.

It is undeniable that starter homes have the potential to help some young people on to the housing ladder. However, the Bill as drafted undermines the wider supply of homes of all tenures that are so critical to making housing affordable for young people. Clause 4 requires developers to deliver starter homes as part of their Section 106 obligations. When this is coupled with proposed changes to the definition of affordable housing, whereby developers can build starter homes to meet their Section 106 obligations, I fear it will lead to a significant fall in the supply of the sub-market homes, or truly affordable homes, that are so badly needed. That is because the housing crisis is different in different communities. Local authorities need to have the freedom to plan across a range of tenures, based on their strategic housing market area assessment.

I will not rehearse the many, many arguments that have been made in the several debates on rural areas that we have had in this House. The Government are consulting about the size of site that might be excluded from the starter homes requirement. I hope the Minister will say something on that today, but rather than restricting the option to 10 or fewer, as the consultation does, I would like her to consider excluding rural exception sites completely. The Government are endangering the bond of trust between the landowner, who provides these sites at below market value, and the housing providers. Landowners might be either unwilling to provide sites, or will seek a higher price for the land. Even if sites of fewer than 10 homes were excluded, this would apply to only half the total number of rural exception areas. This could lead to the end of affordable housing within five years, resulting in more young people leaving the rural areas they grew up in.

The best way to drive up new supply and to increase opportunities for home ownership is to deliver homes across all tenures. Starter homes should be seen as part of that, not the sole solution.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I apologise for not engaging with the Bill at an earlier stage. Other colleagues from this Bench who have engaged with it are unable to be here today. I declare an interest: I have five children, and I worry very much about how they will own their own properties. Two have already managed to; the other three will need to work on it. It will be a little bit difficult for them. They will not have a great deal from me to help them, as they come from a clergy family. That is my second declaration of interest. Living on a clergy stipend for most of my adult life and living in clergy accommodation means that I have got to know the letting world reasonably well as a way of trying to make provision for my future and my family’s future when I am evicted from my house at some point.

I very much commend the Government for the whole initiative of trying to help people on to the housing market. As a parent, I appreciate that enormously. A good deal of me is attracted to this proposal. I can see it being very helpful for my third son, who is just getting to that point. It could be extremely beneficial to him, but I worry about how it would leave my fourth and fifth children when they are in that position.

I simply wanted to say that there seems to be a moral principle to secure the permanent benefit of public funding in this way for as long as possible and to minimise the potential for this scheme to be used unduly for investment purposes.