Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Home ownership, especially for younger people, is now falling as well, so he should check his figures on that. This Queen’s Speech will do nothing for home ownership. It is a developers’ charter when it comes to planning; that is not what is wrong with our planning system at all. For those who cannot afford to buy their own homes, there is absolutely nothing in this Queen’s Speech.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her Front-Bench position and I am very pleased to see her there. Just to come back to the First homes arrangement, there is no argument about encouraging young people, particularly first-time buyers, to buy their own homes. Is not the problem with First homes that it is going to take the first top slice of any funding through section 106 agreements and therefore displace an element of social and other affordable housing for rent? That is the challenge with First homes: it displaces homes for rent.

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

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[Robert Jenrick]

I would say two things to the hon Gentleman, who makes an important point. First, my right hon Friend the Chancellor and his predecessors have brought forward tax changes so that there are further costs involved in purchasing second homes or for international buyers to enter the market. That money of course helps to fund our affordable homes programme. Secondly, I hope he will become an enthusiastic advocate of First homes, because not merely does it provide homes for first-time buyers and key workers, but it does so for people in their local area. So his constituents will be able to benefit from those homes, and then they will be locked for perpetuity to first-time buyers and key workers from his area. If he wishes to work with me on that, I would be delighted to ensure that some are brought forward as quickly as possible in his constituency.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will, and then I really must make progress.

[Mr Betts]

The Secretary of State mentioned Harold Macmillan. As someone who was brought up in a Macmillan home back in the 1950s—I am old enough, in case Members have not noticed—I think we then built 300,000 homes for four years. A very substantial number of those were built by the public sector. The Select Committee recently recommended that to get to 300,000 homes today we would need to build at least 90,000 in the public sector through housing associations and councils. That would cost about £10 billion a year of Government grant. We have not had a response from the Government, have we, to that proposal?

[Robert Jenrick]

There has been a response and I will come on to that in a moment.

We have brought forward the biggest affordable homes programme for at least 10 years—£12 billion, a very substantial sum. At the moment, there is no sign that the market is even capable of building more homes than that. If it can, I will be the first person to be knocking on the door of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor asking for more money so that we can build more affordable homes of all types. Our ambition is to build 1 million new homes over the course of this Parliament and, yes, to get to that target of 300,000 homes a year that was set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) when she was Prime Minister. She was right: we do need to build more homes.

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[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Stoke-on-Trent is exactly the sort of place that is building the homes that the local community needs. It is meeting—indeed, exceeding—its national targets, and it is managing to do so sustainably and responsibly, in line with the preference of local people to build on brownfield land first. We have brought forward a £100 million fund to support that, which I think Stoke-on-Trent is already benefiting from—or I expect that it will in the future. That is exactly the kind of investment in sites that are less than viable, or where viability is challenged, that I expect to be able to announce later in the year.

These are once-in-a-generation reforms that will help us to build back fairer, increasing supply, improving affordability and unlocking opportunity for millions of young people. So too will essential reforms championing both homeowners and renters. As announced in the Queen’s Speech, the leasehold ground rent reform Bill will put an end to ground rent for new leasehold properties as part of the most significant change to property law in a generation. For too many, the dream of home ownership has been soured by leases imposing crippling ground rents, additional fees and onerous conditions.

That Bill is the first of two leasehold-reforming pieces of legislation that will put that right, making home ownership fairer and simpler, saving millions of leaseholders thousands if not tens of thousands of pounds, and reforming a system that we inherited from our distant forebears—an essentially feudal system that no longer meets the expectations and preferences of homeowners in the 21st century. Today, I will also be launching the Commonhold Council, which will pave the way for home- owners to take greater control of their home through a collective form of home ownership unusual in this country but ubiquitous in others around the world—another vital step towards people enjoying their homes as homeowners in the truest sense of the word.

We are also backing a fairer deal for the millions of renters. To that end, we will publish our consultation response on proposals to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions and improve security for tenants in the private rented sector, while strengthening possession grounds for landlords when they need that for valid reasons.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will keep going, because I appreciate that other Members wish to speak.

We will set out our proposals for a new lifetime deposit model, to make it easier for tenants moving from one tenancy to the next. We are also committed to raising standards, for example by ensuring that all tenants have a right to redress, and that well-targeted, effective enforcement drives out poor and criminal landlords. I am pleased that these plans have been welcomed by many across the sector, including Shelter, which has said that they breathe fresh hope for Britain’s renters. We will be working with Shelter and many others as we approach the publication of our White Paper in the autumn.

As we build back fairer, it is right that we also ensure that we build back safer. It feels especially poignant to be introducing the Building Safety Bill so close to the fourth anniversary of the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. I am acutely conscious of its significance to the bereaved and to survivors, who, more than anything, never want any community to go through what they have suffered. That is what our landmark Bill aims to deliver, through the biggest improvements to building safety regulation for a generation.

Building on the Fire Safety Act 2021, the Building Safety Bill will embed the new Building Safety Regulator as part of a wide-ranging, rigorous approach to regulating the built environment in this country. By implementing the recommendations made in Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review, the Bill will strengthen accountability and responsibility across the sector, with clear duties and responsibilities for building owners and managers. It will ensure that products used in the construction of buildings are bound by rigorous safety standards, which I am afraid are being found wanting day by day at the Grenfell inquiry. Crucially, it will give residents a stronger voice in the system, making it easier for them to seek redress and raise concerns.

The Building Safety Bill also supports the removal of unsafe cladding, with a new levy on developers seeking permission to develop certain high-rise buildings. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer expects to raise at least £2 billion from a new tax on the residential property development sector to support this work, ensuring that the industry pays a fair share towards the cost of the situation it contributed to. As Members are aware, leaseholders in high-rise, high-risk building over 18 metres will pay nothing, with their costs being paid either by developers, insurers or warranty providers, or by the taxpayer through our £5 billion Government fund—the largest ever Government investment in building safety, and five times the size of the building safety fund set out in the Labour party’s 2019 manifesto.

We have heard nothing today from the Labour party on its plans, other than the fact that it would set up a new committee. I will of course take up the suggestion from the hon. Member for Manchester Central to work with her, as I have done already. Working together on these issues is in the national interest, so we should be doing everything we can to unite as a House.

Despite the challenges of the past year, the Government’s ambition and determination to answer this call for change are clear. We will ensure that we level up across the country. We will ensure that we take advantage of the historic opportunity to build back better. As one of my predecessors, Harold Macmillan, said when he began his task of building the homes the country needed in the 1950s, this is the start of an “inspiring adventure.” We are seizing it with both hands. We are building more homes than at any time for 30 years. We are helping more people on to the housing ladder. We are delivering fairness for renters. We are reforming property rights and leasehold as no Government have done since that of Margaret Thatcher. We are ensuring that no one needs to sleep rough on our streets, as we build on the phenomenal international success of our “Everyone In” programme.

With the promise of more to come, through once-in-a-generation reforms to planning and building safety, and record investment in all forms of affordable housing, these measures promise to extend opportunity and security for millions, to bridge the generational divide, and to recreate an ownership society—a society in which everyone has a stake and everyone can open their front door with pride and say, “Welcome to my home.” This is what the Queen’s Speech seeks to deliver. This is what my Department will work day and night to ensure in the weeks and months to come. I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

First, the Building Safety Bill has already been considered by the Select Committee as part of prelegislative scrutiny, and we have welcomed it, as it implements Dame Judith’s recommendations. I say gently to the Secretary of State that we conducted our review to a strict timetable. We published our recommendations last December, but we are still waiting for a Government response. We look forward to it. Generally, we welcomed the Bill and made quite a few suggestions about how we thought it could be improved.

However, I say to the Secretary of State that this is a building safety Bill, not a cladding removal Bill, and there is a danger that we see building safety simply in terms of removing dangerous cladding. It is absolutely important that that is done, particularly the aluminium composite material cladding, but also the other forms of cladding as well. We know that there are a multitude of defects in buildings that can cause fire problems: faulty balconies; faulty fire doors; missing fire breaks; faulty installations and so on, all of which make buildings unsafe. We could get a situation where the Government pay for the cladding to come off, but it still leaves the buildings unsafe, and leaseholders cannot afford the rest of the costs.

I have just been talking today to Jenny and Laura. The interview was organised by Yorkshire Calendar. Leaseholders were explaining to me that their buildings have other defects and that they and other leaseholders are worried sick that they are living in buildings that are unsafe, but that they do not have the financial ability to pay for the defects to be dealt with. That is a terrible situation. Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders are facing that problem in this country today.

We still have not had an explanation from the Government of their loan scheme and how it will operate. There are also people living in lower rise blocks worried about the future. Most renters will be expected to pay for all fire safety defects to be dealt with through their rent, which is unfair on them when the leaseholder next door may get assistance. We, as a Committee, have therefore recommended a comprehensive building safety fund to cover all fire safety defects. It should be paid for initially by the Government, with a major contribution from industry, including the providers of construction products. Of course, developers should be held to account wherever possible, but in the end, there needs to be certainty for homeowners who simply cannot afford to pay that the Government will get the problem resolved for them. That is the requirement that we have asked for.

On the Planning Bill, back in the early days of the coalition the then Chancellor, George Osborne, called planning an “obstacle to growth”. That is untrue. Planning is a means to achieve growth, but it has to be a means to achieve the right sort of growth in the right places. That is the challenge of the planning system. I think the Secretary of State will recognise that, in the White Paper, there is a major emphasis on local plans. I am sure that the Committee will support that, because we recommended some years ago that local plans should be made statutory and be simplified. The Government did not agree with us at the time, but I am pleased that they have come round to that point of view.

There are, however, major challenges around how we convert a situation where the public have a right to be consulted and express views about every single planning application to one where that consultation takes place at the local plan stage. That will be a major challenge under the new system that the Government are proposing. How we get to a situation where a local plan can contain all the relevant issues in relation to the multitude of different sites in the renewal category is a major challenge. We look forward to seeing how it will be resolved in the Bill.

In the end, the real challenge on planning reform is in the technicalities and details, so I make an offer to the Secretary of State. The Bill might be an awful lot better were it produced in draft form and he once again asked the Committee to have a look at it. I do not think that there will be a lot of disagreement on some of the issues, but the Government might have a think about getting the technicalities right so that the main beneficiaries down the line are not planning lawyers. On the housing needs assessments, it is slightly perverse that the latest iterations say that the number of homes to be built in the north and the midlands, in areas outside the major cities, will be lower than the number currently being built. That seems a bit like building fewer, rather than building better.

On renters’ reform, I am a bit disappointed that we are now having a White Paper rather than a Bill. Again, if it is about technicalities, why not at least produce a draft Bill for us to have a look at in this Session of Parliament? Finally, social care reform is an issue for other Select Committees on one level, but it is important to get it right to ensure that the finances of local councils are put on a stable basis for the future.