National Planning Policy Framework

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord very much for the praise, if it was such, which I am sure has done me a lot of damage on my Benches. He will know that the lowest delivery of social houses since the war was under the Labour Party. That said, we have committed to making more money available for social houses. It is about diversity, but I certainly will not make any apologies for the right to buy: it is a policy we have rightly championed because many people, possibly most, want to purchase their own homes, and anything we can do in that regard as a political party we should. I am sorry his party does not want to do the same. Yes, we need to deliver more social houses and we will do so: he can expect announcements on that.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the unforeseen consequences of the right to buy on rural exception sites? These are small patches of land that landowners either donate or sell at a cheap price for housing and which they understood, when they gave it, was in perpetuity. The right to buy overrides that right. This means that young people in villages who cannot afford current prices are being forced into towns. They cannot work in their home locality and villages are now becoming dormitory towns for commuters, who can afford the high prices, or for elderly people. What is happening there? Because many of these village developments are fewer than 10 houses, what will the Minister do about the loophole through which builders can get away with not building affordable housing—housing at rents or prices that people can afford, as opposed to the rather euphemistic use of the word “affordable”—in future?