Planning for the Future

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I stand to carry on the conversation that we have just had with my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann). I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate and the Minister for all he does and for his willingness to engage with all those who are keen to be involved in this area.

As we heard, the White Paper proposes a range of reforms, and I will not go over everything that has been said. In fact, I want to focus on the fact that the gist of the White Paper is to increase access to homes and ownership of a home. To own a home is an amazing thing; it gives a sense of security, builds community and provides opportunity, so we should absolutely continue to do all we can to ensure that people can own a home.

However, here lies the problem in Cornwall, in particular, where, as we have heard, prices are high and wages are low. That is what I want to try to address. The truth is that there are people elsewhere in the country who fancy a bit of Cornwall, particularly at the moment, with it being in tier 1—sorry for rubbing that in, Sir Charles; that was insensitive. We have seen an enormous rush of people buying a home in Cornwall because they have seen it as the place to be not just during the recent restrictions but for the whole year. That is nothing new. We could build all the homes that the country could cope with, but the people who need them would not necessarily get them. That is absolutely the case in Cornwall.

I have three suggestions. First, local authorities should be given power to support local home ownership. St Ives, a key part of my constituency—so key that the constituency is named after it—captured headlines around the world when it introduced a primary residence clause in its neighbourhood plan so that no new home could be built in the St Ives Town Council area unless it was for local ownership as a primary residence. That was not necessarily supported at the time, but it has really helped the community to stake the case that building homes for people who live elsewhere is not at all helpful. I ask the Minister to consider putting something in the White Paper that would enable local authorities, where there is a need, to provide access to homes to local people when they are built, somehow restricting them for other people for a period, even when on the market. I do not know how that can be done—I leave him with the problem, not the solution.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall said, innovative home ownership models should be a must—[Interruption.]

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman can hold his thought there.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Derek Thomas]

I was asking the Minister to consider a way to enable local authorities to ensure that local people have access to the homes once they are built. I will now look at other models that enable working families to get on the property ladder, not forgetting what I said earlier about the promise, security and opportunity of owning one’s own home. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall referred to rent to buy. Rent to buy offers access to working families: it gives them a discounted rent for a period; they then have the opportunity to buy the freehold of that property, and in return some models offer them help towards their deposit. The Treasury supports it, the Prime Minister supports it and No. 10 recently produced a paper to encourage councils to take it up, but Cornwall Council, for some reason—I have discussed this with it on a number of occasions—has consistently refused to allow the model to be available to working families in Cornwall. When I met the council the last time, it accepted that about 800 homes would have been built for local families.

The truth is that where places such as Cornwall have a long waiting list for social and affordable housing, the working families are very low on that list. As my hon. Friend hinted, lots of other people genuinely have a greater need, but the truth is that working families who rent their property and who could benefit from the rent-to-buy model find themselves paying very high rents. That is often what drives the kind of poverty and deprivation that we see in Cornwall. I am interested in hearing from the Minister whether, through the reforms, we can find a way to ensure that local authorities cannot deny this opportunity to local families.

Finally, if through the White Paper we can continue discussions about the opportunity to improve the build quality and efficiency and reduce the cost of running homes, that will be gratefully welcomed.