Earl of Listowel
Main Page: Earl of Listowel (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 8 and 9 and in doing so declare my interests as president of the Local Government Association and chair of Peabody.
The amendments form part of a series of amendments intended to make the Bill fairer, more localist and more workable, while respecting the manifesto commitments made by the Conservative Party during the general election last May. The specific purpose of Amendment 8 and the consequential Amendment 9—I would argue that it is consequential—is to place the responsibility for determining the proportion of starter homes in any particular development where it should properly lie: with the local planning authority.
We discussed at length during the Committee stage of this Bill, and indeed today, how starter homes as an initiative has moved from being an interesting and positive new way to provide additional supply of new housing to effectively replacing affordable rented housing in new developments, despite the fact that starter homes will serve a very different group of people, being available only to those on middle or higher incomes in those areas where housing is in high demand. Shelter has calculated, for example, that 98% of families who are on the Chancellor’s national living wage would not be able to afford a starter home.
In Committee, we also learned that there is not one housing market in this country but many, each with their own different needs and issues. It is for this very reason that we require each local authority to consider carefully its local housing needs and draw up a local plan to meet them. The Bill, however, gives the Secretary of State the power to prevent the approval of individual planning applications unless they have met the specified requirement for starter homes. It is hard to think of a more overbearing and centralising action that the Government could have taken on something that should so clearly be a matter for local decision. So far as I am aware, it is also completely without precedent. I cannot establish any previous Government who have sought to specify the types and tenures of housing in individual planning applications in this way.
On 23 March, just prior to the Easter Recess, the department issued a technical consultation document on starter homes. It proposed a single starter homes percentage of 20%, with exceptions only for very small sites and where the viability of the scheme was in question. The Government’s consultation document does not give an estimate of how many affordable rented houses this would displace but both the Local Government Association and Shelter believe this to be significant. Indeed, the department’s own numbers estimate that, in cash terms, 91% of affordable housing contributions on an average site will be redirected to starter homes.
I have no doubt that a figure of 20% starter homes will be right for some parts of the country, but I am equally clear that for many others it will not. There is a risk that further delays will be added to the planning process as local authorities struggle in individual applications to reconcile this top-down requirement with what they know is right for their own area. Amendment 8 leaves the choice with individual local authorities but makes clear that the local authority must have regard to the provision of starter homes when it comes to make its decision. This, taken with the general duty to promote starter homes that is already in Clause 3(1), will provide more than sufficient onus on local authorities to take forward the Government’s intentions. There is enough leverage already in the Bill. We must surely be able to trust local authorities to make the right decisions based on their own local needs and circumstances.
In other parts of the debate in Committee—for example, on the appropriate size of new housing—Ministers were clear in their view that local authorities are best placed to understand and decide what is required locally. This must surely be the case for type and tenure; otherwise, we are effectively in this Bill going for “pick and mix” localism.
Today the four leaders of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent groups of the Local Government Association took the unusual step of writing a joint letter to the Guardian about the Bill. In it they say the following:
“Current proposals for starter homes carry a risk that a crucial supply of new affordable rented homes will be displaced, and despite 20% discounts they will still be out of reach for the majority of people in need of an affordable home. Councils support measures to boost home ownership, and starter homes are one of the ways this can be achieved, but we are also urging peers to back amendments allowing councils to decide how many starter homes, alongside affordable rented homes, are on each development to ensure they meet the needs identified by councils with their communities”.
The letter ends:
“New homes are badly needed and councils are keen to build them. The Local Government Association believes we will only see a genuine end to our housing crisis if we are able to get on with the job”.
Quite so.
I hope, even at this late stage, that the Government will see fit to accept this amendment.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests in the register as a landowner, a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a trustee of several child welfare charities, including the Brent Centre for Young People in north London, which provides mental health support for adolescents. I shall make clear why that is a relevant declaration later.
I rise to speak to my Amendment 7A and to support the other amendments in the group. I was grateful for the Minister’s response to this same amendment in Committee and for the opportunity to discuss its concerns with her and the Minister in the other place this morning. I have retabled the amendment because I would like further reassurance from the Minister that the Bill will not direct resources away from more secure accommodation for low-income families, a concern that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and others have raised in relation to this grouping and elsewhere. My amendment would place a duty on local authorities to provide an adequate supply of affordable homes for families in temporary accommodation. For many years, low-income families have become increasingly dependent on private housing. Tenure there tends to be more insecure than the alternatives and we have seen the rate of family homelessness rising again as a consequence.
Recently I spoke to two early-years teachers and the head teacher of a primary school in west London. Those early-years professionals were acting as family support workers and described a sea change in local housing provision as homes have become more and more overcrowded and families are more and more transient. They work hard to build relationships with troubled families, but often those families move on within a few months. All their work comes to naught because of instability of tenure. We are learning more and more about the importance of a secure start for children in stable families where the parents make a strong attachment to their children even before birth, but especially in the early years. Such children are much more likely to grow up without the mental health issues that arise particularly in adolescence. So I would be grateful if the Minister could provide a further assurance that the Government are giving priority to working with local authorities—my noble friend Lord Kerslake talked about the importance of working in partnership with them—and others to provide low-income families with the secure housing they so urgently need. I look forward to her response.