Affordable Housing in the South-West

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton]

My hon. Friend makes a tremendously apposite point. It is a very good point indeed. The answer is yes, we do: the demand is such that the supply is always going to be vastly outstripped by it, so we need to look at other measures. I hope that when the planning Bill comes forward, it will help us towards that route and show that there are other opportunities out there.

The region’s job market has been among the worst hit by the pandemic, sitting alongside the rocketing house prices that I have mentioned, with affordability only expected to worsen. That means overcrowding, homelessness and a generation of young people unable to move out of their parents’ home or live near their workplace.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important and timely debate. Does he agree that part of the problem is that there seems to be a culture of Members of Parliament across the House instinctively opposing planning applications for new homes? It seems to be in the DNA of some of them. In fact, we should get excited, especially as Conservatives, and be enthusiastic about the opportunity, aspiration and hope that a new home provides. Obviously, we have a very great social need.

[David Warburton]

My hon. Friend makes a tremendously good point. It is important that planning applications are seen in the round. As I will go on to describe, we need to maintain the beauty and special qualities of our rural towns and villages, while at the same time providing the homes that people so badly need.

In 2019-20, the total housing stock in England increased by about 244,000 homes. The number of new homes each year has indeed been growing for several years, but still not quickly enough to meet the demand. Estimates put the number of new homes needed at up to 345,000 per year. That means 42,000 new homes are needed each year in the south-west alone, and yet we are building fewer than half the homes required to plug the gap. We must do more, not only to match supply to demand but crucially to ensure that new homes are genuinely affordable and built where they are needed most—and, yes, that does mean protecting our rural villages from overdevelopment.

As Mrs Thatcher said, borrowing the words of the Scottish Unionist Noel Skelton, Britain should be a “property-owning democracy”. Back in the 1960s, when the Government were building more than 300,000 new houses a year, that ambition was achievable, but the same is not true today. Annual supply needs to increase by a further 23% by the mid-2020s to meet the Government’s own housing target, and by another 39% to reach the National Housing Federation’s recommendations.

There is general agreement that we need more homes, but there is less agreement, both in politics and in the housing industry, about how best to achieve that step change. I believe that there are three key areas where the Government and industry can work together to meet housing need. The first is public sector land reform. Priority for public land sales should change from maximising cash to the provision of public housing.

Secondly, we must adequately invest in building new affordable and sustainable homes where they are needed, creating jobs across construction and the supply chain and building the confidence of consumers, investors and developers. The recent £8.6 billion funding allocation from the affordable homes programme is a good start, but it does not cover the long-term funding gap and the structural barriers that have to be addressed.

Thirdly, there needs to be greater flexibility in the delivery of affordable homes. The most effective way to do that would be for the Government to allow developers to decide what tenure their homes should be on completion of a property so that we generate solutions that respond to the latest local need and allow the building of the right homes to continue in all economic conditions.