Jacob Rees-Mogg
Main Page: Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative - North East Somerset)
Mr Bacon
The vast majority of our built environment that is worth protecting was built before the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, when there was much less control on what could be done. Also, when people are spending their own money on assets, they are likely to do so in such a way that protects the value of those assets. Aesthetics vary: every beautiful Georgian terrace we see—except those that were built on green fields—was built on land that previously held a beautiful row of black and white cottages from the 14th or 15th century that was knocked down to make way.
Imagine a world in which people could go along to a site and the sales agent with the pink Fiat said, “Here are some choices for you. You might want a big plot or a small one. Your tastes might tend in the direction of very traditional architecture or of something very funky. If the former, you might want to think about these architects and builders. If you want something more contemporary, you might want to consider these architects and builders who have a lot of experience in that sector. We have some examples of work they have done earlier and we can attest to their quality.” That could be the normal approach, but at the moment it is anything but.
Interestingly, the UK is an outlier in this area. In Canada, Germany, France, Sweden and Ireland, self or custom build often accounts for more than 50% of the market. In Italy, it accounts for more than 60% and in tiny Austria it is 86%. In this country, self-build is still seen as an elite club that is open only to a small number of people. As Kevin McCloud has said, we build some of the poorest performing, most expensive and smallest homes in Europe. If someone wants a home with triple-glazed windows so that it costs nothing to heat, we have no suppliers who can supply that. I do not know anyone who would not like a house that cost nothing to heat, but triple-glazed windows are not available here, although they are in Germany. They should be available here, too.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am hugely enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech. Is there, however, a greater problem with the planning system than he has outlined so far? Planners instruct builders on the precise colour of the bricks that they must use. With that level of ridiculous detail, people cannot let their imaginations run wild on bespoke houses because they will not meet the conditions laid down by the bureaucracy.
Mr Bacon
My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I said earlier, people go into planning with the most benign intentions, but they end up becoming the person who says no. They find that they do not like that and they leave. That means that those left in planning authorities can be the less imaginative and creative, who like exercising their little bit of power. I know someone in South Norfolk who built a house and he said that after his seventh attempt to get the gutter colour right, he told the planner to choose. But that person is employed by the taxpayer and should have better things to do. The people who work in local planning authorities are as much victims of the system as everyone else. Perhaps a quarter of them should not be there, but most of them would like to do a good job. They would like to have more ability to help their local communities properly in a true place-making way, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North describes.
The Government have done a lot in this area. The Budget provided £150 million for service plots, and the Government have announced a significant range of housing schemes in recent years—the local infrastructure fund, the Growing Places fund, the new homes bonus and Help to Buy, as well as the more recent starter homes money. The Minister can say more about those if he wants, but my point is not that nothing is happening. It is that it is not happening quickly enough. We need to make it happen quickly if we are to solve the housing needs of our people.
One crucial problem is that, because the supply has not been flowing properly, the cost of buying a house has risen considerably compared with the average income. It used to be three to four times income. In South Norfolk, it is now 8.2 times average income to buy the average dwelling, and it is the same in Harlow. In mid Suffolk, it is 8.6 times. These figures are from a “Home Truths” card for the east of England—the National Housing Federation has produced a card for each region of the country. In South Cambridgeshire, it is nine times average income, in St Albans 10.5 times, in Welwyn Hatfield 11.9 times and in Hertsmere it is 13.4 times. In a well functioning, flowing market that would not be the case.
In my view, the word “customer” should apply in the broadest possible sense. As I said, my policy is that everyone should have somewhere to live, but not everyone can afford to buy a house, and we need to recognise that. It follows that people without the money to buy a house should also be treated as customers. I want to see a world in which a person can say to a housing association, “I can’t afford to buy a house, but I am a human being and I don’t want to live in a ditch. I would like to have somewhere to live, and I understand that you provide housing for people like me”; and I want to see a world in which the housing association replies to such people or groups of people, “How can we help create something you want to live in and then rent it to you?” I know that can happen because it is happening now—tens of thousands of houses are being built this way across Germany and other parts of the continent—but not here. If we treat house building as if customers matter, we will go a long way towards solving the problem.
My humble Bill would require each local authority to keep a register of persons—individuals or associations of individuals—who are
“seeking to acquire serviced plots of land in the authority’s area in order to build houses for those individuals to occupy as homes.”
In the Bill, the word “house” includes a dwelling that forms part of a building, and “serviced plot of land” means
“a plot of land which satisfies such requirements about utilities and other matters as may be specified.”
For example, if a group of people got together to take over a derelict commercial building in an urban area, do it up and turn it into a series of dwellings, and if they got the co-operation of the local authority, that would fall within the scope of the Bill as a serviced plot.
Clause 1 identifies the relevant authorities that in each area would be responsible for observing the Bill: district councils, county councils in areas with no district councils, London borough councils, the Common Council of the City of London, the Council of the Isles of Scilly and other authorities, such as the Broads Authority, national parks and so on. The Government’s vanguard councils, with a bit of help and pump-priming money, are experimenting voluntarily with registers to see what is easiest and most cost-effective, and the last thing I want to do is place extra burdens on already overburdened councils.