Local Housing Need Assessment Reform

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) for setting the scene so well. I always bring a Northern Ireland perspective to the debate.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

[Jim Shannon]

It is good that we understand the importance of these issues. The Minister is a regular visitor to Northern Ireland and as he engages with relevant Ministers there, as he always does, he will be asking these questions and talking about the matter. I look forward to his response.

The hon. Member for Horsham set the scene well. I am flabbergasted to hear from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) that the water companies do not play a role in planning. In Northern Ireland, there cannot be any planning application without contacting Northern Ireland Water. It is important to have the input of a major facility that looks after sewerage and storm water and that will set out the systems for any development. I understand the Liberal Democrats will possibly table an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill on that and it would be great if Government accepted it. That would be the easy way of doing it. I am sure when they listen hard to what others say, they will understand that is the way forward.

I have heard the comments made by the hon. Member for Horsham on the issues surrounding local house prices and the comparison to the cost of living and people’s wages. In my constituency of Strangford, and specifically within the Ards and the North Down borough, new house builds are more expensive than current housing stock, causing higher targets to be set and ultimately limiting affordability for people to buy. The University of Ulster has stated that the average house price in Ards, Strangford and North Down as of 2022 was £221,000. The Northern Ireland average was £200,000, so we are already above the norm in my constituency. That was three years ago, so it will be even higher now.

The banks of mum and dad and of grandpa and grandma are so important to many young people. I am not better than anyone else and never profess to be, but we will help our children achieve their home goals. Where there is the ability to do so, it is important to do it and help them get on the first rung on the ladder. The thing is that not everybody can do that, and that is why it is important that Government have an input into the process.

In late May 2024, it was announced that 100,000 private and social homes would need to be built over the next 15 years, so by 2039. One third of those, about 33,000, will be social homes. It is so important to have social homes in place and to have availability of social housing stock for those who cannot buy their homes and get on the first rung of the ladder. To look realistically at waiting lists, nearly 48,000 households are on the waiting list for a social home and about 36,000 of those are in housing stress, meaning that they are in priority need. In the social sector there is a huge need for additional homes and there is clearly a disjoint between the need for homes and the allocation by which people can get one.

One of the biggest issues I had as a councillor back when I was first elected in 1985 was housing. Housing matters took priority. It is probably more about benefits now than it is about housing, but at that time it made me very aware of the need for those who wished to have social housing. Again, I am not better than anyone else but I have always pushed for extra social housing in my constituency. We will have a fairly major development in the Castlebawn site in Newtownards, which is a brown site that will have about 120 social housing units of all sorts—for disabled people, families and elderly people, and there will some flats in there as well. It will be a mix of all that is needed in the Ards area. It will only scrape at the surface, as we need many more.

I have been proactive in ensuring that social housing units become the norm. Yet it seems we see the housing reality focused on new developments that range between £200,000 and £250,000 to purchase, which is not within everybody’s pocket. For the majority, it is simply not doable. That is not to mention the need for social housing accommodation due to the extortion that is the private rental sector. Again, remembering that the wages in Northern Ireland are lower than they are on the mainland, rental accommodation in Newtownards is between £750 and £1,000 a month for a two-bed property. In many cases it is completely out of touch with the issues that need to be dealt with.

I will conclude, Mrs Hobhouse, as I know others wish to speak. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Horsham for raising these issues. They are applicable to all our constituents across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in one way or another. There is hope that over time we can do better to look at the issues on the ground as opposed to the overall targets in figures.

I wish the Government well; it is churlish of anybody not to wish the Government well with the 1.5 million or 1.4 million new houses that they wish to build. It helps the economy and provides housing opportunities for those who can purchase them and for those in need of social housing. At the same time, more must be done in engagement with the devolved Administrations to tackle the issues. I am very keen to see the Minister engage with and speak to those in the Northern Ireland Assembly, in particular to the Minister responsible, to see how we can learn from each other. These great nations can learn from each other: the Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish and English. We are better together. The Scots Nats are here together, so they cannot object to that. We can learn from each other and do better as a result.