Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Excerpts

Friday 6th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Best, for bringing the Bill to the House and for his contribution to developing the custom and self-build housing sector. We are indeed fortunate in your Lordships’ House, and it is entirely fitting, that someone with a lifetime’s experience in housing is taking the Bill forward, and I am extremely grateful that it will benefit from his expertise through its progress.

It is always a pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Young, to the Dispatch Box. He said that he perhaps did not know the in-depth detail of the issue, but enthusiasm is always a welcome addition to any debate. I am encouraged by the fact that we may have aspiring self-builders in the House, as the House is beginning to attract some attention from noble Lords who are entering it.

It would be remiss of me not also to pay tribute to my honourable friend Richard Bacon, the Member for South Norfolk, as did the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his handling of the Bill in the other place. As many know, he has been a passionate advocate of custom and self-build, not only through the Bill but in his sterling work for the all-party parliamentary group, where he has fostered cross-party support. We have seen that in evidence in the debates on the Bill in the other place and in your Lordships’ House today. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, rightly said, there was consensus in the other place that the Bill is a tremendous opportunity to develop the custom build sector and increase housing supply. He made a strong case for the Bill, and I take this opportunity briefly to explain why the Government are pleased to support it.

The Government are committed to increasing and diversifying housing supply and helping more people to own a home of their own. We have worked hard to speed up housing delivery, which was at its lowest levels since the 1920s when we came into office. More than 500,000 new homes have been built since April 2010, and the number of starts on new homes is at its highest since 2007.

We also want greater diversity in the housing market. More competition, more new entrants and more new development should mean not only more new homes but improved standards of design and sustainability.

We are indeed actively supporting small and medium-sized house builders—a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Best—and encouraging them further. The custom and self-build housing market provides the means for diversifying the market and delivering more high-quality homes.

As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, only 10% of homes in the UK are custom or self-built compared with more than 80% in Austria, 50% in the United States, and almost 60% just across the way in Ireland. That is despite research showing that 1 million people want to build their own home in the next year.

We heard the noble Lord talk about eBay. Perhaps that is another area to explore, but at present the market is relatively undeveloped, contributing about 12,000 self and custom-built homes a year in the UK. This is a direct result of three identified key barriers: limited availability of suitable land, access to finance, and access to advice. We have worked with the industry to overcome those barriers, and we are encouraging more land to be made available by requiring authorities to assess and plan for housing need, including for custom and self-build. As noble Lords will know, we have launched the £150-million serviced plots fund to finance up to 10,000 plots. We are also engaging with lenders to improve the number of mortgages available.

The Self Build Portal now provides advice for prospective custom builders, local authorities and industry as a whole. Exemptions from the community infrastructure levy and additional changes to Section 106 affordable housing contributions will potentially save self-builders thousands of pounds and, of course, speed up developments. These policies are having an impact. There are now more than 5,000 new plots in the pipeline. We want to go further and double the output of the sector over a decade so that more than 20,000 homes are built each year, but people struggle to access suitable plots of land.

The Government consulted in the autumn on a new right to build. We are working with 11 vanguard authorities to test how the right will work across the country. These vanguards, and learning from the consultation, will further inform the regulations from this Bill. I assure your Lordships that we are legislating only for the first element of the right today: the requirement for authorities to establish a register. I also assure the noble Lord, Lord Young, that our intention is to take forward the full right in the next Parliament. We want to ensure that the right builds on existing planning policy, including protections for precious landscapes, and that we have fully considered the role of local authorities in bringing forward land without creating unnecessary burdens.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, rightly pointed to the report published yesterday by the Delegated Powers Committee. We will in due course reply as appropriate to that report, with the input of the noble Lord’s expertise and that of my honourable friend. Let me say briefly in response that the regulations that we are seeking to build on will learn from the parliamentary debates, the consultation responses and the vanguards. The guidance will of course support local authorities in interpreting and applying complex and technical issues contained in regulations about the operation of the register, and provide a steer about how local authorities should have regard to the register when exercising their planning and other functions so that their response is proportionate. I assure the House, and the members of that committee, that the department is totally committed to consulting local government and other partners about the content of the first guidance.

In conclusion, the Bill provides an opportunity to take the first step in mainstreaming custom and self-build. The Government support this Bill, and we thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for taking it forward. I hope that it will have a speedy passage on to the statute book.