Housing: Private Rented Sector

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Issues around the spare room subsidy are well documented. The important principle behind that particular policy which should not be forgotten was to ensure that more rooms and more housing could be made available to those who needed it. While that policy has caused some concern in certain areas, currently we are demonstrably seeing that the rooms that are being freed up are being utilised. We are seeing more rooms being made available to address the acute need and demand for housing.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the success of Build to Rent, in that it will have built some 10,000 homes by 2015. Do the Government have any plans to extend Build to Rent? Have they given any thought to the creation of a housing investment bank, which could lend money and create more housing units in the private rented sector, thus giving greater foundations to those who are renting by enabling them to stay in their homes at rents that they can afford?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises an important point about expanding the rented sector. He is correct that our £1 billion Build to Rent fund will provide development phase finance to large-scale private rented sector developments, building up to 10,000 new homes. Eight round 1 projects are now in contract, worth £124 million and delivering more than 1,600 new homes for private rent. He also asked about other schemes and I have heard the suggestion that he put forward. The Government are currently supporting the housing guarantee schemes, which are now open for business and supporting up to £10 million-worth of investment in large-scale private rented projects and in additional affordable housing. For example, the delivery partner in our private rented housing debt guarantees has received a lot of strong interest. A £500 million European Investment Bank loan facility for affordable housing debt guarantees, which was announced on 7 January this year, has attracted eight borrowers. So there are a variety of schemes that the Government are supporting and promoting to ensure that we address this very important need.

Landlord and Tenant Acts

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 29th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The important thing in this area is that a balance is struck between leaseholders’ rights about their homes, and existing legislation provides protection in this respect, including protection from freeholders about proceedings to forfeit the lease due to alleged breaches. The Government continue to welcome suggestions on how residential leasehold can be improved. Indeed, we held a round table last year and I am delighted to inform the House my honourable friend Brandon Lewis and I, together, I hope, with my noble friend Lord Faulks, will host a leasehold round table in the autumn of this year.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

May I widen the issue a little? A recent report by Professor Michael Ball of Henley Business School at the University of Reading suggested that too much resource goes into regulating good landlords and too little in tackling bad landlords. Might the Minister look at this issue and, in particular, see if the balance between the two is right?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend makes a very valid point. There are landlords who are good and others who, unfortunately, are not. Good practice needs to be shared. If there are individual cases that need to be followed up and good practice that needs to be shared, I would of course welcome input from my noble friend in that regard.

Housing: Social Housing

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

That is a matter that the Secretary of State for the DCLG and the Chancellor will be discussing in the next budget round.

[Lord Shipley]

Does the Minister agree that there is an urgent need to build more new social housing and that one way that could be done is for the housing borrowing cap of local authorities to be removed and to be substituted by the prudential borrowing code, which enables the self-financing of social housing? That could be backed up by the Local Government Act 2003 so that Ministers have a power to cap any individual local authority that broke the rules. Given the importance of housing and the growth agenda, will the Minister look at that proposal?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The housing issue, along with other proposals, will be looked at, but I want to make it clear that the Government are investing more in social housing. We are investing over £4.5 billion in the spending review period to deliver up to 170,000 affordable homes in England. This investment, importantly, as I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, is about working together across the board in the housing sector, bringing different parties together. This £4.5 billion will leverage an extra £15 billion from the private sector investment, making a total of £19.5 billion investment in social housing up to 2015.