Long-Term National Housing Strategy

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

Noble Lords should excuse me—this is my first go. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this debate. This is an idea whose time has come. I spoke to a number of young people about their feelings around housing. Let us be clear: when talking about housing, one is speaking about people under the age of 40. They said that the situation completely destroys their future and they have given in. They wanted me to bring three notable points to the attention of the Committee.

However, I had to speak to them about some of the successes that the Government have had, with 2.5 million houses built over the past 14 years, though that is clearly not enough. When we talk about housing, I want to focus on the human element and the absolute drag that this has been on the development of young people in this country. If we are to have a national body, there must be political buy-in. Some things go beyond politics and this is one of them. The state of housing in this country challenges the notion that we are a civil nation. Any nation that cannot afford to house its young people and their families needs to look at what its beliefs are. We are supposedly the fifth or sixth-richest nation in the world and we are spending our money in the wrong way. Many of those points have been made here.

To have this national scheme, however, a few things should be added to that list and pursued. One is promoting family-sized homes. In our current situation, we build lots of one or two-bedroom houses, which means that family-sized homes become, relatively, even more expensive. For those people below the age of 40 and looking to start a family, this is where their focus is. If they cannot start a family, it changes their trajectory of life as they see it.

The public sector needs to be more effective in putting its surplus land into circulation to be used for housing. Again, a national scheme could identify where these pockets of land would be most useful, how they came into circulation, what level of profit was drawn from this land and so on, to help these things happen more quickly. Many local authorities feel that they have to defend the land to the point where absolutely nothing happens and no one wins.

As a Government, we have also given lots of money to development. We gave the Mayor of London £4.82 billion but we had no control. His speed of delivery was incredibly slow. He started many schemes that will not be finished until 2030. That is simply too late for most people in dire housing need in this country.

Finally, this idea needs to be seen as a national mission. Most of the social pressures that we face in this country will be greatly eased by increasing the amount of affordable, decent housing. I commend this idea to anyone and I hope we can find a way of supporting it across the political divide.