Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 241A, I shall speak also to my Amendment 500 and comment on other amendments in this group.

I should declare from the outset that social housing is a topic very close to my heart. As a new-town child, when I was growing up, more than 30,000 of the 38,000 homes in my town were built and managed by the development corporation and later taken over by the council. Almost everyone I knew lived in a council home. They had been built in self-contained neighbourhoods with large amounts of green space, schools, health facilities, shops and so on all within a 10-minute walk. They were mostly two, three and four-bedroom family houses with gardens. Sadly, as land values have increased, that type of development is all too scarce.

As noble Lords will be aware, the introduction of right to buy not only took a scythe to housing stocks but, particularly in the new towns, disrupted the community cohesion brought about by shared housing tenure. Those 30,000 homes that I mentioned earlier have reduced to just over 8,000 now. The figure for the UK is that there are around 1.5 million fewer council homes now than in 1980. Councillors’ inboxes are full—permanently—of housing cases. Surely the generations who benefited from right to buy cannot just pull up the ladder behind them. From the experience of my councillor surgeries, they had not anticipated the impact on their children and grandchildren, never mind all the other young people for whom private renting, let along buying homes, is fast disappearing over their financial horizon.

Just yesterday, we had a shocking report from the National Housing Federation, setting out the impact of overcrowding, particularly on the life opportunities of young people. The findings of its report say that more than 300,000 children in England have to share beds with other family members. Some 2 million children live in cramped conditions with little or no personal space. Ethnic minority households are three times more likely to be overcrowded than white households. More than one-quarter of the parents living in overcrowded homes who were questioned by researchers said that they regularly had to sleep in a living room, bathroom, hallway or kitchen.

The family featured in the National Housing Federation press release, Joanna and her daughter Deni, were forced to seek council help when private rented accommodation became too expensive. Joanna had never been able to afford a two-bedroom property but, with rents soaring, now struggles to afford a one-bedroom flat. Deni, a talented musical student who is on the Royal Opera House programme for promising singers, has shared a bed with her mother for the whole of her 10 years and spends school holidays sitting on that bed while her mother works from home.

My own casework contains hundreds of housing cases a year, around 70% of which relate to homelessness, overcrowding or affordability. Shelter, which does such magnificent work in this area, held an independent commission which pointed out that we have lost 1.5 million social homes since 1980 and recommended that government rediscover publicly built housing as a key pillar of our national infrastructure by building 3.1 million new social homes over the next 20 years. That is a very ambitious target, especially when we note that only 6,463 more social homes were built last year, and 500 of those were by my local authority. After the Second World War, local authorities built more than 126,000 social homes a year. The biggest barriers are land and funding. Shelter, IPPR, CPRE, National Housing Federation, Onward and Create Streets all call for reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961, so that landowners are paid a fair price for their land without hope value. We will discuss this when we come to future amendments. Local government has also argued for many years that we should retain 100% of our right-to-buy receipts. We welcome recent developments on that front but, had it happened decades ago, we would not have seen the catastrophic impact on housing stock levels.

The Resolution Foundation’s Housing Outlook report for the first quarter of 2023 stated that, although mortgagors had been affected by rising interest rates,

“private and social renters are much more likely to report falling behind or struggling with their housing costs”.

It also said that,

“worryingly high numbers of … renters report signs of material deprivation and are resorting to sometimes unsustainable strategies to manage their housing costs”.

They include borrowing money, using savings or not heating their homes. The ONS deems rental properties affordable if a household does not spend more than 30% of its income on rent. In this country, only the east Midlands and the north-west had rent prices affordable to those in the lower quartile of household income.

There are also key financial drivers to the provision of social rented homes. First, the rent paid by social renters is recirculated to improve stock, build new homes, develop specialist housing and so on. This is sometimes the case with good private landlords, but not always. Secondly, it makes no sense to subsidise higher private rents through the benefits systems. A rapid increase in social housing stock would generate savings, as there are stark contrasts in rent levels. The figures for my area are indeed stark, with social rent for a two-bedroom property at £110 a week and private rent at £235. The local housing allowance is just £195. The amount that councils spend on temporary accommodation has increased by 71% in the past five years and now costs more than £1 billion a year.

I hope that I have set out clearly the issues and the impact that housing supply is having on the affordability of housing. My Amendment 241A is included to remove from the NPPF the spurious term “affordable housing” from rented properties that are 20% below market rent. In many areas, that would be far from affordable. For many families on low incomes, the only affordable housing is social rented housing.

Amendment 242, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and Amendment 242ZA, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, attempt a comprehensive redefinition of the term “affordable home” to ensure that there is a link between median incomes and the definition of affordable homes, with that definition then enshrined in regulations. We support this proposal in principle and would want to work with the sector to ensure that there is a much more meaningful definition included in legislation and in the National Planning Policy Framework.

Amendment 262 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, highlights the specific issues of affordable housing in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. The issues around these were clearly elucidated by my noble friend Lady Hayman yesterday—I am sorry, on Tuesday. The weeks go by with this Bill, I am afraid. She quoted the former chair of National Parks England, Carl Lis, who warned that young people and national park staff are being forced out of their communities, in part by the high prices driven by exclusive holiday homes. She also referred to a statement by the Secretary of State in the other place on 21 March in which he pledged planning changes to the Bill to ensure that restrictions would be put in place on conversions of homes to Airbnbs. Failure to act on this important issue will see the continued decimation of communities in our most precious landscapes, as increasing numbers of homes are bought for second homes and converted to Airbnb use. Local councils must be able to use the planning system in the best interests of their communities. I hope that this amendment and that submitted by my noble friend on Tuesday, or a version of them, will be accepted to achieve the Secretary of State’s aim.

Amendment 286 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, suggests bringing forward the requirements of the future homes standard to June 2023. In view of the protracted progress on the Bill through your Lordships’ House, this may prove a tad ambitious, although, of course, we hope that these can be implemented as quickly as possible. The second part of this amendment would grant powers to local authorities to determine for themselves what percentage of affordable homes is needed. We absolutely accept this in terms of devolution principles, but I just echo my noble friend Lady Hayman’s comments on Tuesday that, although we must be serious about meeting the affordable housing need, we also need to consider that communities need mixed tenures in housing.

We support Amendment 438 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Shipley. I remember the absolute horror with which the original announcement of this measure was greeted by my colleagues in local government in 2012. Some London boroughs rightly pointed out that every property in their housing stock would exceed the threshold. We welcome the fact that the Government have already committed that they will scrap this policy, so perhaps incorporating this amendment is a quick and easy way to do so.

Lastly, I turn to my Amendment 500. Mission 10 in the White Paper is the key mission relating to housing. While its ambition in terms of improving the quality of rented property is admirable, in other ways it looks at housing through the wrong end of the lens: it sees levelling up only through the point of view of property ownership. For millions of people on housing waiting lists, in temporary accommodation, sleeping on their friends’ sofas or, as in a case I dealt with yesterday, having to conduct access visits with their children in their car because they have nowhere to live, the prospect of a safe, sustainable home with a secure social housing tenancy would meet their immediate aspirations of levelling up. That is why we hope the Government will recognise the absolute importance and value of social housing and use the opportunity of the Bill to commit to building the numbers we need. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendment 242 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I do so having consulted the Bishop of Chelmsford, who leads for the Church of England on housing but is unable to be here today. It is clear, I think, that we need to rethink what genuinely affordable housing is and how an adequate supply can be delivered. In London, the south-east and many other areas across the country, the current affordable housing for rent definition of 20% below market rates makes little difference to those on a median income, let alone those in most need. Without redefinition, we will continue to work under the illusion that homes classed as affordable are helping to solve the housing affordability crisis, when for the most part they are not.

Of course, we need a multifaceted approach to solve the lack of affordable homes. I was interested to learn from the Bishop of Chelmsford that Vicky Ford MP has been addressing this in relation to Chelmsford. During her 10-minute rule Bill debate on 22 February, she spoke to the shortage of affordable housing we face locally and nationally. Her Affordable Housing (Conversion of Commercial Property) Bill would apply affordable housing obligations to conversions of commercial property to residential occupancy. The Bill is due its Second Reading in the Commons on 26 May, and we certainly hope that it will make some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, before the noble Lord takes his seat, may I apologise for jumping the gun? Before he had been able to speak to his own amendment, there was a silence and, like nature, I abhorred a vacuum, but I do apologise.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I think the spirit moved. It is good the right reverend Prelate spoke first in this case.