Housing Crisis: Rural and Coastal Communities

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, housing for this and the next generation is the biggest problem facing rural communities. The problem has been bad for decades but it is getting worse. In Cornwall now, the price of the average home is 12 times the average wage; people cannot possibly get a mortgage on that basis. Everywhere, so-called affordable homes are not affordable to most rural workers. Furthermore, there are no houses to let. Rural council houses were the first to go under right to buy. As others have said, the private let sector has now found that Airbnb et cetera is more rewarding than long-term ASTs.

Private landlords are also threatened by everything from costly energy efficiency rules to threats of not being able to get their property back if they need it. So they are motivated to sell, and thus take another rural home off the market because it is a given that no local will be able to afford it. In Cornwall now, no business—including the NHS, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, just said—can get staff because there is absolutely nowhere for them to live. This is now not only a social problem but an economic one.

What is the answer? For too many decades the standard government answer—from all Governments—has been to build more houses for sale. They have set targets that have never been reached, often because they themselves undermined the ability of the planning system and the developers to deliver. In my view, we need a whole new approach. Never mind about home ownership, just help every rural local authority to build their own houses, preferably on their own land to make them cheaper; after all, most county councils own large swathes of land in one context or another. Then, encourage them to let these houses to local tenants. Hey, they could even call them council houses—what a wonderful new idea.

Of course, the right to buy will have to be delegated down to the local authority—it is probably too much of a political gamble to remove it altogether—and the local authority can then leave the rules as they are or extend the minimum term of pre-purchase occupation to, say, 10 years or more. After all, few mortgage holders own their own homes until at least 15 years after they have moved in. However, the most important bit about the right to buy is that the money received absolutely must remain with the local authority housing department so that it can continue to provide more houses for local people. I believe that any Government providing such a solution will sweep the rural polls.