Lord Deben
Main Page: Lord Deben (Conservative - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Lord Deben Excerpts
Lord True
My Lords, I also agree with the underlying force of the amendments. They do not apply only to large developments. In some developments there is pocket regeneration and smaller examples of where a decant and a return is needed. It is a question of where in my first 11 for solving the problem, as it were, starter homes come. Some of these schemes are extremely delicate at the edges, not only as my noble friend said in terms of selling and carrying the support of existing tenants and leaseholders but also on finance.
I was interested to hear my great friend, Councillor Ravi Govindia, the leader of Wandsworth, yesterday. I could testify from my local authority’s concern that we need to think about this very carefully. Whether it is rightly addressed by this sort of prescriptive amendment, or by a more concessionary approach to exceptions, which we might discuss between now and Report, I do not know, but I hope that my noble friend will think carefully, because it would be a great pity to lose delicate developments of social housing and estate improvement on the margins. I speak from personal experience when I say that some developments are balancing on the margins at the moment.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interest of chairing a company which tries to help people to develop sustainably. I come back to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about the areas on which such housing could be built. I do not want to restrict it to this kind of housing, starter homes, but I would not like the Committee to miss the fact that this is a housing Bill which does not make some of the fundamental statements which we ought to be making.
Every time anyone tries to deal with a housing problem, those clever people who dislike planning of any kind suggest that we should build on greenfield sites or move into the green belt. We have had another such statement recently. I have been Minister for Housing, and many of us recognise that if you allow people to build on easy sites, they will never build on difficult ones. That is part of the nature of things.
I am disappointed that we bring forward yet another housing Bill in which we do not reiterate the fact that there is plenty of land which has been used on which such housing can be built. Yet again, we give opportunities for largely right-wing think tanks to suggest that we should build on the land which we have no more of, the land which we were given and which needs to be protected. I say that because another interest of mine is sustainability for climate change. We will need this land, and we will need it to be productive, because we will not have enough, unless we are very tough.
Sometimes, a Bill is characterised by what it leaves out rather than what it puts in. This is my only opportunity to raise this matter, so I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will not mind that I do not want to restrict my remarks to what is in the amendment.
I say to my noble friend that we have to start getting real about the limits of a very small island, or series of islands. The only way that we can do that is to say that when land has been used, it must be reused. We are wrong at this time to allow government institutions, quasi-government institutions and former government-owned institutions to retain the land until they can get a better price for it. I have often thought that we should release the whole lot at once to lower the price and say that the public will carry that cost in order to lower the basic price of land—you must have all sorts of protections to do that.
I am deeply disappointed that there should be a Bill about housing which does not at any point approach the crucial issue, which is that we are wrong to despoil any more of our land, whether it be, as one organisation suggested, our parks, our green spots in towns or our green belt and greenfield sites. We have to make sure that once-used land must be developed, and if you allow people easier options, they will not do that. It is time that we faced that fact. Anyone who has been a Minister for Housing knows perfectly well that that is what happens: if you say that 50% of a site will be greenfield, then the bit that gets built is on that while the 50% that is not built is the more difficult area which has to be redeveloped.
I say this to my noble friend: please can we take more seriously this fundamental part of the kind of mix that we are trying to put together?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I take the noble Lord’s point that the requirement to deliver starter homes might affect the viability of a site. That would be absolutely counterproductive, but it will often be the case that not only will the starter homes requirement be able to be met, but the council, in consultation with the developer, may well be able to provide other types of housing. I particular refer to houses for affordable rent, because they are quite often the grant-funded houses that effectively act as a pump-prime for the construction of homes.
Turning to my noble friend Lord Deben’s point on the green belt, we are very committed to protecting the green belt, despite what noble Lords might read in the newspapers, and we are maintaining the strong safeguards that are set out in national planning policy, which allow for development only where special circumstances exist. I agree with my noble friend that once it is gone it can never be got back.
Lord Deben
I just hope that my noble friend will remember that it is not just the green belt that I wish to defend: it is green fields and it is the need to build on land that is already built on, or has been built on, in order to get the homes we need. This is very important part of it; I do not want to restrict our building.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Yes, I understand my noble friend’s point. Under our proposals in the NPPF national planning policy consultation, small-scale development in the green belt for starter homes could take place, but only where it is endorsed by the local community. I take my noble friend’s point, certainly in light of recent flooding, about the need to have this very finely balanced and for green belt not to be used as a sloppy method for builders to be able to build willy-nilly.
Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, it will come as no surprise to my noble friend when I indicate that I have some support for these two amendments. What we are basically seeing is two worthwhile government initiatives coming into contact. On the one hand, there is the rural exception sites policy and on the other hand the starter homes initiative. I quite understand why the Government take the view that they do not want to deprive rural communities of the benefits of starter homes. However, the interface between the two policies is quite difficult. If I did not conceive the rural exceptions policy, I was certainly one of its midwives when it was brought forward in the 1980s. To use an analogy used earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Best, the real risk about this is that the cream will disappear in the form of the sites becoming available.
I know from my own experience of representing a rural constituency in the other place that there were villages where a benign local landowner made land available under the rural exception site policy, in the confidence that the homes provided would be available in perpetuity, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has just said, and at affordable rents. If the landowner feared that those homes would disappear into the market, I am not sure that those sites would ever have been made available.
The features of the rural exception site policy were that, first, you have to do a survey to establish a local need for affordable homes for rent. Secondly, those homes have to be available in perpetuity—normally, for rent through a housing association. In some cases, they are for sale but with a lock such that the discount has to remain there in perpetuity. The starter homes initiative is different in that 80% of market value will still be beyond the reach of many local people, who would have been able to afford an affordable rent under the rural exceptions policy. Also, under the starter homes initiative, after the first time the second purchaser need have no local connections at all.
I understand that the Government are aware of the sensitivities on this. The briefing that we got says that their proposals included,
“using rural exception sites to deliver starter homes in rural areas”,
and allowing,
“the flexibility to require a local connection test on these sites”.
That is an important concession and, as we heard in earlier debates, it is not a requirement for the starter homes initiative anywhere else. None the less, some extra flexibility is required by either giving discretion to the local authority, as in Amendment 50C, or exempting sites below a certain level from the requirement to have starter homes.
When my noble friend replies to these amendments, I hope she can indicate that the Government are aware of the risk of losing the additional supply which the rural exception sites can provide and of the sensitivities in local areas to the change in the occupancy of these sites via the starter homes initiative, which were well represented by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. I hope that there can be some flexibility in response to these two amendments.
Lord Deben
My Lords, as another of those involved in getting this policy in the first place, I remember the battle to try to get townspeople to understand the particularity of the problem in the countryside. Just in case—although I look at your Lordships and realise that all will have understood it—I want to repeat the fact that many of our villages, and some would say most of them, are in danger of becoming middle-class, middle-aged and middle-income groups, with hardly an opportunity for anyone else at all. This is a serious social problem. It also creates a community unable to sustain itself. Communities are about all sorts of different people doing different kinds of things and contributing in different ways.
In my former, very rural, constituency, one of the biggest difficulties is that, because there is a large number of older people and a need for a large number of carers, the social mix having been altered because people buy up houses in the countryside, it is more difficult to get carers in those circumstances than it often is in the towns. This never used to be true, but it is true now and it is to do with the social mix that has now been reduced for so much of rural England.
There is a bigger issue here, which hangs round this individual concern for the protection of exception sites. When we had the argument originally—this really is history—we managed to convince people that, because of the planning system itself, we had created a particular kind of shortage in the countryside. Every little house that used to be the house of a farmworker is, once it comes to market, an ideal, bijou residence for the part-time—very often for someone who will retire there. I am not suggesting that second homes are necessarily a bad thing, merely that such houses are so attractive that the price means that they are well out of reach of people living on agricultural wages or the lower wages in the countryside. I do not think that this is something that is bad just for that section of the community—it is bad for the whole community. It creates an artificial community of the kind that many of us deplore in the towns, and it is becoming more and more true of large areas of the countryside. I therefore think that this is a social problem for all of us.
The one way that we managed to get people to be able to gift and to sell at an agricultural land price, or something of that kind, was, as my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, because they were convinced that we meant it when we said that it was in perpetuity, for local people, and that it would not be changed. It was not only a concept but something that we felt we had committed ourselves to. I am concerned, as are others, that once you undermine people’s trust—and I think that the present circumstances without the amendments does undermine that trust—there will be no more land provided in that way. I put it to my noble friend that, if the land does not come forward because we were hoping to have some extra starter homes, what we will have done is to reduce the number of homes all over, not just starter homes but other opportunities.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I want to intervene very briefly. In the old days—certainly when the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was a Minister in the Department of the Environment, if I remember rightly—in the Lake District we had what were called Section 52 agreements, whereby the planning authority placed a requirement on planning permission that people had to live within either a parish or some other defined area. In so far as Amendment 50A deals with,
“affordable homes to meet local needs, including those for rent”,
surely locals-only agreements could apply in the case of starter homes in small rural communities. Rather than planning authorities simply saying, “We will not have them. We will exclude them in particular areas”, could they not exist within those areas but subject to locals-only agreements?
Lord Deben
They certainly could; the noble Lord is absolutely right. But they would have to exist in a way which meant that they were not lost when the next tenant comes forward. You would have to have them in perpetuity as well. As long as that is the case, I do not mind two hoots.
Lord Campbell-Savours
If I remember rightly, under Section 52 agreements, that was precisely the case: the permission attached to the property was carried forward to subsequent buyers. In this mix of debate whereby it is being suggested that we should be more careful about their inclusion in these rural communities, if you have that kind of restriction in place, I cannot see that there is such a great problem.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, regardless of whether the Labour Front Bench brings this amendment back on Report, it still encapsulates an important principle. Perhaps I can draw the Minister on the issue of infrastructure provisions.
It is true that the dash for the development of starter homes at all costs runs the risk of producing poor-quality homes that are inadequately served by infrastructure. Although we are not yet at the point in the Bill where we talk about permission in principle and, in particular, brownfield registers, it is important that we hear from the Minister, before we reach that point, how those provisions will take account of the need for planned infrastructure alongside fast-track provisions to get starter homes and new housing developments on to small-scale brownfield sites quickly. We need to hear how they will do so without transgressing the very important requirements for good infrastructure and principles of design.
I have asked the Minister in several ways and on several occasions—I keep promising her a letter which I have not yet written—for a flow chart on the “permission in principle” issue that shows when various factors will be taken into account and when various consultations will take place on the provision of infrastructure such as schools, doctors’ surgeries, roads, sewerage and plumbing, as well as an assessment of the downside of development on these sites, taking into account biodiversity conservation, flood risk management and an assessment of whether there is enough water available to flush away sewage.
I remember volubly—although I should not at this stage, on this day and at this time, give an anecdote—how in Basingstoke at one stage of its housing development there was enough water to allow people either to clean their teeth or to flush away their sewage but not enough for both. We have got to get these infrastructure issues right well before the fast-track development processes are put in place. Perhaps I may also press the Minister to give me my flow chart before we come to discuss the “permission in principle” part of the Bill. I will be extremely grateful if she does.
Lord Deben
I support the noble Baroness opposite. This is not a sensible amendment and I am sure that my noble friend will not accept it. It is not sensible for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, put forward. It also reminds us that we are going to come on to the whole question of infrastructure. Again, this is a Bill that does not say what I hoped it would about greenfield sites. It has also not faced a number of infrastructure issues. It is, therefore, going to have this kind of amendment—whether good or bad—because these issues have to be faced. For example, I do not see how we can go forward with the starter homes concept—which I agree with; I am very supportive of my noble friend on it—if we go on having a situation where, whenever anybody gets a planning permission, not only does the local water authority not have the right to be consulted but it has to connect any new property to the sewage system even if that causes a flooding risk. We have not faced that issue and yet we have a Bill which is about all of that.
It seems that there is quite a lot of work to do between now and the point where we get to that issue. I feel that I ought to warn my noble friend that we will have to discuss those issues in detail if we are to give her the support which many of us would like to give, because they are not yet in the Bill and we need to have them there.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, this has been an interesting debate and I thank all of your Lordships who have taken part. Perhaps I may start by addressing Amendments 51 and 52. Clause 5(4) already makes provision that an authority must make these reports “available to the public”. The clause also provides that the Secretary of State may make regulations “about their timing” and whether they should be combined with the local authority’s authority monitoring report. The authority monitoring report is an existing requirement, which must be published on at least an annual basis. We do not want to introduce unnecessary burdens and it would be sensible to combine starter-home reporting with this existing requirement. We will be consulting on the monitoring requirements associated with starter homes shortly. We want to understand wider views on what the reports should contain and their arrangements for publication.
Furthermore, local planning authorities are already required to report on affordable housing delivery. They must report on the extent to which their planning policies are being achieved through their authority monitoring reports. This is a statutory requirement in Regulation 34 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012. Measures under this amendment are already covered by the legal framework.
Amendment 52 would require all local planning authorities to demonstrate that these sites were not otherwise needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use. Our planning policies look to encourage the productive use of brownfield land. Our starter homes exception site policy has a crucial role in delivering starter homes by providing new and cheaper land to be used for housing—and, because the land tends to have a lower value, this helps to improve the viability of starter home developments. This is why we have consulted on extending and strengthening this policy as part of our national planning policy consultation. Let me be clear: this is not about building houses at the expense of all other types of use but about releasing land where there is no reasonable prospect of it being used for its original purpose.
As part of the consultation, we invited comments on evidence to be used to justify the retention of land for commercial or similar uses and on whether there should be a fixed time limit on land retained for commercial uses. We expect local authorities to be proactive in identifying and publicising these exception sites and, where applications for starter homes come forward, in being prepared to give planning permission. The intention behind the new duty to promote starter homes in Clause 3 is to encourage local authorities to do this. Before they grant that permission, of course, local authorities will need to assure themselves that this brownfield land is an exception site and, in particular, that it is underused and unviable in its current land use. I believe that local authorities are capable of taking this decision using our guidance without the Government monitoring them. For this reason, Amendment 52, which would require all local planning authorities to report in detail about the appropriateness of sites, is unnecessary and bureaucratic.
Amendment 53 would require the Secretary of State to prepare a report on an annual basis containing information on the construction and sale of starter homes in the area of each local authority. As part of this, the report should contain information about the household composition and incomes of persons who have purchased a starter home in each area. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, put it rather articulately, this would not be a particularly proportionate approach to reporting on the operation of the policy. Any monitoring requirements should not be overly onerous or waste precious resources. I believe that reports should be published at local level, to ensure that first-time buyers can access them easily and that local councils can be accountable.