Housing

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on securing a debate on this urgent issue and attracting so many contributing speakers.

Chartered Institute of Housing figures show new housing supply continuing to fall behind new household growth. In England, annual supply remains 60,000 short of the break-even point with household growth. Will the Minister explain what the Government have done and are doing to ensure that the housing market delivers for everyone?

Problems of affordability—higher prices—are linked to greater demand. It is the basic law of supply and demand; if demand is greater than supply, prices will go up. The long-term trend towards smaller household size—lower headship rates—and thus larger household numbers is mainly due to older households, greater prosperity and increased divorce and separation. By 2037, the decline in headship rates will account for a third of the total growth in household numbers. We do not want less of the first two factors but reducing our high rates of divorce and separation would significantly dampen demand.

There were 115,696 divorces and civil partnership dissolutions in England and Wales in 2013, and a far less precise number of separating cohabitees, whose relationships are twice as unstable as marriages. Divorces were highest among couples aged 40 to 44, very many of whom have dependent children who will want overnight stays with both their parents. Accommodating this understandable desire requires two family-sized homes. Yes, some separating parents can afford only a single room in a shared house, while re-partnering leads to household rationalisation, but fractured families still place significant pressure on housing stock.

Much of the increasing homelessness among young people and adults is due to family and relationship breakdown. In 2012, Croydon Council reported a 53% rise in homelessness caused by family breakdown. The public understand this link: in a Eurobarometer study, a fifth of British adults stated that break-ups or the loss of a close relative cause homelessness. Housing problems also drive family breakdown. Squalid and unstable housing severely strains relationships—the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, referred to this earlier—but, as already stated, prosperity has also driven smaller household size.

Policy to support family relationships has been consistently neglected by Governments; it requires as much attention as our housing stock. Can my noble friend the Minister inform the House when the promised family stability indicator will be delivered and precisely how it will drive this Government’s support for communities experiencing the highest levels of family instability, and thereby reduce the housing demand that family breakdown brings about?