Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Andy Slaughter

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I will be brief, because we do not have a lot of time. Clearly, we are discussing a national issue and concern, but there can be no doubt that housing is the No. 1 issue for London. Last year, prices rose by about 10% on average. The average price for a first-time buyer in London is now more than £400,000. No one can argue that Londoners today are not being priced out of their own city. It is no longer just a social problem—that point has already been made in relation to another city—because it jeopardises London’s economy as well.

The bottom line is that we need to build more and we need to build for people across the entire income spectrum. It is no good taking a polarised approach with a zero-subsidy option on the one hand and social housing on the other. We need to ensure that the market can accommodate young professionals, key workers and the like—people who perhaps do not qualify for social housing.

I was pleased with the Government’s interventions last week, with an emphasis on shared ownership, which will work around the country and have a particular impact in London. There is also going to be a London version of Help to Buy, which has been a very successful scheme nationally, but less successful in London, because we live in a different world here. The prices are so out of kilter with the rest of the country that that bespoke offer will have an impact. Finally, we have the two-for-one amendment under discussion.

I have a few questions for my hon. Friend the Minister. Amendment 112 requires that two new affordable homes be built for every single high-value council home sold as a consequence of the extension of the right to buy. That is based on my amendment, as has been acknowledged, and I sincerely thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his diligence in making it work.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Zac Goldsmith]

Just give me a moment, please.

When my hon. Friend the Minister wraps up on this group of amendments, will he update the House on his discussions with London’s local authorities about how they will be able to work together to deliver the homes that London needs? I know that he has been having discussions with council leaders from all the different parties in both inner and outer London. It would be good to have an update.

May I ask my hon. Friend about housing associations? They are absolutely essential to the delivery of the next generation of homes. I believe that the G15, the group of 15 London housing associations, has already committed to delivering a one-for-one replacement of any home that is sold, but it has also said—it has told me this—that it could deliver a great deal more.

[Zac Goldsmith]

In just one moment, if the hon. Lady does not mind.

The G15 would even be able to replace each home sold with two new homes, provided that the Government give it the flexibilities it is asking for and, even more importantly, access to public sector land. Will the Minister commit to looking carefully at the flexibilities for which housing associations are asking, and will he look at the most critical issue, which is access to public sector land?

As my hon. Friend knows—he can take some credit for it, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—the London Land Commission is now live. It will provide a complete inventory of all publicly owned brownfield land in London, and we will have the figures shortly. We do not have all the details yet, but we know that an enormous amount of publicly owned brownfield land could be developed. We know that to build the homes we need, such land absolutely must be released, so it would be useful to hear from the Minister, when he wraps up the debate, whether he has a likely timetable. When will we have the full picture, and what will be the process for releasing that land both to housing associations and to developers?

[Andy Slaughter]

rose—

[Zac Goldsmith]

I said I would let the hon. Gentleman intervene, and I will let him do so before I finish my speech.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear whether he agrees that the forced sale of empty council properties is a good idea or a bad idea? If it goes ahead, does he agree that those properties should be replaced with like-for-like in the same local authority area? Is that his position?

[Zac Goldsmith]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I stood on a manifesto that included a commitment to extending the right to buy to housing association tenants. That is the right policy: it will enable hundreds of thousands of people to achieve home ownership who would otherwise not be able to do so.

Airports Commission: Final Report

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) on her speech and on promoting me to a right hon. Member. Giving the looming decision on Heathrow, that has never been less likely, but I thank her all the same.

Big infrastructure is always disruptive. That is why we are having this debate, because whenever a big infrastructure project is discussed, it always causes pain. Often, however, the gain justifies that pain. Clearly that is the view of those who support Heathrow expansion, but I implore them to look properly at the costs and benefits of this project before taking a view, because I think the figures speak for themselves.

Let me revisit some of the cost—much of it has already been discussed, so I will be brief. Noise is the principal concern. Heathrow is already Europe’s biggest noise polluter by far—720,000 people are already affected, and a third runway would increase flights from 480,000 to around 740,000 a year and affect well over 1 million people. In addition, people would lose half the respite periods, which they treasure, because those would be cut from eight hours to four hours.

When Heathrow says that fewer people will be impacted by noise under an expanded airport with a third runway, that merely tells us that Heathrow as a company is so used to getting its way with the Government that it no longer feels the need even to appear reasonable. The Government have admitted—we might get clarity on this later in the debate—that they have not analysed the impact of noise on residents if Heathrow expands. I do not believe that they have even seen the proposed flight paths, but perhaps the Minister will clarify that point later in the debate.

Then there is pollution. With only two runways, air pollution around Heathrow already massively exceeds existing legal limits. A third runway would see 75 million more people using the airport and travelling to and from it—Transport for London believes that an extra runway would add 25 million more lorry and car journeys each year. Nobody in the world believes that Heathrow expansion can be reconciled with any of the aspirations, legal or otherwise, on air quality—nobody except Heathrow that is, which tells us that a third runway would take place with a zero increase in car movements. It is hard even to know how to respond to that assertion.

Howard Davies has begun to nuance his position on air quality on the back of the Volkswagen scandal, because the data on which he based his assumptions have been revealed to be entirely fraudulent. A few days ago he said to a Committee of MPs, including me:

“I do think the Government will need to satisfy itself on this particular point, clearly some things have moved on. The Government will need to satisfy itself that this can be safely done.”

The financial cost has already been mentioned, and we have an unlikely new ally in this campaign in the form of Willie Walsh, the head of BA. He described the proposed costs as “outrageous”, and said that they make the project impossible and undeliverable. If we consider surface transport costs alone, he is obviously right. How do we accommodate 25 million extra road passenger journeys per year? The Airports Commission puts the cost at £6 billion, while Heathrow puts it at £l billion. Transport for London has put that cost at around £20 billion—it goes on, and on.

That is just some of the downside, and it is big. People might consider accepting that downside if the economic case was utterly overwhelming, but what is amazing about the Howard Davies report is that it makes the economic case against Heathrow expansion for us. There is a giant gap between the report and the conclusion it reaches. It is as if Howard Davies began with a conclusion, spent £20 million and three years—or however long it took—cobbling together analysis, data and information, and then stuck the same conclusion on the end of the report.

In the report Howard Davies tells us that in the most optimistic scenario, an expanded Heathrow would give us just 12 additional international routes. Even worse, much of the additional activity—if not all of it—would be at the expense of neighbouring airports such as Stansted and Gatwick. In other words, we would not be creating new activity; we would be centralising existing activity. We would be recreating the old monopoly—a giant, foreign-owned, subsidised monopoly on the edge of our city. It is a pitifully small upside, even more so when compared with the colossal dose of pain that Heathrow expansion encompasses.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, including on the Airport Commission report. We are where we are, however, and a choice has to be made. It is a binary choice the Government will make within, we are told, the next three or four weeks. Is he going further than his previous position and does he support the second runway at Gatwick, the only credible other option on the table?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I noticed the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) briefing the hon. Gentleman with that question a few moments ago. I will answer that point, but I have to say that the position of the right hon. Member for Tooting on this issue seems to ebb and flow with the weather. He seems to say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience. His position on Heathrow is about as authentic as Donald Trump’s hair, and the same applies to his position on almost every issue on which he has opined in the past few months. Nevertheless, I will answer the question.

The alternative to monopoly, which is what is proposed as the first choice of the Howard Davies commission, is competition. We know competition works. We only have to look at Gatwick to know that competition works: it has become a better airport. It has opened up routes to places we were told it would not be able to open routes up to, including Hanoi, Jakarta and two routes to China. Competition is the answer.

Despite coming down in favour of monopoly, even Howard Davies has acknowledged that the third runway would stifle growth at the other airports. He has said:

“a competing airport system is right for London”.

So how do we encourage that? We invest in transport links to, from and between the three main airports in London. If and when—as is likely—we have a capacity problem, we expand. We do not expand at Heathrow, however; we expand at a place in such a way that maximises rather than suffocates competition. That has always been my position: today, as it has been in any number of articles, interviews and comments. I have always come down in favour of competition, because it is the obvious answer.