Lord Horam
Main Page: Lord Horam (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I agree with most of the points made on this first tranche of amendments in this chapter. Although I welcome the Government’s aim to increase the supply of starter homes for those currently attempting to get on the first rung of the home ownership ladder, like others, I remain concerned that this policy is seen as the only route to provide a home for those who are in need. Home ownership is something that many residents of the country aspire to but, as has been said, by no means all of them.
Limiting the Bill to starter homes rules out other avenues of home ownership. As your Lordships are aware, there are other products in the marketplace, such as shared ownership, which we have already heard about, and the Help to Buy equity loan scheme run by the Homes and Communities Agency. By promoting starter homes to the exclusion of all other options, the Government are raising the expectation of those under the age limit that they will definitely qualify for a starter home with a hefty discount. This will lead many of them not to explore other options which could assist them to get on the housing ladder.
As the Government have already made clear, there will not be a limitless supply of starter homes. Indeed, supply will be restricted by the resources raised through the sale of high-value council homes—a policy to which we will come later in Committee. This rationing of starter homes is not clear to those whose ambitions have been raised. By concentrating wholly on their starter homes programme, the Government are setting many people up to be bitterly disappointed. Realism dictates that the Government should promote other forms of home ownership simultaneously with their starter homes programme.
We now come to the thorny issue of how these new home buyers will finance their purchase. They may have a deposit, but that does not appear to be a requirement in the Bill. They will receive a discount of “at least 20%” on the purchase price. Presumably, this is the cost of the plot plus the building costs—in other words, the market price for which a developer could expect to sell the property on the open market, outside the Government’s starter home programme. The buyer will then need to go out to the market to borrow the remainder of the purchase price of their home, so some of these purchasers will be looking to borrow up to £200,000 outside London and £360,000 in London.
In Clause 2(3), the criteria are very clear as to who these people will be: first-time buyers under the age of 40 who have “other characteristics” to be specified by the Secretary of State—which are not yet decided. The sooner the Secretary of State sets out what these other characteristics may be, the more certainty can be brought to those waiting to buy their first home.
As your Lordships are aware, there are many anecdotal stories about how difficult it is to obtain mortgages from traditional sources, with those who have been in extremely well-paid employment for a long time, looking to move from one property to another, being refused finance on the flimsiest of grounds. We cannot blame the banks or building societies for being reticent to lend when they have had their fingers burnt in recent years. However, if they will not lend to those with a good track record of repaying their mortgages and loans in a timely manner, how on earth will we encourage them to lend to those who have no track record? The very fact that they are first-time buyers means that they will not have had a mortgage in the past. The Government will need to produce an effective scheme which will encourage lenders to participate in a starter homes programme.
I note from the Statement of 19 January that those areas engaged in the pilots will get their administration costs reimbursed only during the six months of the pilot and will be reimbursed for the capital expended once the Bill has received Royal Assent. Given that the consultation is still ongoing on many aspects of this Bill, can the Minister be confident that the Bill will receive Royal Assent in sufficient time to help those housing associations engaged in the pilot to balance their books? Like others, I look forward to these five pilots being concluded.
Even with the discount supplied, research carried out by Savills on behalf of the Local Government Association—and like others I am a vice-president of the LGA—shows that starter homes would be out of reach of all people in need of affordable housing in 220 council areas, as my noble friend Lord Tope, has said, and out of reach of 90% in a further 80 council areas. The definition of people in need of affordable housing are those who have to spend 30% of their household income in rent or buying a home. Many will be spending a great deal more than 30% on housing. With 92% of council areas out of reach for those needing affordable housing, there are going to be some very disappointed and disaffected residents in the country.
Many in this House and outside are concerned that the starter homes will not necessarily be for the benefit of those originally intended. It is essential that these new starter homes should be the only residence of those who buy them. It would be against the spirit of the Bill if these homes were then rented out to others or sold on at a profit after only five years. I urge the Government to put the condition of the home being the only residence of the owner or owners in the Bill to avoid any doubt and to protect those who truly wish to participate in the scheme to acquire their own home.
The Government’s aim is to deliver 100,000 new homes over a five-year period, but that is only scratching the surface of the homes that are needed. A mix of housing is what is needed, including home ownership outside of starter homes. I urge the Minister to accept this amendment in order to achieve the Government’s aim.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, I do not want to speak for any length of time because in discussing these amendments and the following amendments, which cover largely the same area, I defer to the greater expertise of many other noble Lords, such as the noble Lords, Lord Best, Lord Kerslake and Lord Tope. However, I am struck by one thing as a relative newcomer to housing debates—that is, the extent to which we are proceeding in the dark. I went to a very interesting meeting, which I was grateful to my noble friend Lady Williams for laying on, to discuss technical aspects of the Bill. A number of noble Lords were there, and it was very interesting to clear up some of the definitions, and so forth, as far as we could. What was apparent was that the Government really had not begun to finalise any sort of modelling of the effect of the legislation—not only the financial effect, which is very germane to our discussion, but the social effect and the effects on supply of housing.
I think that we would all agree that one has to think very clearly about housing as it is a complicated situation and an important topic. It is the Government’s responsibility to think clearly, and I think we all agree that the issue is really shortage of supply rather than tenure. That is the fundamental point with which we are trying to grapple. Therefore, it behoves the Government not to let issues of tenure, whether in social housing, starter homes or wherever, get in the way of the fundamental point about shortage of supply of whatever kind of housing it may be. In trying to get at what the Government could say about the effect on housing supply and other financial matters, they confessed—and I am grateful for this to the civil servants who were there—that they had not got far enough with their modelling, simply because Ministers had not taken decisions yet. I understand that, too, but we are a long way down the road. We have had 17 Committee sittings in the other place and we are now in Committee here. Some important definitions and considerations have not been finalised and do not look as though they will be finalised for some time, which places the House in a quandary in trying to reach a clear conclusion, whatever point of view you may have.
The only bit of information that I have been able to glean by way of the consequences of this particular set of clauses on starter homes was provided by the Local Government Association. I do not know whether it is accurate or not, but the LGA says that in its present form,
“should 100,000 starter homes”—
and that is an ambitious figure—
“be built through the planning system, between 56,000 and 71,000 social and affordable rented homes would not be built”.
In other words, there is a sacrifice, in concentrating on the single issue of starter homes, of social rented homes, which we know are even more needed by even poorer people than those whom we hope will buy these starter homes.
This is the difficulty that we have. Is the figure accurate? Where has it come from? Is it the Government’s own figure? I would be interested to hear the Minister comment on this, although I do not necessarily expect her to comment this evening because I have just produced it out of the blue. But that sort of figure, without any further government explanation about what they expect the consequences of this legislation to be, is very worrying. Therefore, I hope that we can go into this as thoroughly as possible—but I fear that, even at the end of a day’s debate on this subject, around which there is a great deal of concern and interest on the part of Members, we will not be very much further forward.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. We are tackling this the wrong way round. The right way round would have been to say, “There is a housing shortage. How do we tackle that and maximise housing supply?” We have three different methods of tackling supply. We have the private sector, housing associations and councils. How do we maximise the output of those three? Let us sit down and discuss that and consult expert opinion. It has happened the other way around. Someone has had a bright idea. I am not against bright ideas, I am all in favour of them, but if they do not go through the necessary and rather boring business of being talked through by people who know what they are talking about, we are liable to end up in the sort of situation we have now. Undoubtedly, this may be a very sensible idea, but we do not really know and we do not have the information to hand to decide on it. Yet this is really rather late in the process, and if we get it wrong we may have adverse effects when the Government are trying to make a favourable effect. So I am concerned from that point of view.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven for intervening again. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, mentioned a meeting with the Minister which I regret I was not able to attend. He mentioned some modelling which civil servants were doing on the impact of this policy. Will the Minister say when we are likely to receive further information about that modelling and what the recommendations are? As I have expressed in this House before, I think it is invidious if we are asked to proceed with this Bill without seeing some of the key regulations tabled by the Secretary of State. We cannot be expected to make such important policy which is going to affect the lives and well-being of so many of our citizens if we are not able to see the outcome of the modelling and whether or not this Bill is evidence-based in any way.
Lord Horam
Perhaps I can just explain that the Minister was not present at the meeting. She kindly arranged for her civil servants to address technical questions. I asked what modelling had been done on the financial and supply effects of the legislation and the civil servants were kind enough to say that the modelling was not finished because certain decisions had not yet been taken. The definition has not been finalised and therefore they could not give me an answer. I raised the question in the House because I think it is important, as we go through the Bill, that we address these questions if possible.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, what worries me above all is that starter homes are supposed to fly the flag for affordable housing. Behind that is a recognition by the Government that the problem in this country is the lack of affordable housing, which in turn is determined by the lack of new and adequate housebuilding. Starter homes are just one part of a complicated jigsaw that the Government are offering us which all pushes in one direction—away from making social and affordable housing available to people on modest incomes. Later on in the Bill we are going to get the sale of housing association homes through right to buy, which, if council housing sales are anything to go by, will quickly be turned into buy-to-lets and then into student housing, and away from housing for young families who need affordable homes in which to bring up their children and live their lives.
Secondly, we are going to see the sale of empty council housing into owner occupation over and beyond local authority RTB in order to fund the discounts on the sale of housing association properties into owner occupation. So we will lose housing association properties and we will probably double the number of local authority housing sales—all away from affordable housing. On top of that we are ensuring that Section 106 land and grants, which have been the source of so much housing association and local authority building, will now become monopolised by starter homes. At the same time we are knocking out shared ownership.
So what is actually happening is that the sole concept of affordable housing, both for the future and with the recycling of existing property, is going to be starter homes—the only game in town. Housing association properties should be sold with discounts into right to buy; local authority RTB will continue; and on top of that empty homes will be sold to fund the discounts for housing association tenants to be able to buy in order to send the stock into buy-to-let in due course. And on top of that, not only can local authorities and housing associations not replace that stock but they will now find—because of the requirements of central government—that their Section 106 land will be available exclusively and solely for starter homes. So for the whole of the next decade, if the Government have their way, the affordable housing programme for those in the greatest need, who have least leverage in the market, whose need is highest, will have just one option, starter homes—which, we are told by Savills, will not benefit 90% of them. I ask the Minister: what on earth do the Government think they are doing?