Lord Jenkin of Roding
Main Page: Lord Jenkin of Roding (Conservative - Life peer)Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts
Lord Tope
My Lords, Amendment 56 stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. I am pleased to see that the noble Lord has been able to join us.
We return to the situation in London, which seems surprisingly to have been completely overlooked throughout the Bill. We have a Greater London Authority and a Mayor of London and, once again, in view of sensitivities on both sides of the House, I have to point out that we refer to the office and not to past or present office-holders. We have a Mayor of London and we will continue to have a Mayor of London, to whom Parliament has given responsibility for strategic planning in London. Yet the Bill seems to take no account of that at all. In this case, the amendment would ensure that the mayor is notified of any application to modify or discharge affordable housing requirements in London and that, if he deems it necessary, he can call in such applications.
I move the amendment because I recognise that affordable housing, particularly in London, is of crucial importance to the role of strategic planning. It is largely central to it and a very high priority for past, present and, I hope, future mayors. I make the same case as I did the other day in Committee on another amendment. The Mayor of London has been given that responsibility by Parliament. He has been elected by the people of London. He is publicly accountable, first of all to the London Assembly, which is elected by the people of London, and also accountable—in a fairly high profile way, which will always be the case whoever the officeholder is—to the people of London. That must be more appropriate, better and certainly more in tune with localism than giving the responsibility to an unelected, unaccountable body, which is unversed, as yet, in this work, elsewhere in the country.
The added advantage, again, is that the GLA’s planning department knows the planning departments of all the London boroughs and the local housing situation in all the London boroughs. On the whole, most of the time, there is a very good relationship, so it will be making its judgments and decisions with knowledge and will be able to hear, and take proper account of, all arguments put forward both in the local context and in the strategic planning context for the whole capital. That seems to be entirely appropriate for an elected mayor with a strategic planning role. There is really no need at all to involve the Planning Inspectorate, which is based elsewhere and does not have either the knowledge or the accountability to carry out that role.
I move this amendment in the hope that the Government will belatedly start giving some consideration to the role that they and their predecessor Government have created in London: a mayor with responsibility for strategic planning. It is very hard to understand an argument that says that the mayor responsible for strategic planning should have no role in this process. I believe that must be an oversight and I am pleased to offer the Government the opportunity to correct it. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I am very pleased to be here to support my noble friend Lord Tope. It is about six hours since I was moving amendments in Grand Committee about copyright so it is pleasurable to come back to a rather more familiar scene. I do not think that I can add very much to what my noble friend has said. He has put the case extremely well. The centre of the case is that the mayor is there and has these powers accorded to him by Parliament. It seems very strange that he should have no function in relation to this important matter. Affordable housing in London is enormously important, as I think my noble friend on the Front Bench will acknowledge. From his own knowledge, he will be well aware of the need to find proper housing for people who cannot afford to go out into the market. The mayor has this overall responsibility. Why should he not be entitled to have this role rather than it going to the inspectorate in Bristol? I very much support the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am not unsympathetic to the thrust of the amendment that has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. However, it does not seem to be quite right to say that the Bill makes no reference to the Mayor of London, because new Section 106BB(18) states:
“In the application of Schedule 6 to an appeal under this section in a case where the authority mentioned in subsection(1) is the Mayor of London, references in that Schedule to the local planning authority are references to the Mayor of London”.
I was not quite sure whether the noble Lord was proposing that the Mayor of London’s role in this should be as the local planning authority—in which case the question is what happens if the Mayor of London does not support the applicant’s appeal—or whether the Mayor of London sits in substitution for the Secretary of State. When the noble Lord replies, it would be helpful if he could clarify and unpick that issue.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
The Mayoral Development Corporation that is set up under the Localism Act might well be the sort of place where the mayor would have the primary role.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I rise to speak to this amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Shipley, who is engaged at a Holocaust memorial function in Speaker’s House.
This is arguably the amendment that might make the most difference to achieving growth in the housing market, because it seeks to remove the housing borrowing cap. The measure that has been called for by a large number of bodies—most recently, the National Federation of ALMOs, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Local Government Association, the Association of Retained Council Housing and London Councils. All of them say that removal of the housing borrowing cap to enable local authorities to start more building would make a huge and almost immediate difference to the provision of housing, particularly in the capital but also throughout the country.
I hope that there is some movement on this; I have heard some encouraging noises elsewhere. I recall asking the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about it in Questions a week or two ago and she replied that it was a matter for the Treasury. Unfortunately, I was not allowed a supplementary. Of course it is a matter for the Treasury; some would say that that is the whole problem. But it is still the responsibility of the Minister’s department and all of us who support this Government —and of those who do not support them—to take the measures that would enable housebuilding to get under way. This is certainly not the only measure but it is a single measure that would make an enormous difference. If authorities were still governed by all the prudential rules in the same way as normal, they would still have to act responsibly, but if they were able to borrow against their housing stock, it would make a significant difference. It would get housebuilding moving on a greater scale. I hope that discussions within government are moving in the right direction and that, if not tonight then before the end of this Bill, we will hear that the housing borrowing cap is being lifted. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I strongly urge the amendment on my noble friend the Minister. My noble friend Lord Tope said that a great many organisations were in favour of the change. I have to say that none is more in favour than London Councils—I should perhaps have again declared my interest as a joint president. It has said firmly that, of all the measures, this could be one which really helps the housing situation in London—which, as noble Lords know well, is pretty desperate at the moment.
The cap exists on top of the normal constraints on local government borrowing. It is an additional barrier to development which seems absurd in the present circumstances, given that everybody is quite rightly saying to the Government that growth and getting things moving should be absolutely top of the agenda. It seems absurd that there should be duplication of the protection against irresponsible borrowing by local authorities. It seems not to have any sensible purpose now. The usual controls operate perfectly satisfactorily. I simply do not understand the case for retaining the cap.
I have perhaps not had my ear quite as close to the ground as my noble friend Lord Tope, but I cannot believe that the Chancellor and his colleagues in the Treasury have not been made aware of this and do not recognise that, if they really want to move housing forward in London and the rest of the country, the cap should be removed. I hope that my noble friend will be able to respond positively.
Lord Best
My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Jenkin, and pledge the Local Government Association’s support. Is its support stronger than that of London Councils? It is equal to that from London Councils.
I talked at Second Reading about the growing national housing deficit. I was trying to get into common parlance the idea that, every year, we are building up a bigger and bigger deficit. We are adding another 100,000 homes a year to the deficit that we already have because we are building at least 100,000 less than we should. We must do something dramatic to try to turn the deficit into a positive.
Local authorities are sitting on assets against which they could borrow. A lot of housing associations have run out of space to borrow any more, and they have used up the opportunity to borrow against the properties that they own. Many local authorities have plenty of headroom to borrow more against that security. This is prudential borrowing that will be repaid out of rents. It is not frightening to overseas investors and bankers to see another £7.4 billion, which is the amount estimated by the report Let’s Get Building, produced by John Perry from the Chartered Institute of Housing. Over a period of five years, £7.4 billion is not enough to frighten the horses but it would produce 12,000 homes a year—60,000 homes in all. That is about 5% of what we need each year, but it is about 10% more than we currently provide. That is one relatively dramatic way in which, without any subsidy, we could get at least a few thousand more homes built every year.
I chaired a commission for the LGA and the Department for Communities and Local Government called Easing Housing Shortages: The Role of Local Authorities, which sent me around to see what local authorities had been doing. Were they up to it? Did they have any sites on which they could develop? They were using what was called local authority new-build funding, and I saw how councils can demolish those garages on the end of the site and put in 14 bungalows, perhaps, for elderly people, who can then move out of underoccupied council housing into those bungalows, thereby releasing 14 family houses on the council estate. It is creative action; the land is already there; the garages do not get used any more; it is a place where people congregate for nefarious purposes—everyone is delighted to see the development. Local authorities could get on with schemes of this kind up and down the land. I support this amendment.