National Policy for the Built Environment

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my declaration of interests. I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, on securing the debate. I also thank my noble friend Lady Andrews for so ably introducing it in the unavoidable absence of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain.

Like my noble friend Lord Beecham, I pay tribute to my noble friends Lady Andrews and Lady Whitaker for suggesting the creation of this Select Committee. I also thank the whole committee for their work and the clerks and advisers. It has resulted in an excellent report, though we have to improve the system so that these reports are discussed by your Lordships sooner after they are published. That, of course, places a responsibility on the Government to consider and publish their response in a timelier manner. This is not a problem reserved to the DCLG; it is something I have observed time and again during my time in your Lordships’ House, although, as my noble friends Lady Andrews and Lord Beecham highlighted, this is a record delay for a department’s response. Perhaps the Minister can explain why it has taken so long for the department to issue its response.

As my noble friend Lady Andrews and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, a discussion on the built environment is long overdue and very welcome. The challenge of the built environment is one that has been with us before, is here today and will be with us in the future. It is of course more than just housing, but housing, as the report highlights, is the big issue at present. We had the controversial Housing and Planning Act 2016, and noble Lords involved in those discussions in the Chamber are here today. That Act did little to help get more homes built and is still in some difficulty in the department. The Neighbourhood Planning Bill is still in your Lordships’ House, and, for all the hype, I do not believe it will get a single home built any quicker. The noble Lord, Lord Best, outlined the benefits of providing new retirement homes for the well-being of the population and the savings they could bring to the public purse. The Government ought to do more of that. I also agree with his remarks about the tax on social landlords, which the Government created with the year-on-year rent reduction, and the problems created by the DWP—where properties are at a premium and benefits are not—which are real issues for people.

We await the publication of the housing White Paper—we are told it could be next week—and we will see what flows from it. I am sure we shall be debating it carefully in your Lordships’ House. My noble friend Lord Beecham outlined the serious problems we have with the number of properties in the private rented sector that are not being properly maintained. I agree with his remarks about space standards and the need to build larger homes. The abolition of the Parker Morris standards in the early 1980s has not been a good thing in terms of providing homes of a good standard and size. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, made points about low-rise housing and how it works well to build communities—even if they are, as I think he said, rabbit warrens. The noble Earl’s words have a lot of resonance for me. I am a councillor in Crofton Park, where we have the Ewart Road Housing Co-operative. It certainly fits the description of being a rabbit warren, and knocking on doors trying to deliver leaflets there is not easy, but equally, it is a very well-run co-op, a very stable community and a good place to live. Young and old people live together, it is a very nice place and it is great to be working with the people who live there.

There have been a few welcome announcements from the Government recently. I have said many times before that we very much welcome the comments from the new Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell, about building homes across a range of tenures, and that is what is needed. The report quite rightly points out that the private sector has rarely achieved more than 200,000 homes per annum and that we need to get local authorities and the public sector building again to meet the challenges before us.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up on a council estate very near to where the committee had one of its site visits in Southwark. My parents moved there when I was two, from private rented accommodation that was not suitable for a family. I always think of myself as lucky to have lived in a property that was warm, safe and dry at a rent my parents could afford. They were both in full-time employment, and they looked after their family there. They worked from the day they arrived in this country from Ireland, until they retired. I think that was very important.

The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York spoke of the importance of building communities, creating social capital and good neighbours. I agree very much with his remarks. We have to get back to the situation where councils and housing associations are allowed to pay their full role in dealing with the crisis before us and there is a greater role for the co-operative sector. The Select Committee has offered helpful suggestions on taking this forward, and there needs to be a fundamental change in policy emphasis from the Government.

The Government’s silence on the proposals from the Select Committee in respect of speeding up the delivery of housing is incredible. Land banking is a huge issue, particularly in parts of London. We need to do something about that. When we get to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, I hope we will be able to do some work on that.

We need to change our reliance on the private rented sector and the absurdly named affordable rent model. Affordable rent—certainly in parts of London—is totally unaffordable. We need to change that if we are to deliver the new homes we need. I live in Lewisham, in an area called Ladywell. It is a nice place to live, but it would not be described as one of the most expensive parts of London. Even there, people can be asked to pay up to £2,500 per month to rent a modest terraced house just like the one I live in, but my mortgage is considerably cheaper. That is a really big issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, spoke about the importance of trees and their vital role in our health and well-being. Again, where I live we have the Brockley Society. It has a tree committee and plants trees. You can buy a tree and plant it in the street. The tree outside my house is one that my wife and I bought some years ago. The area is now filling up with trees. It is important we act to ensure we have trees in our areas.

The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, made absolutely correct remarks on the importance of the built environment to people’s health and well-being, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. When I was very young, in the 1980s, I recall meeting the chair of the old Southwark Council housing committee, Councillor Charlie Halford, who told me how proud he had been in the early 1960s when it was announced that all these council homes were going to be built all over the borough. Now, of course, we know how quickly that all went wrong. My noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport spoke of the specific problems in relation to the planning and design of council estates. Many people still live in those estates today, and it is an issue, with billions and billions of pounds of public money spent dealing with the problems that have been created. My noble friend Lady Whitaker spoke of the power of a good place and its setting, services, transport, infrastructure and communications, which are, of course, conducive to well-being, prosperity, health and social cohesion.

It is important that we do not make the mistakes of the past. We need to build well and for the long term, as my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport said. We need to build more homes—I think we all agree with that—but they must be of good quality, well designed and take advantage of all the things we know and can do when building homes today to high standards. Sustainable drainage systems and zero-carbon homes are two matters we could not persuade the Government about during the consideration of what is now the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and they are good examples.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, made points about creating better places and space for good people to grow. I very much agree with her comments about the need to tackle climate change and to recognise that we have limited land and limited resources. We need to tackle the carbon challenge and ensure that our homes are carbon efficient. I visited a council estate in Walsall some years ago and saw the benefits of retrofitting homes: they were warmer, the carbon emissions were dramatically reduced and the residents’ fuel bills were cheaper. We must meet the housing challenge by building homes that will not become the problems of future local authorities and future Governments because corners were cut in the dash to build. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Chesterton referred to flooding and the need to build using better designs and technical solutions, but as my noble friend also said, we need the technical expertise to deliver those solutions.

I very much want to see new homes built across a variety of tenures to high standards, with no cutting of corners that will have to be addressed in future years by future councils and future Governments. The committee was right to highlight in its report the real concern about place-making, along with sustainable planning for the long term and the delivery of high-quality, good design standards. I agree very much with the comments of my noble friend Lady Andrews about the lack of a spatial strategy and the real problems we have created by cutting planning departments to the bone. It would be welcome if these specific issues could be addressed by looking at planning fees and cost recovery, which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, also referred to. I also agree with my noble friend’s remarks about the planning system and the risk to quality posed by deregulation. My noble friend Lady Whitaker commented on the lack of capacity in planning departments, which again I very much agree with.

I am a trustee of the United St Saviour’s Charity, and we are in the process of building an almshouse for the 21st century in Southwark. We are very clear that this building must be well designed. We have appointed leading architects and are taking the time to ensure what we build will fit into the community, deliver high-quality accommodation for the residents, improve the street scene and be a local community asset. The community will be able to come into the almshouse, to the community cafe, while other areas will be exclusive to residents. It is an example of meeting a desperate need in the borough while equally making sure we get the design and the quality of the building materials right and, through that building, an almshouse that will serve its purpose, benefit the whole community and continue to do so for many years to come. This is a good example of where a local authority, working with a local charity with significant funds, is able to provide the leadership required to deliver a much-needed community project. As the report again points out, this is the sort of step change we need to get building going.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the Government’s response to this report, which is generally not a great response, is the rejection of the idea of appointing a chief built environment adviser to integrate policy across central government departments, act as a champion for higher standards and promote good practice. That is a matter of much regret, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, will advise us in detail of why the Government have taken that view. In conclusion, I thank the committee for its excellent report and look forward to the response from the noble Lord.