Housing White Paper

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, for repeating the Statement given by his right honourable friend in the other place earlier today. I must say that after all the hype—the promise that it would be published before Christmas, then that it would be out in the new year and then that it was expected shortly, followed by a series of briefings to the media over the weekend and the noble Lord himself saying in Grand Committee yesterday that it was expected imminently—it is a disappointing and missed opportunity. It is not the first time we have been disappointed, but probably the first time with so much hype and so little in reality.

It will not come as much of a relief if you are a young family on the council house waiting list or a young couple living in a home that does not meet the basic fit-for-human-habitation standards, but of course the Government have form here. The nearly 1,000 announcements on housing since 2010 include the following. In 2011, a housing strategy running to 78 pages from the then Prime Minister David Cameron was described as “radical and unashamedly ambitious”, and one that would “unlock the housing market”. In 2012,

“a major housing and planning package”,

again fronted by the then Prime Minister David Cameron, was designed to boost housebuilding and stimulate the economy. In 2013 there was a housing Budget from the then Chancellor, George Osborne, including Help to Buy, the mortgage guarantee scheme that has now been closed. There was a 2015 plan to radically redesign the planning system, commissioned by the then Chancellor, George Osborne. The Housing and Planning Act 2016 runs to 200 pages but the majority of it remains unimplemented eight months after it passed into law.

The independent House of Commons Library has confirmed that between 2010 and 2015, under David Cameron, we built fewer homes than under any peacetime Prime Minister since the 1920s. The number of new affordable homes built below market price to rent and to buy fell to the lowest level in 24 years, with the number of properties built for genuinely affordable social rent the lowest on record.

The number of rough sleepers has doubled since 2010. Just walk from Charing Cross, Victoria or Waterloo on your way to this House and you will see homeless people huddled in doorways. Enter the building through Westminster tube and you will see people sitting there trying to keep warm. The number of households owning their own home has fallen by 200,000 since 2010 and the number of people under 35 owning their own home has fallen by 344,000. One in four families with children now rent privately. Only one home in every six sold under Right to Buy has been replaced, despite all the talk from the Dispatch Box of like-for-like replacement. I very much agree with the Minister that the housing market is broken, but to repair it we need action to build across all tenures and provide homes that families can thrive in. This is more of a Lemsip, “There there, it will all be better soon” approach rather than the radical surgery needed to deal with the housing crisis.

I have a number of questions for the Minister that I hope he is able to answer. What caused the hold-up in the production of the White Paper? I can only assume it was what is not in the document today, rather than what is in it. Do the Government have a problem with council and social rented housing, rather than seeing the sector as part of the solution? Will the Minister confirm that local authorities will have the flexibility to build council housing or work in partnership with providers to build social rented housing instead of starter homes, if they can demonstrate that need in their area?

Why do the Government continue to rely on the unaffordable, so-called “affordable” rent model? Will they be taking further action to make homes fit for human habitation? Making a home safe, warm and dry at a price that can be truly afforded is what is needed here. Do the Government think they have got the tenure balance right and, if so, how did they come to that conclusion?

I will study the White Paper carefully over the coming days and I hope it will provide solutions to our broken housing market, although so far my reaction is one of disappointment that the Government have again missed the opportunity to fundamentally deal with the housing problem, and have put dogma in the way of finding solutions.