Social Housing

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord comes with unparalleled experience in this area. I take the point about the need for diversity of supply, particularly looking to smaller suppliers, self-build and modern methods of construction, which we looked at yesterday. I also accept a point implicit in his question, which was also raised yesterday by my noble friend Lord Forsyth—the fact that there is land banking. We need to take account of that, and we committed to do so in the housing White Paper.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my relevant interests as set out in the register—as a councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. We will have to wait until tomorrow to see what the Chancellor says about housing, but does the noble Lord not agree that, to get to their housing targets and deal with the pressing need that we have heard about, the public sector has to be both encouraged and allowed to build around 100,000 homes a year for social rent rather than any other unaffordable models?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord knows that I agree with his general point that over successive Governments the social rented sector has been somewhat neglected, and we are certainly looking to make up some of the shortfall. As I said, we have had a record year—the best for a decade—but that does not make us complacent. There is an awfully long way to go, but we have a great battery of policies and, as the noble Lord rightly says, we await tomorrow’s Budget.