Affordable Housing

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, first, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Secondly, as other noble Lords have done, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on putting this Motion down for debate this afternoon.

Everyone agrees that we are in the midst of a housing crisis and that urgent action is needed to tackle the problem. To be fair, the Government have in recent times made some welcome moves, most recently with the announcement by the Prime Minister that the local authority borrowing cap will be removed—but much more needs to be done and I support calls for urgent clarification about when the cap will be removed. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that most of the policies in the dreaded Housing and Planning Act have been dropped or quietly forgotten, which is excellent news. The latest one to disappear was the plan for the forced sale of council homes, which was very welcome indeed. But we are still not building enough homes and we are certainly not building enough affordable homes. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, made an important point that a significant increase in housebuilding across all tenures is urgently needed.

My noble friend Lord Whitty set out the housing problems and dysfunctional nature of the housing within a few hundred yards of this House, which can be clearly seen by all of us. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made the fair point that the housing crisis is different in different parts of the country, and we need to be more flexible in addressing these issues with different solutions in different places. My noble friends Lord Rooker and Lord McKenzie made reference to the tragedy of homelessness, which again we can see on the steps of this House, and how much we as a country need to do to tackle it.

A number of policy decisions, initiatives and even unintended consequences have come together to create a very different picture of housing in the UK today from what we see if we look back 30 or 40 years. The term “affordable housing” has become tainted and misused. In many parts of the country, and certainly in London, many of the homes deemed “affordable” are clearly unaffordable for many people. That has huge consequences for communities and society as a whole. Ensuring that everyone has a property that is warm, safe and dry is further away today than it has been for a very long time. For all the problems that this country has, it is still one of the richest in the world, so the situation of people who are not living in a decent home tonight is all the more tragic.

I shall look at some of the policy issues in play here. When right to buy was introduced, it was both popular and controversial. It was intended to help people to become home owners, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem of course has been, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, that the social homes were not replaced; councils still cannot keep all the capital receipts from the sale of those homes, as my noble friend Lady Donaghy referred to; and the number and quality of social homes for rent have reduced significantly over recent years, to the detriment of local communities, as my noble friend Lady Bryan of Partick made reference to. So will the Minister agree to speak to his right honourable friend the Chancellor of Exchequer and raise with him the case for local authorities keeping 100% of the receipts from right to buy sales to invest in new social housing? I make it very clear that these funds should be used to build new council homes on social rents.

The right to buy policy has created further problems, with many of these former council properties finding their way into the private rented sector, with vastly increased rents and, in some cases, becoming houses in multiple occupation. Communities have been disrupted and areas that were very stable now see a constant change and flux. This is no way to build strong and stable communities.

The private rented sector has grown dramatically. While most private sector landlords offer a reasonable product, there are rogues who rip off tenants and treat them very badly—and even when they are banned by one council they continue to operate in other areas, as we have seen reported in the press in the last few days. The rogue landlord database has been a failure in this regard, and urgent changes are needed.

The housing benefit bill has soared, as my noble friend Lord Rooker said. The Government do not own a brick for the billions that they pay out in housing benefit each year as families are forced to seek accommodation in the private rented sector because there is no local authority or housing association housing for them. I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Best, in this regard.

The planning system has often been wrongly blamed by the Government as a barrier to building new homes. The facts do not bear that out. In the past year, local authorities have approved more planning applications to build houses than have been completed. In 2016-17, 321,000 planning applications were approved and there are still 423,000 approved planning applications where not a single brick has been laid. I agree with my noble friend Lord Rooker on the need to deal with permitted development scams.

There are problems with planning that have not been addressed. We have the council tax payer still subsiding the planning process, even after the 20% rise in fees, and it would be helpful if the Minister could update the House on the consultation for a further increase of 20%. I very much support the position of the Local Government Association that we should seek to abolish these fees and introduce locally set fees to reflect local demands and local pressures.

Housing associations also have a big role to play in providing affordable homes, and are a key partner for both the Government and local authorities to provide the homes that are needed, as my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe mentioned. Housing associations are up for playing their full role in helping to build the homes we need, but the emphasis should be on truly affordable homes. The price of land is probably the biggest single barrier to building homes, as a number of Peers said.

It was most disappointing to me, when we passed a previous Bill on planning and compulsory purchase towards the end of the previous Parliament, that we were unable to persuade the Government to agree to the reasonable request from TfL and the Mayor of London to allow them to sell land below the cost value for homes for social rent. The department would not agree, which was very regrettable. I hope that the Government will see the value in allowing that to happen in future, so that the biggest barrier to building new social homes can be reduced to some extent.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to off-site construction of housing. I concur with her remarks. My friend at the London Assembly Nicky Gavron produced an excellent report on off-site constructed housing and how it is set to play a much bigger part in solving the problems we are discussing today. I recommend her report to anyone who is interested in housing, as I think it is very much part of the solution.

I am a Labour and Co-operative Member of the House, and I think that the co-op sector has a big role to play. There have been exciting developments in community land trusts, which is community-led housing set up and run by local people to develop and manage homes. CLTs act as long-term stewards of the housing, ensuring that it remains generally affordable, based on what people earn in the area—and it will be affordable for years to come, for future occupiers. They have great potential to make a real difference, as does co-operative housing in general. Where the tenants are the co-op, they employ the staff and elect the board to run the co-op. I have seen wonderful examples of where co-operative housing has transformed areas to help local communities. The rents are truly affordable and estates are clean, well-managed and stable. There are excellent examples, such as the Ewart Road Housing Co-op in Crofton Park and the Phoenix Community Housing, which covers the Downham Estate in Lewisham. Both are providing community-led housing in meeting people’s needs.

It would be good if the Minister could say something about government support for housing co-ops. I hope that he agrees that, if enabled, the sector could play a much bigger role in dealing with the housing crisis.

In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for tabling the Motion for debate today, which has enabled us to discuss this important issue.