King’s Speech

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, not least in his highlighting of the huge potential difficulties with the two new Bills in the housing area of freehold and rent.

The gracious Speech, in my judgment, reflects that at least now we have a Prime Minister who understands economics, who is determined to listen to what the general public, and indeed obviously our own party, wants to happen, and to give leadership. There is no better demonstration—and I admit to being one of those who campaigned hard to keep the ticket offices open, alongside the best part of a million others—than him being brave enough to say, and thank goodness, “Right, they are staying open”. For me, that is the sort of action I expect to see from a Prime Minister. I have had the privilege of serving in the other House for 23 years and in your Lordships’ House for a good few years since, and quite frankly this is the first time, since that fateful date of 31 January 2020, following the vote that was taken on Brexit—I understand why it went the way it did but the construction of the vote was wrong; there should at least have been a safeguard if we wanted to change—that I am getting it, and I am thrilled. We had lost leadership from the subsequent Prime Ministers.

I shall speak mainly on housing, but there are three issues on energy that I would like to raise. First, I welcome the fact that we are going to drill in the North Sea, for the future. It is a crucial decision to safeguard our supplies. Secondly, I am following Rolls-Royce’s efforts on mini nuclear reactors. We could have signed a document and had those mini reactors being built now—nobody suggested that it should have an exclusive right to the mini reactor market, but at least we could have got going. But we have not. Will my noble friend on the Front Bench at least try to move this forward, so that we get some decision on mini reactors? They are important. Thirdly, on hydrogen, we all know that Infrastructure UK appeared to be totally anti-hydrogen. We have only to look at our German colleagues. Germany has now got to a state where it believes it can do tests, and that there is a market for a combination of gas and hydrogen for domestic premises. If we think back to the period when we went from coal to LPG for our heating, we see that no wonder it is a big project—it affects the vast majority of homes in the United Kingdom. We know that Germany is doing the work. Imperial College has come out with a report saying that it is going to move things forward, and there are a host of others doing work in that area. I would like to see some support from His Majesty’s Government in that area.

That brings me to housing. It is my privilege to have been in public service for 50 years. I was the first leader of the London Borough of Islington and chairman of its housing committee. I have saved squares in Islington, along with my colleagues. We got rid of the Crumbles, which was a terrible old Victorian tenement block, with not even bathrooms or toilets on the floors—people had to go down to the ground floor. Thanks to the architect in Islington, we built low-level, high-density council housing and encouraged young people to get grants to renovate the infrastructure that they bought. In 1974, I was elected in Northampton, a new town, which I support totally, and I once wrote a pamphlet called The Disaster of Direct Labour. The challenge that every family faces is housing. So many of my colleagues here today have raised the issue, and I certainly believe that it is key to the future.

The Secretary of State produced his vision in his speech of 24 July 2023. He talked about:

“The regeneration and renaissance of the hearts of 20 of our most important towns and cities … Building beautiful … Greener homes … A new deal for tenants”—


he has this Bill coming forward—

“And extending ownership to a new generation”.

Unfortunately, we have lost the right to buy, so I am not quite sure how we will encourage new generations. It sounds wonderful, but in reality we find the Grenfell problem. Only 9% of those affected have been restored. That is not good progress. It is not helping tenants. Many must be in dire worry about where they are living.

What about tenanted properties? In Bedford and half a dozen other places, there are empty properties all the way down the high street, yet we charge 20% VAT on anybody who wants to renovate them. If we want to renovate those properties, for heaven’s sake let us offer local authorities the option not to have to pay that 20%. I notice that the Secretary of State does not think that Marks & Spencer, as a key retailer in Oxford Street, should be allowed to alter its building, although everybody else accepts that it is a good idea.

The time taken on planning has trebled since 1990, which is not that long ago. No wonder it is taking time to get moving on anything. The Home Builders Federation points out that some of the hardest hit are our smaller builders, who have to grapple with this time dimension. The number of new homes forecast for 2024 is just 120,000—a record low—compared with 204,530 in 2022. With a demand of 340,000—not 300,000—and people wanting their own home, lifetime ISAs needing modifying because they are out of date and the whole population having gone up by 600,000, we now have a real need for 380,000. We have to take action. I hope my noble friends on the Front Bench and those who can make a difference will do so. Two of us in this room know about new towns in particular. Why not have perhaps 50 new garden towns around the United Kingdom, with the benefit of single-family homes at low density, alongside a successful town? That would produce really good homes for the future.