Housing: Affordability

Lord Sawyer Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sawyer (Lab)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to my noble friend for bringing this debate to the House today and for her work in this field. The last time she initiated such a debate in this House we had a brief word afterwards about the importance of looking at the big picture, and I am pleased that she has returned to that issue as the main part of her contribution today.

I have also been looking for signs that the Government might understand and appreciate the importance of the strategy outlined by my noble friend Lady Ford. In March last year, I was pleased to read that the Prime Minister had called for a consultation on the appropriateness of the principles of garden cities with high potential for growth. This consultation may have floundered a little from a lack of support in certain sections of the Conservative Party—I do not know; perhaps we will hear more about that today—but, more recently, the Deputy Prime Minister has signalled his support, although using different language and with the emphasis on alternative locations. The Mayor of London, in admitting the failure of housing policy over the years, has called for a kind of new town, or new towns, contribution around the perimeter of London which might house some 80,000 to 100,000 people per conurbation.

We expect the Wolfson report this year to give guidance on the development of new towns and, most importantly for me, the Labour Party’s Lyons review of housing will, we hope, form the basis of a sound policy for the next Labour Administration.

On the longer, wider view, housebuilding and affordable homes can be achieved only by looking seriously at the new town and garden city approach, with populations of about 100,000 people. There is no other way possible to meet the needs of the future. In broad terms, we should look at the post-war model of development corporations, with the compulsory purchase of land at agricultural prices and with the planning uplift being passed on to the people. That was a fantastic model which worked really well after the war. Thirty-two new towns were created in this period. Imagine what Britain would be like today without those new towns if that generation had not made the right decision then.

In the period ahead in the 21st century, we can adapt the principles that were taken forward at that time, taking advantage of the large number of new possibilities in terms of design, materials, transport, communities and democratic involvement that people at the end of the war did not have the opportunity to benefit from. There is a great opportunity for us to bring this idea forward. We can bring an end to the current piecemeal approach of a developers’ free-for-all, planning as an afterthought or a great difficulty, and identical houses plonked miles from amenities of public transport—all the kind of things that we have seen in the past 10 to 20 years and the antithesis of what we really want, which is affordable and sustainable housing on a long-term basis.