Queen’s Speech

Lord Sawyer Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sawyer (Lab)]

My Lords, I have spoken in almost every housing debate since I became a Member and was slightly concerned that today, given all the other economic issues, housing might slip off the agenda. I am pleased that that has not been the case and that many noble Lords—not least the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, whom I congratulate on his maiden speech—have addressed it.

Housing is probably the number one economic issue that British people outside this House care about. The previous full debate in this Chamber on housing was back in January, when my noble friend Lady Ford raised the issue. Since that time, it is fair to say that it has gained considerable traction in the public mind. Indeed, in its editorial of 9 May, the Times said:

“Housing is the biggest problem in British politics. If it gets less attention than the biggest problem in British politics … this is because it is a problem that nobody knows how easily to solve”.

That is true; none of us really knows the solution to the British housing problem. The reasons for this unsolvability have been well aired in this House today and many times before, and I do not intend to go through the list of the problems there are in trying to house our people properly. It is true that there is a market frenzy in housing, which I hope will abate, but it gives way to a market frenzy of policy solutions—of daily advice from commentators, new reports from think tanks and opinions from politicians. It is hard for people to understand where we might be going at any given time. I find some of the advice quite depressing. I do not know why the Mayor of London has to be seen to stand up for foreign absentee landlords against the housing needs of millions of people in London. I also do not understand why we get so excited about opinions from the European Commission. Lots of domestic politicians and commentators in this country have talked about housing tax reforms, so why do we get excited because the European Commission says, “Why don’t you look at that?”? Well, why do we not look at it? It seems a sensible thing to do. The housing debate needs to get less excited and more serious so we can be seen to represent people’s deep concerns, and not just see it—as I think some people do—as some kind of political football.

There are some quite exciting things taking place in housing. A lot more people are thinking about self-build initiatives—in other words, finding their own way out of the problem and not depending on the Government, the state or developers. That is a great, although small, step forward. Is it true that we will find the modern prefab? Maybe we will; it has been good to read about that. Experts have tried to find the modern prefab for many years and failed, but it looks to me, given the frenzy of activity and heat generated around the issue, that maybe we will find an answer: a small, affordable home that would help to house the lowest paid and the unemployed. Boy, how much happier I would be to see that achieved than see another big tower block go up in central London.

Although I obviously have differences with part of government policy, it is important to recognise that the number of builds has improved and that the Government take housing seriously. Nick Boles has made an important, thoughtful and radical contribution to the debate. We need radical solutions. My biggest anxiety in this policy plethora is that the initiatives will come and go—some will succeed, some will fail—and then, when the turmoil ends and the media wagon moves on to put another issue at the top of our headlines, the problem will remain: still not enough decent homes in the right place for the right people.

That is why, when I thought about what I might ask us to think about this afternoon, I returned to the themes of the January debate in the House. The burden of the argument in that debate, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, and others, was that we needed to think more carefully about the new town development corporation approach, to see whether it could give us a more rounded solution to all the individual policy initiatives we have—not just in London. I take the point made by many noble Lords that there might be different policies for London and the south-east. We need to look at where people’s needs are, wherever they may be. Any policies that look at new towns should focus not just on a set number of new towns, but on what people want and on creating, as has already been said in another place, population densities of about 100,000 people.

I never cease to be impressed by the achievements of my parents’ generation—the generation that kicked off the new town movement. That generation built 32 new towns for their families and their children. Where would we have been without that? We would not have been as well off as we are today. This approach is different from a garden city approach. There is no doubt about that: there were only two garden cities and 32 new towns. Garden cities were created by a group of idealistic people, who many of us in this House—certainly those of us on the left in politics—would identify with, but they are not new towns. There were much clearer guiding principles, more rigorous requirements—both from architects and planners—and more involvement from people. The people who inhabited the new towns had a lot more involvement in their environment than we normally see today. Although I support the new town concept, I would like us to be clear that a couple of new towns will not solve our housing problem.

I am pleased to say that the development corporation idea has had some support since January. I came across a recent report from the Housing Forum—a cross-sector, independent housing organisation—that said:

“While recognising the importance of both local authorities and housing associations, there is a limitation to the speed and scale that can be delivered within the confines of their operations, both geographically and operationally”.

The Housing Forum has tried to learn lessons from the London Docklands Development Corporation, which it felt did a good job by doing things such as bringing together local authorities, overcoming difficulties with planning permission, grant giving, using compulsory purchase order powers and overcoming all kinds of issues that probably no company would have on that scale today. It created 24,000 new homes, which does not sound very many to me, but still.

The Housing Forum’s report continues:

“As we continue to struggle to corral a complex and poorly functioning housing market to deliver new homes, it could be that a major interventionist approach will ultimately be the only way of bringing the key components of land, finance, planning and purpose together”.

We should think about that. That is basically why I am on my feet today. Of course, that is not the only solution. Some commentators really annoy me: somebody comes up with an idea for a new town or a garden city and the commentators say, “It has to be brownfield sites”. Nobody says existing cities would not be developed on brownfield sites. As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, you would not look at developing new towns in the north of England today; you would look at developing on brownfield sites in the inner city. We need both policies to run together; we cannot have a one-policy solution.

As I come to the end of what I wanted to say—I am sure you will agree it was not very much—I want to make one point; sometimes you just have to get up and make one point and that is okay. I just want noble Lords to hear this. As I read about and observe what is going on in our society and in our homes, probably like a lot of noble Lords I feel anxious and upset about what people are having to go through. When I see houses and apartments that are vehicles for profit or pensions, and not for people who need buildings to live in—they are locked out—I get really angry. I would like to see an elected politician—probably a Prime Minister or a leader of the Opposition, somebody with power who the people will listen to—stand up and say, “What we want in this country, what I want to deliver for you, my British friends, my electorate, is world-class housing for this country”. Our politicians said they wanted a world-class Olympic Games and they delivered it. We have sent our England team to play in the World Cup. Did we say we want them to come second or third? If we are lucky we might do that, but are we not sending the team out to be the best in the world?

We have the best architects in the world: Rogers, Hadid, Foster and many more. When they travel the world, and as they build these beautiful new buildings, what do they say to their clients when they ask, “But haven’t you got one of the most problematic housing markets in the developed world in your own country?”? They have to say, “Yes, we have”. I say, why do they not help us to solve our problem? Why do they not talk about world-class housing for people who live in this country? Maybe the Prime Minister will use the Wolfson report to make that point. I am very much looking forward to that. Maybe the leader of the Opposition will use the Labour Party’s equivalent, the Lyons review, to say the same thing: that we want world-class housing. Maybe he will not: maybe we will just get more housing reviews.