Lord Shipley
Main Page: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Shipley
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 41B. Amendment 37B would require a mortgage to be taken out when buying a starter home—in other words, cash sales would not be permitted. Amendment 41B would require a first-time buyer to occupy the dwelling as his or her principal residence.
I can almost hear the Minister’s reply—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
Order. May I ask the noble Lord to give us a second while noble Lords leave the Chamber? We cannot hear anything he is saying and we do not wish to miss a word of it.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I shall start again in a moment.
I can almost hear the Minister’s reply, which may be to tell us that all this will be made clearer in regulations, but as the Minister well knows, we have no regulations. There are no draft regulations and it is essential that, before Report, we have regulations which explain clearly what the Government’s intentions are on matters such as buy to let, subletting for short periods and leaving and letting a starter home within five years. In the case of this probing amendment, we need to know whether payment for a starter home can be in cash. I hope that the Government will rule this out today.
The basic principle is that cash buyers do not need a starter home. The simplest way to address this is via a requirement that the purchaser takes out a mortgage. Indeed, a key part of the National Planning Policy Framework definition of affordable housing is an eligibility test, with its provision for those whose needs are not met by the market. However, that is not a cash buyer, whose needs can self-evidently be met by the market. Therefore confirming in the Bill that anyone buying a starter home must do so via a mortgage would restrict market abuse.
Amendment 41B would require a first-time buyer to occupy their starter home as a principal residence. Thus, starter homes must not become second homes, and buy to let should be prohibited. However, there may need to be some consideration prior to regulations being published about how a property could be let out for short periods, where, for example, a purchaser of a starter home has a six-month temporary work transfer to another place. Therefore I am very keen to know what the Government’s thinking is on this matter. In the face of the fact that the Bill lacks so very much detail—even the technical briefings lack detail to enable us to respond properly to exactly what is planned—I hope very much that the Minister will be able to clarify these matters.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, this group of amendments contains some important provisions that would be welcome in the Bill and should not be left hanging in the air to be covered by regulations at some point in the future. Amendment 37B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would add the words “via a mortgage”. It is extremely important that we are clear about this, because if the property was purchased in any other way, such as by a cash buyer, that would signal that the person or persons had no need to take advantage of a product with a generous discount that could be realised in a relatively short space of time.
Equally, Amendment 41B, which is also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, makes clear that the person who buys the property should buy it to be their home. Again, I am fully supportive of that.
On government Amendment 42A, I will be interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, explain the reasoning behind the proposed change to the words in Clause 2(3)(c).
Amendment 43, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Beecham, would add the criteria of “lives or works locally” to the Bill. That is aimed specifically at helping local people to take priority in getting a home in their local area rather than being forced to go somewhere else, and would help in building stable communities. I will be interested to hear the Government’s reasoning for their Amendments 44A and 44B in turn, which seem to turn on its head the requirement that individuals should be under 40. Is this because the Government have realised that in the present climate it will be very difficult for people under 40 to get a deposit together? Does the Minister envisage that this will apply to all areas of England or maybe just London in particular, where there is a problem with the affordability of housing?
Amendment 45, in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Beecham, would place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult the relevant local authorities and/or the Mayor of London when seeking to vary the price cap for starter homes. The requirement to consult relevant bodies when considering making this price cap change is good practice and will aid the Secretary of State in understanding the specific local circumstances that he or she should probably take into account when making such a change.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Following on from my noble friend Lord Young’s remarks, the Minister has been on her feet for nearly an hour and a half and I think that the Committee might allow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, to respond.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I had not anticipated, when I moved my probing Amendment 37B, that we would be discussing this group some two hours later. However, I think the debate has been very valuable because it has revealed the gaping void in the Government’s thinking. I hope that the Minister will understand that a huge number of questions have been posed. Like, I suspect, many other noble Lords, I have been astonished that the answers are not being provided. After all, this Bill was passed in the other place. It has arrived here; we have had Second Reading, at which the need to publish at least draft regulations was made clear; we are now on day three of seven in Committee and progress is very slow. I think Ministers ought to explain to your Lordships’ House why we are in a position where consultation is taking place so very late that the answers to that consultation are not in our possession as we debate the later stages of the Bill.
I was very disappointed by the response of the Minister as to when regulations are going to be published. I said previously that we would happily receive draft regulations, as opposed to the finished version, but, of course, we now understand why Amendment 45B has appeared on the Marshalled List. I remind noble Lords that it simply says:
“Regulations under this section may amend this Chapter.”
In other words, the Bill is going to be amended by secondary legislation. This is simply an unacceptable position for your Lordships’ House to be put into. Many questions have been raised and I do not think that the Minister has actually answered many at all. I am grateful for offers of meetings and letters, which, I guess, will be copied, but there has been a very large number of questions to which there have not been answers. It is now incumbent upon the Minister and the department to provide a question-and-answer sheet with a set of clear answers to every question posed by noble Lords on this group.
For example, we have a problem with numbers. The Minister cited that 65% of people outside London who are currently renting privately and 40% of people in London who are currently renting privately will be able to take on a starter home. As we know from other agencies, such as Shelter, those figures are disputed. On Tuesday, I think, the Minister agreed that we would have a detailed response to that so we can actually understand the facts with which we are trying to deal.
I was really concerned by the Minister’s remark, and I think I quote her rightly, that there is always going to be abuse of the system. That really is an unacceptable thing for noble Lords to confront. There should not be abuse of the system. There are ways in the planning system—and in the next group, which deals with “in perpetuity”—for this problem to be solved. So I hope that the Minister, in our proceedings after the lunch break, will work with the feeling across all sides of the Committee that we have to do something to make this a much better Bill; for, as it stands, it surely cannot proceed as it has been written. So, while I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 37B, I hope that the Minister has understood the mood of the Committee in demanding clear answers to questions which have also been very clear.