Lord Shipley
Main Page: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Shipley's debates with the Wales Office
(6 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point, the answer to which is, realistically, that we are reversing a process. The price increase process will slow and will halt over time, but I do not seriously think that we can expect large falls. We can see a levelling off over time.
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests in the register. I welcome the Government’s proposal to get tough on viability assessments and to close the viability loophole. I thank the Minister for his letter yesterday to Members about the Statement. Why is there only an expectation that viability assessments will be publicly available? If the Government plan to increase accountability, surely there should be a requirement to make viability assessments publicly available.
I wish to ask also about the absence from the Statement of social housing for rent. There have been previous discussions about the publication date of the Green Paper on social housing. It seems to be repeatedly deferred, yet the only way 300,000 new homes, net, can be built each year is through empowering councils to build more homes—and that implies building more homes for social rent.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for what were essentially two questions. The most important point is the assessment of viability but, if I may, I will get back to him on the transparency issue; it seems a fair point but I would like to have a look at it.
There are two specific reasons why we do not tackle the issue of social housing in the Statement. The Statement is talking about the housing need and housing delivery across the board; it does not seek to apportion it between different types of housing. However, as the noble Lord will know and I have repeated many times, we are committed to more social housing. As he has rightly said, a review is coming up. It has not been postponed: it is due in the spring—that is what I can offer him—and obviously, there will be more detail in it.