Building Homes

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for that question, because in a housing crisis where we have so many people in need of affordable homes, it has been such a shame that Section 106 homes that could have been funded were unable to be picked up because of the lack of capacity within affordable housing providers.

The Government have been very aware of the problems affecting the sale of Section 106 affordable housing. Alongside the National Planning Policy Framework, Homes England also launched a new clearing service to help unblock the delivery of these homes. This is a great role for Homes England to fulfil. The Government are now calling on all developers with uncontracted Section 106 affordable homes to proactively and pragmatically engage with this new service. We hope that this will be able to unlock some of the stalled Section 106 affordable homes which we know are there, waiting for those families who are desperate for housing. I hope that this service will take things forward.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, this Statement is about building the homes we need, but it talks about housing targets, not targets for homes, particularly homes for families to live in. What is the Government’s view on office conversions, potentially of poor quality, masquerading as homes when they are not and are simply contributing to a 370,000 a year housing target? What steps will the Government take to ensure that homes are of sufficient quality to merit the term “homes”, as opposed simply to being part of the achievement of a housing target?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. We have an Oral Question on exactly the same topic tomorrow, when I am sure I will be able to give a fuller answer.

The noble Lord is quite right. As I come from a new town, I recognise the benefit of not just designing the homes but planning the areas where they are to be situated. They should, of course, be sustainable, healthy and have all the infrastructure that everybody needs. The Government are committed to taking steps to ensure that we not only build more homes but that they are high quality, well designed and sustainable. That is why we have made changes to the NPPF to make clear the importance of achieving well-designed places, and how this can be achieved holistically through local design policies, design codes and guidance. We will be pushing this forward further in the new year.

Housing (Right to Buy) (Limits on Discount) (England) Order 2024

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, this statutory instrument will reduce the number of qualifying secure tenants who have the opportunity to buy their rented home at a discount. This will reverse our record in the period 2012 to 2024, which enabled almost 160,000 sales under the right-to-buy scheme. On our watch, the right-to-buy discount was incrementally increased. In 2012, the maximum cash discount went up significantly from regional levels of between £16,000 and £38,000 to a new national level of £75,000. In 2013, the maximum was propelled further in London to £100,000, and from 2014 the maximum discounts rose annually, in line with the percentage change in the consumer prices index. The current maximum discounts available are £136,400 in London and £102,400 outside London.

Our aim is to move towards a scenario where people own their own home and are less reliant on local authorities. Being able to buy your own home is a critical feature of social mobility. It allows people to acquire an asset which translates into wealth, which can then be passed on to the next generation, which in turn gives more opportunities in life. The Government have cut the maximum discount to between £16,000 and £38,000, which means that secure tenants of local authorities who want to buy their home will have to pay materially more for their property.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has released a policy paper on the review of the right-to-buy discounts which showed that sales will be reduced by 25,000 over five years. By the department’s modelling, under the previous Government’s rules 35,000 people would be able to buy their social housing by 2029, but under this Government’s new rules that figure would only be 8,500. That means that 26,500 people will potentially miss out. The Government’s own modelling has shown that there would be 7,000 sales annually to 2031 if our rules were kept. However, that number will shrink to 1,700 per year under this Administration’s new rules. That means an average of 5,300 people per year will not be able to buy their home under the new restrictions.

The Government are clearly looking to create an environment where the local authorities are able to channel a larger proportion of receipts from social housing sales into building new social housing. In July 2024, the Government increased the flexibility on how councils can use their right-to-buy receipts to accelerate the delivery of replacement homes. The caps on the percentage of replacements delivered as acquisitions, and the percentage cost of a replacement home that can be funded using right-to-buy receipts, have been removed. Local authorities can now combine right-to-buy receipts with Section 106 contributions. We understand that these flexibilities will be in place until the end of 2026, subject to a review. Furthermore, the Government in the Autumn Budget stated that councils will no longer be required to return a proportion of the capital receipts generated by the sale of the home to His Majesty’s Treasury.

We appreciate that the Government are looking for ways to build more affordable housing. However, we do not think that this should be achieved at the expense of aspiring home owners who are saving to purchase the home they have lived in for, in many cases, a considerable amount of time.

The Government believe that fewer social houses in local authorities is indicative of a problem. We would argue that creating a system that results in an ever-increasing number of social homes on the local authorities’ books is unsustainable. To clarify, we absolutely must make provision for the most economically vulnerable and in need, so that come rain or shine they have a roof over their heads. But the endgame should be to help people stand on their own two feet, independent in their own home, which they themselves have purchased. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Back in 1980, when the right to buy was brought in, I was in favour of it in principle, because it devolved power and responsibility from the state to the individual. It seemed to me that it would lead to greater investment in homes if more private cash was spent on upgrading the country’s housing stock. I did not support selling off social housing without any replacement, always urging for one-for-one one replacement. But that never happened, and worse, around 40% of those homes sold ended up in the private rented sector, with higher rents pushing up the housing benefit bill.

Paragraph 5.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum is very clear in its explanation of this statutory instrument. It says:

“The Government’s objective is a fair and sustainable right to buy scheme that protects existing social housing stock whilst ensuring that secure tenants who have lived in, and paid rent on their homes for many years, retain the opportunity to own their home. This statutory instrument will directly support that objective”.


The two key words seem to me to be “fair” and “sustainable”. It is fair that those who have paid rent for many years should be able to benefit from their rent being seen as a form of deposit, and this statutory instrument will still enable them to do so.

Back in 1980, it was only fair that council tenants of long standing should not be excluded from the benefits of inflation on the capital asset they were renting. But the situation is very different today. Discounts have got bigger. Housing for social rent has been neglected. There is a massive affordability crisis in buying a home for those on lower incomes as prices have continued to rise steeply. Yet rented housing—private or public—is nowhere near enough to meet demand from those unable to buy, and more people than ever are homeless.

It is inappropriate to allow the current right-to-buy system to continue without amendment. Indeed, in Scotland and Wales, right to buy has been scrapped altogether. That is not what the Government are doing in England. They are cancelling the possibility of extending the right to buy to housing association tenants, but the right to acquire, which has a lower level of benefit, will continue to be available.

Housebuilding: Regional Mayors

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not going to apologise for the housing ambitions of this Government. We were left with a housing crisis, which we have set about tackling. The previous Government failed to do so for 14 years. We want to see young people able to achieve home ownership, to make sure all homes are safe and well maintained, and to create a new generation of social housing and new towns. We believe that everyone deserves a safe, secure, affordable home—do they not?

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talked of mayors’ strategic planning role, but who actually makes decisions on targets—the local planning authority, the mayor, the department or the Treasury?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we have done an extensive consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework. We reintroduced government housing targets, because we want to deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament. We are going to do that with the aggregate of targets from local plans, so we will consult local mayors as they develop their role in strategic plan making.

Housing Supply and Homelessness

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I first remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, for this debate. I agree with her that we need a long-term strategy and that the scale of the problem is daunting. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his important suggestions around the private rented sector, in particular the potential impact of the increase in stamp duty on rent levels in the private sector.

There have been many reports on the housing crisis and how to address it from Shelter, Crisis, the National Housing Federation and the Affordable Housing Commission, which is chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and was established by the Smith Institute with the support of the Nationwide Foundation. Of course, Homes for All, the Church of England report published earlier this year, rightly talked of our moral duty to ensure that all households have access to affordable, safe and quality homes—and I agree. It is appropriate that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has chosen this debate to make his valedictory speech.

All those reports have urged that a national housing strategy and affordable housing—that is, genuinely affordable housing—should be a national priority. Today’s homelessness figures give us a stark warning, with 123,000 households, including 159,000 children, in temporary accommodation. Council spending on temporary accommodation reached £2.29 billion last year, which the National Audit Office said is unsustainable. It is unsustainable, but we cannot solve homelessness without building many more social homes for rent.

We should always remember that secure, affordable homes are fundamental in addressing child poverty. We must build capacity in social housing for rent. I acknowledge the immediate help recently offered by the Government for up to 5,000 new social and affordable homes. I also acknowledge the need to protect new-build social homes. The fact is that around 11,000 council or housing association homes are being built every year but, last year, 23,000 such homes were sold off on knock-down. We must stem the loss of homes for social rent. Indeed, some 2 million homes have been sold under right to buy, of which some 40% are now in the private rented sector, with higher rents in that sector pushing up the housing benefit bill.

I applaud the scale of the Government’s ambition. They have promised the biggest increase in affordable housing in a generation. I welcome this and hope that it proves true. The Government promise 1.5 million more homes by 2029, but we should bear in mind that the chief executive of Homes England said in a recent message to staff that this would need “two parliamentary terms”, while the Centre for Cities has said that the Government will undershoot by 388,000. In any case, a target is not an outcome. Outcomes need plans, and plans need to be published and debated outside of the spending review.

There is a big problem: since 2015, 1 million homes in England and Wales—that is one in three—have had planning permission but not been built. Also, 70,000 housing association and council dwellings currently stand empty—a figure that has been rising. So, as an urgent priority, might the Government address solutions to these two immediate problems?

We should also remember that government spending on housing is at its highest ever level, in real terms. Fifty years ago, 95% went into building and improving homes; today, it seems that almost 90% is going into housing benefit, on which the Government are now projected to spend £35 billion a year by 2028. This is clearly unsustainable.

On the numbers, lots of ambitious targets have been set by a wide variety of bodies. It appears as though the Secretary of State may be thinking of a number lower than some of those reported by, for example, the National Housing Federation. That, I suggest, is a consequence of their understanding of the significant structural problems with delivering large numbers in the short term. We need to build capacity in councils and housing associations. We need a bigger construction workforce and more planning officers. It is not just the planning system but its resourcing. We should bear in mind that more planners can be self-financing.

I welcome the Government’s sense of direction but, with 1.2 million households on local authority waiting lists, solutions have become urgent. Let the Government concentrate on putting in place the foundations we need to address this housing crisis of high demand and inadequate supply. One of those foundations could be that local authorities should be able to buy land at current use value rather than hope value. But the test of success will be that homes become genuinely affordable to those on medium and low incomes.

Social Housebuilding

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Question relates primarily to new social homes, but it was reported at the end of September that around 70,000 council and housing association homes are now lying empty. Can the Government say something about what is planned for those 70,000 dwellings?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, there are multiple reasons why properties may be empty, but it is important that we bring as many homes as possible into use. Councils are being given greater powers to charge additional council tax for empty properties, and I know that they will be looking very carefully at the stock of housing to make sure that it is brought into use as quickly as possible. We are also looking at things such as compulsory purchase order powers and so on. Councils already have those but it is very important that we give councils as many tools in their armoury as possible to prevent houses falling into dereliction or simply being left empty because they have been bought as investments and are not let out or used.

Teesworks Programme: Audit

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for raising those important issues. It is true that the previous Government scrapped the Audit Commission and replaced it with a fragmented, locally led audit regime that is failing. This Government are committed to overhauling local audit and restoring better value for money for taxpayers. We are looking closely at all the evidence, and we will set out our plans, including legislation, shortly. I must remind the House that until we get the response of the Mayor of Tees Valley we cannot explore the options. We will wait for the response to the 26 recommendations which the mayor was asked to look at and then take further action.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister said that scrutiny is important and has committed the Government to undertaking further action when the mayor’s response has been received. What is the Minister’s expectation of the timescale? The mayor will respond quite soon, as I understand it, and the Government then have to say what they want to do. Can the Minister tell us how long that might be? Will he take into consideration the fact that the Tees Valley Combined Authority plans to have only five meetings of its cabinet in the period from September this year to the end of June 2025?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I cannot comment on the meeting schedule of the Tees Valley Combined Authority. That is something for it to look at. In relation to the timeline, I have said to the House in previous answers that until six months have passed and the mayor has had an opportunity to address the concerns in relation to the 26 recommendations, we cannot work on this further. In the meantime, we recognise the point made by my noble friend that local audit needs transformative change, and noble Lords will very shortly hear the plans for changing the way local in which audit takes place.