Housing Crisis: Rural and Coastal Communities

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of Wessex Investors and Anchorwood Developments.

On the evenings that I have to get back to Cornwall—the train journey to St Austell from Paddington is about four-and-a-half hours—I cannot always get back, so I have to drive to Exeter, in the right reverend Prelate’s diocese; an excellent city. To get there, I have to drive up the Bodmin bypass. For as many years as I can remember—certainly for the last five—there has been a big sign on the Bodmin bypass saying: “NHS: Apply for jobs in Cornwall. We’re here, we want people”. There is a reason that sign has been there for so long. What better place could you work in the National Health Service than in Devon or Cornwall? There is no better place, and yet those vacancies are not filled. The reason is that people come down, they have their interviews, they are inspired and then they visit an estate agent—and that is the end of the story. That is why there are those vacancies, because house prices in that part of the country are significantly higher than the national average.

For people who live there, the problem is even greater. The ratio in Cornwall of salary to house prices is 11 times, whereas nationally it is nine, and in many other places it will obviously be a lot less than that. Outside of London, the Isles of Scilly has the highest level of empty and second homes as a proportion of all dwellings. That is the situation there.

What do we have today? When I was driving up that Bodmin bypass I heard that there had been a government announcement from the Levelling Up Secretary. What was it? They are going to solve the housing crisis by investing and building in cities—full stop. I waited to hear the rest of the announcement, but it was not there; there was nothing at all about rural communities. That is deeply depressing and misunderstands—if I am kind—the equation between urban and rural areas. I suggest it is probably more political than based in reality.

I was on the Economic Affairs Committee of this House a few years ago and we did a study into housing. One thing that struck me was a graph. During the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, when public housing stopped, the line on the graph came down immediately and never went up again. The Government have to liberate local authorities to bring back those houses, particularly in rural communities. If we did that, I believe we could start to solve this crisis—and maybe save some of the £15 billion we spend on housing benefit.