Housing

Lord Tope Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for this debate and the way in which he introduced it. It is so easy sometimes to fall into the trap of partisan politics, when indeed I think we will learn through the debate today that many of us actually share concerns and indeed many views about how to address them. I know that the noble Lord has long had an interest in and concern about housing issues, not least, I believe, when he was Member of Parliament for Battersea during the gentrification of Wandsworth. Perhaps that should be the subject of a debate at another time.

We are now a little further down the road, and throughout that period I have been a councillor in a town centre ward for 39 years. When I started, housing issues were of considerable concern at our weekly surgeries. We then went through a period when that was perhaps of less concern, but now it is rising again at our weekly surgeries—not particularly because of the welfare reform changes, which I suspect are yet to bite really seriously, but more because of the economic situation in which many people find ourselves. In my ward we have, for an outer London borough, a relatively high proportion of social housing. Much of the ward’s housing was built in late Victorian times. When I first became a councillor in 1974, much of that was privately rented, by predominantly older people. As they moved on, they were replaced by first-time buyers buying from landlords who were getting out of the rented sector. Now it has a fairly mixed population.

I think that we will hear today quite a lot about the causes of the housing crisis, but I hope that we will spend some of our time on the solutions. The simple facts on which we can all agree are that, for each of the last 30 years at least, not enough new homes have been provided to meet the demand. I was struck when the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to Harold Macmillan’s commitment in 1950 to build 300,000 houses a year—obviously as part of the post-war recovery. Remarkably, although I am not sure why, I still have a boyhood memory from the 1950s of hearing the annual announcement of how many new houses had been provided. I do not know why, but clearly it was of far greater significance then than it is now, otherwise as a child I would not have been aware of such things.

We can probably also agree that, on coming into power in 2010, the coalition Government faced both a housing crisis and a financial crisis—not really the best circumstances in which to reverse a trend of 30 years or more. For the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition, tackling that crisis is a very high priority. I am sure that that is equally true for our coalition partners. Our priorities in tackling it may be slightly different but nevertheless the determination to tackle it is the same, and perhaps the combination of the two different priorities may turn out to be more effective. I assume that the Minister will elaborate on the many measures that the coalition Government have already taken to tackle the crisis—investment in affordable homes, investment to support the increasingly important private rented sector, tackling the scandal of so many empty homes, Help to Buy and so on. Much has been done, in spite of the very difficult financial circumstances, but there is much more that we could and should be doing if we are to get anywhere near succeeding in reaching the target of 240,000 new homes that we need each year.

I make no apology for returning yet again to the need to remove, or at least raise, the borrowing cap to allow local authorities to increase investment in new homes. The LGA estimates that that alone could deliver 60,000 new homes over the next five years as well as a boost to the nation’s GDP. This is a measure strongly supported by pretty well every organisation involved in any way with housing as well as by all political parties in local government. Indeed, most recently the leader of the largest local authority in Europe, Labour-run Birmingham, has made exactly that call, illustrating what it could mean for his city alone.

I know that I do not need to convince the Minister, nor indeed her ministerial colleagues in the CLG; it is really the Treasury to which I am speaking. Why is the UK the only EU member state not to adopt internationally recognised rules to measure government borrowing that regard extra housing investment as a trading activity that does not count as adding to government borrowing levels? Indeed, financial market players have confirmed that the increase in public sector borrowing which would result from the removal of the cap is insignificant in the wider financial picture and the sums involved fall well below the size of the OBR’s forecasting errors on local government debt. I understand very well that the Minister will not be able to make any commitment today in advance of the comprehensive spending review announcements to be made on 26 June, but the lifting of this cap would do more than any other single measure to demonstrate the coalition Government’s strong commitment to tackling the housing crisis.

While we all understand we will have to wait another three weeks for the Government’s view, I remain unclear about the view of the Opposition. I know it is strongly supported by my Labour colleagues in local government and personally supported by many Labour parliamentarians in both Houses. I hope that in replying to the debate today for the Labour Opposition the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, will be able to say that the Official Opposition would support the lifting of this cap. That might give some encouragement to the coalition Government and even to the Treasury.

There are, of course, other measures that the Government could and should be taking. The speedier release of land by the Government themselves, by government agencies and, indeed, by local government, is one of them, but we must recognise that housebuilders will not build unless they know they can sell what they build.

The planning system is often quoted as an inhibitor of development, in my view usually incorrectly. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us an update on the progress being made in the review of planning guidance being led by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor. Similarly, I hear that the problem is not so much the speed of decision-making on planning applications, which is probably now taken care of anyway by the provisions of the Growth and Infrastructure Act. The delays come subsequently in the setting of planning conditions and the determination of Section 106 agreements.

The other complaint I heard yesterday evening when I met a number of the larger housebuilders, which I must admit was new to me, was about the widely differing building standards set by local authorities, which inhibit standard design for bigger builders. For instance, they told me that there are 32 different standards in London alone, presumably for each of the 32 London boroughs. As I heard this only last night, I do not know to what extent it is correct, but it is what the big housebuilders believe. As a localist, I am clearly not calling for central government intervention, but it seems to me that local government should be talking with the bigger builders about this issue, especially in London where London Councils plays such a useful role in representing all the London boroughs. It is right that local authorities should be able to decide for themselves but, speaking as a London borough councillor for 39 years and a council leader for 13 of those years, I very much doubt that each London borough knowingly and deliberately decides to adopt different standards from its neighbouring boroughs.

Next, I feel strongly, as I am sure we all do, that we must not sacrifice quality for quantity. We need well designed, energy-efficient homes fit for the 21st century and more needs to be done to help the public to value such energy efficiency.

We also need to be providing homes that meet needs. Here I will single out specifically the needs of young people and older people. Young people are increasingly being priced out of not only the buying market but the renting market, particularly in London. Local authorities and housing associations could and should be doing more to provide new or adapted homes suitable for young people, who are sometimes a transient population. I am not talking about student accommodation but about accommodation perhaps on similar lines for those who simply do not want to buy or simply cannot buy or who do not want or need a long lease because their tenancy is likely to be short. I may be wrong, but the only authority I know of in the country that has such a scheme is the City of Westminster, and we should look at it and learn from it.

I particularly want to make some reference to older people in the time available to me. I have the privilege of being a member of your Lordships’ Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change which in March published its report Ready for Ageing?, which I commend to noble Lords, if they have not already read it. Annexe 16 deals with housing provision for older people. I shall not deal with this at any length as I hope later speakers may do so.

Paragraph 270 of the report states:

“Despite growing demand for specialist housing and the substantial wealth held by some older people … there is a gap in the market. There are just 106,000 units of specialist housing for home ownership and 400,000 units for rent in the UK as a whole … In 2010, just 6,000 units for rent and 1,000 for ownership were built, whereas in 1989, 17,500 units for rent were built as well as 13,000 for ownership”.

The report goes on to recommend that:

“Central and local government, housing associations and house builders need urgently to plan how to ensure that the housing needs of the older population are better addressed and to give as much priority to promoting an adequate market and social housing for older people as is given to housing for younger people”.

The conclusion was:

“Central and local government should jointly review how the National Planning Policy Framework’s suggestions might be clarified and tightened to do more to ensure sufficient housing provision for older people”.

I hope that when the Minister comes to reply, no doubt with very many points to reply to, she will be able to give us some indication of how the Government are responding to that useful report.

I have said very little about the private rented sector, and now I have not left myself time to do so. It is clearly increasingly important and receiving increasing attention, but much more needs to be done.

I shall end not by predicting the green shoots of recovery, as I am neither that wise nor that foolish, but I was encouraged to hear last night at a meeting with a number of the bigger housebuilders that they are seeing signs—perhaps faint signs, but some signs—of improvement in the supply. The NHBC reported that it had seen a 35% increase in registrations year on year. It rightly made the point that registrations are not completions, but nevertheless, it is an encouraging sign. We all know that we face a crisis. It is not a new crisis, but a long developed crisis that this Government, and certainly my party, are determined to tackle long before the next Labour Government get an opportunity to do so.