Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, at this hour I will seek to be as brief as possible. It was very good to hear another concession from the Front Bench; the gracious way in which our Government have listened to Opposition representations has been striking in the course of the Bill’s proceedings, and I welcome it.

I made a speech in Committee, and there is a good rule in this House that we do not repeat at length arguments made there. I considered that speech to be clear and, without being arrogant, I thought that it was quite compelling. It was Conservative; it was, in my submission, common sense; and it spoke for itself. I am not certain that it has been read as widely in government as I would have liked, but I still have hopes that it might be. It was also, if I may say so, a compassionate speech in terms of conservatism.

The issue I wish to highlight, which does not affect the whole country, is what is happening to small businesses as a result of the order as it is operating. In my borough, we have recently seen a local estate agent ousted by landlords operating under a nominee company which wished to develop the property; the estate agent could not find a suitable high street replacement and is now renting in less suitable premises at more than double the cost. Asset and flood risk management consultants employing 10 in a town centre have been ousted, forced to move to a less favourable site, again with a far higher rent. The winner of our local Best Business award, employing six, has been ousted from premises that were found after three years of searching—it was an ideal site—by a £180 million West End property company which is pushing out a number of businesses in the mews concerned.

There is a problem and I cannot understand why a Government who believe in small business, endeavour and hard work cannot see that there needs to be a tweak at the edges of the current regime to make sure that we can safeguard these hard-working people. That is all I am hoping to achieve in the context of this debate.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and I understand that there are difficulties with my amendment as it stands. There are understandable fears on the part of the Government that if the amendment were accepted it might apply halfway across the country where it was not justified as it is, I submit, in my area. I am very willing to find a compromise; if that takes time over the next few days, I would be willing to do that and withdraw the amendment. That would be the preferred course. With a will, it should be possible to find a way to preserve the policy which the Government rightly think has been a success in using disused and unwanted offices, and allow it to continue in areas where it is appropriate, while finding a way to stop active businesses being forced out on to the streets.

I have every hope that we can find a way forward. I will not prolong my remarks because, as I say, I spoke on this issue at some length in Committee. Circumstances have not improved since then; they have got worse. I beg to move.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, as indeed I did in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord True, is quite right: he made an excellent speech then, at some length and with some passion. I know this is an issue about which he rightly feels very strongly.

I am no longer a south London councillor, but I was until two years ago and I know the effect that this policy, which came in under the coalition Government in 2013, has had in my borough, which I think is similar to that in much of London. Like the noble Lord, Lord True, I am not going to repeat everything that I said in Committee. One thing startled me, though: in my borough, the London Borough of Sutton, 62% of the conversions permitted in the two-year period under the permitted development right have happened to offices that were occupied, and the occupiers have been removed. That is serious and damaging for the local economy. I ask why the Government are so keen to pursue this, and I am told that it is because of the drive to provide more homes. That is an ambition that we all support strongly.

I therefore asked my borough—I repeat that I am not a councillor now—for the housing figures. They showed me the figures for housing in the borough for each of the last 10 years, long before the policy came in as well as since. Sadly I do not have the figures with me, but in all of those 10 years, and overall, for permissions granted the borough is, from memory, 132% above the target in the London Plan—in other words, the target set for the council. Possibly more importantly, on housing completions it is still very nearly 130% above target. So this is an authority that is more than meeting its housing targets—whether or not that is enough is a different debate—and cannot be said to be, nor has it been said to be, failing in that regard. Yet the borough, particularly its employment prospects and the whole nature of its town centre and other district centres, is hit hard by this policy.

The other aspect is the housing being permitted under the permitted development rights. We all want to see more homes being provided, but not just anything. None of the properties provided could be designated as an affordable property. Demands are different in different areas, and the demand in an area like mine is very much for two-bedroom and three-bedroom properties, but virtually all those provided are one-bedroom and not affordable, so not what is actually needed in the area but, frankly, what developers can turn a quick profit on. They are permitted to do that; they are not breaking the law. So I question whether the policy is actually meeting housing demand either.

We all want to see more homes built but not any old homes anywhere; we want the right quality and design of homes, and the homes that people actually need. I suggest that this policy is failing on that front as well. It is not failing everywhere; I know that in some authorities—the Minister said that her former authority was one of them—it is very welcome. That is fine and I have no problem with that. Our issue is that having had this policy in practice for a couple of years now, we can see in reality the effect it is having in large parts of London—and, I expect, in other parts of the country too, although I know less about that.

It really is time for the Government to review and relax this provision. In my view, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord True, meets that requirement. It is fully in keeping with a localist policy. I am not competent to discuss whatever technical flaws there may or may not be in it, but the amendment’s intent is very clear and it is absolutely right. I am pleased to support it.

[Lord Kerslake]

My Lords, I have added my name to the other amendment in this group for the simple reason that the intended effect of the policy has not been how it has worked out in practice. If we cast our minds back to when this policy was developed, the economy was still struggling to recover from the impact of the financial crisis and the intention, therefore, was to unlock animal spirits and let the market take its course. There is no doubt that permitted rights has unlocked a series of new developments of housing. However, the intention was for it to address industrial sites or office sites where the prospect of new economic development was unlikely ever to happen but, for whatever reason, the local authority was not recognising that reality and moving on. In that sense, it had its effect. Where it has not done what we anticipated was that there was a policy of exemptions which would prevent particular areas being unduly affected. The City and Westminster formed part of those exemptions, but the area was not drawn widely enough.

Let us move forward to the present. The values that can be achieved through the development of residential housing, particularly in London—and I believe that this is predominantly a London issue—far exceed the values that can be achieved through economic use such as offices, retail space and so on. Instead of taking sites that will never be used for economic development, we are taking perfectly viable business sites and then forcing them into residential use, often at high values, which is not helping with the immediate housing need, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has just described. There are plenty of different ways that this issue can be addressed, but I urge the Minister to look constructively at how this issue can be tackled. It is likely to carry on growing in areas where these values are so different. Its consequence will be to damage the character of those areas and permanently lose economic activity.