Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord True and Lord Deben
Lord True
My Lords, I also agree with the underlying force of the amendments. They do not apply only to large developments. In some developments there is pocket regeneration and smaller examples of where a decant and a return is needed. It is a question of where in my first 11 for solving the problem, as it were, starter homes come. Some of these schemes are extremely delicate at the edges, not only as my noble friend said in terms of selling and carrying the support of existing tenants and leaseholders but also on finance.
I was interested to hear my great friend, Councillor Ravi Govindia, the leader of Wandsworth, yesterday. I could testify from my local authority’s concern that we need to think about this very carefully. Whether it is rightly addressed by this sort of prescriptive amendment, or by a more concessionary approach to exceptions, which we might discuss between now and Report, I do not know, but I hope that my noble friend will think carefully, because it would be a great pity to lose delicate developments of social housing and estate improvement on the margins. I speak from personal experience when I say that some developments are balancing on the margins at the moment.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interest of chairing a company which tries to help people to develop sustainably. I come back to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about the areas on which such housing could be built. I do not want to restrict it to this kind of housing, starter homes, but I would not like the Committee to miss the fact that this is a housing Bill which does not make some of the fundamental statements which we ought to be making.
Every time anyone tries to deal with a housing problem, those clever people who dislike planning of any kind suggest that we should build on greenfield sites or move into the green belt. We have had another such statement recently. I have been Minister for Housing, and many of us recognise that if you allow people to build on easy sites, they will never build on difficult ones. That is part of the nature of things.
I am disappointed that we bring forward yet another housing Bill in which we do not reiterate the fact that there is plenty of land which has been used on which such housing can be built. Yet again, we give opportunities for largely right-wing think tanks to suggest that we should build on the land which we have no more of, the land which we were given and which needs to be protected. I say that because another interest of mine is sustainability for climate change. We will need this land, and we will need it to be productive, because we will not have enough, unless we are very tough.
Sometimes, a Bill is characterised by what it leaves out rather than what it puts in. This is my only opportunity to raise this matter, so I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will not mind that I do not want to restrict my remarks to what is in the amendment.
I say to my noble friend that we have to start getting real about the limits of a very small island, or series of islands. The only way that we can do that is to say that when land has been used, it must be reused. We are wrong at this time to allow government institutions, quasi-government institutions and former government-owned institutions to retain the land until they can get a better price for it. I have often thought that we should release the whole lot at once to lower the price and say that the public will carry that cost in order to lower the basic price of land—you must have all sorts of protections to do that.
I am deeply disappointed that there should be a Bill about housing which does not at any point approach the crucial issue, which is that we are wrong to despoil any more of our land, whether it be, as one organisation suggested, our parks, our green spots in towns or our green belt and greenfield sites. We have to make sure that once-used land must be developed, and if you allow people easier options, they will not do that. It is time that we faced that fact. Anyone who has been a Minister for Housing knows perfectly well that that is what happens: if you say that 50% of a site will be greenfield, then the bit that gets built is on that while the 50% that is not built is the more difficult area which has to be redeveloped.
I say this to my noble friend: please can we take more seriously this fundamental part of the kind of mix that we are trying to put together?