Ebbsfleet

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord rightly asks a series of quite specific questions. If I may, I will take up his offer and come back to him in writing on some of them. He raised—for example—the issue of affordable housing and clean energy and there is a target of 30% in the local plans, covering all forms of tenure. It is for the UDC to look at issues such as clean energy, and the board will be recruited on the basis of a wide variety of skills including expertise in this area. He asked specific questions about the elements of affordable housing. As I said earlier, this will reflect the priorities of the local authorities which will be represented on the UDC board. Specific questions on care homes, again, are very valid concerns to raise. On the specifics of affordable housing, I will write to him, because it is important we cover these issues in the detail he asked for.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, could I put this in a wider context? Progress on Ebbsfleet is welcome but, as the Statement indicated, it has been complex and slow and at the end of the day, we are talking about 15,000 dwellings. Best estimates suggest that we need 200,000 dwellings or so a year, of all forms of tenure. Can the Minister indicate in terms of other potential garden cities, or similar large sites, what proportion of that 200,000 is likely to be provided by initiatives such as Ebbsfleet and, I hope, Bicester? What proportion of that would be affordable housing, because we really need a much more substantial effort on the total housing crisis? While progress today is welcome, it is a very, very small step indeed.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank the noble Lord for his welcome support. He mentioned Ebbsfleet, but Bicester has certainly put forward a bid and we are looking at other areas to come forward with bids which will reflect their local needs. As to the specific issue of housing and the need to meet the requirements that we currently have, I share his concern.

I talked earlier about unlocking 100,000 homes through the large-sites programme. This is the aggregate number of the impact the Government have made on housing delivery through providing investment, capacity funding and brokering solutions. We have talked about unlocking a further 200,000. This is what we expect to be delivered through the current shortlisted schemes, and the Government are investing a great deal in various initiatives that we have undertaken. One example I will share with your Lordships’ House is the issue of housing zones. We are in the process of announcing the list of successful housing zones, whereby we are looking at innovative solutions to actually provide the housing which is clearly needed up and down the country.