Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association. I stand before you as a reluctant amender. As the Bill has moved towards its final stages, I have been very open to conversation and compromise. This has been possible on a wide range of difficult issues and was close to being achieved on the second amendment that I shall move later today.

However, on this part of the Bill—on housing—there remain two vital issues where I feel strongly that the debate needs to continue. The first, and the subject of Motion A1, is the so-called starter homes requirement. Under this, local authorities will not be able to give approval to individual planning applications unless they have included a specified number of starter homes. This figure is currently set to be 20%—one in five—of the houses approved.

The issues with this have been previously rehearsed, and there are three major concerns. First, it imposes a single, top-down requirement regardless of local circumstances. Secondly, it does so with a product that is still in design and is not tried and tested. Thirdly, the percentage proposed will squeeze out other kinds of affordable housing that are desperately needed. My amendment is not intended to be, nor is it, a wrecking amendment to the manifesto. It seeks only to give greater local flexibility where a need can be demonstrated and to allow other types of low-cost home ownership products to be counted within the starter homes requirement. It will be for individual local authorities to take a view on this within their overall duty to promote starter homes. There need be no delay in getting starter homes going.

Indeed, I think that local planning decisions will be quicker as a result of this flexibility. The low-cost home ownership delivered could quite reasonably count against the Government’s 200,000 target. They can, as new low-cost home ownership products, be targeted at the same group of people—young first-time buyers— whom the Government are seeking to help. From the point of view of the buyer, what matters is the opportunity to own their own home.

Before we lock ourselves into a rigid, inflexible, national solution that risks setting local authorities up to fail, I ask Ministers and this House, even at this very late stage, to consider a more localist, market-responsive approach. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, having sat through most of the proceedings on this Bill I recognise that it is probably the most controversial one from last year’s Queen’s Speech, and I quite understand the very strong feelings that have been aroused. I want to give three brief reasons why I think at this stage we should allow the Bill to go forward.

First, the Government have already made very substantial concessions on this Bill, principally in response to arguments put forward by Cross-Benchers and opposition Members in this House. There have been amendments on high-value assets, exceptions to secure tenancies, pay to stay, starter homes and rural exception sites. Where a case has been made that does not conflict with the manifesto, my noble friend has listened to the arguments and made the necessary changes. No one can accuse the Government of inflexibility.

Secondly, the vote in another place last night was by 80 to 100, without one single dissenting voice on the government Benches. Roughly two-thirds of English MPs rejected the amendments that came from this House. We should think carefully before we seek to second-guess them. Finally, the further Motion A1 seems to me to be against the spirit of the Joint Committee on Conventions. I quote:

“If the Commons have disagreed to Lords amendments on grounds of financial privilege, it is contrary to convention for the Lords to send back amendments in lieu which clearly invite the same response”.

I put it to noble Lords that Motion A1 does exactly that.

On reflection, it seems to me that this House has performed its traditional role of scrutinising, amending, revising and asking the other place to think again. We now risk moving to the more controversial territory of challenging the other place. In the debate yesterday, the Minister expressed surprise that your Lordships’ House,

“have chosen again to oppose one of our most important manifesto commitments”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/5/16; col. 458.]

He went on to describe one of the other amendments as a “wrecking amendment”. I urge the noble Lord who moved Motion A1 to reflect on the changes that have already been made to avoid the risk of pressing this further, and to think of the tenants of Peabody, some of whom have written to me, who want the statute book to include this measure so that they can exercise their right to buy.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will very briefly give strong support to what my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham said. This House has performed an extremely valuable role in a number of Bills during this Session, which comes to an end this week. This House has every reason to take quiet pride and satisfaction in, for instance, the Trade Union Bill. I concentrated my endeavours on that Bill, but I have sat in on a lot of debates at the various stages of this Bill, and listened to arguments persuasively put and to answers sympathetically given. There is no doubt that the Government have moved. Of course they have not moved as far as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, would like, but in this life we very rarely get everything we like.

The noble Lord has had a very distinguished career in the Civil Service, finishing at its pinnacle. He was deservedly ennobled and sent to your Lordships’ House to contribute from his expertise and his wisdom. That he has certainly done. No one could begin to accuse him of not being an active Member of your Lordships’ House. But I beg and entreat him to recognise—as, with his distinguished Civil Service background, he must—that there are constitutional proprieties in our system. We are in danger of transgressing. We in this House very rightly passed various amendments. Last week the Government were defeated five times. That may not be unprecedented, but there are very few precedents where five amendments are passed for a second time and the Bill is sent back to the House of Commons.

The other place has deliberated. I am bound to say that I do not think that this is the most perfect Bill that has ever come before Parliament—far from it—but whether we agree with its deliberations or not, the other place has passed by substantial and significant majorities the amendments before us. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is seeking yet again to press them. Of course he has every right to do so, but I suggest to him very gently that he does not have every constitutional right to do so. The elected House, as we say so often in this House, is the superior House when it comes to political power. We should all recognise that. I believe that most of us, in all parts of the House, do.

We have been active on this Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, certainly has been most active—but I urge him not to press this today. The constitutional repercussions could be very considerable. We do not want—I certainly do not—to tempt any Prime Minister to send another long list of Peers to your Lordships’ House merely to big up the numbers. That is not what we should be about. We should be in the business not of provocation, but of scrutiny and examination. We have fulfilled our tasks in that respect. I believe that the time has now come for us to draw stumps. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, will find that there is some merit in my arguments and that he will feel able to desist.