Housing and Planning Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Duty to meet the resilience objective—

‘(1) The Secretary of State and planning authorities in exercising and performing the powers and functions conferred or imposed by the provisions in Part 1 (New homes in England) and Part 6 (Planning in England) of this Act shall exercise or perform them in the manner which he or they consider is best calculated to further the resilience objective at subsection (2).

(2) The resilience objective is—

(a) to secure the long-term resilience of housing developments as regards environmental pressures, population growth and changes in consumer behaviour, with particular regard to water supply management, sewerage management, flood risk mitigation and waste disposal, and

(b) to secure steps for the purpose of meeting, in the long term, the need for sustainable homes and communities, including by promoting—

(i) appropriate long-term planning and investment by relevant parties, and

(ii) the taking of measures by the relevant parties to manage resource use in sustainable ways, to achieve sustainable management of water, and to increase resource efficiency so as to reduce pressure on the natural environment.

(3) In this section, “relevant parties” includes—

(a) relevant undertakers, including licence holders and authorised suppliers, as provided in the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989 and the Water Industries Act 1991; and

(b) individuals and bodies corporate who are seeking planning permission in order to build houses.”

This new Clause would provide a statutory duty on the Secretary of State and local authorities to secure and promote the resilience of housing and other development.

Amendment 31, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, after “promote”, insert

“new homes across all tenures, including”.

The amendment would change the purpose of the Bill to one that would enable the supply of more housing across all tenures rather than just starter homes.

Amendment 32, in page 1, line 7, at end insert

“and the infrastructure needed to support such developments”.

The amendment would ensure that additional housing is supported with adequate infrastructure.

Amendment 33, in page 1, line 12, leave out

“at a discount of at least 20% of the market value” and insert “at a price no higher than is affordable to a household receiving the median local household income, with affordability to be determined by the local authority.”

The amendment would ensure that starter homes are affordable at locally-determined rates of income.

Amendment 34, in clause 2, page 1, line 15, at end insert—

‘( ) is not to be sold to buy-to-let investors”.

The amendment would exclude “Buy to Let Property ” from the definition of starter home.

Amendment 35, in page 1, line 15, at end insert—

‘( ) is built on under-used or unviable brownfield sites not currently identified for housing on public and private land, as determined by the local authority.”

The amendment would limit starter homes to ‘exception sites’, as previously announced by the Government.

Amendment 37, in page 2, line 10, at end insert—

“(d) lives or works locally, with the definition of local to be defined by the local authority or the Greater London Authority in London.”

The amendment would ensure that a proportion of starter homes are available to local people.

Amendment 38, in page 2, line 22, after “State”, insert

“after consultation with the relevant local authority or local authorities and the Mayor of London.”

The amendment would provide that the price cap can only be amended after consultation with the relevant local authorities and the Mayor of London.

Amendment 39, in page 2, line 25, at end insert—

‘(8A) The restrictions on resales and letting at open market value relating to first time buyer starter homes must be in perpetuity.”

The amendment would require the discount to remain in perpetuity.

Amendment 1, in clause 3, page 2, line 28, after “starter homes” insert

“or alternative affordable home ownership products, such as rent to buy”.

This amendment would ensure that new developments provide a mix of affordable home ownership products for first time buyers, to further widen opportunities for home ownership.

Amendment 110, in page 2, line 28, after “starter homes” insert

“and other types of affordable housing”.

This amendment would ensure that new developments include a range of affordable housing options, to rent and buy.

Amendment 40, in page 2, line 28, at end insert

“except where the local authority considers that providing starter homes would prevent other types of affordable housing being built.”

The amendment would enable local authorities to be able to ask for planning gain measures that provide for a range of affordable homes other than starter homes.

Amendment 41, in clause 4, page 3, line 13, at end insert

“and which has been subject to a full assessment of the need for starter homes in the relevant local authority area.”

The amendment would ensure that priority is not given to the provision of starter homes in a given area before a full assessment of the number of such homes needed has taken place.

Amendment 42, in page 3, line 18, at end insert—

“The regulations may provide that sites can be exempted from the requirement to promote starter homes where a site has a scheme that—

(a) is a “build to rent” scheme;

(b) contains supported housing for younger people, older people, people with special needs and people with disabilities;

(c) contains a homeless hostel;

(d) contains refuge accommodation; or

(e) contains specialist housing.”

The amendment would remove sites from the starter homes requirement where other types of affordable housing has already been planned for.

Amendment 43, in clause 5, page 3, line 31, at end insert

“which must be displayed on the authority’s website and updated annually, contain information on all types of affordable housing, and include information that starter homes remain to be sold at 20% below market value.”

The amendment would require local planning authorities to report on their functions in respect of starter homes, affordable housing more generally, and that starter homes remain to be sold below market value annually and to publish the report.

Amendment 44, in page 3, line 40, at end insert

“and to demonstrate that the land in question is not needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use.”

The amendment would empower the Secretary of State to require data on the extent to which land used for starter homes was not needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use.

Amendment 45, page 4, line 1, leave out clause 6.

The amendment would remove Clause 6 from the Bill.

Amendment 2, in clause 6, page 4, line 4, after “starter homes” insert

“or alternative affordable home ownership products such as rent to buy”.

This amendment would ensure that new developments provide a mix of affordable home ownership products for first time buyers, to further widen opportunities for home ownership.

Amendment 46, in clause 8, page 5, line 36, at end insert “and without unreasonable cost.”

The amendment would prevent local authorities having to bring forward sites that are deemed to be at an unreasonable cost.

[Mrs Miller]

I am sure that new clause 1 will be well worth the wait. I take this opportunity to thank the Clerks of the House for their expert help in drafting the new clause.

The new clause will ensure that the Bill does exactly what the Minister wants it to do. It will ensure that every starter home is top-quality and is inspected and built in accordance with existing house building quality processes and standards, and that the records that are already made at key points in the building process are available to new homeowners in order to increase transparency and drive up the quality of the new homes in which the Government are investing.

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) for his support, and in particular for his diligent chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment. In the APPG, we are working together on a formal inquiry into house-building standards, which involves a detailed evidence-led scrutiny of the problems that need to be dealt with.

[Victoria Borwick (Kensington) (Con)]

Will these homes also be disabled-accessible? I am a passionate believer in the importance of lifetime homes for communities and families, especially in view of debates that we have had and what we have already heard this evening. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that all possible ways of improving disabled accessibility will be considered?

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point, to which I am sure the Minister will respond later. One of the problems is that proposals for the construction of houses which might include disability accessibility are judged by the same group who made the proposals in the first place. There is, at the very least, some conflict of interest in the way in which the process currently works.

Ensuring that enough homes are available is, rightly, a priority for the Government, and I applaud their commitment to helping to ensure that people have the security of owning their own homes. Hundreds of my constituents have already benefited from the Help to Buy scheme. I know that many of them keenly await the roll-out of the right to buy scheme, and will take careful note of anything that the Minister may say about it. Let me, at this point, thank him for his support for the new self-build scheme that was announced in my constituency just before the Christmas break.

The Minister is clearly committed to ensuring that the new starter homes are of top quality. Those are not just warm words; the Minister has taken action. The design panel of which he has spoken at length during the Bill’s earlier stages will play a significant part in ensuring that the plans for starter homes are of the highest quality. My new clause would ensure that the top-quality plans that he rightly endorses are turned into top-quality buildings each and every time, and I hope that he will respond to it positively.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

No one wants to see jerry-built properties; we all want to see high-quality properties being built. However, will my right hon. Friend give some indication of the discussions that she has had with providers of starter homes about the risk that the building of extremely high-quality homes will lead to a diminution in the overall number of starter homes, and to a reduction in what might be called the conventional affordable supply that is intended to meet the needs specified in section 106?

[Mrs Miller]

My right hon. Friend is right to suggest that there could be a trade-off in terms of quantity and quality, but I do not think that that should be used to disguise the need to ensure that every single house that is built reaches the standards that are already in place. My new clause does not ask for higher standards; it simply asks for the standards that are already in place to be applied uniformly to every house that is built. It is not a question of creating new standards; it is simply a question of applying the standards that already exist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

On the point about restriction of choice and the rise of the big unit developers, does my right hon. Friend feel this might explain why we are not getting all the builds we need in the timely way we need, and that it may well not be in the interests of the big unit developers to build fast enough to stop the prices rising?

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that point, and I was very pleased to see the Minister, and I think the Prime Minister as well, underlining the importance of encouraging more small house builders to be involved, particularly in self-build schemes where they can increase the supply of housing far faster than some of the national builders.

Good building plans are not enough; there needs to be a watertight process to ensure that at each stage every home is built to standard. Few who buy one of the 200,000 new starter homes that the Minister is talking about today will be expert house builders, plumbers or electricians, and by definition none will have purchased a house before. If these people were buying a second-hand house—one that somebody else had lived in before—most would be relying on the professional services of a surveyor. They would therefore be relying on a professional who would give their potential new home a structural health check before the sale was completed.

For the most part, those buying new starter homes will not have that structural health check because it is a new house, a glossy, shiny, perfect new show home that the salespeople are promising them. They therefore think, “Surely there’s no need for a quality check. There are quality checks built into the processes, aren’t there? There are building regulations set out in law, building control performance standards, independent approved inspectors whose only reason to be is to safeguard quality—in essence to safeguard the buyer in this imperfect market.” Yet those who experience problems with new homes quickly discover that too many of those quality checks are not as watertight as they might at first appear. Independent oversight of the building process may not be working in practice as the rules and regulations might imply.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has given way, first because it is a pleasure to hear her speak. Every moment she speaks is a moment we do not have to hear from the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), whom so many of us in the Committee heard droning on like an out-of-tune bagpipe for hours on end. Just by standing and speaking, my right hon. Friend is preventing the House from having to listen to him again, so I thank her for that.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the experience of many constituency MPs as they go about their work and listen to constituency complaints is that the existing process through the National House Building Council does not always provide the reassurance that people are entitled to expect? While it might a bit strong to say that the NHBC is the lackey of the large house builders, it is preciously close to being that.

[Mrs Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and pay tribute to him for the work he has done in helping more of my constituents have the opportunity to build their own homes. I did not have the pleasure of sitting across from the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), although I am sure we will hear his dulcet tones later.

Many people who buy a new home will have problems with the house they purchase; they will have a snagging list—chipped paint, ill-fitting doors and so on. I do not deny the importance of getting such matters resolved, and the Minister may well want to address some of the difficulties people can experience in getting those small-scale problems fixed, but, as valid as those concerns are, that is not the point of this amendment. New clause 1 would ensure that every home was checked for significant defects while it was being built and at the end of the building process.

Over recent months, I have received evidence from people up and down the country who have purchased new properties with significant defects from major house builders. Some of those properties have damp-proof courses that are below ground level; some have been built off their foundations; and some have roofs sitting on walls that are not structural. There are also reports of inadequate fire insulation and an absence of cavity-wall or loft insulation. Those are real-life examples of defects in houses that are subject to the current regime. Every one of those building errors should have been picked up during the construction of the house, as part of the building control process. That process exists to ensure that houses are built properly. The approved inspector is responsible for building control performance standards and is, to all intents and purposes, the professional who acts as the eyes and ears of the future buyer.

As matters stand, however, there is no legal requirement for even one visit to be made to a new-build home during the build in order physically to check the building standards. On a new estate, a random selection of houses might be monitored and the results extrapolated as though every house were the same. This is called a risk-based approach, but in reality it feels like a lottery. The fact is that every house could be different. The subsoil across a 300-house estate can change dramatically, for example, and changes in the weather throughout the build can significantly affect materials and the way they work. The current risk based-approach creates an unnecessary lottery for the home buyer, rather than certainty. There is a calculated risk, which is not something that most buyers appreciate, and not something that most buyers would expect to accompany the purchase of a £200,000 or £300,000 house.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that people should get a survey done before buying a new-build house?

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. This is something that we discussed in the evidence sessions held by the all-party parliamentary group on excellence in the built environment. Some of my constituents have indeed been forced to get surveys done as a result of the problems they have experienced after purchasing new houses. That might be the route that the Minister would favour, but I would favour getting it right first time and ensuring that we have a system of compliance that is overseen effectively.

The present guidance is comprehensive, and I believe that it is among the best in the world. It is pretty exhaustive, but it is just that: guidance. The Minister’s Department makes it clear that it is advisable to make four to six visits, even to low-risk new-build houses, but that is not a requirement. New clause 1 would provide certainty that every home would be visited at key points in the construction process. The evidence indicates that building control does not always work as the Government intended it to. Buyers are under the impression that their new home has been physically inspected at each key stage and on completion by a building control inspector, but that is not necessarily the case. On a big estate of several hundred houses, only a handful might be checked. The current risk-based approach adopted by many house builders means that hundreds of houses could have no checks at all, and the current skills shortfall has led to heartache for many new homeowners.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend’s new clause seems to deal only with starter homes. She is making a powerful case for the protection of all those who wish to buy a new home, so the new clause should surely apply to all new homes and not just to starter homes.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but I am sure that I would incur the wrath of Madam Deputy Speaker if the new clause did not deal with starter homes, as it needs to be read in the context of the Bill. I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point, however, because this is a problem for every new home owner.

As I said, the shortfall of skilled tradesmen and women means that too many new homeowners are experiencing the problems that I have set out, with inadequate work not apparent for months or even years, and not caught at a time when things could be put right. Some more unscrupulous builders could even play the system for short-term gain, using substandard contractors, perhaps poorly supervised, knowing that problems would not reveal themselves until after their sales targets for the year are reached, or indeed their liability ends and the new house build 10-year warranty kicks in and they are long gone.

The new clause would remove perverse incentives and this apparent quality control lottery, and would increase consistency and transparency in the house building process. It would simply enforce the existing regime for all new homes, rather than some. It would ensure that every new starter home was checked for correct construction. I am not talking about a higher standard or a new standard, but about the same standard for every house, thus removing the lottery that is currently in place. The new clause would simply put building control performance standards on a statutory basis and require the records already kept to be made available to the new buyer, so that they could satisfy themselves that proper checks had been made.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

In the new regulatory regime that my right hon. Friend seeks to advocate, whom does she envisage funding, managing and employing this new army of new-build inspectors? Local authorities up and down the country are seeing their budgets under pressure, so this is not going to come from that side of the equation.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is right, which is why independent approved inspectors were set up when they were, to take pressure off local authorities. The problem we have seen is that because we are not working within a defined statutory scheme, those approved inspectors can vary the way in which they work. Indeed, some could argue that there are pressures on approved inspectors to come in at a lower price or to offer to do fewer inspections because it would cost the house builders less. What I am advocating here is a level playing field where all approved inspectors would be acting in the same way, and this is firmly something that would be a cost covered by the house builders. After all, we are dealing with properties worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and we would want to make sure that they were going to last for the long term and not simply be subject to inappropriate and inadequate quality checks.

I urge the Minister, on behalf of the homeowners from many different constituencies around the country who have contacted me, to listen to the arguments being made today and to respond positively to what is being suggested. With a nationwide shortage of skilled tradespeople, ever-growing demand for housing and home builders looking to keep costs low, buyers need protection afforded by the building control performance standards regime, and the work of approved inspectors is more important than ever before.

As I have just said, we need to remove the pressure that could exist on approved inspectors to reduce the number of inspections that are made in order to cut costs. We need a robust system to safeguard the quality of what is being built, particularly given the taxpayer investment in schemes such as the starter home initiative. Of course these concerns go far wider than starter homes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned in his intervention. I hope that the Government will look to further extend the requirements in this new clause to all new-build homes. I have spoken to the Minister about this issue in recent months and I know that he has a clear understanding of the problem. I look forward to his response and an indication as to whether the objectives set out in new clause 1 could be achieved for all new builds, perhaps through further regulations. With that, I shall draw my comments to a close.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 2, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). It would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State and local authorities to secure and promote the resilience of housing and other developments, giving consideration to the impact that new developments will have on resources and biodiversity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

Getting rid of the current house building quality lottery is absolutely non-negotiable, but I can hear that the Minister has listened to the argument and am delighted with his announcement that he will be looking at ways in which those quality records can be made available to house buyers, so that they can see at first hand exactly how their house has been built. That is real progress and with that, although I shall be watching carefully for the details of what he is proposing, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2

What is a starter home?

Amendment proposed: 39, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

‘(8A) The restrictions on resales and letting at open market value relating to first time buyer starter homes must be in perpetuity.”—(Dr Blackman-Woods.)

The amendment would require the discount to remain in perpetuity.

Question put, That the amendment be made.