Housing

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that England faces a housing crisis; further notes with concern that housing starts, including for affordable housing, are down, and that homelessness and rough sleeping have increased under this Government; further notes that the collapse in house building and contraction in construction are a major cause of the double-dip recession; believes that the Government needs to take urgent action to get the economy and house building going again; and calls on the Government to introduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund the building of 25,000 additional affordable homes, to bring forward infrastructure investment, including for housing, and to cut VAT on home improvements, repairs and maintenance to five per cent for one year to help homeowners and create jobs.

Let me start by welcoming the new Housing Minister, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), to his post. It is a really important job, and I am sure he will bring to it much-needed skill and insight, and I sincerely hope he will also bring a new sense of understanding and urgency. My experience from dealing with the hon. Gentleman is that he is a modest man, unlike his predecessor, who gave hubris a bad name.

As the hon. Gentleman is new to his post, it might be helpful if I set out why we are having this debate. Today, the country is gripped by the biggest housing crisis in a generation and the longest double-dip recession since the second world war. Since the spending review, our economy has shrunk by 0.6%. As a result of this Government’s twin failure on economic and housing policy, the reality is that Britain is one of just two G20 countries in a double-dip. The reality is also that this is a recession and a housing crisis made in Downing street—and is it any wonder, as the Chancellor has multiple jobs and yesterday’s Housing Minister multiple identities, and both authored worthless plans on how to bounce back from recession?

The facts are stark: house building is down, homelessness is up, private rents have hit record highs, and we have a mortgage market in which people struggle to get mortgages. The latest Government figures tell us that fewer than 100,000 homes were started in the 12 months to June, which is a 10% decrease on the previous 12 months and amounts to fewer than half the 230,000 new households being formed every year.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman care to tell us how many new houses were started in 2009?

[Jack Dromey]

As I will make clear later, I am prepared to defend our record at any time, but let me just give a few indications of our record: 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders, and over half a million new affordable homes. Also, we brought up to standard more than 1.5 million homes that were in need of decent homes investment, putting right the backlog left by the previous Government, and in 2007-08, the year before the bankers’ crash, we achieved the highest start point for new-builds in Britain at any time in the last 30 years, with more than 200,000 homes being built. When the crash came, our response was very different from what happened back in the dark days of the 1980s. Did we stand back and wring our hands? No we did not. We acted to keep people in their homes. Through Kickstart and other programmes, we took action, resulting in 110,000 homes built, 160,000 jobs safeguarded and 3,000 apprenticeships. So I will defend our record at any time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is welcome that the new Minister for Housing has taken that position. Perhaps he will follow that through in government.

Investment in the private rented sector should be encouraged. Many of the measures in the Montague report—for instance, those on the use of public land, on attracting investment and on standards in the private rented sector—are welcome. However, we strongly oppose the proposal to further water down the affordable housing requirements that councils place on developers. Those requirements enable communities and local authorities to insist on affordable homes in mixed communities. Developers simply should not be allowed to build for the well-off only.

The Government should cut VAT on home improvements, repairs and maintenance to 5% to help home owners and small businesses, and to create jobs in construction and building supplies, from glass and bricks to cement. They should also implement a one-year national insurance tax break for every small firm, including building firms, that takes on extra workers.

The Government have continued with Labour’s drive to free up public land for house building, but they must go further. Innovative deals are being done, but we believe that it is appropriate for the Government to consider schemes to provide public land to housing associations and other developers free at the point of use, with payback over time. Such schemes would overcome the problem of the initial cost of land and get affordable house building going.

I referred earlier to the way in which the Government tore up the planning system. They are now returning to fundamental reform of the planning system. It was ludicrous to blame the planning system before they reformed it. It is laughable to blame it afterwards. The Government cannot seem to make up their mind. The Chancellor said on “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday that the city of Cambridge was a good example of how the new planning framework that they introduced earlier in the year is working. Later, on “The World This Weekend” the Business Secretary used the same example to suggest that house building is being held back by the current rules. We warned of chaos and confusion on planning—that seems to have spread to the Government.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Gentleman persists in criticising the national planning policy framework. If it is not working, how does he account for the 13% increase in housing approvals over the past six months, compared with the previous six months?

[Jack Dromey]

I will come on to those interesting statistics. Under the planning system that the Government inherited, applications were overwhelmingly granted speedily and there was development land for in excess of 300,000 homes. The most recent data from the month following the NPPF’s introduction show that planning approvals fell by 37%.

The fact that homes are not being built is not the fault of the planning system. The principal problem is the failed economic and housing policies of the Government. To get Britain building again, we need to address the root cause of that failure—their failed economic plan, which has caused a lack of liquidity in the finance market, a shortage of mortgages for struggling first-time buyers, and the biggest squeeze on living standards in a generation.

Whether it is the economy or house building, the Government will always find somebody else to blame. The Chancellor blames the weather, weddings and bank holidays, and the last Housing Minister blamed the planning system and affordable housing. The truth is that the reason for the collapse in house building, the contraction in the construction industry and the double-dip recession is a failed deficit reduction plan that cut too fast.

We urge action in the motion that we have tabled. The Government’s failures in respect of housing are not just those of policy, gross though those are, but fundamental failures of leadership on an issue that is vital for the future of our country. If the Government really meant what they said about getting Britain building, they would have put housing at centre stage in their economic recovery plan and invested in it. They would have invested to build the homes that millions of families desperately need and to support those struggling to pay rent in the private rented sector. They would have invested in the future of our young people, helping them to achieve their dream of home ownership. They should be leading a real revolution in housing, building the foundations for Britain’s recovery. That is why we ask the House to vote today for real action to build Britain out of recession.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

After listening to the measures outlined by the new Minister at the Dispatch Box, no one could accuse the Government of being negligent in their approach to house building. That contrasts with the record of the previous Government. The number that was not on the tip of the shadow Minister’s tongue when I intervened earlier is 78,340, which is the figure for new houses started in the last full year of the previous Government. It was given to the House by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell). The shadow Minister told us that he is happy to support the record of the Labour Government, but that number pales into insignificance when we consider the fact that in 2011, the first full year of the coalition Government, 98,250 houses were started—a rise of 25%. Those figures make the motion ridiculous as it claims that housing starts are down.

We all agree, however, that we need to build more houses. Statistics from the industry analysts Glenigan have been published today in The Daily Telegraph, under the headline “2,000 new building projects approved every month since planning shake-up”. The article goes on to detail how the proportion of planning applications that are successful has increased by 8% since the introduction of the new national planning policy framework, from 73% in November 2011 to 81% in March 2012, leading to more consents in total, from 75,000 to 85,000. That is 10,000 more consents, or 13% more approvals.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that 10,000 additional consents could mean an awful lot more properties, because some consents will be for many dozens, if not hundreds, of properties?

[Mark Pawsey]

Absolutely. The national planning policy framework is starting to bear fruit, so it was disappointing to hear Labour Members criticise the changes.

Planning delays have been stifling house building. I want to focus on planning guidance and the delays that planning applications consultees continue to be able to cause in the development process. The Government’s consultation paper on statutory consultees drew attention to 27 external bodies. It stated:

“This can mean authorities are reluctant to determine applications without input from these key bodies.”

That is where planning delays come in. I refer to my own constituency of Rugby where, I am proud to say, we have a very positive attitude to housing development and recognise the need to grow to provide accommodation for new households. Work has just started on the Gateway site, which will provide 1,300 new homes.

In addition, over a period of time landowners have been working on proposals for a major house building site that will generate 6,200 homes—the former BT mast site. It is just the kind of development that the Government recognise as necessary to provide housing and, as Members across the House have indicated, move the economy forward. So what is the problem at the mast site? Even though the development complies with the local core strategy and the land was previously developed, the proposals are being slowed down, in my view needlessly, by stakeholder agencies such as Natural England and English Heritage, which are concerned about their own single issues, which I believe are being given disproportionate weight.

In a second case, a constituent has applied to develop a site adjacent to a pond. As a result, a full newt survey has been requested before development can proceed, even though it is known that the habitat does not and cannot support newts. Again, that is holding up development. Even post-NPPF, external bodies have the powers to frustrate development. The NPPF was a good start, but there is still much more to do, and the Government recognise that in the new economy Bill, which will focus on reducing the time allowed for repeals and reviews, among other things, and help both development and the economy.

The substantive motion states that

“the Government needs to take urgent action to get the economy and house building going again”.

They have and they are. I congratulate the previous Housing Minister on all his hard work in supporting the housing industry and look forward to the new Minister taking the Government’s agenda forward. Knowing his previous ministerial role on business, I have every confidence that the Government’s housing strategy is in safe hands.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many Conservative local authorities, such as Medway council in my constituency, are building far in excess of their affordable housing targets, which clearly shows that there is a massive increase in housing development in certain parts of the country?

[Mark Pawsey]

I happily agree with my hon. Friend. It is great that there are authorities that are willing to deliver houses, but they remain frustrated by the issue of consultees. I very much hope that the Government and the Minister will pay particularly close attention to the issue in the coming months.