Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Richard Bacon and Helen Hayes

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). I agreed with some of the things that she said, and certainly with the emphasis that she placed on infrastructure and the need to get it right. We have a strange system in which we bring forward development as if it is a bad thing, and put in facilities—she mentioned green spaces, but there are many other things that communities want, such as health facilities and primary schools—afterwards to mitigate the “bad effects” of development. However, recognising that the words “cities” and “civic” are cognate with “civilisation”, we should be bringing forward holistic schemes that create good places in the first instance.

I disagreed with the hon. Lady, though, when she nearly made it sound as though the planning system would be almost as perfect a work of art as any rendered by Leonardo da Vinci were it not for one thing—the way that not enough taxpayers’ money was being hosed over the planning departments of this country. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) said something similar. It seems to me that the problems are rather more fundamental.

I welcome the Bill, mainly because it gives people a local voice. I agree with all the views expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin); he is no longer here, so I shall not dwell on this, but I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is in his place. He is a great tribune of his constituents and is also the vice-chairman of the all-party group on self-build, custom and community house building and place-making, which has a longer name than any other all-party group as it is a better and more important all-party group than any other, with the possible exception of the all-party beer group. It recognises, as does the hon. Gentleman, that the really important thing about getting the voice right is that it should be the voice of the people who are going to live in the dwellings.

The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said that the local planning system should embrace every single house, and talked about the colour of bricks as if it were a good thing that local councillors were deciding the colour of bricks. I had a conversation recently with a local house builder who had a plan for a very modern house. Naturally, he wanted a render that was appropriate for that. It was bright white. He had a conversation with his local planning officer—I am not making this up—who said, “No, no. It’s too white. It’s too stark. You shouldn’t do that,” so he asked the planning officer to look at the relevant page on the website and choose the colour. She was a little nonplussed by this, but the house builder said, “You don’t want the one that I want, so why don’t you choose one and save a lot of time?” Eventually she chose a colour, which he said he would change in due course if he did not like it. It ought not to be necessary to have such a conversation. I have met house builders who have had seven or eight choices of gutter colour refused.

[Helen Hayes]

In each of our constituencies, we can think of examples of developments that, because of poor finishing and poor-quality choices of building materials, blight their communities for decades. It is not a trivial point that I am making. Once something is built, it affects that community for many, many years to come. These things are important.

[Mr Bacon]

I agree that they are important. The best people to choose the quality of the materials, and to make sure that they are of the highest possible standard, are the people who will live in those dwellings, not somebody else working to a profit margin, which is why more self-build and custom house building will result in higher quality.

I said earlier that I agreed with the hon. Lady on the subject of the local voice. I support the Bill because we need more local voice. The fundamental problem we face is that when people oppose development, they do so not because they want to see their family in trouble or not having somewhere to live. I have yet to meet the woman who wants her daughter or granddaughter to live in a ditch, and I do not think I am going to meet that person. They oppose development because they feel that local people have no say—no voice—in what gets built, where it is built, what it looks like or who has the first chance to live there. If we change that, we change the conversation completely.

Another reason why self-build and custom house building driven by customers is so important is that instead of opposition, it is met with local acceptance. I know that the chairs of many parish councils want to see dwellings in their local areas designed by local people for local people, to help local people. Of course, that also has the benefit of helping local house builders—local small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than large combines such as Persimmon, which are interested only in the bonus pool, which will result in 150 top managers getting a £600 million bonus pot, if they do reasonably well; it will be larger than that if they do very well. That business, like the banks, has been propped up by huge amounts—many billions of pounds—of taxpayers’ money through Help to Buy and various other schemes. I would rather see that money going into higher-quality materials, better thermal performance and bigger spaces.

The fundamental question, which we have not been very good at answering so far, is why we have a shortage. People give different answers. We have heard about the lack of planning resource, although we have thousands of unbuilt extant planning permissions, so the reason can hardly be planning by itself. We often hear that there is a lack of land. Only 1.2% of the land area of this country is taken up with houses. The Ministry of Defence alone has 2% of the land area of the UK. There are more golf courses in Surrey than there are houses. The problem is not planning per se; it is a lack of accessible land, a lack of financeable propositions, rather than a lack of finance, and a planning model that is broken.

If we want to correct that, we need to put customers at the heart of that model—people who will live in those dwellings. The way to do that is to separate the business of placemaking—all the things that I am sure the hon. Lady would agree with: creating places that are well served, well designed, well run, well governed and well connected—from the business of building houses on infrastructure that is already in place, with well serviced plots that have all the things that we would expect, including fibre to the premises, water, gas and so on, provided by one of the many hundreds of suppliers. There is a growing market of people out there who are willing to supply the house that people want, rather than what a very small number of large companies are telling people that they want. We need to put the customer at the centre, as in all other successful markets. That is the way that we will solve the housing crisis.

Housing and Planning Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Richard Bacon and Helen Hayes

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

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

Some of the best dwellings in the country are the old estates in central London, such as the Cadogan estate and the Belgravia estate. One thing that they have in common is that they are dense and tall. The hon. Lady said “too tall”. Who is to say what is too tall?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am not sure he was listening to my comments. I was saying that many of us, as elected representatives, have been asked to support communities in objecting to applications involving buildings considered by the community to be too tall. The point I am making is that if the content of a permission in principle contains height parameters, it will reduce the scope for objections on those grounds, because the matter has already been resolved. Communities can be secure in the knowledge that the content on height has been agreed. That is the point that I was making.

Similar grounds for objection include concern that an application will leave the area too built-up without adequate open space, or that there will be too much pressure on schools or GP practices as a consequence of development. A minimum level of detail contained within a permission in principle, which could be stated within the local plan or within the listing on the brownfield register, or determined by the local authority where an individual applicant comes forward, will be helpful in giving a genuine level of certainty to developers and a genuine level of comfort to communities.

Housing and Planning Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Richard Bacon and Helen Hayes

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes]

Thank you, Mr Gray. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I want to speak to this group of amendments because they cover and address many concerns that have been raised with me by three organisations: Southwark Council, Lambeth Council and the Southwark Group of Tenants Organisations, which represents all of the tenants and residents associations in the London Borough of Southwark. Between them, those organisations have responsibility for and engagement with huge numbers of social tenants. The points that they have to make are worth the Committee hearing and considering.

The organisations have expressed concerns to me about the impact of the pay-to-stay clauses on the erosion of mixed communities, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham. In boroughs such as Lambeth and Southwark—and, indeed, in my constituency within those boroughs—some very wealthy communities live cheek by jowl with housing estates. Critical to the success and wellbeing of those communities is the mix that exists at a micro-level in and among our estates.

When I meet some of my most successful, thriving tenants and residents associations, I find that long-term, elderly tenants are supported by newer, younger tenants and homeowners. Hardworking people with professional skills support much more vulnerable tenants who need help and need their neighbours to look out for them. I am concerned that the clause will have a detrimental effect on the mix, which keeps our communities healthy. I want all my communities, irrespective of tenure, to be successful. Having a diverse mix is critical.

I have deep concerns that pay to stay is a tax on aspiration, which will prevent people from taking additional hours at work, or from seeking promotion or a pay rise for fear of facing increased rents or losing their home. It is also a tax on aspiration to the extent that people who manage to increase their level of pay will be prevented from saving for a deposit to achieve their aspirations of home ownership.

[Mr Bacon]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that an innovative housing association might consider combining pay to stay with an eventual translation of increased rents over a period of time into equity that becomes a deposit, so that a tenant who has been in the same dwelling for a long time can eventually become the owner?

[Helen Hayes]

That brings me to my next point. As a consequence of pay to stay, some tenants might feel under pressure to consider home ownership when their financial circumstances mean that that is not a sustainable option for them to undertake in the long term.

In my nearly six years as a local councillor, I have seen many examples of tenants who have bought—either under right to buy or more often the second purchases of original right-to-buy properties—at very high levels of mortgage and are then affected by major works bills. That affects the viability of their home ownership and puts them under threat of losing their home.

Many people aspire to home ownership as the right thing to do but we must ensure that it is sustainable.

[Mr Bacon]

Does the hon. Lady not understand that, in the world that is eventually coming, innovative housing associations will offer a menu to tenants? They could offer them a chance to buy, and for tenants who find it is too much when they have bought, they could offer on a slide rule to go back into tenancy. It is perfectly possible to imagine an innovative housing association, an independent body, coming up with such a formula.

[Helen Hayes]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a menu of options is a good thing. However, the clause will be introduced immediately while the rest of the social housing sector is still gearing up. I am concerned about the immediate impacts of the legislation, in a world where the menu of options he described is not widely available and accessible to the majority of tenants.

[Mr Bacon]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Hayes]

In the interests of making progress, I prefer not to give way again. I am concerned that, by forcing some tenants into home ownership that may not be sustainable for the long term, the Bill will cause more hardship.

Research undertaken by Savills indicates that 60% of households that cross the proposed pay-to-stay threshold will neither be able to pay market rent nor take advantage of right to buy. They will nevertheless be affected by increased rent, which will stop them from saving and may put them at risk of losing their home.

On a final brief point: it is incumbent on the Government to apply a level of consistency as to who they regard as high earners. I argue that there is a fundamental lack of logic—potentially a fundamental hypocrisy—in designating someone as a high earner in one piece of legislation when they are not recognised as such by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I ask the Government to consider that point and respond to it.

Housing and Planning Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Richard Bacon and Helen Hayes

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Hayes]

I hope that the Minister will listen to the evidence from Westminster City Council on this, which illustrates that the point I am making applies across the whole of London.

[Mr Bacon]

During our oral evidence session, I asked Councillor Philippa Roe whether Westminster City Council was looking at mutual housing co-operatives. She was the most enthusiastic of our witnesses in saying yes. The hon. Lady asked what is in the Bill for people such as those she mentioned, with whom we would all sympathise. One good answer to her question is chapter 2, which allows

“individuals… associations of individuals, or… persons working with or for individuals”

to get together and bring forward their own projects. Lambeth Council has a huge Labour landslide majority. There is nothing to stop that council buying land, bringing forward projects and promoting, establishing and growing mutual housing co-operatives for people such as her constituents. The council has not done that but there is nothing to stop it.

[Helen Hayes]

I will put to Simret and Petros the idea that, in addition to working very hard to provide for their family, they might seek to bring forward their own project and build their own home. Lambeth Council has one of the biggest commitments to building new social housing, including through housing co-operatives, of any council in the country.

[Mr Bacon]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Hayes]

I will not because I want to make progress, in the interests of allowing other Members to speak. The amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting seeks to ensure that homes lost to the rental sector under the right to buy and forced sales are replaced one for one, like for like, within the local area. I note that the Minister has been rather preoccupied with his emails while I have been telling the story of Simret, Petros and their children, but I hope that when he responds he will tell me that—

[Helen Hayes]

I was concluding my remarks. I hope that the Minister will have a response for my constituents when he responds to the amendment.

[Mr Bacon]

I would like a brief chance to respond to the amendment as well. The constituents whom the hon. Lady described would attract all our sympathy. I only say to her that if it is possible to do it in Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm and many other major cities around the world, it is possible to do it in London as well.