Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I agree completely with the hon. Gentleman, but I would go a step further. I do not think that the Government are making a special case for London; I think that the combined effect of the Chancellor’s autumn statement and this Bill shows that the Government have it in for London.

As I have said, I visited Camden today, where the average cost of a property to rent is 73% of the average income there. So much for the Conservative mayoral candidate being in touch with Londoners. We also discovered last week that the Government are watering down the definition of what is affordable to include starter homes that cost 17 times the average British salary. By comparison, my amendment 89 would guarantee a new home for social rent to replace one that has been sold.

In short, amendment 112 is, to quote once more the hon. Member for Richmond Park, “elastic and misleading”. My amendment is clear and firm. It meets the tests that Londoners expect and I urge Members, especially anyone who claims to understand the housing crisis in London and who wants to help fix it, to ignore the overblown claims about amendment 112 and instead support my amendment 89.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I will be brief, because we do not have a lot of time. Clearly, we are discussing a national issue and concern, but there can be no doubt that housing is the No. 1 issue for London. Last year, prices rose by about 10% on average. The average price for a first-time buyer in London is now more than £400,000. No one can argue that Londoners today are not being priced out of their own city. It is no longer just a social problem—that point has already been made in relation to another city—because it jeopardises London’s economy as well.

The bottom line is that we need to build more and we need to build for people across the entire income spectrum. It is no good taking a polarised approach with a zero-subsidy option on the one hand and social housing on the other. We need to ensure that the market can accommodate young professionals, key workers and the like—people who perhaps do not qualify for social housing.

I was pleased with the Government’s interventions last week, with an emphasis on shared ownership, which will work around the country and have a particular impact in London. There is also going to be a London version of Help to Buy, which has been a very successful scheme nationally, but less successful in London, because we live in a different world here. The prices are so out of kilter with the rest of the country that that bespoke offer will have an impact. Finally, we have the two-for-one amendment under discussion.

I have a few questions for my hon. Friend the Minister. Amendment 112 requires that two new affordable homes be built for every single high-value council home sold as a consequence of the extension of the right to buy. That is based on my amendment, as has been acknowledged, and I sincerely thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his diligence in making it work.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

I will not give way, because we all have very little time. I will perhaps give way later.

As my hon. Friend will no doubt acknowledge when he speaks later, the gap between supply and demand remains very wide, and without radical action it will grow wider still, further pricing Londoners out of their own city. Few people doubt that London is the greatest city on earth—it is why so many people want to come here—but that success, much of it down to his great work, is compounding—

[Sadiq Khan]

rose—

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[Zac Goldsmith]

I feel obliged to take an intervention from the right hon. Gentleman.

[Sadiq Khan]

Does the hon. Gentleman think the Mayor has made any errors on housing over the last seven years?

[Zac Goldsmith]

He has overseen the building of 100,000 affordable homes, which is 25,000 more than his predecessor. That is his record. What is more, he has laid the groundwork for a much more ambitious project, as I shall briefly explain later.

As a result of London’s success, our population is expected to grow by 1.5 million over the next 15 years—that is 1.5 million people who will need homes in this city. Already, the average first-time home costs £412,000, which is 12 times the average inner-London wage. Closing the gap between supply and demand, therefore, is the absolute priority, but we know we can do it. We have the tools: the planning system, the finance and the land. There are vast swathes of public sector brownfield land that we can unlock. Transport for London alone owns the equivalent of 16 Hyde parks. We will have to unlock that land to build the homes Londoners need. We also have an opportunity to redevelop existing sites—for example, 1950s estates that are at the end of their lives but for which the opportunities are vast, as long as we get the consent of the residents.

The Bill is just part of the story, and no one here pretends that it is the solution to London’s housing crisis, but it will give many people a chance to own their own home. It will give 440,000 housing association tenants in London the right to buy. One in 10 London families will have the right to purchase their home at a discount funded through the sale of high-value council homes.

So, in principle, I strongly support the Bill. I stood, as did all my hon. Friends, on a manifesto that committed us to help introduce it. There is no doubt, however—I believe that the Government Front-Bench team accept this—that the Bill needs amending. Council homes in London are far more valuable than they are elsewhere, and without a change we will see a disproportionate flow of resources out of London. I want to amend the Bill to guarantee that it works for Londoners.

We should extend the right to buy, but at the same time we must gain a significant number of low-cost homes, which we know is possible. The amendment that I intend to table after today’s debate will ask for a binding guarantee that London will see a net gain in affordable housing as a consequence of this policy—a guarantee that London will see, in addition to the replaced housing association homes, at least two low-cost homes built for every single high-value home sold. That is the intent behind the amendment, and I believe it will gain the support of every single Back-Bench Conservative colleague representing a London constituency. I strongly urge the Government to work with us to help us deliver the commitments we need.

As well as pressing for this binding commitment, I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for securing a voluntary deal with the housing associations. Right to buy will channel a significant amount of cash into London’s housing associations. Indeed, Standard & Poor’s has said that its credit ratings are likely to improve.

Last week, I wrote to David Montague, chief executive of g15, which represents London’s largest associations. I asked him how we can work together to turn that cash into new low-cost homes. It is very clear from his response that g15 is well up for that challenge. In a note to me last Friday, it has committed to more than doubling its investment programme, as long as the next Mayor works with the current Government and ensures that the brownfield land I mentioned earlier is freed up. If I am successful in the election for Mayor in May, I absolutely make that commitment to do so, working on the legacy of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

If we get this right, London will see a significant net gain in affordable homes from this policy, with two low-cost homes built for every one high-value council house sold, plus a commitment from London’s housing associations to more than replace every home sold under right to buy. That is a deal that even the Opposition could support, if they could just briefly resist the temptation to wave flags during this debate.

I am conscious of the time limits, so I shall be brief on the further measures contained in the Bill. I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to starter homes, which will no doubt help a lot of people. It needs to work for Londoners, however, and a 20% discount on a £450,000 home in London is still out of reach for many people. The bottom line is that we are going to have to use every single available lever to deliver affordable homes at all incomes.

Finally, the aspiration of homeownership must not blind us to the difficulties of the millions of people who are renting, so I warmly welcome plans to crack down on rogue landlords. This will complement the current Mayor’s London rental standards, and is yet another example of a Conservative Government working with a Conservative Mayor and delivering for Londoners.

London Black Cabs

Debate between Sadiq Khan and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith]

I agree with my right hon. Friend up to a point; I will come to that shortly, but I do not think it will be enough. Deregulating the black cabs to put them on a genuinely level playing field with Uber and the like would logically mean the end of the black cab. That is the decision we need to make, but it is not one I would be happy with.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate; if the polls are right, I suspect this will be the first of many debates he and I will be having between now and May. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) referred to technological innovation with regard to Uber. Rather than deregulating the black cab in a race to the bottom, should there not be innovation in regulation for private hire vehicles, and Uber in particular, to make sure that there is a level playing field?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I will come on to the steps we need to take as a minimum to maintain the two-tier system and encourage innovation.

I will finish my point about the lack of free market for black cabs. I mentioned some of the specifications and the hoops the black cab drivers have to jump through, but that is not the only factor. We all know about the knowledge, a gruelling exercise that takes on average 50 months—between two and five years—to study. It has a failure rate of 80% and is done entirely at the driver’s expense. Black cabs also have to be wheelchair accessible. London is the only major city in the world that requires that. Given that around 1.2 million Londoners have some form of disability, that requirement is a good thing, but it adds enormously to costs.

Some have suggested that we simply remove the regulations and let the drivers fight it out, but on the whole the regulations have worked for London, and removing them effectively means losing the black cab altogether. There was a very good debate on the Floor of the House not long ago on this very issue. In what I thought was a magnificent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said:

“London cannot have it both ways. It can try, but it will end in tears.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 1054.]

He is right. My starting point is that London would be poorer without black cabs and we should ensure that they have a future.

The question is how we do that. Partly it is a question of helping black cabs to compete, which means looking at unnecessary regulations: turning circle technology, for example, is probably not necessary and adds an enormous cost to the car. I know that TfL is keen to build more taxi ranks. I believe that a third of all taxi journeys in London start at the taxi rank and there is a strong case to be made for rolling ranks out all over London, not least to help deal with congestion. We should also help black cabs to switch to contactless payment systems. That is what consumers expect—83% of passengers polled recently want to be able to pay by card—but only half of London’s cabs currently take card payments. There is a case for subsidising that process. If we measure the cost of that subsidy against the costs imposed on black cabs through regulation, it would be a fairly small piece of the equation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zac Goldsmith]

I absolutely do not want to deny people the choice they clearly want and need in London. There is therefore no question of banning Uber, but there is a need for more clarity in the regulatory system. That is the point I will be making shortly, and I hope my right hon. Friend will intervene as I continue.

I am sceptical of the five-minute rule proposal, but I hope the Government will commit to working with TfL to urgently define what “ply for hire” actually means. For the black cabs, their customers and London generally, that cannot remain the grey area it is today.

More broadly, the Government need to address the issue of the sheer number of cabs in London, which the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) mentioned. In August, there were a staggering 86,500 minicab drivers in London—a 46% increase in just five years. That number grows by more than 1,000 every month, with obvious congestion and air quality implications. That needs to be addressed, and we need to take a view on the private hire vehicle trade’s carrying capacity in London.

While few people want to see the end of Uber—I absolutely do not want to, because Uber does innovate and provide choice—there is no doubt that standards need to be raised. That view was shared by the overwhelming majority of respondents to a YouGov poll the other day, 62% of whom said they would like a higher standard applied to private hire vehicles and to Uber in particular.

For instance, the Government should, in my view, require all minicab companies to take out fleet-wide insurance policies to guarantee consumer safety. That does not seem an unreasonable request, and TfL has confirmed to me that it regularly repeat-catches uninsured drivers. Drivers should have a basic geographical knowledge—not the knowledge, because that would be unrealistic, but a basic grasp of London. They should also be required to have at least a basic command of the English language. TfL is looking closely at that, too, and we will hear in the next few weeks where it has got with that.

Uber fares are generally low, but in times of need—as we saw during the recent tube strikes—those prices escalate out of all proportion. In some cases, there was a 300% increase. What, if anything, do the Government believe should be put in place to protect consumers against such price surging?

There are also concerns about Uber’s corporate behaviour. For instance, Uber enjoys a significant price advantage by not paying UK corporation tax, because jobs are booked through the Netherlands. Despite Uber being a $50 billion company, its drivers earn far less than the London living wage; in some cases, they earn a lot less than the minimum wage. Drivers are self-employed, as with most minicab services, but the risk is that Uber’s model is depressing fares to unsustainable levels, and that also needs to be looked at.

[Sadiq Khan]

I particularly welcome the hon. Gentleman’s last comment. Does he support the case brought by the GMB against Uber to protect drivers the company had exploited?

[Zac Goldsmith]

That is the case I was referring to. As I understand it, a member of the GMB was found to have been paid about £1.50 below the minimum wage, which is clearly not acceptable. However, I would like to redirect the right hon. Gentleman’s question to the Minister, who is better placed than I am to understand the legalities.

I ask the Minister—this is perhaps the most important issue—to provide an undertaking to work with the Competition and Markets Authority to look at the London taxi market as a whole. In particular, will he consider whether the low prices offered by some apps are kept artificially low to drive out competition—a form of predatory pricing? I am not clear how much evidence exists on that, but there is a strong suspicion, which I think I share, that it is happening.