Affordable Housing (Devon and Cornwall)

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for championing this cause and bringing this debate before us today. I had literally been in the job for about four and a half minutes when she came hurtling up towards me and said, “I have two words for you.” Those two words were more polite than other words that people gave me—“Second homes,” she said. She has been relentless, as hon. Members have said, in ensuring that, in my head, this is high on the list of issues that need to be dealt with. Hon. Members across the south-west, in other parts of the country and across party have been presenting the real issues that their communities face. They are all incredibly important challenges in the housing sector. I thank my hon. Friend for being a torch bearer for the concerns of her constituents, in particular Carol, Rachel, Kathryn and Stephanie, whose responses she highlighted.

I will start my response with a statement of the obvious: people in communities up and down the country deserve access to good-quality and affordable housing. However, that is not the reality that many people in this country live with. To deliver on that ambition, we should keep a laser-like focus on the need to level up the country by increasing the supply of affordable homes in all regions. We as a Government are acutely aware of the unique set of circumstances that exists in our coastal communities around supply, second homes and the looming effects of climate change.

I believe that we are all in agreement that we need more affordable homes and that successive Governments —of all colours, frankly—have fallen short of that goal. We have made it a fundamental part of our levelling-up agenda so that we can start to rectify that, recognising that it is in our national interest for every community in the country to have a strong supply of high-quality, sustainable housing. Where people live should not limit their access to that supply.

We are making progress. Since 2010, we have delivered more than 574,000 new affordable homes across the country. In the south-west alone, we have delivered more than 63,000 of them. Ultimately, however, we know that we need to build more because, for a variety of reasons, supply has simply not kept up with demand in recent decades.

That acknowledgment underpins the affordable homes programme, which comprises £11 billion-worth of investment designed to tackle the twin issues of affordability and supply. It is the largest investment in a decade, and I am hopeful that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon is aware that the south-west receives one of the largest allocations from it, with £1 billion earmarked for the delivery of 17,500 new affordable homes across the region.

The programme fits with our determination to turn generation rent into a generation of homeowners. Through the programme, we have said that approximately half of the homes constructed will be for affordable home ownership, supporting aspiring homeowners to take the first step on the housing ladder. The programme will also deliver more than double the number of social rent homes than the current programme, with about 132,000 homes for social rent. I accept that that is an incredibly important element of what we have to do. I am keen, as the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) said, that we also explore how we help councils start to build council housing again. The points he made are interesting ones, which I will take away and am happy to respond to in writing, if he is in agreement.

Our aim is to support thousands of hard-working people with funding to help them experience the unique sense of pride that comes with owning their own home. In turn, that will help us to level up parts of the country, such as the south-west, by creating new jobs for homebuilders, small and medium-sized enterprise developers, electricians and plumbers alike. The programme recognises the scale of the challenge in front of us, with major investments to tackle affordability, to re-energise the housing sector and, most importantly, to build back better from the pandemic.

As a Government we also recognise the need to address the impact that the large numbers of second homes and short-term holiday lets has, not just on the local housing market, but on the communities themselves, which all hon. Members have mentioned today. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon illuminated powerfully in her speech, that is particularly true in our rural and coastal communities, including her constituency.

I want to be clear: this Government wholeheartedly support responsible short-term letting. We absolutely recognise the economic benefits that that can have in our favourite holiday hotspots, but the benefits should not be to the detriment of local communities. Landlords who let out accommodation on a short-term basis must do so responsibly and in accordance with the law. We are taking action to address the fact that there is such a high concentration of second homes in these regions. I am of the view that it is only fair that owners of second homes pay their fair share towards the local services that they benefit from. It is important to re-emphasise the point about the introduction of stamp duty land tax for those purchasing additional properties, and tightening tax rules for second home owners. Large numbers of second homes should not block the path to home ownership for local people and the measures we have introduced will help mitigate their impact.

As I said at the start, I am aware of the seriousness of the situation. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) suggested that I hold a roundtable in his region. He will be pleased to know that I have already suggested that to officials in my Department—I look forward to making those arrangements as soon as possible. I want to hear the suggestions that local partners may have. I want to fully understand the impact that the situation is having on local communities from those who are actually there. I now expect that there will be a million invitations for me to visit each constituency while I am there; I would very much look forward to that.

I want to move on to the planning issues mentioned by some hon. Members. Central to tackling the issues that have been raised is the need to deliver the right homes in the right places. Existing planning tools are already helping. Local plans such as those in the Yorkshire dales can protect a share of housing for local residents. Some communities, particularly in the south-west, have chosen to include policies in their neighbourhood plans to require new open-market housing to be occupied as a principal residence. In addition, section 106 agreements can apply a local connection test to protect a share of new housing for local people. Our first homes scheme enables local authorities to prioritise discounted homes for local people through section 106, with discounts at a minimum of 30%.

We have also made changes to the planning system to meet some of the numerous challenges that hon. Members have rightly drawn attention to. In August 2021, we introduced a new permitted development right that allows buildings in the new commercial, business and service use class to change to residential use. I was interested to hear of the challenges that are being faced; while I am not promising to bring my trowel and bucket, perhaps on my visit to the south-west I can see some of the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon alluded to. The new right means that a wider range of commercial buildings can make the change to residential use without the need for planning applications; for example, it can apply to the spaces above shops. We have also introduced new permitted development rights to allow two additional storeys to be added to existing buildings such as houses, flats and commercial buildings, to create new homes. Those rights will continue to deliver new homes that might not otherwise come forward through the planning system.

We recognise that there are currently capacity challenges, and we want to ensure that local authority planning departments are equipped and have the right skills to make creative decisions, enabling us to take forward ambitious proposals for levelling up. We are engaging with representatives from across local government, the private sector and professional bodies, to consider ways in which we can ensure that local authorities are equipped to deliver places that people can be proud of and have the skills needed to deliver an efficient planning service.

I want to mention levelling up. I think about levelling up as the tool that exists to prevent the Kansas-style twisters that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon described. I will not go as far as to say that levelling up is a miracle on the scale of “The Wizard of Oz”—and I cannot promise her that I have my ruby slippers on—but I appreciate the reference. Levelling up is a blueprint that has the potential to transform the fortunes of towns and cities all over the country. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon was right when she drew attention to regional disparities running through this country like faultlines. Those issues transcend every part of society; they are issues of lack of opportunity, lack of good quality jobs, and of life prospects being diminished by areas’ being overlooked and undervalued.

Across the country, places with proud histories such as North Devon have seen generation after generation leave the area with the promise of a better, brighter future that simply did not feel possible or affordable in the area in which they were living. We need only to look at some of the high streets in communities across the country to see that such places have been taken for granted for too long. Even places such as Devon and Cornwall—which draw millions of tourists and have rich cultural heritages—have, at times, been like a jet plane being powered by only one of its engines. We know it is not enough to simply identify the problem and say we are going to fix it. We need to walk the walk, and our levelling-up blueprint sets out exactly how we are going to do that.

Hon. and right hon. Members have raised a number of points today and I am looking at all those issues. I have heard loud and clear—literally—about such issues from colleagues not just in the south-west, but in the Lake district, Norfolk and other tourist hotspots. I appreciate the way that colleagues have conducted the debate today; it has been useful and interesting to hear all their suggestions. I will take them away and consider them very carefully so that we can try to address the problems that colleagues have raised with me beforehand, have spoken about today and, I am sure, will be causing them to keep knocking at my door in the days and weeks to come.