Housing and Planning Bill (Third sitting)

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 242 Would you accept, though, that the world has moved on? The nationalisation of planning has not really worked now. Up until 2010 the number of houses it was delivering, in the light of the 1990 Act, was too low and there needed to be radical change.

Dr Hugh Ellis: I do, but that was 1990. The 1947 Act and the New Towns Act 1946 delivered at the peak almost 400,000 units a year. That was delivered through effective planning. All that we are suggesting, given the age of our organisation, is that there are some important lessons that we need to learn from the past. I think the last 20 years of planning reform have all sorts of problems, so you are quite right. We are arguing for a comprehensive reassessment, if that is what we want, of planning. We are arguing against walking blindfolded into a new planning framework where these issues have not properly been discussed.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Q 243 Ms Alafat, reading through your evidence, you do not seem confident that one-for-one replacement of right to buy is likely to happen. What are your views on the fact that replacement, if it does happen, does not need to be in the same area? What effect do you think that would have?

Terrie Alafat: To clarify the position on one-for-one replacement, we did some interim analysis a couple of months ago. That was, of course, based on what we knew in the policy as it was evolving. In particular, the definition of high value and how that will work in practice has an effect in the receipts that would be delivered.

Our early analysis showed that if you looked at a higher-end estimate, the receipts would probably be just enough on the estimates for the right to buy. We were more concerned about the replacement of the local authority housing stock as well. More work needs to be done. We are keen that Government work on the definition and consulting. That is quite positive because that is really important.

The reality is that when you look at the numbers—the receipts that will be generated across the country and where, given the high value, with that definitional issue—there is no doubt that there will be higher receipts in areas such as London and parts of the south-east. The receipts generated in some other parts of the country will probably not be enough to replace in the local area. There will be a whole issue about how the funding is apportioned to deliver the one-for-one replacements. That is still very much up for discussion and there is obviously a lot of work going on around the implementation of the policy.

[Teresa Pearce]

Q 244 What do you think the consequences will be for the provision of affordable housing?

Terrie Alafat: Again, there is a whole issue about whether the one-for-one is affordable rent or shared ownership, and that is again under discussion. What I pick up from the housing sector is that quite a number of the housing associations are still very interested in providing social rent and affordable rent. We have to see what the mix will be. We will have to see how this actually works in practice. What does it mean to be high-value? What is the level of receipts? What does it mean for one-for-one across housing associations and local authorities? There is a lot more detail that needs to be worked on.

[The Chair]

In the two minutes left to us, Richard Bacon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Teresa Pearce]

Q 258 Mr Spiers, you said that you do not have any confidence that the voluntary agreement, with the exemption for rural stock, will happen. Do you think that exemption should be in the Bill?

Shaun Spiers: I think that there should be a full exemption for rural areas, properly defined, in the Bill, yes.

[Teresa Pearce]

Q 259 In your evidence you said, on the agreement between the National Housing Federation and the Government, that you feel the right to buy failed to follow the guidance in the Treasury’s green book. If they had followed the guidance, what would they have had to do?

Shaun Spiers: We have written to the Secretary of State, and we are meeting the Minister for Housing and Planning tomorrow to discuss this issue. As far as we know, there has been no rural briefing. To follow the guidance, the Government would have to think that rural areas are different. It is harder to build a home; the way homes come forward is different; wages are lower; house prices are higher; and 8% of the stock is affordable stock, compared with 20% in urban areas, so there really is a rural difference.

[Mr Bacon]

Q 260 Mr Spiers, you mentioned self-build. What scope do you think there is, particularly in rural areas that are provided for in chapter 2 of the Bill, to encourage local communities to do more self-build and custom house building? Does the CPRE see that as a problem, or do you welcome it?

Shaun Spiers: We think there are lots of questions about how it will work out in practice. The wording in the Bill is not sufficiently clear, and it is certainly not sufficiently clear to me. This is one of the areas on which I wish Matt Thomson, our head of planning, was with us. It would be useful if local authorities were required when allocating large sites to devote a proportion of the site to self and custom build housing, which would get the small and medium-sized enterprises going and provide better-quality housing.