Housing and Planning Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-02
Topic: Housing
Michael Mark Prisk (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). She is a planner and I am a chartered surveyor, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests This is a broad and substantial Bill and it is difficult to do it justice in just five minutes. I preface my remarks by strongly commending the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who showed real passion and knowledge. He knows what he is talking about on the subject of custom and self-build homes, which is a very important part of this Bill Planning reform, help for tenants and a more professional rented sector are the topics on which I wish to focus. At the beginning of this debate, the Secretary of State rightly said that, for a quarter of a century, our housing markets have been dysfunctional. Year after year, we have been producing, roughly speaking, half the homes that we need. That persistent gap between demand and supply is at the root of almost every housing issue that we debate, including affordability, standards, homelessness, and the rising housing benefit bill. The acid test for this Bill, and for housing policy as a whole, rests on whether the Government will deliver a sustained increase in the supply of homes regardless of tenure I welcome the proposals on starter homes and on custom house building, but let me briefly turn to planning reform and offer one suggestion to Ministers. If the planning system is to work, we need to reverse the loss of experienced planning officers in our local authorities. In some authorities, the system is grinding to a halt because of the lack of planning officers able either to produce a local plan or to drive forward negotiations with experienced developers. I urge the Minister, in his reply to this debate, to bring together the planning profession and the industry—and say how he will do that—to secure a joint agreement on how we can strengthen planning departments and get the system moving My second issue is tenants, particularly those of houses in multiple occupation. I welcome this focus on HMOs. Many Members here will know that, sadly, these are often the properties run by the worst landlords. It is the sub-sector where, all too often, criminality and human trafficking lurk. That is why I strongly encourage Ministers to apply the provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, so that the worst of the illegal HMOs are seized and handed over to the local housing authorities for legitimate homes for families. That is the best signal that we can send to deter crooks from entering that market That leads me on to the wider issue of the private rented sector. As the Housing Minister, I launched the build-to-rent fund. I did so because we needed a more professional, long-term rented sector. We need to be building homes that add to the housing stock. I am talking about homes that are specifically designed to provide for tenants’ needs. Attracting long-term institutional funding will mean longer tenancies, because such investors want fully occupied homes and satisfied customers It is a model of renting that is common in most advanced countries, particularly in most American cities. Here in London, as my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) knows, the Greater London Authority has backed the build-for-rent scheme, with supplementary planning guidance, which promotes discounted market rent to deliver appropriate affordable homes We are seeing authorities in London, including Labour authorities such as Greenwich, intelligently use this discounted market rent model, and I strongly encourage Ministers to adopt that process and to try to ensure that it is adopted nationally. Let me be clear, I am not against buy to let. I just think that it cannibalises the existing housing stock and it has reached a scale where it is crowding out home ownership, which cannot be right. Instead, we should be promoting a long-term, professional rented sector in which more homes are built to rent, and I hope Ministers will continue to promote the sector. Out of respect to those who have yet to speak, I shall draw my remarks to a close.