Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 39, 39A and 40 in this group "There is no specific shortage of social housing, or private rented accommodation, or homes for first-time buyers, but an overall shortage of inexpensive housing across all tenures. Government solutions … are all a step in the wrong direction … Boosting homeownership should not be a policy aim in its own right. The government’s aim should be to improve affordability in general" These are not my words. They are contained in a briefing which I have just downloaded from my computer from that unregenerate Marxist body, the Institute of Economic Affairs—which tells us something about the peculiarity of the Government’s position. Amendment 38 addresses the critical issue of affordability. In an earlier debate, I declared that affordability is an elastic concept, and we debated at some length the implications of that condition on Tuesday. Rather than beginning with a figure reflecting current house price averages—unaffordable to a large proportion of the population and varying widely not just between London and the rest of the country but within London and, as we have heard already in some areas, within other parts of the country—the approach comes to the issue from the other end. The criterion for affordability should be the income levels of the potential beneficiaries of the scheme. I am afraid I will cite figures again from my own authority: in Newcastle, the average two-bed property is marketed for £135,000 and the average three-bed for £160,000—those are existing stock. The discounted prices under the starter homes scheme would therefore be £108,000 and £128,000. As we have heard in relation to other figures which have been quoted, new-build properties would presumably cost more than current average prices. In any event, either would be out of reach for the majority of applicants on the city’s housing register and for a sizeable proportion of other people seeking to purchase a property. In the existing areas of what we call lower-quartile properties—flats or terraced houses—the average asking price is around £78,000, or £92,500 for slightly bigger homes The scheme we are debating today has little to offer in places such as Newcastle. By contrast, in areas of higher value in the city and elsewhere, its potential would be limited to those with higher incomes, who will in addition benefit of course from the ability to cash in eventually not only on the 20% discount but, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours pointed out in some detail this morning, on any rise in house prices. At the top end, there is clearly the potential for very large windfall gains to arise from the scheme, amounting to well in excess, in some areas, of £100,000—ironically, enough to allow the lucky first-time buyer in London to invest in a buy-to-let property in Newcastle of the kind I have described It cannot be fair to facilitate, after only five years, such significant untaxed gains for buyers whose incomes are likely to be substantially higher than those of people buying cheaper properties.