Affordable Housing — House of Lords, 2018-10-25
Topic: Housing
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for initiating this debate, and declare my interests as chair of Peabody, chair of Be First and president of the Local Government Association. The term "affordable housing" has been a rather slippery concept in recent years. Those of us involved in the debates on the Housing and Planning Act—how could I forget them?—will remember well the arguments about starter homes. However you define "affordable, there is now a consensus across the main political parties that housing has become increasingly unaffordable for too many people, and that this must be tackled as a national priority. There is also now, thankfully, a consensus that the only sustainable way to tackle this is to build many more homes of all types and tenures, and to maintain this increased delivery for a long period of time. There is no quick way of building to affordability for market, sale or rent but, ultimately, significantly increasing supply in high-demand areas is the only answer The wider arguments on affordable housing have been well covered in the excellent briefings we have had, and indeed by other speakers—I particularly note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the need for a delivery plan. I want to concentrate on two issues: the future of Help to Buy, and the need to dramatically increase the supply of social rented housing. It is important to remember that Help to Buy was introduced first and foremost as a countercyclical measure, at a time when the economy was stubbornly refusing to grow. Now that we are out of that recession, the scheme has become too big, too costly and counterproductive, driving up prices and creating a huge dependency in the sector. As I have said before in this House, we should not completely do away with Help to Buy, but make it much more targeted and expect much more from the housebuilders who benefit from it. Whatever the Government decide on Help to Buy, we need to end the uncertainty and get on with a decision about its long-term future. It would be helpful if the Minister in summing up could indicate when he thinks an announcement will be made on this After a truly terrible period when government seemed to see social housing only as part of the problem, we now have a welcome recognition by government of its vital importance. As Shelter says in its briefing, social rent is the "only tenure" that can reduce, "homelessness and take pressure off the housing benefit system". The lifting of the cap on borrowing by local authorities is therefore particularly welcome, and it would be helpful for the Minister to say when measures to deliver this will be brought forward, and if he believes that primary legislation will be required We should be in no doubt, though, of the huge amount of ground that has to be made up. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the number of social houses has declined by a half from the 1980s when they housed a third of all families, mainly due to the non-replacement of Right to Buy. To seriously reverse this decline, we need getting on for a third of the 300,000 new homes planned by the Government to be social-rented or genuinely affordable. This would involve getting on for a tenfold increase on what we are currently achieving. To deliver this will need more than lifting the local authority borrowing cap, helpful though that is. It will require restoring social housing grants, increasing grant rates, investing more in enabling infrastructure and providing some protection on sales risks in a very uncertain market. Without this, however committed housing associations like Peabody are to raising our game and delivering more, we will struggle to do what is needed I hope the Minister recognises the scale of the challenge we face here. We should be clear, though, that this is not mission impossible. We have done this before in our country, and we can do it again.