Affordable Housing — House of Lords, 2015-06-25
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I say at this point that we intend not to seize anyone’s assets but to enable people who aspire to own their own home to do so. I will come later to the noble Lord’s specific point concerning Keswick, if that is okay The housing Bill will help more tenants of housing associations to buy a home of their own. It will increase the supply of starter homes, help those wishing to build their own home and ensure more control over planning. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that we will deliver 275,000 affordable homes with £38 billion of public and private investment, achieving the fastest build rate for 20 years. I can also confirm to the noble Lord that the Minister in the other place, Brandon Lewis, is already engaging across the sector, because, as he has said, that is very important. On the 10-year rent policy settlement, the Budget will be on 8 July. As the noble Lord will know, the settlement will then follow, so I cannot give any commitments at this stage The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked about the lack of affordability for first-time buyers. I can confirm to both him and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, that, in addition, during this Parliament we will be committing to build 200,000 starter homes, to be exclusively offered to first-time buyers under the age of 40 at a 20% discount on the open market value. The starter homes will also help those in their 20s and 30s to have the opportunity to gain the benefits of home ownership which their parents’ generation enjoyed. We have introduced a new planning policy to encourage developers to build starter homes, and we will shortly set out a further package of reforms to support the delivery of these 200,000 starter homes The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, passed me a note saying that she omitted to ask whether she could have a meeting with me. I assume that it would be to discuss housing. I shall be very happy to meet her, although I should add "in due course", as at the moment I am quite busy The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, referred to supply constraints. Many noble Lords talked about lack of supply driving up house prices. As I have started to outline, we are increasing supply. We have granted planning permission for 261,000 new homes in the past year. House prices are affected by the economic cycle and we have a strong economy The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, referred to the lack of discussion on Help to Buy. Forty-nine thousand people have been helped to buy, and more than 225,000 households have been helped to buy a home of their own by government schemes such as Help to Buy. Our manifesto committed us to extend the Help to Buy equity loan until 2020. We will introduce a Help to Buy ISA in the autumn to help aspiring home owners save for a deposit on their first home with contributions from government. For every £200 that someone saves through the scheme, the Government will contribute £50 The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, talked about borrowing without caps. The Government have no plans to remove the borrowing caps. They are necessary while we tackle the national deficit inherited from the previous Labour Administration. Local authorities have £3.13 billion of borrowing already The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, spoke of the need for a White Paper on a whole new approach to housing and suggested a target of 250,000 new homes—of which a proportion should be social housing—with clearer local responsibilities. As I have said, housing starts are at their highest annual level since 2007. Under Labour, despite the targets, housebuilding fell to its lowest peacetime rate since the 1920s. We are focusing on building more homes The noble Lord talked also about the cost of housing benefit rising in the private rented sector. Housing benefit cost rose by 50% in real terms in the 10 years to 2010. In 2013-14, welfare spending fell for the first time in 16 years. Some £470 million in discretionary housing payments has been made available for the period 2013-16 to help vulnerable households during welfare reform transition I think that it was the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, who talked about the right to build and neighbourhood planning. Councils will identify and provide land and a right to build for people who want to build or commission their own home. Already, 1,500 communities have started the process of neighbourhood planning, with more than 11% of the population of England living in one or more of the 1,300 designated neighbourhood areas. We will further simplify neighbourhood planning to make it even easier for communities to have more control over housing. The number of homes planned for locally has risen substantially and we saw planning permissions granted to 253,000 homes last year Many noble Lords talked about right to buy. As I outlined earlier, we believe in helping people in their aspiration to buy their own home. We will offer more than 1 million housing associations tenants the option to buy their own home in the same way as generations of local authority tenants. Until now, 1.3 million tenants in housing association properties have received little or no assistance in this area, which is clearly unfair. Aspiration should not be determined by the organisation that manages your home nor be limited by it, especially if it is funded ultimately by the taxpayer. That is why we will ensure that housing association tenants have the same opportunities for the right to buy a home at a higher discount level as council tenants. Revenue from sales will be invested in more affordable housing, and for every home sold a new home will be built, which relates to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, about addressing the lack of supply. Through the right to buy refresh scheme, 33,000 homes have been built, with 40,000 since 2010 The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about affordable homes being lost for ever because of the extended right to buy. We have been very clear that every home sold will be replaced by another one.