Affordable Housing — House of Lords, 2015-06-25
Topic: Housing
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply. Although comprehensive, it was not entirely comprehensible because when I add up all the figures and work it out, I am not sure what the degree of ambition of the Conservative Government now is in terms of overall delivery. The means of that delivery, despite all the various schemes to which the Minister referred, do not add up to the step change in the delivery of housing supply that we clearly need When the Minister looks back she is right to say that the council waiting list was 1.4 million when the coalition Government came to power, but of course, the figure is exactly the same now. All the interventions during that period, which the noble Baroness was praising, made no difference: at the end of the line, there were still a huge number of families who were entitled to affordable housing but did not get it, and far more still never got on the housing list in the first place The debate has been characterised by a lot of knowledgeable contributions from people such as the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake, and my noble friend Lady Warwick, who know about housing associations. Housing associations will be required to deliver a large part of whatever targets the Government eventually come up with. It is therefore particularly unfortunate that they are being hobbled by what I referred to earlier as a cack-handed intervention, in terms of the right to buy, in their finances, borrowing credibility and business plans, a point that has been underlined by many speakers We have had a good lesson in economics from my noble friends Lord Desai and Lord Haskel. The economics of housing are distorted by two things: first, by the fact that, as my noble friend Lord Desai said, housing is not just a home but an investment. That is a distortion of the British economy to a degree that does not apply everywhere else in the world, and it is probably something we ought to be able to get over, but probably not in the next five years. That benefits home owners—a decreasing proportion of the population. The next generation will not have it as easy as my generation and the previous generation in getting on to the housing ladder I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. Rural housing and the housing situation in London are important matters for the Government to take on board. The right-to-buy initiative in housing associations is a difficult issue, to which we will return. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that my support for the principle of the right to buy is based on the fact that a lot of people have benefited who would otherwise not have been able to get on the housing ladder. However, he is absolutely right that the basic flaw in successive right-to-buy policies has been that we have not replaced the housing stock that they displaced. I do not believe that there are the means of doing so in this policy, either. One-for-one replacement has been impossible in the previous phase of selling council properties, and it will be equally difficult to make the economics and finances work out for housing associations. That is therefore a major hole in the Government’s policy I was also surprised, given her background, that the noble Baroness did not emphasise more the role of local authorities. The reality is that if we look back over the period to which my noble friends Lord Hamworth and Lady Wilkins referred—after the war—it was largely the local authorities, with government backing, that delivered. I do not believe that we can get back to that level of housebuilding without the major involvement of the larger local authorities. I hope, therefore, that the Government’s plans for devolution and the enhancement of the role of London will play a central role in dealing with the housing gap that we need to address. I thank all my noble friends on this side of the House. I notice that the noble Baroness did not have huge numbers on the Conservative Benches showing an interest, which is a problem for the Government. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Horam, is here, and I agree with much if not all of what he said. It almost reminded me that he was not always a Tory This has been a good and very important debate, to which we will undoubtedly return on many occasions when considering the relevant legislation, and I thank everybody who has participated in it. If the Government fall short, millions and millions of our fellow citizens will suffer.