Housing and Social Security — House of Commons, 2017-06-22
Topic: Housing
Richard Michael Bacon (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As recently as 1988, 66% of housing in this country was built by small local builders. There has been a huge change that has benefited a small number of large companies, but not our communities or most of our constituents and society as a whole My hon. Friend mentioned self-build and it will not surprise him to know that I promoted, got through this House and the other place and secured Royal Assent for the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015, which has now been strengthened by the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Some 53% of people in this country would, at some point in their lives, like to build their own house or have someone build a house to their design. Government policy should not just take account of that, but embrace it and make it as easy as possible All my Act does is require local authorities to keep a register of individuals and what are called "associations of individuals" who want to get a serviced plot of land to build a house. An "association of individuals" could be anyone: a group of friends; the governors of a school looking to provide accommodation to help recruit and retain teachers in difficult-to-fill subjects; or the Royal British Legion or a similar veterans’ body, such as Help for Heroes, working with veterans to fulfil their accommodation needs—[Interruption.] I see my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) nodding and I am pleased to see her in her place. An association of individuals could include the directors of a social services department looking to provide accommodation to help to recruit and retain social workers in parts of the country where jobs are difficult to fill. My act has now been strengthened by sections 9 to 12 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which require local authorities not only to keep a register but, crucially, to provide enough suitable development permissions to meet the demand on the register I turn again to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, because I do not think that he is fully persuaded of how powerful such measures could be. The Dutch expert group will be imitated by the right to build expert taskforce being launched at the end of the month at a housing conference in, funnily enough, my constituency. The taskforce will take the lessons that have been learned in the Netherlands. If we were building as many units of self-build and custom house building as there are in the Netherlands now, we would be creating 60,000 extra units a year on top of what is currently being delivered, which could make a significant difference I have two requests of the Government. First, paragraph 2.19 of the housing White Paper states: "We will target the £2.3bn Housing Infrastructure Fund at the areas of greatest housing need. We will open this capital grant programme to bids in 2017… We will fund those bids that unlock the most homes in the areas of greatest housing need." Amen to that, but we need the details to be announced. I understand that they have not been announced due to the general election, but it needs to happen soon Secondly, the Government should adopt the 10-point plan of the National Custom & Self Build Association—point 2 in particular—which calls for a help to build equity loan scheme to help people get their own house. A deposit of just 5% is required to buy a home under the Help to Buy scheme, although that does not create any more dwellings; it just helps volume house builders to sell the houses that they have already built. I will happily provide the Government with what NaCSBA has proposed. A help to build scheme would ensure that an extra house was built. Moreover, one could recycle the money because, in most cases, as soon as the house is built the owner could re-mortgage, and the equity loan could be paid back and would be available to lend to somebody else The final thing that I want to say in the 30 seconds that remain is that our party did not reach out during the recent general election to young people in the way that it should reach out. However, it is true that all people, but young people in particular, need somewhere to live. It is absolutely fundamental. In many cases, young people have given up on the prospect of ever having their own place. We have to make owning a house a reality. The architect Rod Hackney once said: "It is a dangerous thing to underestimate human potential and the energy which can be generated when people are given the opportunity to help themselves."