Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Ewen Cameron (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 57B, tabled in my name, and also Amendment 57D, where I am an also-ran behind the noble Lord, Lord Best. First I restate what I said at Second Reading: I am keen to encourage the Government’s desire to develop more home ownership. There is no doubt that the big change in social mobility since my post-war youth has been assisted by the growth in home ownership that has happened during my lifetime. So I am all for encouraging that direction of travel Nevertheless, in the countryside at any rate, where the availability of housing is limited, and while the desirability of country living is so deeply embedded in the English psyche, we have to make absolutely certain that we do not leave any casualties behind on the road to the home-ownership ideal. Unless we cater for the high demand for affordable homes for the less well- off, we will undoubtedly leave such casualties. The Government recognise this, which is why they agreed to only a voluntary right to buy for housing associations in the expectation that, in the most rural areas, the associations would choose not to allow it But in an effort to compromise and refine that, so that we do indeed maximise the potential to provide extra rural, local affordable housing, Amendment 57B, which stands in my name and those of others, ensures that if any party—a housing association or a householder —decides to take advantage of the discount available from the Government, the resulting sale will only take place if a new affordable house is provided in the parish or adjoining area. The key word there is "adjoining". It is important that the new affordable housing replaces the existing homes being sold within the same community or group of local communities. It is no good having the replacement housing on the other side of the county or, in the case of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, even on another island in the Isles of Scilly. We both go on holiday to the Isles of Scilly so we know a little bit about them It goes without saying that the housing association houses being sold must not be on an exception site, as that would undoubtedly result in the abandonment of the "in perpetuity" for locals that would have been written into the original planning permission and by which the site is forever legally bound. We are talking here about Section 106 housing, on sites where the housing association houses are within a larger commercial development adjacent to or part of either a large village or market town. It behoves all parties, the vendor housing association, other housing associations and the local planning authority, to pull together to make this work. If the local planning authority can use its strategic housing land availability assessment review—known to its friends as SHLAA—to encourage landowners, farmers and indeed parishes to assist in the finding of new sites for new affordable homes, so much the better It will not have escaped your Lordships’ attention that the advantage of this amendment over the mere existence of the voluntary undertaking on the part of the housing association is that if the scheme works and is seen to work, we might get more housing for locals in our villages, even if the house being sold eventually gets sold on, inevitably, to an outsider and is thus lost for ever to the people of the village. In this way, our amendment and others of a similar nature in this group promote the Government’s agenda of greater home ownership, so I hope that it will be acceptable to them. Without amending the Bill in this way, and without the co-operation of all parties to encourage this extra housing, I do not see many responsible housing authorities volunteering their rural properties for the right-to-buy scheme—which I suspect is contrary to what the Government would really like to see. I look forward to the Minister’s response.