argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the noble Lord for that. I can see that we are not going to agree on this because I just do not see the delays that he referred to. This is an issue for regional planning committees and planning departments. Certainly, in Lewisham many plots of land have multiple planning permissions but they are not being built on. That is the problem.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I am glad that the noble Viscount is connected with broadband up to a point. But perhaps he will go a little further and be more proactive than reactive and initiate discussions with the sector about whether this would be a useful addition rather than wait for somebody to pop up with the idea in due course The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, referred to capacity in planning departments and my noble friend made some response to that. It is the case that there are several hundred thousand outstanding planning permissions up and down the country, where builders have done nothing and are presumably sitting on rising land prices and what they hope will be the rising price of constructed buildings. But, in addition, local authorities with housing planning responsibilities face very large cuts in their budgets. It will be difficult to sustain the planning function—or, indeed, any other function—to the extent which is desirable. That has to be a real concern The Government need to bear in mind the possibly self-serving response of the builders, which has been referred to, and lean on their political friends—not normally to be found on this side of the House—to ensure that authorities have the wherewithal to meet these new responsibilities. There is such a thing as the New Burdens Doctrine. We are getting the burdens but not the outcome of the doctrine, which is that these additional responsibilities should be funded I will end on a slightly different note, which is more of a question. Again, I do not anticipate an answer. During the discussion and the emphasis on the value of self-build and community schemes of this kind, which I entirely endorse, it struck me that there is the possibility here of involving those bodies—further education colleges and the like—which train people in construction industry skills to enable them to get involved in these projects. This may be useful in terms of the cost of a project and in training much-needed skilled workers to carry out not only this kind of work but others as well. Perhaps the Minister would ask his officials to look at this—not immediately, as it is not a crucial issue at the moment—to see whether the industry and training bodies such as FE colleges and others could be persuaded to look at this small area. This might help get both the buildings on the ground and the skills in the industry.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate at all until I heard what I can only describe as the brilliant exposition by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, of the economics of housebuilding. He showed quite clearly that the cost of land is the critical factor in all this, and the additional cost of building in environmental protection issues, such as solar energy or whatever, is marginal. The only reason why I rise is to draw to the attention of the Committee the series of amendments which will come up later—Amendment 89L and a number of attached amendments—which deal with the cost of land. At the heart of the Bill is the failure to deal with the cost of land. If we could deal with the cost of land in the United Kingdom and bring it down to the prices charged for land abroad, we would not even need the Bill or any of the incentives in it. The whole Bill is predicated on the need to compensate for the benefit that landowners make out of selling land at huge profits, which the rest of the country has to bear when they buy their houses.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 54A, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has our full support. As noble Lords have heard, the amendment seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State makes regulations that will require that all new homes built after 1 January 2018 achieve the compliance standards as set out in the amendment. This is achieved by using an energy-efficient approach to building design and reducing the CO2 emissions on-site through low and zero-carbon technologies. As noble Lords have heard, Britain has been a world leader in taking measures to reduce carbon emissions. With that in mind, it is disappointing that we have to have this debate at all. The amendment is achievable and realistic and pushes us further forward as we seek to reduce the energy demands of new homes. I very much agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, when she expressed her regret that the Government have removed the zero-carbon target for new homes I do not often agree with what the Prime Minister said, but I also agree very much with the quote from him that my noble friend Lady Young read out. However, it puts the Prime Minister at odds with his Chancellor, who removed it a few days later. It will be very interesting to hear the response to that from the government Benches. The amendment will of course help to support innovation in construction by requiring high standards and will help future-proof homes, reducing the need for retrofit later, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said in his contribution. In particular, I will be interested to hear the response from the Minister to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, about the whole issue of agreements that are made and then reneged on. I will also be interested to hear the Government’s response to the very challenging points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in his excellent speech The amendment would allow the housebuilding and supply industries, related trade associations, consumer representatives and bodies with a specific interest in environmental objectives to play their full role in being properly consulted in what is achievable and what is the way forward. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who posed the question, "Why build homes today if they are not fit for purpose tomorrow?". I will listen with interest to the Minister’s response and I may have a few further questions depending on the Government’s position.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): I wonder whether the Minister might clear up a confusion that is arising in my mind. It strikes me that we are not talking about a cost that falls upon the builders of these homes, because it will be reflected in their price. The point we are making is that, if an additional cost of £3,500 would genuinely be passed on to the purchaser of the home, within a period of less than three years they would have recouped that amount and be in profit thereafter, for however long they stayed in that home. It is not about an undue burden on the builders, but about trying to remove an undue burden on the purchasers and residents of those homes in perpetuity.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister suggested to my noble friend Lady Hollis that people would not be able to pass on the £3,000 cost. Is he suggesting that people will be building houses and selling them for less than they cost to build? If so, it seems extraordinary.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): Is the noble Lord then suggesting that a housing association would have the right to say, "You can’t buy that but you can buy that"? In other words, would it be able to be selective within the policy?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Given that the debate on whether Clause 62 should stand part is, by consent, grouped with this group of amendments, and Clause 62 establishes the discount scheme for housing association tenants, it is perfectly appropriate in this debate to raise the issue of who pays as well as who gains.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Janet Royall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, on a point of clarification, the noble Lord said that Peabody, rightly and understandably, will have thousands of homes that it does not wish to sell. What will a housing association like Peabody do in relation to portability?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have listened very carefully to all the arguments concerning the possible disposal of some houses in rural areas owned by these community trusts. In Cornwall, where I live, I see big concerns about where essential workers will live, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, mentioned earlier. I also go to the Isles of Scilly a lot and that is what I want to mention. I put down Amendments 56B and 66CA to cover that, although I think the problem is probably covered by the other amendments The Isles of Scilly are 25 miles away from the coast and 2,500 people live there. The transport services, as I have frequently mentioned in this House, are pretty awful. You cannot commute there if you want to be a bus driver or anything. There is some affordable housing, but if that is sold, where will people live? Building new houses on those islands, which are very beautiful, is a problem. Demand for housing for essential workers is high, but the provision is virtually zero. If anyone does build a house, it is usually for a holiday let or because they have lots of money and they want to go there occasionally and leave it empty for the rest of the year, which happens so much in other parts of the country, including Cornwall If there is a strong argument for exceptions in the Bill for rural areas, there is an even stronger argument for the Isles of Scilly. It should not be allowed at all. I hope that the Minister will take that into consideration when she comes to respond. There may be other ways of doing this, but if there is no housing for essential workers in places such as the Isles of Scilly, where you cannot commute from the mainland to drive your bus or dustcart or work for the council, the community will die. This is a very serious issue.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, perhaps I may add just marginally to the Minister’s burden in that regard. I want to pick up on some of the rationale that has been advanced for the voluntary deal, which does not seem to me to be fair. We are calling it a voluntary deal but of course it is underpinned by a mandatory portable discount—so how voluntary is that? For once in my life I must take exception to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. He pointed out that this is different from the 1980s because housing associations are getting paid the full value for the property, but in the next sentence he said that this has nothing to do with housing associations because they have not lobbied in any way for councils to pick up the tab I accept that there is no formal link, but when housing associations made their judgments, they must have known full well that the tab was going to be picked up by local authorities. It was already a manifesto commitment, and indeed the briefing note sent to us by the Minister stated that this measure—the high-value local authority housing provision—was announced as part of the Conservative Party manifesto where it stated that local authorities would be required to, "manage their housing assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they fall vacant", in order to help fund the extension of right to buy to housing associations. It was clear that that was the intent and therefore, with respect, the housing associations must have known that the hit was going to fall on local authorities I accept that it was a difficult judgment and that they were between a rock and a hard place and trying to carve the best way through. But we ought to be straight on the rationale for this. The result of that voluntary association is that local authorities will have to sell off more high-value housing than they otherwise would, because that is how housing associations will be kept whole.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Best, will forgive me, I am not sure that that is correct. The chief executive of the National Housing Federation said: "How this policy is paid for is a matter for the government, not for the National Housing Federation" That is known as the washing-of-hands defence.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will speak to this group, which includes the clause stand part debate. Last Thursday the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said that no one was opposed to council house RTB at the time. I was, for one simple reason: we were not allowed to retain the proceeds of sale to replace the stock. As a result we lost 10,000 houses, waiting lists have grown, and families are in unsuitable flats because our family houses have gone. I am not opposed to owner-occupation or home ownership in the slightest. We helped to rehab 12,000 mostly unfit Victorian terraced houses, rather than clear them, precisely to help young couples to be able to buy. Beyond that we built for sale, but that was a policy that damaged the possibility of people who would never buy entering decent homes What has happened since? Camden estimates that 40% of those right-to-buy council houses have become buy to let. In some authorities, according to last night’s "Dispatches" on Channel 4, it is now over 50%. As you walk around estates, as I am sure your Lordships do, you see the overflowing bins, peeling paint, unkempt gardens and tatty bits of curtain strung across bedroom windows. There you find either struggling, transient private tenants at double the rent and double the housing benefit bill—which we all pay for—or students. Existing communities have become more transient and more unsettled Overall, the IFS has noted, the proportion of dwellings in the social sector has fallen from 31% to just 18% of the country’s homes and now we are doing it all over again: housing associations have entered into a voluntary deal to sell—and replace, this time around—their stock. The deal works for them because they receive the property’s full value, since the huge discounts of £80,000 to £100,000 are funded not by housing associations themselves, or by the Chancellor, who has imposed this policy, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Porter, said, by the forced sale of high-value, vacant council houses with the levy to back it up in lieu.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord has made precisely my point: the housing associations have looked after themselves very well at a cost to local authorities. They knew, as my noble friend Lord McKenzie said at the time, that the bill would be picked up by their partners in social housing, local authorities As I said, the trade body did its private deal. It looked after itself at great cost, in my view, in money, policy, fairness and trust. Five years down the line, we know what will happen, do we not? Two social homes will be lost to fund one better-off tenant’s huge discount. They cannot all be replaced; the sums do not begin to add up. And the abuses? As we have seen already, RTB properties will be recycled into buy to let. Many will grab their discounts and sell, like local authority tenants, into RTB. Others will be pensioners, living in spacious homes unaffected by the bedroom tax A housing manager told me a couple of months ago that one of his elderly tenants had reluctantly applied to buy. Why? "Because my daughter-in-law has said I won’t see the kids unless I do". The vultures are hovering for her death, when they will receive a massive windfall gain, inherited, unearned and undeserved. The rogue wide boys will move in with malign versions of equity release —I could construct for you now three schemes that would do it—or illegal deferred resales. "Dispatches" last night showed that when council RTB discounts rose, such fraud went up by 400%. Would-be second-home owners will make irresistible offers, wiping out irreplaceable rural homes It is no use the Minister saying—she may not do this, but she said it about starter homes—that some abuse is inevitable. The Government should have built it out of their proposals. Instead, because the financial returns on abuse are so high, the Government have guaranteed it. The cost of that abuse, on top of the cost of the discounts and the cost of the entire scheme, will be funded not by taxpayers—not by us—not by the Government, who are imposing it, and not by housing associations, which will benefit from it, but by council tenants who are among the poorest in the land. Frankly, I am rather ashamed of it.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): It would perhaps have been more appropriate if the Minister could have taken the query at the time she was answering questions, as she did with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. None the less, the point that was being established by the noble Lord, Lord Porter, my noble friend Lord McKenzie and I was that irrespective of one’s views about right to buy—I can absolutely understand the argument that if local authority tenants have the right to buy, it should apply to housing association tenants also—at the core of the fairness problem, on which the Minister has said not one word, is who pays. Clearly, housing associations will be able to replace their stock because they will get full recompense for the discounts. That is fine for housing associations, but although the Minister has said several times that the Government are making the discount off the grant, it is not the Government who are funding it. It is being funded by local authorities and their poorer tenants. Will the Minister explain why it is fair that local authorities should be required to pay for the discounts of a tenure that is not their own?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Beecham. It would make a grant made to a private provider conditional on the equivalent market rate for the property sold under the right to buy being spent on the provision of affordable housing in the same local authority area, including at least one replacement home of the same tenure and in the same locality We have heard a lot from the Government about this policy not reducing the number of affordable homes, but I am not so sure. One problem we must grapple with when debating this Bill is the term "affordable housing", because I think it means different things to different noble Lords. When many noble Lords from the government Benches speak, they see affordable housing through the prism of a discounted rate of up to 80% of the market value. In many parts of the country, especially London, such housing would more accurately be described for people on low and modest incomes as unaffordable. There are not many noble Lords on the government Benches, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Horam, who have so far put the case for social housing and the need to build more of it. That is why we make specific reference to "tenure" in our amendment, otherwise we would be letting the Government off the hook when they say, "Everything is fine. We have provided so much more affordable housing. Haven’t we done a good job?", when, in fact, if we look in more detail at what has happened, I fear that we will see an erosion of social housing, of council housing, and its replacement with "affordable housing" that is a very different product Amendment 60, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and other noble Lords, will be spoken to shortly and has the full support of these Benches. It would put in the Bill a mechanism to ensure that the tenure of a replacement property was the same as that of the property sold, unless on the basis of local need a different tenure could be justified. This seems a good, sensible example of delivering a national policy with an element of localism included. I will probably intervene again as the debate progresses. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy for what the noble Lord, Lord Porter, said, but what we have been trying to say repeats to some extent what he said. The argument is about not just right to buy, although we can have different views on that, but who funds the discount. I agree that the proportionality of the discount matters and we want it to be only enough to help people realistically into home ownership, but to screw local authorities for it seems to me an issue about which many of us would worry. I include the noble Lord in this, but he can disagree if he wishes.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): The problem with that is that you end up with a borough entirely of owner-occupied houses. In other words, you have a single tenure and it is one which effectively excludes people on modest incomes who cannot afford to buy. The suggestion that the noble Lord effectively makes is that we export those people to outer London somewhere.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): That means that everybody is excluded from certain parts of the city; we lose a mix. I do not think it is a very good justification to say that because one group is unfortunately unable to do it, the rest must also be unable to do it. My daughter lives in Islington, which has been transformed now, as so many other boroughs have, with very high prices. Really, the city is being hollowed out, because people on ordinary incomes—teachers, police officers, street cleaners—cannot afford to buy or to rent these days. We are effectively creating a monoculture of better-off people in the heart of the city. That does not strike me as all that great—people will effectively have to move out, with the kids changing schools and all the rest. This is potentially a very disruptive process.