argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely, and they will be placed in the Library. I have the implied first-time price of new build—not the demand figures—by region, which might temporarily satisfy noble Lords. In the north-east, it is £138,000; in the north-west, it is £144,000; in Yorkshire and Humberside, it is £144,000; in the east Midlands, it is £152,000; in the West Midlands, it is £148,000; in the east of England, it is £220,000; in London it is £356,000—no surprises there; in the south-east, it is £352,000; in the south-west, it is £179,000; and in the whole of England it is £216,000. I hope that is all right as a starter for ten, but I will endeavour to get those demand figures for next week Within London, up to 47% of households that are currently renting privately would be able to secure a mortgage on a new-build starter home—in the lower quartile of the first-time buyer market—compared to 37% who could buy a similar property now, priced at full market value. This demonstrates that starter homes, at a 20% discount, will provide a genuine opportunity for home ownership for many more households and help them to get a lasting foothold on the property ladder. The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about the equity loan scheme as being a discount; the very nature of its name implies that it is a loan—it has been extended to 40% in London. But the whole of the debate so far has talked about the inaccessibility of the housing market, particularly for first-time buyers, and London is a really hot case in point. Either we want Londoners to access the London market or we do not—I think that all noble Lords do want Londoners, particularly the young ones, to access the London housing market The noble Lord, Lord Best, also said that Help to Buy distorts prices and drives down supply. A government research report that came out last week stated that, actually, Help to Buy does not distort prices but drives up supply. Government research found that 43% of additional new homes built were as a result of Help to Buy. It has, understandably, been an extremely popular product.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I thought that the noble Lord had said discounts, so I apologise if I misheard him. I think I need to reiterate that point: the 40% Help to Buy loan equity plus the 20% discount do not add up to a 60% subsidy. Effectively, 40% of that 60% is in fact a loan and has to be paid back.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I think I have been over the arguments many times. As I say, this is a new product introduced by the Government, a manifesto commitment to help that demographic which has been so disenfranchised by the buyers’ market, and it will help those people to get on the housing ladder. I know that we disagree, but everyone in this Chamber has talked about the particular difficulties of London, and that is why the equity loan guarantee scheme is being extended to 40% in London. The restrictions imposed by permanent discount can make it more difficult to sell and to move on—I have gone through that earlier today. If a property can only ever be sold at a discount, can the owner easily move upwards to a larger home or to a new area? We want to ensure that the opportunity of home ownership comes with future choices and mobility, and not with more constraints. This is central to our vision for first-time buyers: a genuine discount that provides a genuine opportunity for the long-term future. As I have said, this is particularly important for young people, and we intend that starter homes will continue to be provided until 2020 and well beyond—obviously, we cannot commit a future Government to the priorities of the current Government, but that is our intention. A new supply of starter homes will become available for future first-time buyers, who will benefit from the same opportunities as the earlier buyers I will now turn to Amendment 41A, which introduces an alternative to the Government’s five-year restriction on sales, and the in-perpetuity model put forward under Amendment 46. This proposes that a 20-year taper is attached to starter homes where a buyer secures an uplift in value of 1% for every year of ownership. However, under this amendment, a couple in their mid-30s buying a starter home as their first house would need to stay there until their mid-50s to realise the full uplift in the value of their property. This seems like a significant restriction on their future mobility and does not support our ambitions for starter homes. Such long-term restrictions would make it more difficult to sell and move on. If the property is sold at a discount, can the owner easily move upwards to a larger home or to a new area? If people find it more difficult to move on, I question whether long-term restrictions will benefit future occupiers.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, they would. But the principle behind the Government’s initiative is that within a few years people can start to move up the property ladder, but we want to help them to move on rather more quickly than the noble Lord suggests.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I think we are going to have to disagree on this. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made the point that owners would get the uplift from house price inflation. However, that could be the other way round, as after five years, a house could be worth less. The housing market is cyclical—prices go down as well as up—so there will not necessarily be an increase in the house price after five years.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this is all relative. When house prices come down, the next house up on the ladder will also be cheaper. Under the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Best, after five years the couple in question would benefit from a quarter of the discount. I accept that after 20 years they would benefit from the whole discount. I know there is not agreement in the Committee about this, but we want people who work hard and want to move up the housing ladder to be able to do so.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, housing is an issue for government and there is a huge demand on housing in this country. This scheme is not to the exclusion of other products—I must stress that it is not as though we have switched off the tap to all other products. Sitting on these Benches, one might think that there were no other products on the market, but there are. This is one way of helping that demographic for whom home ownership has been so out of reach.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): There is Section 106, if it is viable for the scheme. There is £20 billion going into the housing market, of which £8 billion is for starter homes. It is one of a number of parts of the jigsaw, but the Government are very keen to promote it. We do not shy away from that: we want people to get on and move up in a reasonable time.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): For all the reasons I have outlined, because of the gap in the market. However, if people find it more difficult to move on, I would question whether long-term restrictions would benefit future occupiers. Allowing first-time buyers to benefit from a genuine discount will increase the vibrancy of the housing market, while the next generation of first-time buyers will benefit from new starter homes coming through the planning system in years to come Those homes will provide first-time buyers with the opportunity to move up as their family grows—as the noble Baroness said—or their circumstances change. We are consulting on the five-year restriction for affirmative regulations shortly, and will consider all responses carefully Our proposals would prevent starter homes being sold on the open market at full market value for a period of five years after they were first purchased by a first-time buyer. We believe this is important to ensure that starter homes are sold to those who are genuinely committed to living in an area and not to those who would simply wish to sell to secure financial uplift. We want to be clear that a starter home could be sold during the first five years of occupation—that point relates to the question of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—but it could be sold on only at 80% of market value to a qualifying first-time buyer. Therefore no money moves anywhere during this period. After that time, the property may be sold at full market value. This proposal will be set out in affirmative regulations following consultation.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as I said this morning, we would expect an independent valuation to take place. That would be the fairest way to do things. A number of noble Lords have mentioned that this afternoon Our consultation will provide the best opportunity to test our proposals with the sector, including developers and lenders. We need to wait for the outcome to ensure that post-sale restrictions can work well in practice. Introducing tapered discounts over such a long period is complicated and including them in the Bill would limit the flexibility to make adjustments to the way they work in practice if necessary On Amendment 40, I assure noble Lords that it is not our intention to allow those people who buy a starter home to become buy-to-let landlords. We will ensure that letting restrictions are included in our regulations. The aim is to provide a place to live in, not a place for absentee landlords to profit from Unfortunately, restrictions to any legislation will not prevent gaming at the local level, but I assure noble Lords that we are working with builders, lenders and local government on the best possible mechanism. We will consult on the details for the regulations in a technical consultation to be published shortly.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord makes an extremely valid point and I will ask about what the mechanism would be there. People will be queueing up for these homes anyway because they are going to be appealing for first-time buyers, but I will ask about the precise mechanism by which that would work—whether, effectively, there is competition in the market. That is a valid question.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I turn to Amendment 39A, which would enable Rent to Buy products to be considered as starter homes. We know that there is an appetite among housing providers and developers to deliver more home ownership in new and innovative ways. We know that we need a wider range of products to assist young first-time buyers to access home ownership when a generation is increasingly being priced out. The Government are supporting people who cannot afford a discounted purchase outright through the separate schemes that I have mentioned, such as Rent to Buy, Help to Buy and shared ownership Our commitments through this spending review will provide households that cannot yet afford a home on the market but aspire to home ownership in the medium term the opportunity to save for a deposit. It is a good product and, like other valuable products that support access to home ownership, affordable Rent to Buy can be considered by councils as part of their wider affordable housing requirements for their area. The clause will not prevent those developments from coming forward. This is a new product. Our manifesto was clear that we would build 200,000 starter homes and this is central to our housing ambitions. The electorate will expect us to deliver on our commitment. The starter homes policy is a product for outright purchase that gives people the benefit of home ownership and, importantly, helps them to achieve a step up the ladder. I have tried to answer all noble Lords’ questions.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Other
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I can say to the noble Lord that we will certainly request that—he has been teasing us all afternoon. I am looking forward to seeing that report and I am sure that we will debate it in full, comparing those data and the Government’s data. I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
John Horam (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I add my voice to the support for Amendment 42 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I am aware, as they have said, that there are many chief executives, of big London boroughs in particular, who are very anxious to regenerate their existing—very often large and troublesome, I must say—estates in an interesting and innovative way. But the first thing they have to do is get the support of the people on the estates. They have votes, and it is no good not giving them the sort of right of return that this amendment involves—you simply would not get the support that you need to go ahead with the kind of development that is necessary Although it encapsulates a very important idea, this particular amendment is not right, and perhaps I can anticipate the Minister’s response in this respect. I do not think that you can exclude any starter home-type development. It would be wrong to do that, as the amendment appears to, because some sort of mix is needed. None the less, I think that the right of return for existing tenants should be guaranteed. Indeed, that is essential if you are going to get these schemes off the ground.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I also agree with the underlying force of the amendments. They do not apply only to large developments. In some developments there is pocket regeneration and smaller examples of where a decant and a return is needed. It is a question of where in my first 11 for solving the problem, as it were, starter homes come. Some of these schemes are extremely delicate at the edges, not only as my noble friend said in terms of selling and carrying the support of existing tenants and leaseholders but also on finance I was interested to hear my great friend, Councillor Ravi Govindia, the leader of Wandsworth, yesterday. I could testify from my local authority’s concern that we need to think about this very carefully. Whether it is rightly addressed by this sort of prescriptive amendment, or by a more concessionary approach to exceptions, which we might discuss between now and Report, I do not know, but I hope that my noble friend will think carefully, because it would be a great pity to lose delicate developments of social housing and estate improvement on the margins. I speak from personal experience when I say that some developments are balancing on the margins at the moment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy, Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for their amendments. They give me an opportunity to explain our key parameters for the delivery of starter homes, particularly in relation to unviable and underused brownfield land and housing regeneration schemes Perhaps I may start by addressing Amendment 41, which seeks to restrict starter homes to underused and unviable brownfield land in line with our original starter homes exception site policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said. Let me be clear that we still expect exception sites to make a significant contribution to starter home delivery, and the first planning applications have been submitted under the exception site policy which has been in place since March 2015. We expect these to deliver a substantial number of starter homes, boosting the overall housing supply, and we have consulted on planning policy changes to extend and strengthen this policy, as well as bringing forward more land for starter homes, building on the exception site policy. We want to ensure that sufficient appropriate land is brought forward to meet housing need This planning reform will be further strengthened by the £1.2 billion starter home land fund which was announced by the Prime Minister in January. The fund forms a significant part of the £2.3 billion allocated to deliver more starter homes in the spending review and will support further brownfield site preparation, delivering at least 30,000 starter homes. It builds upon £36 million made available this year to secure and prepare more land for a first wave of starter homes, and it includes £8 million offered to councils to support starter homes on 27 underused or vacant brownfield sites across England. The HCA is using the remaining funding to acquire further suitable brownfield sites to drive up housing delivery. But we also need to deliver starter homes on more conventional housing sites so that first-time buyers across the country can benefit from discounted home ownership. Limiting this would limit the opportunity for home ownership. It will also bring the benefit of a new mix of housing types on site: discounted properties for first-time buyers alongside wider market housing and any shared ownership or rented housing secured on the site. It is our view that the opportunities for first-time buyers have too often been neglected. Starter homes provide for a new model which should be delivered alongside other housing types. My department will be consulting on proposals for starter homes requirement on conventional sites in a technical consultation to be launched in the near future, and we want to look carefully at the proportion of starter homes required.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I take the noble Lord’s point that the requirement to deliver starter homes might affect the viability of a site. That would be absolutely counterproductive, but it will often be the case that not only will the starter homes requirement be able to be met, but the council, in consultation with the developer, may well be able to provide other types of housing. I particular refer to houses for affordable rent, because they are quite often the grant-funded houses that effectively act as a pump-prime for the construction of homes Turning to my noble friend Lord Deben’s point on the green belt, we are very committed to protecting the green belt, despite what noble Lords might read in the newspapers, and we are maintaining the strong safeguards that are set out in national planning policy, which allow for development only where special circumstances exist. I agree with my noble friend that once it is gone it can never be got back.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I just hope that my noble friend will remember that it is not just the green belt that I wish to defend: it is green fields and it is the need to build on land that is already built on, or has been built on, in order to get the homes we need. This is very important part of it; I do not want to restrict our building.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I understand my noble friend’s point. Under our proposals in the NPPF national planning policy consultation, small-scale development in the green belt for starter homes could take place, but only where it is endorsed by the local community. I take my noble friend’s point, certainly in light of recent flooding, about the need to have this very finely balanced and for green belt not to be used as a sloppy method for builders to be able to build willy-nilly.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I am in total agreement with the noble Lord and with my noble friend. One thing we are testing is whether there should be more flexibility on developing brownfield that is in the green belt—that exists, of course, but it is 0.1% of all green belt. It has been suggested that there should be a bit more flexibility on that, but not on the green belt itself. The noble Lord and my noble friend are absolutely right that these will become go-to sites for developers unless we are very careful Amendment 42 seeks to prevent housing regeneration schemes from incorporating starter homes. In January the Prime Minister announced an ambitious new programme to regenerate public sector estates, to tackle deprivation and build more homes. As I announced at this Dispatch Box a couple of weeks ago, £140 million of loan support funding has been made available to support regeneration and encourage investment from the private sector. My noble friend Lord Heseltine has appointed his estates regeneration advisory panel and its first meeting was held in February. Clause 2 is very clear on the definition of a starter home, which we need to ensure our reforms are widely understood. Clause 4 sets out the requirement for the provision of starter homes for residential development. My department will be bringing forward a technical consultation on the requirement so that we get it right The consultation will recognise that there are some developments where the inclusion of starter homes could help to secure a diversity of tenures and support mixed communities, but that compulsory inclusion could alter the viability, as my noble friend Lord True pointed out. But as my noble friend Lord Horam said, we should not exclude it at the outset—I think that that is absolutely right. I reassure noble Lords that our consultation will invite views on whether these schemes should be subject to the minimum starter homes requirement. As my noble friend Lord Horam absolutely rightly pointed out, engagement with tenants is crucial My noble friend Lord Heseltine was very keen to make sure that this is a truly genuine engagement with tenants, as well as other people involved in the scheme. So we need to wait for the outcome of the consultation to enable us to take into account the views and expertise of the sector. We need to work with those who will make this work on the ground to ensure that we get it right. Setting the requirement through regulations will help us to keep this operation under review and give more flexibility in the future Given my comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw his amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-03
Topic: Housing
John Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): They certainly could; the noble Lord is absolutely right. But they would have to exist in a way which meant that they were not lost when the next tenant comes forward. You would have to have them in perpetuity as well. As long as that is the case, I do not mind two hoots.