Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-26
Topic: Housing
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will first declare some interests in that I am a landlord of a single premises. I hope that I am not a rogue one; I can provide references from my tenant. I am a chair of a company called Anchorwood Developments, which is developing a site in north Devon in co-operation with a social landlord. One of my other interests, which is not a declarable interest because I am not paid, is as chair of an organisation or group called the Rural Coalition, which includes a number of membership organisations such as the CPRE, the NFU, the CLA and about 10 other organisations which hold the rural area very dear If I could indulge the Minister on this, most of the members of those organisations are probably Conservative voters, so if she can imagine that I am speaking from behind her rather than in front of her, perhaps it will give her the right idea about what we are saying. While the Rural Coalition recognises entirely that this was put forward as part of the Government’s manifesto, those organisations are collectively concerned about a number of areas, particularly around rural issues. I very much echo a number of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans I will mention a couple of statistics, which I am not sure have come out already. In rural areas, particularly communities which have populations of fewer than 3,000, the number of social houses is something like 8% of the total in comparison with cities, where it is about 19%. In terms of earning power and the ability to become an owner-occupier, the lowest quartile of earnings has to be multiplied roughly eight times to reach the average cost of a dwelling. So there are real challenges, and it is communities with populations of 3,000 or less that I am addressing in my comments this evening My first point is on right to buy. There is a real concern here that comes from the low proportion of affordable housing. I recognise that within the voluntary agreement a number of exceptions can be made in relation to rural communities, but the track record of one-for-one replacement—which the Government intend should take place, and I am sure everybody hopes it will—shows that it is incredibly difficult to achieve within a reasonable timescale, and it will certainly be very difficult to replace units of social housing in near proximity to the communities where the people already are. That is a real challenge A second concern on right to buy relates to where the properties end up. In the far south-west, within a 15-mile radius of my home, of which I am privileged to be the owner-occupier, there is a hotel on the coast that now has in its possession for use as accommodation a number of ex-council houses. That shows how things move on. There are a number of stories about how council houses that have come under the right-to-buy scheme have become second homes. That is an issue when it comes to the ability of local people to use that housing stock. In Truro, members of my extended family have lived in sold-off council housing that is now buy-to-let accommodation. I agree that it is being used by local people but it is not exactly how we would like accommodation that was once social housing or part of the council housing stock to be used My second point concerns the high value of rural locations. The area where I live has a very attractive coastland. People like to spend their holidays there and we encourage that. There are a number of very high-value social housing units that would probably come under this legislation, with the real risk of the properties being sold and becoming either holiday homes or second homes, which would perhaps be used only over the Christmas period or during the summer for extended family holidays. That would contribute something to the economy but it would present a difficulty when there is a real housing crisis. We want to enable both those things to happen However, the biggest challenge, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, is that of rural exception sites and starter homes. Of course, all of us who are owner-occupiers have gone through the experience of buying our own starter home, and therefore the last thing we want to do is to prevent other people and other families benefiting from that. But, again, there is a real affordability issue regarding starter homes as they are defined at the moment. Even with the discount, because of the ratio of earnings to house prices, it will be a real challenge for a lot of the people in those communities to afford those homes. There is also a real risk of crowding out affordable housing within an area In my village, six excellent community land trust properties are being built. The money paid for these sorts of developments across the nation is about £10,000 a plot or £100,000 an acre. But if people—farmers, primarily—believe that those properties are going to come on to the open market in the future, that source will absolutely dry up. Therefore, the way for the Government to meet the challenge of rural-proofing what we need to achieve in this Bill is, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said so eloquently himself, to exclude those communities of 3,000 people or fewer.