argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 5. I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association, since we are starting Report. In Committee we had a very lengthy discussion on starter homes; on whether the 20% discount should exist in perpetuity rather than for five years; on whether cash sales should be permitted; and on the impact of Section 106 agreements and the consequent adverse impact on the number of affordable homes for rent. We argued that starter homes should not be the central policy proposal in the Bill since homes of all tenures are needed, particularly for rent. Since then, the Government have conceded that an age limit of 23 and above should be imposed to prevent richer parents buying starter homes for students. They have also conceded that the five-year limit on resale should be extended to eight years with a taper Amendment 5, to which my name is attached, proposes that the 20% discount should apply in perpetuity. The other amendment in this group, Amendment 1, which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, would increase the length of time for which a starter home should be held from five to 20 years, again with a taper. Either is much preferable to the Government’s current position. Amendment 5 seeks to keep a starter home as a starter home in perpetuity. Amendment 1 would deliver a similar outcome in practice, since a starter home would remain a starter home for very much longer than the Government propose. It would also be potentially easier to implement in administrative terms. We should note that the Government’s two changes will not stop cash sales for those who are over 23. Nor will they prevent rich parents buying homes on behalf of children and then securing a cash bonus when the home is sold The context today is important. People expect fairness from our legislation, and that fairness dictates that housing policy should not be about only the 200,000 owner-occupiers who could gain from a cash windfall; it should also be about people on low and middle incomes who cannot afford to buy a home even with a 20% discount, who should be helped to secure a home for rent—and not just in the private sector There are two amendments in this group, Amendments 1 and 5—but if the noble Lord, Lord Best, wishes to test the opinion of the House, I believe that he should be supported.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken on Report, I draw the attention of the House to my interests as set out in the register as a South Somerset District Council councillor and as a vice-president of the LGA I rise to support Amendment 10. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, ably demonstrated, age-restricted housing schemes for older people should, by their very nature, be exempt from the requirement to provide starter homes. The majority of these schemes will have been designed around the needs of older people and will be completely tailored to their needs. The ethos of the Government’s starter homes policy is targeted at younger people between the ages of 23 and 40. It would be inappropriate for starter homes to become part of an elderly people’s complex, and they should therefore be exempt. This should be clear in the Bill.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): In moving Amendment 6, I shall speak very strongly in support of the other amendments in this group. While the Government’s aim to provide starter homes for young people is to be commended, it should not be seen as the only route for people to access homes and accommodation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, said and as was said in Committee, local authorities up and down the country continually update their housing requirements and are able to assess the local need for all types of social and affordable housing. There must therefore be a requirement for them to provide other forms of homes outside the starter homes programme, which they are willing and able to do A large of number of residents will require homes to rent, as their incomes and circumstances will preclude their buying a home of their own regardless of their desire to do so. The needs of such residents should be met by local authorities, which are keen to fulfil their housing function in this direction Alternative social and affordable housing will also include shared ownership—as has been said—and shared equity schemes, as well as social rented homes. For local authorities to focus entirely on the starter homes programme will leave a large number of families, couples and single people without any means to access a home. It is a basic right for every individual to have a home that is fit for purpose so that they may access employment and ensure that their children are able regularly to attend school Having carried out their housing needs surveys, English planning authorities should grant permission for residential developments only where their survey indicates a need and a demand for such housing. This could include starter homes but not to the exclusion of other forms of affordable housing. I look forward to the Minister’s response on this important matter and I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for her response, which was quite encouraging but does not completely satisfy me. I thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate, especially the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake, Lord Beecham and Lord True. I am still concerned that local authorities that know their residents and what is going on in their areas, and are best placed to decide what types of housing are needed for their areas, will have to provide 20% starter homes on all their developments because that is the Government’s intention. I understand the need for starter homes and the Government’s wish to fill the gap in the market and to help people into home ownership. However, I believe it should be for local authorities to decide how best to fulfil this gap in the market. Nevertheless, having heard what the Minister said, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 6.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Public Lands
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I, too, thank the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Best, for having negotiated what looks like an agreement we can all sign up to, but I will be looking forward to the detail at Third Reading. I gave a long and detailed speech in Committee on this subject. Your Lordships will be pleased to know that I am not going to do the same today, but I still feel very passionately about rural exception sites and protecting rural communities, so I will be looking closely at what comes forward at Third Reading.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Donald Foster (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I beg to move this amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Bakewell and to speak to Amendment 13. I have been listening to the debate with great interest, both today and earlier in Committee, and I have three key concerns about this part of the Bill. The first is that starter homes, notwithstanding the attempts being made by the Government to change the definition, are simply not affordable homes. All the evidence from Shelter and others shows that they will be out of reach for most middle-income families My second concern is that starter homes will largely be built instead of, rather than as well as, the affordable homes that would previously have been built under Section 106 agreements. If enacted, the Bill will see the end of truly affordable housebuilding in this country. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, put it, we are robbing Peter to pay Paul because over the last 10 years, planning obligations such as Section 106 have helped to deliver some 250,000 genuinely affordable homes for purchase and rent. This will cease if the planning obligations are abolished and replaced with a starter home-only obligation.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Donald Foster (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his support for the amendment. I entirely agree with him about the importance of developing mixed, sustainable communities and of ensuring that there are a range of different tenures within them. I also say to him that I have never, so far in my time in the House, found the Minister complacent. I thank her for the very generous way in which she has given of her time to talk to many noble Lords and know she has listened to many of the concerns that have been expressed by Members of your Lordships’ House However, I am not entirely convinced by the arguments that she has made this evening. We are in difficulty because we know that, as with so many things, the Government are still consulting. We do not know what the outcome will be in relation to the percentage of starter homes that will be imposed on particular sites and we have not seen the model Section 106 agreements that the Government are currently developing. This puts us in a very difficult place but there will be further opportunities for discussion and to come back to these issues so, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw.
Update on the UK Steel Industry — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Benjamin Stoneham (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, six months ago—I was slightly surprised that it was six months ago—these Benches advocated the Government setting up a Minister-led steering group to look at the whole range of problems of steel and develop a strategy to save what we could of this great industry. All the impression of the past few weeks is that the Government have been running around like a rabbit in the headlights, with the local MP knowing that Tata was going to make a key decision on Port Talbot but the Minister responsible not knowing so. Have the Government used the past six months to develop a strategy for steel and, if not, why not? What is the Government’s industrial strategy towards steel?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this group of amendments is about giving tenants and those seeking tenancies access to the rogue landlord database. I will speak to Amendments 22 to 25. I also support Amendment 26. I fully support the Government’s intention to require local housing authorities to compile a register of rogue landlords. However, there seems little point in the Secretary of State imposing this requirement on local housing authorities if the very people affected by the treatment meted out by such landlords have no idea that their landlord is on the list, or that their potential landlord should be avoided if at all possible Tenants of rogue landlords are extremely vulnerable to poor and inadequate housing and have little protection in securing their tenancy or improving the quality of their accommodation. However, the simple measure of giving them access to the register would transform their ability to have some sense of control over their accommodation. They would be able to see just who is on the register and thus avoid repeatedly ending up at the mercy of poor landlords We heard detailed description in Committee of the plight of some of the tenants of landlords who are extremely likely to end up being added to the register of rogue landlords. I am afraid that I cannot understand the logic which says that the register, once produced, would be anonymised so that tenants would, presumably, know only the number of rogue landlords but not who they were or the properties that they owned. Ensuring that all accommodation is fit for human habitation, watertight, capable of being heated in winter and safe are basic rights for all tenants. Unless the register is open for tenants to check that their landlord is indeed looking after their best interests in return for the rent that they pay, there seems little point in compiling the register in the first place I trust that the Minister will be able to respond positively to this group of amendments and I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for her response and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his contribution on HMO licences. I remain unconvinced by the Government’s response. While the Government may feel that it would be unfortunate if banned rogue landlords went out of business, I am sure that tenants would not feel that way. If you are the tenant of a rogue landlord, or live in an HMO run by somebody on the rogue landlord register, I think you should be entitled to know that. If, as a result of that, some landlords went out of business, only very poor landlords would suffer that fate. Yet if good landlords are judged in the same way as bad landlords—apart from being on the rogue landlords register, which nobody will know about except the local authority—that seems a bit of a nonsense, and a disincentive to those landlords who are extremely diligent and vigilant about looking after their tenants. However, I accept that, at this late stage, I will probably not get the Government to change their mind. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-11
Topic: Housing
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks. I am pleased to hear that there is a register and a code of practice, but I am somewhat mystified about why there is no statutory enforcement. There are, therefore, loopholes through which tenants will fall. A large number of tenants will now be looking for accommodation in the private sector, having had their tenancies in the public sector ended under the removal of lifetime tenancies. There will be vulnerable people who have not been used to renting in the private sector who are being displaced, perhaps because their rents have been increased or their tenancies not renewed by housing associations or local authorities. They will be looking for accommodation in the private sector and need protection.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 101BGB. We are moving on to Clause 142, which is about planning obligations—Section 106 and so on This clause sets up a new procedure for resolution of disputes and there is a new schedule in the Bill which forms new Schedule 9A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It sets up a new and quite complicated procedure for resolving disputes on Section 106 obligations when the local planning authority and the applicants are having difficulty coming to a conclusion. My amendment simply applies this to Section 106 agreements in relation to housing, rather than Section 106 agreements as a whole It is generally true that there are two types of Section 106 agreements. The first relate to housing and affordable housing. They are often very controversial and difficult to reach conclusions on; indeed, consideration has recently been given to ways in which they can be lifted, or their alleged burden reduced. These are in a wholly different category from normal Section 106 agreements, which simply provide necessary local infrastructure, nowadays closely related to the actual site of the application. This procedure seems long, convoluted and complex compared with ordinary, simple Section 106 agreements, and may result in applicants dragging out discussions longer than is necessary in the hope that they can get away with paying a bit less There are perhaps more important amendments in this group; however, it seems to me that the Government want to use a sledgehammer to crack what are in fact quite small nuts. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, my name is attached to Amendments 101C and 101D. I can be brief because we discussed the issues from which these two amendments derive during our consideration of the housing elements of the Bill earlier in Committee. Amendment 101C makes it clear that the Bill should be about all tenures of housing, not just owner-occupation. Amendment 101D would leave out lines 6 and 7, which give the Secretary of State the power to define affordable housing however he wants to define it. That power is a problem and those words should be removed from the Bill. I hope the Minister will concur We discussed in some detail the definitions of affordable housing and affordability. I am concerned that the Government muddle the two terms. We have a statement right at the beginning of the Bill that starter homes are to be defined as affordable homes, but for many people they are not affordable at all. Given all the evidence we have had from organisations such as Shelter, it seems to me wrong to use terms that cannot be justified. It seems even more wrong to give the Secretary of State the power to redefine terms which are already wrong. "Affordable" and "affordability" have clear dictionary definitions, and whichever dictionary the Minister cares to consult in the Library, the definitions are always the same: they relate to people having the resources to pay the bills. Given that many people cannot pay the cost of a starter home, it is wrong to define a starter home as affordable I hope the Minister will be able to respond, but these amendments will probably be brought back on Report in a form that joins them to other concerns about the nature of affordability.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. We discussed this at a much earlier stage in Committee, in the context of the fact that affordability ought to be defined in relation to people’s incomes and median incomes, and that is the point with which I entirely concur.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Perhaps I can explain what the issue is, although I thought I had done so previously. The amendment relates to the planning part of the Bill. At the very beginning there was a debate, and amendments that I think the noble Lord himself moved, about the definition of affordability. We had a long discussion about that. The context of the amendment that the noble Lord is criticising simply relates to whether the Secretary of State should have the power to define a word that is clearly expressed in any dictionary that the Secretary of State may wish to consult. On "affordable" and "affordability", the Government are muddling their terms, and I believe that that is happening deliberately to make it appear as though housing is affordable when it is not. The Government define the words "affordable" and affordability" differently, but in the dictionary they are the same thing. They relate to the ability of people to pay. All I said when I spoke to the amendment was that I thought we had to go back to amend the Bill at the beginning of its housing element so that the definition of "affordability" was better stated, but then not to allow a Secretary of State to make a change by regulation to the meaning of a word that had a clear meaning in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): To avoid any doubt, I am very happy to do that, as I said 15 or 20 minutes ago. The question is whether the Secretary of State, having defined what "affordable" and "affordability" are, should then be allowed by regulation to alter them, which I think he or she should not be.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Other
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate and I thank everybody who has taken part in it. Most of the debate was about issues that I was not personally raising, but I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord True, who made a speech similar to one I thought of making. It is clear that the noble Lord is less intimidated by the Government Chief Whip on these matters than I am and feels able to make such a speech at length, putting forward the localist view which he has done so well so many times in this Committee.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 102C. With the emphasis on affordable housing, there is a danger that the infrastructure and support to make developments into communities will be sidelined. Many people have talked about what constitutes affordable housing. A £450,000 home after discount in London may be a good buy but you have to be able to afford the deposit and the mortgage payments. Putting aside my concerns about what constitutes affordable housing, this amendment makes the assumption that we can have a building bonanza but we need to ensure—this is my reason for tabling the amendment—that the funds are not diverted from libraries, schools, community culture, public transport and indeed the multiplicity of activities that make a community. This has historically been effected by Section 106 planning gain money, to which many noble Lords have referred, but the position has been further complicated by the new community infrastructure levy, which no one seems to have mentioned. This levy, which has not been welcomed by some local authorities, can be imposed by local authorities on new developments in their area The levy is said to be designed to be fairer, faster and more transparent than the well-tried Section 106 system of agreeing planning obligations between local councils and developers—that is what it says. I therefore ask the Minister, when responding to this amendment, to report on how she sees the community infrastructure levy and/or the Section 106 planning gain funds being protected and enhanced. Can she reassure the Committee that the other provisions in this complicated and convoluted Bill will not militate against the local services that maintain housing developments as communities and not purely, as my old favourite Pete Seeger said in 1963, little boxes of different colours which are all made out of ticky-tacky and all look just the same?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-23
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I am grateful for the last sentence of that reply. I am talking not about pooling Section 106 contributions for bigger projects but about the limit on the number of small projects that can be funded directly linked in a site-specific way to particular developments. The perfectly justifiable intentions of the Government to stop Section106 being an alternative to CIL has caught the small schemes and small contributions in a way that was not intended. That specific point ought to be looked at. Having said that, the other point is that it is okay having lots of incentives to levy CIL—but not if the consequence of levying CIL is that no development at all takes place. Remember, I come from an authority where getting into three figures of new starts or completions a year is proving very difficult indeed. In one recent year it was in single figures and that is not for the lack of trying to build as far as the authority is concerned. Indeed, in one recent year when 50 or 60 completions took place, they were almost all built by the authority. The private market hardly exists—or has hardly existed in the last few years.