Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether it remains their policy
to build 300,000 homes a year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Levelling Up, Housing & Communities () (Con)
The Government remain committed to continuing to work towards our
ambition of delivering 300,000 homes a year, as set out in the
2019 Conservative manifesto. We are making good progress. Annual
housing supply is up 10% compared with the previous year, with
more than 232,000 net additional homes delivered in 2021-22. This
is the third-highest yearly rate for the last 30 years.
(Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that renewed commitment, but
does she recall the 2019 White Paper Fixing Our Broken Housing
Market, which listed a number of reasons why we might not hit
that target? The first one said that
“some local authorities can duck potentially difficult decisions,
because they are free to come up with their own methodology for
calculating ‘objectively assessed need’.”
Does my noble friend understand that asking local authorities to
make the housing target discretionary rather than mandatory makes
it less likely that we will hit the 300,000 target, because you
cannot rely on the good will of local authorities to meet a
national mandate?
(Con)
My Lords, we remain committed to a plan-led system. National
planning policy expects local planning authorities, through their
plans, to make sufficient provision for housing and to identify
the sites to deliver much-needed homes to meet local needs. To
get enough homes built in places where people and communities
need them, a crucial first step is to plan for the right number
of homes. That is why we remain committed to the 300,000 homes
target and to retaining a clear starting point for calculating
local housing needs. We are currently consulting on changes to
the planning policy that will support how we plan to deliver the
homes our communities need.
(Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local
Government Association, chair of the Heart of Medway Housing
Association and a non-executive director at MHS Homes Ltd. The
Centre for Policy Studies estimated that, without the target,
housebuilding could fall by as much as 20%, while the Home
Builders Federation estimated that it could cause a £17 billion
hit to the economy. Can the Minister confirm whether assessments
made by the department support those estimates?
(Con)
I cannot confirm that those estimates are supported by the
department. What I can continue to say, as confirmed by the
Secretary of State in a Written Statement in December, is that
standard methods of assessing local housing need will be retained
and so will the 300,000 homes target.
(CB)
My Lords, why will the Government not support prefabricated
housing? Surely it would help social housing and would last for
at least 25 years, when things might be better—they could not be
worse.
(Con)
I think this question was asked last week as well. We are
tackling the barriers to increasing use of modern methods of
construction in the industry, which are cheaper and quicker to
deliver, but it means we have to be joined up so that we have a
sustained pipeline for these companies to be able to deliver
these important new houses. Through our £11.5 billion affordable
homes programme we are challenging the sector to increase the
number of homes delivered through this modern method. Around 40%
of current allocations made through the programme use modern
methods of construction.
(LD)
Despite the Minister’s very genuine assurances, we are told that
housing targets are now advisory, not mandatory, and we know that
an increasing number of councils are actually stopping work on
their local plans. Indeed, some are withdrawing them. The
Secretary of State has said that councils do not need to pass as
rigorous a test to get their plans through. Are the Government
not now in danger of punishing the majority of councils that have
complied with the manifesto and the rules and had their plans
adopted, and letting off the hook or even rewarding those that
have dragged their heels?
(Con)
No, we are not. The Bill that is starting Second Reading tomorrow
in this House will make it very clear that local plans are what
are required from local authorities. It is important that they
have local plans. Only 40% of local authorities have up-to-date
ones at the moment. It is important that all local authorities
have up-to-date plans, because the evidence shows that local
authorities that do not have a local plan often deliver up to 14%
less housing than those that do.
(Con)
My Lords, in the 1950s Maurice Macmillan announced the target of
300,000 houses a year. He was very reluctant to do it, but it was
forced upon him by an ambitious Tory party conference. He then
decided to appoint one of his Defence Ministers, Ernest Marples,
to do it. Ernest Marples had made his fortune owning Marples
Ridgway, building roads, so he knew a trick or two. Within two
years he had built 300,000 houses, so it is quite possible for
our country to build 300,000 houses a year if we are determined
to do it.
(Con)
I absolutely agree with my noble friend. That is exactly what we
are determined to do through the measures in the Levelling-up and
Regeneration Bill, which is coming into this House tomorrow, in
accordance with our manifesto.
(Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister not recognise that it is not just the
absolute number that is important but the type of tenure? What is
crystal clear for anyone who looks at the figures is, in effect,
the collapse of availability of social housing in this country.
Until the Minister can show us a plan by the Government to try to
restore that as a proportion of the total number of households in
the country, we will not meet the acute need as required.
(Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right, but we are investing £11.5
billion through our affordable homes programme to deliver up to
180,000 more affordable homes. A large number of these will be
available for social rent. Also, the Government have provided a
range of tools to help councils deliver more homes, particularly
in this sector. They include the councils’ freedom on how to
spend the money received from the right-to-buy sales. The
Government also abolished the housing revenue account borrowing
cap in 2018, allowing councils to borrow more money to build more
homes.
(GP)
My Lords, do the Government appreciate the value of community
land trusts? To follow on from the last question, they actually
build homes that are affordable, but affordable in perpetuity
because they are not sold on at vast increases in cost. Have the
Government evaluated that?
(Con)
Yes. Many local authorities in the country certainly work closely
with community land trusts. I do not have an update on what is
happening nationally, but I will certainly get an answer to the
noble Baroness.
(CB)
My Lords, the Minister will have seen the press reports from
Barratt and some of the other big-volume housebuilders, saying
that they are going to produce fewer homes in the current
economic circumstances of the year ahead. This is not a great
tragedy in everybody’s view, since some of these schemes will be
horrible, soulless estates outside town with very few amenities
and poor public transport. However, we need the extra homes in
this country to meet the nation’s needs. Is this not the moment
to boost social housing investment? Is this not just the right
time, when we know that the housebuilders are not going to do it,
to really get going with some of the social housing that we so
desperately need?
(Con)
Yes, the noble Lord is absolutely right. That is why we put £500
billion this year into local authorities, so that they can buy
houses for social housing rent, particularly in areas of most
need.
(Con)
My Lords, the National Planning Policy Framework from , when he was Secretary of State,
gave government the power to impose targets locally if the local
authority could not come up with a local plan. My understanding
is that the latest amendments to the levelling-up Bill mean that
that will not be the case and that these local plans and targets
will be advisory. I cannot understand how this will lead to
anything other than a reduction in housing stock. I would like my
noble friend the Minister to comment.
(Con)
My Lords, the Government need to work closely with local
authorities to ensure that they are building the houses that are
required in their area. If every local authority builds the
number of houses required in its area, we will hit that target.
