Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government when they expect that they will
reach their target of building 300,000 new homes a year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Levelling Up, Housing & Communities () (Con)
My Lords, we are continuing to work towards our ambition of
delivering 300,000 homes a year. This has always been a
stretching ambition, and we have made strong progress: the three
highest rates of annual supply in over 30 years have all come
since 2018. We are aware that increasing supply even further will
be made more difficult due to the economic challenges we face,
but we are engaging with Homes England, developers and registered
providers to understand the delivery challenges they face.
(Con)
Has my noble friend seen today’s Times, which reports that new
housebuilding is at its lowest level for 14 years, outside the
Covid years? Has a much-needed recovery not been delayed by the
concession on planning made in another place to a number of
government Back-Benchers, which has already resulted in over 50
local authorities withdrawing their local plans with a view to
submitting new plans with a lower number? If a Government make a
manifesto commitment to build 300,000 homes, can they rely simply
on the good will of local authorities to deliver it, or should we
amend the levelling-up Bill to ensure that the country gets the
homes it needs?
(Con)
My Lords, I will start at the end. The proposed changes to the
planning system set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
are designed to support more areas to get an up-to-date local
plan in place, and therefore deliver more housing. The Government
do not recognise the figure on withdrawn plans. Pauses and delays
to plan-making are not something new, which is why we are
determined, through our reforms, to reinvigorate local
plan-making by simplifying it, speeding it up and strengthening
the weight of democratically produced plans in this country. As
for the article in the Times, yes, I have seen it and all I can
say is that we still want to build more homes of the right type
in the right places. We know that increasing housing supply will
be made more difficult because of economic challenges, but we are
working with the market very closely on the impacts, and to see
what more the Government can do to provide support.
The Lord Speaker ()
My Lords, we have a virtual contribution from the noble Lord,
.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, could not a land commission be established to research
what the impact would be of building on land acquired at
agricultural prices, as proposed by , and sold for housing of a new
form of ownership title, as I proposed in previous debates in the
House? Only by that means can we guarantee the target of the
noble Lord, , thereby providing
affordable housing to a new generation of young people who,
without inherited wealth, may never be home owners.
(Con)
The Government need to look at all opportunities for
housebuilding but we have to look at brownfield land first,
before agricultural land.
(CB)
Are the Government looking at the possibility of expanding home
ownership to groups of people who do not have that chance at the
moment, thereby creating greater sociability out of poverty,
because home ownership is one of the best ways of ending
poverty?
(Con)
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, and this Government are
committed to supporting home ownership and first-time buyers.
Since spring 2010, more than 837,000 households have been helped
to buy their own home through the government-backed schemes,
including Help to Buy and Right to Buy. We have looked at stamp
duty and made that much more positive for first-time buyers, and
I believe we are spreading the opportunity to more people through
our First Homes Scheme, giving a minimum of 30% discount to
people who cannot otherwise afford to buy in their areas. That is
what we are doing to support home ownership.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords—
(Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. May I
point out to my noble friend that Governments do not build
houses—the private sector builds them? The private sector will
build only when it thinks there is a market for them. The Bank of
England’s crashing of interest rates in its failed policy to
drive down inflation is not going to be the solution. My noble
friend must remember that the only time this country has ever
delivered 300,000 units a year was when councils were freed up to
deliver 70,000 or 80,000 units. Her department has removed two of
the historic barriers, but will she look at removing the third?
We removed the cap on right-to-buy receipts being spent—councils
can now spend 100%, which is brilliant—and the cap on councils
borrowing against the existing value, but we still need to remove
the cap on their ability to set locally determined discounts.
(Con)
My noble friend is right: it takes a whole government, and many
departments of government, to ensure that we have housing supply.
DLUHC and the Housing Minister cannot do it on their own, so we
need to work across government. As far as local authorities are
concerned, my noble friend is right that we are removing the
barriers and local authorities are now building houses.
(LD)
My Lords—
(Lab)
My Lords—
(Con)
It is in fact the turn of the Labour Benches.
(Lab)
My Lords, following on from the noble Lord, , the recent proposal
by the Labour Party to remove hope value would allow social
landlords more easily to develop the affordable homes our country
so badly needs. Fewer than 7,000 were built last year but we need
90,000 every year, so it is not surprising that these proposed
reforms are supported by a wide range of organisations, including
the National Housing Federation and Shelter. What assessment have
the Government made of the impact of high land values on our
ability to deliver new social housing?
(Con)
The noble Baroness has been involved in some of the Committee
sessions of the levelling-up Bill, and she will know that we are
looking at hope value and land prices. The Government
particularly recognise the need for homes for social rent. That
is why social rent homes were brought into the scope of the
affordable homes programme, for example, in 2018. As I say, the
levelling-up White Paper committed to looking at ways to increase
the supply of social rented homes.
(LD)
My Lords, 40 years ago SME builders built 40% of all new homes.
Today the figure is around 10%. The Minister might therefore
understand my disappointment that the Government have not
accepted my amendment to the levelling-up Bill that would assist
SMEs to build on small sites. Will she offer assurances today
that the new NPPF, which is being revised and will appear soon, I
hope, will have something in it to give SMEs hope that they can
get back to building at scale?
(Con)
I am not going to get into what will and will not be in the NPPF
at this time. What I can say about government support for SMEs is
what we are doing at the moment. We have launched the Levelling
Up Home Building Fund, which is providing £1.5 billion in
development finance to SMEs and MMC builders and supporting them
to deliver more homes. As the noble Baroness said, the
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will make changes to the
planning system that will support SMEs by making the planning
process faster and far more predictable.
(Con)
My Lords—
(CB)
My Lords—
(Con)
My Lords—
(Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.
(Con)
My Lords—
Noble Lords
Order!
(Con)
It is the turn of the Cross Benches.
(CB)
My Lords, we have long had a housing crisis. Hundreds of
thousands are homeless, millions are living in substandard and
overcrowded accommodation, there are 2 million fewer social
housing units than some decades ago and home ownership among the
young has fallen dramatically. Does the Minister agree that we
need to create many more than 300,000 new dwellings per year if
we are to achieve a reasonable equilibrium in reasonable time in
the UK’s housing market?
(Con)
The Government’s view is that we need to deliver 300,000 houses
per year by the middle of 2025. The noble Lord is right that we
then need to look again at those numbers. The key to this is that
local authorities look at the housing need in their areas and
build to that housing need.
