Asked by Lord Greaves To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light
of the comments by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government on 22 October about investment in housing, whether they
intend to finance an increase in house building by councils and
housing associations through increased borrowing; and if so, how
many additional houses...Request free
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Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the
comments by the Secretary of State for Communities and
Local Government on 22 October about investment in
housing, whether they intend to finance an increase in
house building by councils and housing associations
through increased borrowing; and if so, how many
additional houses they intend should be built within the
next five years.
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my
name on the Order Paper, and remind the House of my
interest as a district councillor.
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My Lords, we are keen for local authorities and other
social landlords to build more homes. That is why we have
recently announced an additional £2 billion increase in
the affordable homes programme to more than £9 billion
for affordable housing, including social rents. We have
also provided rental certainty for social housing from
2020, which will enable social landlords to plan their
homebuilding programmes more effectively. Nevertheless,
we continue to be open to dialogue with our local
authority partners about any constraints holding them
back.
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My Lords, at the weekend the Communities Secretary said
that the Government should borrow a lot more money in
order to build between 275,000 and 300,000 houses a year
in England alone. Since then, the Chancellor said in
reply to my right honourable friend in the House of Commons
that this was not government policy. Do we still have
collective Cabinet responsibility in this country, or do
we have a system in which Cabinet Ministers simply debate
with one another in public?
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My Lords, I remind the House of the commitment of the
Government to build 1 million more new homes by 2020 and
an additional half a million by 2022. In pursuance of
that, we look at the borrowing capacity of local
authorities. They currently have £3.6 billon of housing
revenue account headroom available. We increased the
borrowing capacity by £300 million in 2013, of which only
£144 million has been taken up. As I have said, we remain
open to discussing this matter and indeed do so with our
local authority partners.
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Will my noble friend accept that we are building almost
all our houses to a standard which means that they will
have to be retrofitted because the energy efficiency is
so low? Will he give a commitment that those 1 million
houses will be built to a standard which enables people
to afford to heat them, because we have started off in
the right way instead of having to do it afterwards?
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My Lords, my noble friend is very well versed in these
matters—few people in the House have more experience than
him—and I know that we worked closely together when I was
in another department in relation to climate change. It
is true that retrofitting is a large part of what is
happening at the moment; it is also true that we must
seek to minimise the need for retrofitting based on
present experience and knowledge. Nevertheless, there is
a massive backlog of retrofitting that will keep us very
busy for a long time in order that we meet those
important climate change targets which the Government are
determined we hit.
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My Lords, I refer the House to my interests in the
register, particularly as a councillor in the London
Borough of Lewisham and as a vice-president of the LGA.
Yesterday, the Minister’s noble friend ,
replying to a question from my noble friend , said that,
“there are circumstances in which we would consider
lifting the local authority borrowing
restrictions”.—[Official Report, 25/10/17; col. 935.]
What are those circumstances?
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My Lords, my noble friend Lord Young is absolutely right:
of course there are circumstances. As I have indicated on
two occasions this morning, we are discussing with local
authorities the headroom available. Obviously, that
depends on circumstances; they differ very much from area
to area. We have reached a good agreement with the London
mayor and the GLA, but there may be such circumstances
and we will react to them. It is a pragmatic approach and
not an ideological one.
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My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register,
particularly as a member of Sheffield City Council and a
vice-president of the LGA. The £2 billion that the
Minister referred to will on average build 11 new council
homes in each local authority area each year. As it is
estimated that 85,000 council houses per year will need
to be built by local authorities, this will not solve the
housing crisis. What new powers and borrowing powers will
the Government give to local authorities to deal with the
housing crisis?
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My Lords, in relation to the £2 billion the noble Lord
mentioned, obviously we will come forward with additional
information on how that money is to be deployed; much of
it will be for social rent, but it is an additional
amount, as he rightly says, on the affordable housing
budget. Nobody is suggesting that there is a single
silver bullet here. There is much ground to be made up,
as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has
made absolutely clear. However, we have considerable
powers, as shown in the White Paper, which we will be
exercising through, in many cases, secondary legislation.
We have infrastructure money that we have invested. We
have money releasing funding for separate pieces of land.
We are doing bespoke deals with local authorities, such
as Leeds, Manchester and the West Midlands. We are using
many different weapons in the armoury, but I agree with
the noble Lord that there is no single silver bullet.
That is certainly the case.
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My Lords, can the Minister tell me what evidence there is
to show that Her Majesty’s Government are making
affordable housing a priority?
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My Lords, my noble friend will be very much aware,
because she takes a great interest in these things, that
there is considerable evidence of that, as I have just
demonstrated in relation to the White Paper: a £2.3
billion housing infrastructure fund; a £45 million land
release fund; money going to build to rent, which will be
announced in the new year; bespoke housing deals with
Leeds, Manchester and the West Midlands, which are well
progressed, and others; garden cities and towns that will
be coming forward shortly and are very much instrumental;
as I have indicated, additional money is going into the
affordable housing budget; and a planning fees increase
will be brought in by the end of the year that will give
more money to planning departments, which will help local
authorities. So, there is no shortage of energy and
successful action in tackling this deep-seated problem.
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My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what part
low-cost homes for sale, self-builds, housing
co-operatives and housing renewal of dilapidated
properties—that can be maintained and kept for the future
if properly renovated—are playing in the Government’s
strategy?
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My Lords, the noble Lord is right that those are
instrumental. If I could take one to tell him about: on
self and custom builds, local authorities are very much
being encouraged to progress that. They are being obliged
to; they have to keep a register in relation to right to
build, which we are very keen on. He is right to signal
those as important. In order to give him a fuller answer,
I will write to him on all of those points, if I may, and
put a copy in the Library.
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