Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they remain committed to
building 300,000 new homes a year.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling
Up, Housing & Communities () (Con)
Delivering new homes and regenerating left-behind communities are
central to our levelling-up mission and we remain committed to
our ambition of delivering 300,000 homes a year. We have made
progress, with more than 2 million additional homes being
delivered since April 2010. Over 242,000 homes were delivered
from April 2019 to March 2020, which is the highest level for
over 30 years.
(Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend. The Construction Industry
Training Board has forecast that we will need an additional
266,000 construction workers over the next three years if demand
is to be met—and that is in an industry already facing shortages.
What action can my noble friend take to see that those numbers
are met? If there is to be a shortfall in output, can he ensure
that that does not fall on the affordable sector of the market?
(Con)
My noble friend is right that there has been a recent report by
the CITB, but I point out that that shortfall is for the whole of
the construction industry, not just housing. We have significant
cross-government intervention and investment in skills, and the
CITB made £110 million available in training grants to support
14,000 businesses. However, we continue to recognise—this was
picked up by the Federation of Master Builders—that there are
stresses and strains in terms of labour and materials. The
Government are working hard to overcome these.
(Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing
Federation, which estimates that we need 90,000 social homes a
year in England. Can the Minister tell us how the Government will
ensure that their reforms in the planning system contained in the
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will help deliver that
much-needed social housing?
(Con)
My Lords, there is a real commitment to build more social
housing, including more affordable housing. As the noble Baroness
knows, the programme is for some £11.5 billion, with a target of
double the number of social rented homes in this particular grant
period than the previous one. The Levelling-up and Regeneration
Bill recognises that, in order to get the housing, we need the
infrastructure in place and must ensure that neighbourhoods have
mixed communities at their heart. That is what the Bill is
planning to do.
(LD)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us that all the new houses will
be built with a high level of insulation, the quality of which is
properly inspected, and will not be fitted with gas boilers but
will be heated by renewable energy?
(Con)
My Lords, we recognise that in order to meet our net-zero
commitment we need to implement the future homes standard, which
comes in, I believe, in 2025. Building regulations will reflect
that ambition to ensure that we build not only more homes but
more sustainable homes that use heat pumps and other devices to
meet that target.
(Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Ebbsfleet
Development Corporation board. Does my noble friend agree that
many public bodies would be willing to get on with delivering
homes if they had access to the brownfield infrastructure land
fund? Nearly three months into the financial year, can my noble
friend say when the allocations from that fund will be announced?
(Con)
My Lords, £550 million has been allocated to seven mayoral
combined authorities. However, we recognise that we need to
announce the availability of funding for smaller brownfield
sites, which will happen very shortly.
(CB)
My Lords, the Minister will know that half of all the affordable
housing that is produced annually within the 300,000 target comes
from the planning obligations on housebuilders. Can he reassure
the House that the planning reforms in the levelling-up Bill will
not diminish the amount of affordable housing that housebuilders
have to produce, since we need to double the output of affordable
housing and not halve it?
(Con)
I can give an assurance that the Levelling-up and Regeneration
Bill recognises the role of building more housing, including more
affordable housing. We are trying to ensure that there is a more
transparent approach to the levy. There is reform around the
current community infrastructure levy to get that right and to
make sure we get a proper contribution to affordable housing in
the coming years.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, has there been a detailed assessment of the decision by
Mrs Thatcher to sell off council houses 40 years ago in the light
of chronic shortages of houses for sale and rent at affordable
prices? Are the Government positively encouraging local
authorities to increase their public housing stock?
(Con)
My Lords, we can prima facie assess that 2 million people chose
to buy their own council home and are now homeowners as a result.
We make no apology for that. We want to make sure that, in
spreading the ability for housing association tenants to buy
their own homes, we design the scheme in a way that enables the
homes sold to be replaced on a one-for-one basis, which I think
everyone can get behind.
(Con)
Can my noble friend confirm that an unbelievable 1 million people
were given the right to come and settle in this country last
year? Even if we assume that 300,000 return or emigrate, can he
confirm that the remainder—even if they occupy houses at twice
the density of the indigenous population—will use up half of the
houses we build every year?
(Con)
My Lords, I recognise that this has been a very welcoming
country. We have welcomed refugees from Afghanistan and there has
been the very successful programme of welcoming British Hong
Kongers to this country. We make no apologies for that. We
recognise that there is a need to hit our new-build housing
targets and that those will be homes for people who have come to
this country for a better life, but we need homes for the younger
generations as well.
of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, the housebuilding index produced by the Chartered
Institute of Procurement & Supply found that, last month,
residential construction slowed to levels last seen during the
first Covid lockdown. What assessment has the Minister made of
the impact this will have on house prices and private rents?
(Con)
I do not recognise the cataclysmic drop since the pandemic. We
hit a record number, as I pointed out, in 2020-21; there was a
slight falling back, but all our internal assessments are that we
will see a rebound and that the dip this year will not be
pronounced or continue into the mid-decade. Hitting 300,000 is a
stretching target, but we will see increasing numbers in the
years to come.
My Lords, is it possible for a developer to pay the local
authority a certain sum of money to be relieved of its
responsibility, and for that local authority then to use the
money elsewhere? I hear that is happening in other parts of the
country.
(Con)
My Lords, I do not recognise that you can discharge your
responsibility. That is almost describing a bung—I do not think
that happens. If there is an affordable housing requirement, you
can choose to discharge that off-site, but you still have the
requirement to deliver it. We see that in some areas where there
is very high-value housing; it is simply more economic to build
it elsewhere. I do not recognise that, but if the right reverend
Prelate has specific examples, I am happy to look into them.
(CB)
My Lords, it is said that pressure on housing supply is often at
the expense of regional and national economic development, and
that government departments work on their own strategies in silos
to the detriment of the broader strategy. Can the Minister give
assurance that this is not the case and that he will take up the
cause if evidence is presented to the contrary?
(Con)
I recognise that we cannot look at housing in isolation; we need
to get investment in the infrastructure and other factors to
allow for growth. It is a good start to have had a £10 billion
investment in housing supply since the start of this Parliament,
but there is also investment to enable brownfield sites to be
built out rather than the—sometimes easier—greenfield sites. We
want to see brownfield development and that requires
infrastructure, and the money is in place to do precisely that.
(Con)
My Lords, is it not time that we had a meaningful new towns
project which would benefit both owner-occupation and social
housing throughout the United Kingdom?
(Con)
I think we need to find ways of coming up with new town projects
but to do that we need the infrastructure, the transport, the
roads and the rail, and that is why we recognise that a programme
just to build homes is not enough. We need to get that in the
round, and we are taking it forward as part of the Levelling-up
and Regeneration Bill in this Session.
(GP)
My Lords, I was very pleased to hear the Minister say
enthusiastically last night that we need more affordable housing
and social housing, and that the Government were happy to look at
ideas. There are currently 500 projects for community land trust
homes, creating 7,000 new homes around the country. Will the
Government look at how they can encourage further this model of
providing homes in perpetuity, of a structure and type decided by
local communities for local communities?
(Con)
I think there is quite a degree of interest in how community land
trusts can operate; Coin Street is an example, and I believe
there are other examples in Watford. We are happy to take all
ideas, including how we can use community land trusts as a
vehicle to deliver more affordable housing.
