Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government in what year they expect to 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 more than 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 their delivery challenges.
(Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend, but has she read the leader in
last Saturday’s Times? It said of the Government’s housing
target:
“That goal has now been sacrificed on the altar of appeasing
rural Conservative backbenchers fearful of a backlash in their
green and pleasant constituencies”,
and concluded:
“The political calculations of the Tory party are in danger of
strangling Britain’s housebuilding industry, retarding economic
growth and depriving young people of the affordable homes they so
desperately need”.
Can my noble friend confirm that this controversial policy, which
was launched in a consultation document last December and has not
yet been adopted, might be amended in light of the widespread
criticism that it has now generated?
(Con)
Yes, I have read the Times article. We are carefully analysing
the many detailed responses we received to the consultation and
expect to respond formally later in the autumn. It is worth
making it clear to my noble friend that the proposals in the
consultation are not government policy. My noble friend should
also be reassured that, as I have said before, the Government
remain committed to our ambition of delivering 300,000 new homes
per year. The proposals in the consultation are designed to
support areas to get more local plans in place. That will deliver
more housing and stop communities being exposed to development by
appeal.
The (CB)
My Lords, for some weeks we have heard scare stories that 100,000
new homes are blocked by the rules on nutrient neutrality. I am
therefore glad that the Government have debunked that myth with
their recent explainer, which states that only 16,500 homes are
currently impacted. By comparison, Savills estimates that 150,000
homes are land-banked in 2021, and Homes England sits on 250,000
more new homes. Given those numbers, is there any real
justification for the Government’s assault on the habitat
regulations, the health of our rivers and their own good
environmental reputation?
(Con)
Yes, there is, my Lords. The 16,500 figure is annual, while the
100,000 figure is between now and 2030. The Government have put
in place a package of mitigation that will allow us to deal with
nutrient neutrality not as a sticking plaster, stopping housing
being built, but by dealing with the issues at source. If the
noble Earl reads the mitigation circumstances, he will see what
we are doing and how much we are investing in that.
(Lab)
My Lords, I found the Minister’s reply rather disappointing. I
appreciate the ambition, but it is the implementation that is the
major problem. Drastic cuts of funding to social housing have
resulted in many households in need being trapped in the private
rented sector, and the number of affordable homes is just not
meeting that need. Current conditions have meant that private
sector building has flatlined, but social housing builders can be
countercyclical and, with the right investment, could do so much
more. The Government will reach their target only by investing
massively in social homes. Do the Government and the Minister
agree with that? If not, can she please explain how that target
will be met?
(Con)
My Lords, the Government are committed to increasing the supply
of affordable housing, which is why, through our £11.5 billion
Affordable Homes Programme, we will deliver tens of thousands of
affordable homes for sale or rent across the country. The
levelling up White Paper committed to increasing the supply of
social rented homes, and a large number of the new homes
delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for
social rent.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer about
affordability, but I wonder what steps the Government are taking
to ensure that the definition of affordability is a good one.
Could we redefine it so that it means affordable for most local
people in that community, and look at what that is doing to house
prices generally in each area?
(Con)
We had a debate on this quite recently on the Levelling-Up and
Regeneration Bill. Through the consultation on the NPPF, we are
looking at affordable housing and, when we have finished that
consultation and looked at the results, we will consider it
further.
(Con)
My Lords, the work done on the National Planning Policy Framework
by my noble friend , and was in my view one of the major
achievements during the coalition, because it provided a sensible
balance between a stick and a carrot, with local authorities
producing a plan and a mechanism for the Government to step in if
they did not. This led to a significant increase in the land
supply. With the changes that have taken place in the last few
months, the mood music is completely different. Local authorities
know that applications to appeal are quite futile. A disastrous
thing has happened. What do the Government intend to do about it?
If they do nothing, the 300,000 target will be pure fantasy.
(Con)
I quite agree with my noble friend about the importance of the
NPPF. That is why we are consulting on it, will review it when we
have the results of the consultation and will come back out to
consult on our further ideas on how we can update it—we cannot
leave it there in aspic for ever. By doing that and by the
measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to modernise
the planning system, we will deliver more houses through local
plans and hit the 300,000 target.
(LD)
My Lords, I have relevant interests in this Question. Councils’
local plans incorporate their share of the national housing
targets. Can the Minister explain how national housing targets
can be achieved when more than 60% of local councils do not have
an up-to-date local plan?
(Con)
The noble Baroness is right: we need more local plans. That is
how we will deliver more houses. We know from evidence that local
planning authorities that have local plans deliver more houses.
That is why we have the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, are
changing and simplifying making local plans and will insist that
local authorities deliver local plans. If they do not, we have
measures to push them to do so.
(Lab)
My Lords, in her response to the debate on housing targets during
the Report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the
Minister stated:
“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”.—[Official Report, 6/9/23; col. 426.]
The National House Building Council’s statistics show a dramatic
decline in registrations in quarter 2 across most regions,
compared with the same quarter last year; it was down 67% in the
north-west, for example. It is going in the wrong direction. What
is the Government’s plan to ensure that local targets meet that
300,000 homes target?
(Con)
As I said to my noble friend , we are in an
economic situation that is not as favourable for housebuilding as
it was, and therefore we have to work with Homes England,
developers and local planning authorities to ensure that we give
all the support we can, reinvigorate the housing market and get
these houses built.
(CB)
My Lords, when house prices fall, as they are doing now, big
building firms tend to sit on their balance sheets and play the
waiting game. That is very bad news for new homes as big builders
now have a 90% share of the UK market while SMEs have seen their
share collapse from 40% to less than 10%. Does the Minister agree
that this market domination is stifling competition and is bad
news for the supply of new homes?
(Con)
I absolutely do. We need to spend more time with our SME
housebuilders. The levelling-up home building fund is providing
£1.5 billion in development finance to SMEs and builders for
exactly this reason: to support them to build more homes. The
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is making changes to support
SMEs, making the planning process much faster and more
predictable for them so that they can stay in business and build
more houses.
