[Lord Gardiner of Kimble] Second oral question, Lord Young of Cookham.
[Lord Young of Cookham] My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name
on the order paper.
[Lord Greenhalgh] 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've made progress with more than 2 million additional homes being delivered
since April 2010, and over 242,000 homes were delivered from April 2019 to March 2020,
the highest level for over 30 years.
[Lord Young of Cookham] I'm 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's in an industry already facing shortages.
So, what action can my noble friend take to see that those numbers are met?
And if there is to be a shortfall in output, can he ensure that that does not fall on the
affordable sector of the market?
[Lord Greenhalgh] Well my noble friend is right 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, and 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.
And we continue to recognise though that there will be,
and this was picked up by the Federation of Master Builders,
there are stresses and strains, both in terms of labour, but also in materials
that the government is working hard to overcome.
[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe] 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 its reforms
in the planning system contained in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
will help deliver that much-needed social housing?
[Lord Greenhalgh] Well my Lords, there is a real commitment to build more social housing,
including more affordable housing.
The programme, as the noble Baroness knows, is for some £11.5 billion, with a target of
doubling the amount of social rented homes in this particular grant period
than in the previous one.
And the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill recognises that in order to get the housing,
we need the infrastructure in place and also to ensure that neighbourhoods
that have mixed communities are right at its heart
and that's what the bill is planning to do.
[Baroness Walmsley] 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?
[Lord Greenhalgh] My Lords, we recognise that in order to meet our net-zero commitment,
we do need to implement the future homes standard, which comes in,
I believe, in 2025.
And of course building regulations will reflect that ambition to ensure that we not only build
more homes, but we build more sustainable homes that use heat pumps and other devices
that meet that target.
[Lord Moylan] My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the
Ebbsfleet Development Corporation board and would my noble friend agree
there are many public bodies that would be willing to get on delivering homes
if they had access to the Brownfield Infrastructure Land Fund?
Nearly three months into the financial year, is my noble friend able to say
when the allocations from that fund are going to be announced?
[Lord Greenhalgh] My Lords, I'd point out to my noble friend that £550 million has been
allocated to seven mayoral combined authorities, but we do recognise that we do
need to announce the availability of funding for smaller brownfield sites,
and that will happen very shortly.
[Lord Best] My Lords, the noble Lord the minister will know that half of all of the
affordable housing that is produced annually within the 300,000 target, half of it
comes from the planning obligations on the housebuilders.
Can he reassure the House that the planning reforms in the levelling-up bill
will not diminish the amount of affordable housing which the housebuilders
have to produce, since we need to double the output of affordable housing and not halve it?
[Lord Greenhalgh] I can give the assurance that the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
recognises the role of building more housing, including more affordable housing.
And what we're trying to ensure that there is a more transparent approach with regards to
the levy and there's a reform around the current community infrastructure levy
to get that right to make sure that we do get a proper contribution to affordable housing
in the coming years.
[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate] 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 for rent at affordable prices?
And is the government positively encouraging local authorities
to increase their public housing stock?
[Lord Greenhalgh] 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 of that
and that's something we make no apology for.
But what we want to make sure is that in spreading the ability for housing association tenants
to buy their own homes, that we design the scheme in a way that enables the homes sold
to be replaced on a one-for-one basis, I think that's something that everyone can get behind.
[Lord Lilley] 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 the houses at twice the density
of the indigenous population, will use up half of the houses we build every year?
[Lord Greenhalgh] My Lords, I recognise that this has been a very welcoming country
and we have welcomed refugees from Afghanistan and there's a very successful programme
of welcomed British Hong Kongers of this country and make no apologies for that.
And we do recognise that there is a need to hit our new-build housing targets
and that there is going to be homes for people that have come to this country
for a better life, but also we need homes for the younger generations as well.
[Baroness Hayman of Ullock] My Lords, the housebuilding index that's produced by
the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply found that last month,
residential construction had slowed down to levels last seen
during the first Covid lockdown.
Can I ask the noble Lord the minister what assessment he's made of the impact
this will have on house prices and private rents?
[Lord Greenhalgh] Well I don't recognise the cataclysmic drop since the pandemic.
We did hit a record number, as I pointed out, in 2020-21, there's a slight falling back,
but all our internal assessments are that we will see a rebound
and that this dip this year is not something that will be pronounced or continue
into the mid-decades.
It's a stretching target to hit 300,000 but we're going to see increasing numbers
in the years to come.
[Lords] My Lords! My Lords!
[Lord] Bishop!
(Members laugh)
[Lord Bishop of Blackburn] That's happened for the first time. My Lords, thank you.
Just to ask a question of my Lord the minister,
is it possible for a developer to pay the local authority a certain sum of money to be relieved
of their responsibility, and for that local authority then to use the money elsewhere?
I hear that is happening in other parts of the country.
[Lord Greenhalgh] My Lords, I don't recognise that you can discharge your responsibility
that's almost describing a bung.
I don't think that's what happens.
What you can do is if there's an affordable housing requirement,
you can choose to discharge that off-site, but you still have that
requirement and to deliver that.
We see that in some areas where there's very high-value housing and it's simply
more economic to build that elsewhere.
But I don't recognise that, but if you have specific examples, I'm happy to look into that.
(Chatter)
[Lord] Crossbench! Crossbench.
[Viscount Waverley] Thank you, 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 strategies.
Could the minister give assurance that this is not the case
and will take up the cause if evidence is presented to the contrary?
[Lord Greenhalgh] Well, I do recognise that you can't look at housing in isolation,
that we do need to get investment in the infrastructures and other factors
in order to allow for growth.
But it's a good start to have a £10 billion investment in housing supplies
since the start of this Parliament, but also there's an investment
to enable the brownfield sites to be built out rather than sometimes easier greenfield sites.
We want to see brownfield development and that does require infrastructure
and the moneys in place to do precisely that.
[Lord Naseby] 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?
[Lord Greenhalgh] Well, I do think we need to find ways of coming up with new town projects,
but to do that, we do need the infrastructure, we do need the transport, we do need the roads,
we do need the rail and that's why we recognise that a programme just to build homes
is not enough, we need to get that in the round and that's something we're taking forward
as part of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in this session.
[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle] My Lords, I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord the Minister say
last night enthusiastically, we need more affordable housing and social housing,
and that the government was 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 trying to ensure that this method of providing homes
in perpetuity of a structure and type decided by local communities for local communities?
Will the government look at how it can encourage this model further?
[Lord Greenhalgh] Yeah, I think there's quite a degree of interest in how community
land trusts can operate and we're happy to look at Coin Street as an example
and there are other examples I believe in Watford.
And we're happy to take all ideas, including how we can use community land trusts
as a vehicle to deliver more affordable housing.