Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I need to clear the air slightly by declaring a number of interests. I am a landowner in Essex and own potential development land. I also let surplus farm cottages, so I am in that business as well. We have sold land for development and, among other things, we have provided a large number of homes for our local authority at no cost under a Section 106 agreement. In those days the biggest problem was ensuring that the local authority was able to hang on to those houses under the right-to-buy legislation and did not have to sell them. That problem is long past but it shows how long ago the planning permission was given. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her exposition of the Bill. It was a tour de force that informed the House what the Bill is all about. Life would be very easy if this was as straightforward as she says. I have one question for her at this stage. I am informed by one of my Welsh friends that there have been no discussions about the Bill with the Welsh Assembly. I do not know whether that is so but I will be very relieved if she can clarify that matter when she winds up. I find it very difficult to believe that that is the case but if a worry is raised it is as well to deal with it. I apologise to the House if I do not see it through the same rose-tinted spectacles as the noble Baroness. It is the fate of those who sit on these Benches that it does not really matter which side of the House we speak from, we inevitably see the world through slightly differently tinted spectacles. I suppose mine will inevitably be pale blue whereas the noble Baroness is wearing her pink ones. One can have no quarrel with a Bill the purpose of which is to free up procedures and facilitate an increase in provision and improvement of regulation in the whole housing field and particularly in the social housing sector. The problem I have with the Bill is that, as drafted, it seems to go rather wider than that, as I shall explain in a moment. I have had many representations from many groups about it. They do not all agree that it is fit for purpose. I am most grateful to those who corresponded with me. If I do not mention them it is because it would be impossible to do all the matters justice. Things will come up at later stages of the Bill and I look forward to that very much indeed. The arrival of the Bill in this House is a fortunate, or perhaps, if you are a pessimist, an unfortunate coincidence as it arrives when the whole construction industry is in crisis, but not one of its own making, which I am very happy to acknowledge. Unfortunately, the hiatus in the banking industry is the problem, and it is not just a problem for home-buyers; it will also be a problem for home-providers, because they will not find it so easy to raise finance either. Housing associations may well find that when they go to banks for money, as they do from time to time, they will have some difficulties. This is a fundamental problem, which I regret to say is giving the doom-mongers a field day. One of the wonderful, terrible and terrifying things about the fourth estate is that it has no responsibility for the consequences of what it publishes. At the moment, it is talking the world down, and the world of housing really does not deserve it. I am bound to say that this is the case. I have had some discussions with estate agents working in the field. People who have made firm offers for houses are already withdrawing those firm offers, because they want to stay where they are and wait and see what happens. I know of one firm of estate agents that has closed, not because it was not trading profitably, but because it had had 20 good years and those people thought that it would be rather more comfortable if they were not doing it for the next five years. That may seem to be a very short-sighted and pessimistic view, but it is not unrepresentative of some of the things that are happening. Regrettably, the construction firms are predicting a downturn in house building. As a natural consequence, if the buyers are not there and there is no certainty of funding for purchasers, there is no point in building. That is another unfortunate matter, with which we will have to deal in the short term. That said, I am bound to acknowledge that this is extraordinary. We know that there is a crude housing shortage. We know that employment is at a high level. We know that there is a big demand for houses and that there are many people who would like to get on the housing ladder, even if they are going temporarily to withdraw that demand, because they are worried about where things are going. It will probably be two years down the road before we see what is going to happen. I hope that by then things will have sorted themselves out. The past decade has not been quite as good in the housing sector as the figures that the noble Baroness gave us might suggest. It is a matter of regrettable fact that there are now 1.67 million households on the social housing waiting list. That is an increase of 64 per cent over the 1997 figure, and it has gone up by 40,000 in the past 12 months. Housing construction has slowed. During the 1980s, it was an average of around 250,000 houses per year. The low point was five years ago, as the noble Baroness said, and it is climbing back towards the 200,000 mark today. The target is 200,000 at the moment and perhaps 300,000 in the long term. While we have that sort of target, we have another reality, which is that the construction of houses by local authorities has completely collapsed. Fewer than 300 such houses were built last year. Of course, registered social landlords nowadays take up most of that burden, and they have done it very well, but the fact remains that there were roughly 26,600 houses completed last year against roughly 28,350 in 1997. There is a very real cause for concern. The need for houses is growing, and greater life expectancy is keeping us all around rather longer. I can say that as a genuine pensioner. We do not have the sort of extended family existence nowadays that used to be the case. Old couples such as me and my wife want to have our own home and the children do not want to have us around. They love to see us—don’t get me wrong—but that is a norm of life. That is increasing housing demand. Perish the thought, but one has to say that immigration is also increasing housing demand, and the number of immigrants coming in every year is way beyond the figure that I am going to mention. The increase in housing demand is somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 houses per year. In the short term, all of that will be very difficult. Now I will address my criticisms of the Bill. The creation of the Homes and Communities Agency seems a natural evolution and on first thoughts it certainly is. In principle, I have no difficulty with it. To bring together the powers of new towns, the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships has got to be a sensible rationalisation. But the question, as always, is where you draw the limits of those powers. The Bill seems to me to be very sweeping. Clause 2(1)(a) states the object as, "““to improve the supply and quality of housing in England””," which is written almost as if no one else does that. Clause 2(1)(b) states the object as, "““to secure the regeneration or development of land or infrastructure in England””." Again, the same remark applies. Clause 2(1)(c) states the object as, "““to support in other ways the creation, regeneration or development of communities in England””." At this point, all my former colleagues in local government see a major part of their role in life being taken away. I know that the noble Baroness mentioned discussions with the Local Government Association. All I can do is report the feeling that is being reported to me; they are extremely worried. I think that the worry is because of the lack of definition in this part of the Bill, and that is one of the matters to which we must pay particular attention at later stages. The Bill goes slightly further that that. In Clause 3, we read that the Homes and Communities Agency, "““may do anything it considers appropriate for the purposes of its objects””." I have a nasty feeling—perhaps I read too many newspapers—that I can think of a number of Governments of whom we would not approve who would love to have words like those written into their legislation. It opens the mind to dreadful possibilities. I know that would not happen here, but we need to define the limits with greater clarity than exists at present. I accept that the Secretary of State has some controls, and I accept that there are financial limitations, but the Bill is too widely drafted as it stands. It is unfortunate that local government, which is perhaps the prime agent of carrying out these functions, because it also has to deal through the planning system with the private sector, feels that it is under attack. I am fascinated by the continuation of the new towns path. Many years ago, in the early 1970s, I was a member of a very exotic body, which has long since been disposed of—the South East Economic Planning Council. In those days, the south-east region of England began in Essex, went round through Buckinghamshire and down to Hampshire. It had one-third of the country’s population and half the country’s GDP. It really was a very interesting and exotic body to serve on, if I may put it that way. The reason for mentioning it is that one of the things we did was to take part in a study of the Docklands. In those days, the London Docklands began just a bit east from the tower. My abiding memory of that part of London then was of a continuous traffic jam surrounded by a sea of dereliction. It had one other unique feature. The area was controlled by five separate boroughs. Whether I agreed with them or not politically is neither here nor there. I admired them. They were run by tough gentlemen who were immensely proud of their areas. Unfortunately, that had one consequence—that they would not agree to work together. There was no overcoming that, so in the end SEEPC recommended that the only way to solve the problem was by establishing a new town corporation. That recommendation went to the then Labour Government and it was finally implemented by Margaret Thatcher, now my noble friend Lady Thatcher, who is no longer in her place. The Docklands that we see today, which is bustling, developing and continues to move forward, was the result in part, although it was nothing to do with me, of my noble friend Lady Thatcher’s decision. However, I wonder whether we need to continue those sorts of powers. Local authorities are far more accustomed to working together and co-operatively. They, perhaps more than we, recognise the need for development and redevelopment. Anyone with brownfield land recognises the need for that. However, the bulk of brownfield land is in the north of the country and the bulk of housing demand is in the south—and that causes problems. We need to think about that issue. The National Housing Federation has written to me. I shall quote from its letter, because it describes a particular issue more succinctly than I could. It states: "““We are looking for a system that draws on the best regulatory principles, raises standards for tenants and puts accountability to residents at its heart””." When the National Housing Federation, which represents a very large sector of housing, says that, we need to listen, because it then states: "““The Bill falls short of this””." That slightly refutes what the noble Baroness said. The federation’s concern is on two fronts. The first is that the legislation was so prescriptive when it was introduced that the danger was that that housing associations would have been classified as public sector bodies and thereby would have lost the right to raise money in the open market. I accept that the Bill has been largely amended in the Commons, so that this is not as much of a problem, although we need to look further at the matter. Secondly, because they see their function as putting their tenants first, housing associations are concerned that the establishment of the regulator provides it with powers to restrict that function. They think that the regulator should be required to ensure that what they do is legal, financially sound and is always—I repeat, always—in the best interests of their tenants. The National Housing Federation thinks that the regulator will be one step removed and will not have the detailed knowledge that housing associations have. The Countryside Alliance has also written to me. It is particularly interested in the problem of housing in rural areas. It remains a fact that in urban areas social housing makes up 23 per cent of total housing provision. In rural areas that figure is only 5 per cent. Rural areas have huge problems. There is housing demand from within the community—as is the case everywhere else—and there is housing demand from outside rural areas, because everyone else is trying to get into them. I do not blame people for that, because I have been privileged and lucky to be a country man all my life. Sometimes I find it slightly hard to come up here to this place. We need to recognise that there is a particular problem in rural areas and we need to think carefully about whether we can do anything to help this situation. I welcome the changes regarding housing for servicemen and, particularly, ex-servicemen. Perhaps one can say with the benefit of a great deal of hindsight that we should all have seen that situation a long time ago and done something about it. My time is almost up. This Bill is here at a critical time. In a way we are fortunate; we have an opportunity to look at the Bill critically and see whether there is anything we can do to help the situation and to try to dig the industry out of a hole that is not of its own creation.