Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, about 10 minutes ago, while sitting on my perch up here on the Back Benches, my heart leapt when I saw the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, walking across the Chamber towards me. For one glorious moment I thought I was to be the recipient of a spot of Floor-crossing. Instead, with his characteristic courtesy, he had come to tell me that because of the withdrawal of an intervening speaker I was to follow the noble Lord, Lord Filkin. Although I shall not follow the noble Lord’s arguments—I wish to address my arguments to Part 1 of the Bill and he addressed his arguments to Part 2—that gives me the chance to say how full of admiration I am for his analysis of a whole range of matters concerning, choice, regulation and the need for structural reform. Noble Lords on both sides of the House should pay close attention to what the noble Lord has said. I should begin by reassuring my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith on our Front Bench that I can say with absolute certainty that he has 100 per cent support from Back-Bench speakers behind him today. The Bill, which the Minister introduced with her characteristic verve, does a lot of things, one of which should not go unremarked. The Bill, in Clauses 51 and 52, lowers into an unmarked legislative grave that high watermark of paleo-old Labour, the Commission for the New Towns. The first new town, Stevenage, according to EM Forster in his Howards End, fell, "““out of a blue sky like a meteorite upon the ancient and delicate scenery of Hertfordshire””." That was back in 1946, when our attitude to consultation was also perhaps a bit paleolithic. Then, the Minister’s lineal predecessor, Lewis Silkin MP, got into his ministerial car and went to old Stevenage to consult the townsfolk concerning their fate, which he described as, "““a daring exercise in town planning””." The locals did not seem to like the sound of that very much, and they said so. In response, the Minister, adopting the best ““man from Whitehall knows best”” approach, said, ““It’s no good you jeering. It’s going to be done””. The locals’ response was to let down the tyres of the ministerial limousine. Bad behaviour by them, which I deplore, but it followed a bit of bad behaviour by the Minister. Alas, that is sometimes still the attitude struck by some in local authorities and their officials with regard to some housing matters. This is the sole issue I want to raise: the contribution that an enhanced role for the Homes and Communities Agency, which in general terms I welcome, could make in improving housing quality. The Minister lays that duty on it in Clauses 2 to 5, particularly in the matter of good design, which is important, a point to which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester referred in his speech. Design is not some preoccupation of aesthetes or the limp-wristed. As the Royal Institute of British Architects says, good design brings pleasure, attracts people and investment and helps communities to build, bond and generally be happier. It is not some kind of latte-liberal preoccupation. Well designed homes are exactly what hardworking families want. As the Minister told the House, she is laying the duty for the Thames Gateway development on the HCA. That will succeed or fail not just on structural things such as roads, schools and houses but on the actual design of the homes that people are going to live in. That is of critical importance. The trouble is that all too often ordinary working families do not get this—that has happened over a sustained period; I certainly do not blame this Government alone for that failure—and they will not get it until there is a revolution in attitude among the two most important groups involved in housing design: council planners and private sector house-builders. The HCA should be given a statutory duty to help to give guidance to both. The Bill is very timely, all the more so because of what one might term the ““Persimmon pause”” which gives us some breathing space to get this right. What is this ““Persimmon pause””? Persimmon’s decision of last week has been referred to by at least two noble Lords. That good and high quality listed building company said last Friday that it was going to cease new housing development for the time being because of market conditions. This is a harbinger of building and construction things to come; other housing companies will follow. I have no current interests to declare, but for a while I was a non-executive director of Alfred McAlpine plc when it was a house-builder. I predict that the maximum number of new homes built in 2008 will be no more than between 100,000 and 110,000. That will not meet demand. The number in 2009 is unlikely to be much higher. This is bad news for people wanting new homes of any sort, but it could, if we make use of the Persimmon pause, be good news for housing design, for the quality of new homes when they start being built en masse again to meet the Government’s targets as well as popular demand, and for putting right what the chief executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment wrote of in 2007. I quote: "““The housing produced in the first few years of this century is simply not up to the standard which the government is demanding””," and which customers have a right to expect. He has also opined—quite rightly, to my mind—that now is the time to build homes that are also, "““beautiful and practical places to live””." The best way to ensure that is to ensure that every council in the land has access to a local design review panel, with the HCA being given the statutory duty to promote these bodies and to give guidance on how they could be set up and run. Far too few councils in this country have that access. Councils desperately need help here; too often they fail, for a whole host of reasons, to consider design issues properly. Indeed, one local councillor at the south Somerset end of our Westminster/south Somerset axis wrote to me on 12 April lamenting the attitude of planning officers to design issues in that council. Fearing for his safety in the area—I will not mention his name, but I will mention his words—he said: "““They are only prepared to discuss the dwellings per hectare and the relevant car parking spaces””." That attitude is reflected too widely up and down the land and is certainly not restricted to councils of any one form of political control. I would not dream of asserting that. Design panels can help at very little cost, being made up of architects, landscape designers and other professionals working pro bono. One good example of that is the Royal Borough of Kingston, which set up just such a panel in 2005. The panel has subsequently commented constructively and influenced the quality of some 2,200 homes in the borough. The cost of these things is minimal because time is given by landscape designers, architects and others for nothing. I have gone into this matter, and the time spent on this in Kingston is minimal: it requires part of the time of one council officer, the provision of some venues and a bit of organisation. The actual cost is £15,000 per annum. That is extremely good value. I assure the Minister that I am not putting to her the need for any new bureaucracy or any new massive public expenditure. To the contrary; the dialogue between the planners, builders and the community can, in the end, save time and money as well as improve the quality of the environment and so outweigh the costly process of later planning appeal and compensation. The HCA could draw up guidance with the powers that the Minister intends to give it in Clause 43 of the Bill. With the help of CABE, the Royal Town Planning Institute, RIBA and all the other relevant bodies—I am not a professional in this area; I have not been snowed under by the list of representations that the noble Lord, Lord Best, has received and which he so kindly enumerated for the House—a revolution could happen in our housing design if such guidance were given. The Government must take this seriously in order to provide a better setting for the new communities they plan, and I have no doubt that they wish to do so. This approach would also complement the advice that CABE already gives to big strategic schemes with their regional design panels. I finish by illustrating these benign-sounding sentiments with some specific examples. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester gave the specific example of the eco-town proposed for the edge of that great city. I hope that what he said is listened to nationally as well as locally. The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, who is not in his place, spoke earlier about micro issues concerning housing quality in the ward which he represents in Wigan. I shall pick another area: the West Country. I hasten to add that I have no interest to declare in any planning issues being considered in the area where I live: there are none within sight or sound of our property. However, there is some local interest in these matters which I would like to use to illustrate the theme of my speech thus far. Over the Easter weekend, I looked at proposed sites, sites under construction and sites half-finished in two adjoining local authority areas: South Somerset District Council and Mendip District Council. I live near the border between the two and the difference is striking. Neither council has local elections this week so there is no political component in what I am saying. To cross from South Somerset, which, alas, has recently given all-too-little attention to good design, into Mendip council’s area is like crossing some institutional and design fault-line, from the too-often indifferent in the former to the very good indeed in the latter. In the latter is one of the developments picked out by CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, in its 2007 Housing Audit: at Dukes Rise on the edge of Shepton Mallet. I say well done to the developers, well done to the council and well done to Bloor Homes, which built the houses. The landowners had their own design team to inform the local council on these matters, very much like a mini-local design review panel to help council planners. It had a design brief which stated: "““Building design and materials, by the consideration of the effect of building groups, can use standard house types and natural stone materials to give added character and quality within normal construction prices””." It is very hard not to say ““Hear, hear”” to that. It is worth repeating, but I shall not. Unfortunately, that attitude is not always reflected in South Somerset District Council, where the local council leadership seems to behave exactly like Lewis Silkin back in 1946 in Stevenage, at least to the extent of refusing to enter into correspondence with local people—I should like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to draw these remarks to the attention of her colleague who will wind up this debate for the Liberals—not over greenfield or brownfield development, nimbyism and all the rest of it, but even over such simple, innocent matters as good design and its quality. The local council leader gives no reply to letters about this. Just as I have a question for the Minister—will she consider introducing a statutory design advice function for the HCA in the Bill?—so I pose a question for the Liberal Front Bench in its wind-up, which I have never done before in your Lordships' House. How can local people persuade the local council leadership—I know nothing for or against the gentleman concerned; he is called Councillor T Carroll—to reply to letters about such innocent matters as good housing design, or is he going hell for leather to win the Lewis Silkin memorial prize for consultation? I do not know, but I am sure that the Liberal Front Bench values good design for housing, and I am sure that there are councils of all political hues which behave inappropriately, arrogantly and do not respond to correspondence. But as we have been given the lead by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, to talk about local matters to illustrate our general themes, that, I have done.