Housing and Regeneration Bill

I have the privilege of going first in support of the sentiments behind the amendment. This is not a new issue. I was secretary to an inquiry chaired by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, which reported in 1976. It was called Rural Housing: Problems and Possible Solutions and it came up with a set of conclusions that are very familiar to us today: there was a gross insufficiency of affordable housing in rural areas and we should do more about it. Since 1976, we have had the right to buy, taking out of the social sector an awful lot of the homes in a lot of villages. There are three obvious facts to anyone who pauses for thought on this. First, the amount of council housing in rural areas is often—nearly always—less as a percentage of the total stock than it is in urban areas, so losing any of that council stock is likely to be more detrimental. Secondly, the percentage of homes bought under the right to buy in rural areas has been higher than in urban areas, so it started worse and ended up worse. Thirdly, house prices in rural areas are higher than in comparable urban areas—as we all know, this is because the middle classes have moved there from urban areas—making the affordability gap more difficult. Thirty-two years after the inquiry chaired by Prince Philip produced its report, his daughter, the Princess Royal, speaking in her capacity as patron of the Rural Housing Trust, echoed the words of her father in the report and said that the affordability gap had now become a housing affordability chasm. Can we address the problems faced by second generation rural communities whose parents were council tenants, occupied tied accommodation or agricultural tenancies, and who find themselves unable to stay in those areas? Can the new Homes and Communities Agency make a difference to the lives of those people or are we really saying that we accept that people in rural areas whose parents were not home owners and who do not have high incomes will simply have to move away and over time will all be replaced? If we do not accept that, can the HCA do something positive about it? How can we reinforce and strengthen the work of this agency to ensure that rural housing gets its fair share of resources and effort? Over the years I have followed the progress of the Housing Corporation’s allocation policies and of its annual approved development programme. There has been an ebbing and flowing of interest in rural housing over those years. I detect that the chair of the Housing Corporation can make a big difference in this area. I remember two who laid special emphasis on rural housing: Sir Hugh Cubitt and Sir Christopher Benson. Under their leadership rural housing targets went up because they took a special interest in it. Under other chairs the issue was less significant. From that I deduce that the people on the board of the agency, particularly the chair, can make a difference in this area because you either get a champion of rural housing, with a target which reflects that championing process, or you do not. Therefore, there should be someone on the board with a special interest in rural housing—it may not be their only qualification for being on the board—who can champion that part of the HCA’s new role. Further, the Homes and Communities Agency can make a significant difference to the amount of rural housing that is available through the use of rural housing enablers. In 1992, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, of which I was the then director, joined forces with the Rural Development Commission to ascertain what would ensure that affordable homes were built in small villages by housing associations with support from statutory bodies. I declare an interest as I was a commissioner on the Rural Development Commission at the time. They concluded that the factor most likely to effect this result was to get local people—who are to this day called rural housing enablers—do the hard graft of liaising between: planners; landowners, some of whom are very sympathetic and concerned about the local community; the parish council, which may or may not be sympathetic to start with but needs to hold a lot of meetings about every scheme; the housing associations, which may or may not be interested in building six houses in the middle of nowhere; the local community at large; and the housing and planning departments of the council. All these need to get behind the idea that a small development, which no doubt would be situated a long way away from where the provider, the housing association, is based, should be built. I recall a very nice site on the estate of Sir Marcus Worsley at Hovingham in north Yorkshire, that he said he would be very happy to make available to us. When I told my finance director, he said, ““Not another of those ghastly rural schemes where every time we have to change a light bulb or a washer in a tap I’ve got to send someone out and it costs an absolute fortune. There will be local protests and your staff will be tied up. Instead of doing six homes in Hovingham, can we not do 65 in Leeds?””. That was always the cry. But the answer is ““no””. If there is a rural housing enabler in North Yorkshire, someone else can go to all the meetings, get everything teed up and get the planners on side. Then the housing association can step in with its expertise and build the homes. These people are the key. It will not matter whether the Homes and Communities Agency—the Housing Corporation at the moment—has a target of 6,000 homes a year or whatever. If there are no rural housing enablers on the ground to do the preparations for these small developments, it is very difficult to see how they will be accomplished. Rural housing enablers have been funded through the good work of the Commission for Rural Communities, which picked up on the work previously done by the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Commission, but that funding is coming to an end. The plan has been for local authorities to pick up the tab and to pay for rural housing enablers instead of the Housing Corporation and the rural agency of the day doing it. I fear that, in many cases, hard-pressed, cash-strapped local authorities will not find the funds to replace those which the Housing Corporation and the Commission for Rural Communities have been putting up to pay for these rural housing enablers. Instead of the HCA simply setting a target, making available grant and seeing lots of homes being built all over the place, nothing much will happen without the rural housing enablers. The housing associations will prefer the economies of scale of urban development and we will not see these small village schemes taking place. If the county council is to put up the money, it will have to consider where it will get the extra cash from for a rural housing enabler. Enlightened county councils have said, ““We do not any longer give a 50 per cent council tax discount in rural areas for second homes and empty properties. We give only a 10 per cent discount on council tax and will use the balance to fund rural housing enablers and other aspects of rural housing””. But where that enlightened policy is not in practise, it is very difficult for the county council to find the extra funds. Of course, it is not always very popular. I had to address a meeting in Cerne Abbas, a delightful village in Dorset. There was a plan to build eight rural cottages with a beautiful flint facing, which I am pleased to say now exist; six houses are also to be built in lovely Yorkshire stone in Hovingham. However, when I addressed the public meeting in the Cerne Abbas village hall, it was not only full with 200 people standing nose to nose, but people were also outside and we had to have a loudspeaker for them. But, believe it or not, they did not all turn out to support the eight cottages for Cerne Abbas. To my astonishment, they opposed the housing for local people, which, once accomplished, was a huge success. It is sometimes difficult for local authorities to stand against this tide and to say that they are going to put money into rural housing enablers to make sure that homes appear in villages. I suggest that the Homes and Communities Agency takes under its wing the concept of the rural housing enabler and does not expect these people to be funded across the country by others. They should be funded centrally where the HCA has a target for rural housing and where it will see its target accomplished if RHEs are in place. At the moment there are about 40 of them, but I fear that number will drift downwards as councils find it difficult to take on the funding. I support the thinking behind this important amendment, as well as initiatives to strengthen the board to ensure that a champion is in place to set a target for rural housing. I hope that the Homes and Communities Agency will have statutory powers to ensure that rural housing enablers are in place around the country and, more than that, I hope that they will use them. Otherwise, very little will happen.