The housing crisis in this country is huge, and it is more than just an issue of supply. In my community, as I mentioned in the previous debate, a catastrophe has emerged over the past two years. I have never seen such appalling need. The average house price in my constituency is something like 12 times the average household income. The simple fact is that any benefit from this Bill will help, if we are lucky, a fraction of 1% of people who want to buy a house but are currently unable to do so.
This Bill is not a very good use of public money when we are in the throes of a Conservative Government heroically seeking to do their best to counter the impact of a Conservative Budget. This Bill is a surviving element
of that disastrous Budget. It does not seem to be the best use of money, given that the majority of beneficiaries will be wealthy people who do not need a stamp duty cut. What it will do, as we said in the previous debate, is fuel a second home boom that is already causing a huge amount of damage to communities like mine.
I asked myself why this Bill is one of the few survivors of the disastrous mini-Budget. I can only conclude that it is because the people who are damaged and offended by it live in rural communities, so the Government feel that they can take them for granted. I put it on the record that these people will not be taken for granted. Again, the average house price in my community is spiralling towards £300,000, but people’s incomes are significantly less than £30,000 per household, never mind per individual. When there are things the Government could do to address the affordable housing crisis, it is all the more frustrating to see such a blunderbuss waste of public money.
The Government are talking about changing planning law so that developers do not need to provide affordable housing in developments smaller than 50 homes. Well, most developments in communities such as mine are smaller than 50 homes, so there will be a carte blanche for developers never to build another affordable home in the lakes and the dales, or in communities not dissimilar to yours, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I gave the Government an opportunity in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee, which they refused to take, to give themselves and planning authorities the power, in extreme circumstances—those of us living in national parks absolutely are in extreme circumstances—to say that only affordable housing can be built in new developments. Even under existing rules, developers wriggle out of their affordability requirements and obligations by using viability assessments. They go to the development site and say, “I found a few more rocks than I was expecting. I therefore cannot afford even the 35% affordable homes that we were going to build.” Again “affordable” has a rather broad definition.
The Government could be doing a whole range of things with both new stock and existing stock. Why will they not accept the proposal I made in this place and in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee, and will be making again, to change planning law so that second homes and holiday lets become separate categories of planning use? We could then keep a lid on the number of second homes and holiday lets in communities like mine.
It is very hard to support a proposal that is the sole straggling survivor of a disastrous mini-Budget when one suspects that the only reason it has survived is because the people hurt by it are living in communities that the Government think they can take for granted. Well, they cannot and must not be allowed to take them for granted. I am sure we will see a revised fiscal programme from the Government in the next few days, so we wait to see what it contains. I do not understand why they are clinging on to this proposal, which will do such little good even for those it helps and such harm to those it harms, when they have the chance to think again. I strongly urge them to do just that.