My Lords, I realise that I am ploughing a different furrow from other noble Lords in these interventions, but I have to say with all due deference to the Minister that my concerns about our local housing market and that of many other areas are not answered by her saying that the Government are going to introduce better infrastructure and invest at that sort of level. If that happens it will be extremely welcome. There is not much sign of it in east Lancashire at the moment, but even if there were, investing in infrastructure takes time. There is no doubt that it takes 10 to 15 years and has a long-term payback. As I understand it, we are talking about the housing market over the next few years. Building new roads, reinstating railways and doing all the other things that people are talking about under the heading of the northern powerhouse will not have any significant effect on our housing market and that of many other parts of the north of England in the next five years. Meanwhile, we have to deal with the problems that result from a stagnant, fragile, flat housing market next year, the year after and so on.
I am not trying to be awkward about this. If starter homes are a wonderful thing, I am all for them. But what I am saying is that in these parts of the country the introduction of starter homes risks having a disruptive effect on the existing housing market. While starter homes might be built if anyone can be found to build them, which is a question in itself, the result may well be that the rest of the housing market in the area becomes even more depressed than it is at the moment. That will mean more empty properties and a general reluctance on the part of developers to build, whether for social rent, private rent or owner-occupation. If the return from building houses either through selling them or from rents is less than all the costs put together of building them, they are not going to be built. Because of this bonus—this subsidy—we might get some starter homes, but that will put a severe damper on the rest of the housing market.
All I am asking is for the Government to discuss this with people on the ground in areas like those I have mentioned. We should set up a mechanism for doing this and see how it works, and then perhaps bring forward different rules, exceptions or whatever it might be—or just reach an understanding between us—to see how things can be improved. There is no point in having a starter homes policy or anything else in areas where it is actually going to make things worse.