My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord the Minister and the noble Baroness the Minister who are opening and closing this debate on their appointments. I wish them well in their new roles and look forward to constructive engagement on many of these issues. Similarly, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and the noble Baroness, Lady Swinburne, and wish them every success in effective challenge. Finally, on congratulations, I turn to the excellent and very powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. I particularly appreciated his comments about housing and communities, and the important links between the two. I can see he is going to bring enormous experience to bear in this House.
I am going to talk about planning and housing, with reference to the environment. I welcome a great deal of what is being proposed by the Government in their legislation on renters reform, leasehold and commonhold reform, Awaab’s Bill—which noble Lords may recall is about the responsibility of landlords to do repairs promptly, as opposed to damaging health as in that particular sad case—the commitment to social housing, much of the changing policy on planning, the proposals I have seen on new towns, and extending the decent housing standard to the private rented sector. If I may say so, I particularly appreciated the presentation of these issues by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointing out that this is about good-quality, safe housing,
which is the foundation for an entire life—a theme picked up by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford.
However, I have some questions and concerns. I shall start with housing. There is an issue here around perhaps too much emphasis on numbers. Some of this is going to feel like déjà vu to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, but it is important that we emphasise quality and standards in this debate. I am coming at it from the point of view of health and the way in which poor-quality housing damages the health of individuals, and indeed of whole communities. It is not just about numbers; it is about quality and standards, and being fit for purpose.
The worst example of this, which we have often cited, is the permitted development regulations, and I have not seen any comment on that at all, although I may have missed it. Although there are clearly going to be improvements in various bits of the system, my first question is: how will the Government ensure that there are improvements in quality across the whole housing development system, with particular reference to permitted development?
It is not just about individual units but about communities and place. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, recognised and referred to that. I had experience of that back in the 1970s, as a result of the positive policy of slum clearances. I was working in Halewood, in Knowsley, where there were just houses and, as I recall, a police station in parts of that area, with the obvious results and problems that that brought forward. There is another question here that I know is difficult to answer, but I would still like to ask it: how do the Government propose to enable the development of communities? You cannot mandate communities at a national level, so how will they enable and support the creation of communities as part of development— not just creating housing estates but helping to create communities?
I emphasise these points about quality and community because there is a real temptation just to go for the numbers. I speak as someone with experience in health, who was responsible for implementing the NHS plan from 2000, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will be aware. Getting things moving takes time. There is a mobilisation stage when, as people have said, there is a need for skills and to get money, people and training in the right place, and there will be a temptation to hammer the numbers and let go of quality. I have to say with regret that, to some extent, we did that in health in the early years: we pushed too hard on the numbers of staff, for example, but not enough on quality. There is a balance to be carefully struck between pressing for the numbers and making sure that the development of housing is about quality, safety, liveability and supporting people’s lives. I agree with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, about the importance of having a long-term strategy and a plan with stages in it, moving forward bit by bit towards the long-term goal and recognising that that will take time.
I conclude with two issues that are more about principles and philosophy. The first is on planning. The narrative of planning is broadly all about it being in the way. That is the issue described in the media at
the moment, and it is what one would take away from a lot of what the new Government have already said. It is, of course, significantly true, but only partly. Over the last three years something like 320,000 planning consents have been agreed every year but only something like 200,000 developments have been started each year, so there is a gap between what is consented to and what is actually delivered. As the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has pointed out, there are other fundamental issues here, including funding. His points were made very well. The new Government cannot duck the argument and discussion about funding and place all the emphasis on planning; there are issues about funding that need to be resolved here if these great goals are going to be implemented. The emphasis on streamlining planning is good, but these clear aims need to be set out.
When I was thinking about this debate, I wondered what planning is actually for. It feels like quite a technical, technocratic sort of subject, as opposed to something that is done in order to create communities and places where people want to live. From my perspective, there needs to be a focus in planning on health and well-being. At the moment, there is no such focus at all within the regulation. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, will recognise the point that I have been making—that planning should promote health, safety and well-being in housing but also in communities—but there is no reference to that at the moment.
There is a second issue here about local democracy. When looking at what is happening, there are legitimate questions to be asked about what should be done nationally and what should be done locally. That needs to be spelled out. The review of planning that needs to take place should look at fundamental questions around why we have the planning system, what it is trying to achieve, and what the relationship is and the boundaries are between the various sectors that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, referred to. That may be clear to people within the system, but to someone like me it is not.
My final point comes from the experience of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill earlier this year, and is about how much health, well-being and environment are linked. That kept coming up during the debates on the Bill. There is an important narrative and story to tell here. The vision for the future and what needs to happen around housing planning cannot just be transactional and technocratic; it has to be practical—it is about the delivery of what people need and want—but there needs to be a wider vision and strategy.
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