My Lords, that contribution was the key one in our debate, because it raises the issue of the impact of this legislation and how it will affect demand. What is absolutely clear is that many local authorities are expressing profound concern over this concentration on starter homes and a single source of housing supply to the exclusion of other forms of tenure. That is what has come through in the course of this debate—this feeling of concern about concentration on one area.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, referred specifically to whether this work has been done. It is interesting to note that Bristol has actually done this work. I draw attention to a document sent to me that sets out findings in this area—because I suspect that what Bristol found mirrors a difficulty that we would find throughout the United Kingdom.
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Bristol City Council, working with South Gloucestershire and North Somerset, recently published the wider-Bristol Strategic Housing Market Assessment. I understand that this assessment was carried out with this Bill in mind, so clearly it thought that it would be influencing events when these matters were considered by Parliament. The study identified the need for housing in the wider Bristol housing-market area to be 85,000 homes over a 20-year planned period of 2016 to 2036, of which 29,000 would need to be provided as affordable homes. Of these 29,000 affordable homes, 80% would be required as social rented homes or equivalent affordable rented homes to ensure that households with the lowest incomes were able to access housing in their region. That market assessment demonstrated that the remaining 20% would be required as shared-ownership homes. I think that that is the kind of work the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was referring to. Let us look at the demand and then construct the policies to deal with that demand on the basis of the findings of carefully carried-out research.
In order to meet the market assessment guidance in the current National Planning Policy Framework, local planning authorities obviously have to retain discretion for determining the appropriate proportion of low-cost home ownership and starter homes to meet affordable housing needs. This prescriptive approach was seen by Bristol City Council as,
“a new and worrying centralisation of planning policy which presents a significant challenge to local government autonomy”—
in other words, challenging the role of local government with policies being set nationally which do not meet the immediate needs of a particular area.
Bristol’s view is that determining the number or proportion of starter homes may conflict with its housing market assessment and risks undermining the National Planning Policy Framework which it has been trying assiduously to pursue. For that reason, the three local authorities commissioned market assessment consultants ORS—an organisation of which I know very little or nothing—to model the housing need and demand for Government-proposed starter homes and to advise on whether the Government were capable of meeting the market assessment’s identified affordable housing needs. ORS confirmed that, although there was a demand for starter homes as a first-time buyer
product to boost housing growth, such a product was not considered appropriate to address the affordable housing needs identified in the wider Bristol market assessment.
Bristol City Council supports Jeremy Blackburn, head of UK policy at RICS, who commented:
“Ramping up housing supply is positive, but home ownership should not be the only game in town given the amount of private rented accommodation we need. A mix of market and rented housing is required and starter homes should not be seen as the panacea to solving the housing crisis”.
We get the feeling in this debate that the Government see starter homes as the panacea to deal with the housing crisis. I, along with many of my colleagues, do not believe that this policy will sort out the problem that exists. We need far more innovative thinking, as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, suggested. We need new packages and new ideas. This is an old idea; it is subsidised housing ownership. It will not resolve the problem and I positively support the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, because they seek to address the issue of defining what is actually required.