My Lords, at the risk of prolonging this very interesting debate, I should say that my employer is a firm of chartered quantity surveyors and one of the things that we do is assist housebuilders. We have a sister company that has just secured a large contract to build houses.
It has become apparent to me as the discussion has gone on, as it was apparent to me at Second Reading, that this Bill has a very small component related to the need to build new houses generally. It just is not there, because all we have is a reference to starter homes and a reference to self-build and custom housebuilding. Those are the only two bits concerned with building new homes of any sort, so there must be a working assumption sitting behind this that somehow, in the big, wide world out there, the general thrust towards new homes will continue and that a proportion of those —on the principle of the affordable housing component under Section 106, the community infrastructure levy or whatever it happens to be—will be devoted to an element of affordability.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is right in the sense that I can confirm, from speaking to developers, that they are of the view that conventional affordability, in terms of affordable rents, will go into some form of attrition and that starter homes will indeed be the only
show in town. That appears to be the belief among housebuilders. I pass no particular judgment in relation to government policy—I have to accept that this is something that they have as a manifesto commitment, and it is up to us to scrutinise the matter and make sure that it is, as far as possible, fit for purpose—but there is no doubt that the starter home will effectively be not affordable in any sort of perpetuity but will be a one-off windfall for the first person who happens to occupy it.
It is very important therefore that the studies to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and other noble Lords referred should be before us. The outcome of those pilot studies should be known so that we can assess this. Otherwise, it seems to me that we are in a very brave new world indeed, in which we know neither the outcome nor, indeed, a great deal of the process that sits behind this. So I have to say that I am with noble Lords who have tabled the amendments in this group in terms of having doubts about this. I have other doubts which I have expressed in meetings which the Minister was kind enough to convene some time ago—although I was not able to attend the most recent one—about the financial viability of how this works and how you retain the substance of the starter home, or social concession, within the system.
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The Select Committee on the National Policy for the Built Environment, of which I was pleased to be a member, was clear in one of its conclusions that the amount of housebuilding by the private sector on its own will not meet the targets that we need to meet if we are in any way to catch up with, let alone satisfy, the household formation taking place at the moment, with all the issues about mobility, the ability to find a home where there is a job and affordability.
As we have sort of inverted the whole process of discussion here, it is a bit difficult not to bring in some of the things that will come in later, and certainly I feel quite strongly about some of these things. I am the parent of two children in their 20s who would, under normal circumstances, probably like to a buy a flat in London—thank you very much—but, on the sort of salaries that they can get even with good university degrees and good jobs, it is just not possible in terms of the price to earnings ratio, if I can call it that, of the average salary compared with the average house price. It is just not going to happen. The only way we can deal with that is not only to expand the number of homes in totality but to have the broadest range of tenures and methods by which people can occupy them. By whatever means, that is the key to this. One of the reasons why some very large players are now moving into the private rented sector and are planning to build new is because they can see that there is going to be a complete deficit on that side of the equation. That trend tells its own story.
I repeat that I am with the concerns behind this group of amendments. We have to do some serious unpicking. If we cannot achieve it at this stage, I ask the Minister whether we can have some of the pilot study feedback for the next stage in the Bill when we really can get to grips with the nitty-gritty and work out whether this is going to work.