My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, graphically described why we need more social housing in this country. For one thing, it is to help the very poorest in society. I fear
that the Bill will do nothing to help those people. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and my noble friend Lord Beecham described how the buying of starter homes will essentially help only those who ultimately could have afforded to buy those homes on the open market anyway. It will merely exacerbate the growing inequality in our society. Until I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that element of growing inequality as a consequence of the Bill had not touched me too much. Now, I am thinking, “Oh my God! It is even more important that we do something about this Bill”. It is absurd that a housing Bill could add to the inequalities in this country.
In response to a consultation on proposed changes to the NPPF, the Gloucestershire Rural Housing Partnership said:
“Starter homes is a short-term attempt to implement a corrective measure to the housing market. It is unlikely to be sustainable or affordable for the Government in the long term and may not be attractive for all developers”.
It asks:
“Will demand for housebuilders’ standard first-time buyers product be negatively affected by starter homes production levels?”.
I would say that the promotion of new homes across all tenures would be a much more sustainable policy for the Government, housing associations, local councils, communities, individuals and the country as a whole.
Have the Government considered the impact if starter homes replace affordable housing on a huge number of new sites? There may be no Section 106 affordable rent or shared ownership homes provided by developers in future. Have the Government thought about that? My own housing association says:
“Developers’ appetite for starter home delivery remains to be seen, since it goes up against Help to Buy product, and developers like the fact that they can pre-sell affordable homes at a guaranteed price to a housing association, accounting for 30% or 40% of the total number of homes built on the site, giving them certainty of sale, less risk and a good cash flow”.
The Bill, as we have heard so many times, will ensure that starter homes come ahead of affordable homes in the provision of housing in future, yet surveys undertaken in Gloucestershire reveal that the majority of need in rural parishes is for affordable rented homes. As so many have said, if we want sustainable communities with shops, schools, pubs, et cetera, we have to have homes where people can live. Often, they cannot afford to buy them, so we have to have good social housing.
In 1980, 24% of rural homes were affordable. That figure is now 8%. That compares with 19% in urban areas—although of course I accept that the situation in London is very difficult, and very different. But I suggest that that difference between urban and rural areas, and the fact that the Government have not really taken that into consideration, demonstrates the fact that this Bill has sadly not been rural-proofed as it should have been, and as every piece of legislation should be.
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I am very supportive of all the amendments in this group but especially supportive of Amendments 50B and 50D, for all the reasons set out by the noble Lord, Lord Best. Supported housing, housing for older people
and housing for people with disabilities is already under threat in many areas as a consequence of financial constraints, and this Bill could well exacerbate the situation. Lack of housing for older people is equivalent in the housing market to bed-blocking in the health service—or one could look at it like that. The excellent report, Building Better Places, is rather new, but I assume that the Minister has seen it and will have noted two of its recommendations. The report recommends:
“The Government should reconsider its proposal to include ‘starter homes’ within the definition of affordable housing. The proposal risks undermining mixed communities and preventing the delivery of genuinely affordable housing for the long term”.
It also recommends that the Government should,
“revise its proposal to require starter homes on every reasonably sized development site. Local authorities should retain the discretion to prioritise long-term affordable housing over starter homes in the planning system where appropriate”.
That is absolutely spot on. Local authorities and people in local areas know the local housing needs of their communities and, as others have said, one size simply does not fit all. The report is very new, and I am sure that the Minister will say, “Well, of course I have not had a chance to respond to it yet”. Undoubtedly there will not be a chance to respond to it before the Bill is finished—but I very much hope that the Government will do everything that they can to respond to it, because many parts of the report are salient to the debates that we are having.