My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation in the debate and for their nearly universal support—especially the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Deben, who are both old hands in this area—even if they only assisted in the birth of the site, not being the rightful daddy, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said.
I was reminded when the noble Lord, Lord Deben, was speaking of a phrase that I believe he did conceive when he was Secretary of State at the DoE, “executive ghettos”, which is what we are all trying to
avoid. I have heard another phrase recently in planning philosophy, which is “place making”. What we are trying to do here is place saving, because I hope that, mostly, we already have reasonably good places in the countryside.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, talked about Section 52 agreements. I am not too concerned how we organise the exception sites or homes for locals; the real point about the exception sites is that they are outside the planning system: the land would not normally get planning permission of any sort. It is the cheapness of the land and the way that the house can be built by the housing association which enables houses to be very good value for locals, not only the control of the marketplace, as the noble Lord rightly says, which the Section 52 agreement dictates. They start off being of very low value. I would be very keen on trying to maintain the houses being owned by a housing association; in that way, no one owns them outright so that they can sell them, whether at a low value or not.
I repeat that 45% of all rural affordable houses built in the past year are on exception sites. Without the amendments, the supply of exception sites will dry up; neither landowners nor parishes will accept them. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that, without them, we could easily kill the village. It depends what your definition of village is, but it would definitely kill the community, which is perhaps the major point, as they very possibly revert to the said executive ghettos.
I am glad that the Minister supported the sentiment behind the amendments, even if she did not totally accept them, but I was very dismayed when she said that starter homes could be allowed on exception sites, and would also still fall out after five years and be sold as homes. That very statement will kill exception sites stone dead. I cannot see parishes or landowners agreeing to continue on that basis. It is all very well saying that the landowner can place a condition of sale, but conditions of sale are very difficult and expensive to enforce, particularly after the first sale.
I hope that we can continue to discuss the arrangements between now and Report so that these executive sites will be able to continue to come forward, but at the moment I do not think they will.
6.30 pm