My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association. I stand before you as a reluctant amender. As the Bill has moved towards its final stages, I have been very open to conversation and compromise. This has been possible on a wide range of difficult issues and was close to being achieved on the second amendment that I shall move later today.
However, on this part of the Bill—on housing—there remain two vital issues where I feel strongly that the debate needs to continue. The first, and the subject of Motion A1, is the so-called starter homes requirement. Under this, local authorities will not be able to give approval to individual planning applications unless they have included a specified number of starter homes. This figure is currently set to be 20%—one in five—of the houses approved.
The issues with this have been previously rehearsed, and there are three major concerns. First, it imposes a single, top-down requirement regardless of local circumstances. Secondly, it does so with a product that is still in design and is not tried and tested. Thirdly, the percentage proposed will squeeze out other kinds of affordable housing that are desperately needed. My amendment is not intended to be, nor is it a wrecking amendment to the manifesto. It seeks only to give greater local flexibility where a need can be demonstrated and to allow other types of low-cost home ownership products to be counted within the starter homes requirement. It will be for individual local authorities to take a view on this within their overall duty to promote starter homes. There need be no delay in getting starter homes going.
Indeed, I think that local planning decisions will be quicker as a result of this flexibility. The low-cost home ownership delivered could quite reasonably count against the Government’s 200,000 target. They can, as new low-cost home ownership products, be targeted at the same group of people—young first-time buyers—
whom the Government are seeking to help. From the point of view of the buyer, what matters is the opportunity to own their own home.
Before we lock ourselves into a rigid, inflexible, national solution that risks setting local authorities up to fail, I ask Ministers and this House, even at this very late stage, to consider a more localist, market-responsive approach. I beg to move.