To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in meeting their target of building 1.5 million new homes in England within this Parliament.
We have always been clear that building 1.5 million homes, which is vital given that we inherited the worst housing crisis in living memory, is an ambitious target. It will require a rate of housebuilding and infrastructure construction not seen for more than 50 years. We recognise the scale of the challenge, and we are driving progress through bold planning reforms, including the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and a record £39 billion investment in social and affordable housing. Our bold planning reforms will drive UK housebuilding to the highest rate in 40 years.
My Lords, I welcome many of the Government’s planning reforms, but the OBR made it clear in November that they would not be enough to hit the target. Recent completions were at a nine-year low. Many sites with planning permission are no longer viable because of escalating costs, and where sites are viable, builders are reluctant to build out because of weak consumer demand—the Treasury, rather than the Minister’s department, is partly to blame for both those things. If the Government want to get close to the target, will they not have to have a discussion with developers and in conjunction with them bring forward a successor to previous schemes to help first-time buyers?
I am pleased to tell the noble Lord that I have been given the buying and selling process in my portfolio very recently. I have been looking at it in great detail, and I had a meeting with developers yesterday as part of the New Towns Network on how we improve the buying and selling process. A great deal of work is going on in my department and with financial institutions to make sure that we make this process work for first-time buyers and others in the housing market.
My Lords, there are more than 250,000 empty homes in this country, and that number is rising. What are the Government doing to tackle that scourge of empty properties, as surely it is the quickest way of tackling some of the housing crisis that we face?
My noble friend is quite right to raise the issues around empty properties. Our Government have been working to make sure that we give councils the powers that they need to drive forward work on empty properties as quickly as possible. We will enable that with new powers for local councils through the planning process to make sure that they can add into the planning process dates for when completions are due.
My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, the area of our country where the housing crisis is most acute is where people are suffering in temporary accommodation. Many councils up and down the land are really in a bind about how to build their way out of this. What work is being done specifically to help councils to provide homes to move people out of temporary accommodation?
We have a target to eliminate the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for families by the end of this Parliament, except in emergencies. I recognise the problems that it causes for families. We have funding of £969 million for temporary accommodation over the next three years and £950 million for local authority housing funds to increase the supply of good-quality temporary accommodation, providing up to 5,000 homes. There will be increased support for children through a new duty on councils to notify schools, health visitors and GPs that a child is in temporary accommodation. We have to end this scourge of children living in temporary accommodation.
My Lords, the Minister mentioned her negotiations with housebuilders—I think it was just yesterday. We depend on those volume housebuilders to produce all the homes that we need. Can she reassure the House that in those negotiations she will not wish away any of the affordable housing that housebuilders are obliged to provide but so often fail to?
I can give the noble Lord that assurance. We are determined to make sure that, as we go through the process of building the 1.5 million homes, enough social and affordable housing is included in that target. He will know that I take particular care to not conflate the terms “affordable housing” and “social housing”; they are different things. We have to make sure that we do our best in that regard. From the £39 billion that we have allocated for affordable housing, 60% will be for social housing.
My Lords, local planning departments are often cited as a blockage to building more homes, yet fewer than 40% of those local authorities are operating with an adopted plan. As the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill moves through Parliament, what action are the Government taking to ensure that local government reorganisation, with its many new structures, planning powers and inevitable changes of political control, is not used as a delaying tactic to produce an up-to-date plan, which strong anecdotal evidence suggests is happening?
It is essential that the local government reorganisation and devolution process does not hold up the production of local plans. My Government have made that absolutely clear and are following up with councils that have delayed local plans. Where the new strategic plans are being made, they can be made in spite of reorganisation, and the data used for them will be transferred as soon as the reorganisation arrangements are complete.
My Lords, I have listened carefully to the Minister about what the Government are doing, but we have a country with the number of planning permissions granted in the past 12 months at the lowest level since 2013 and construction costs rising by up to 40%. How are the Government now going to deliver the at least 1 million homes that the previous Tory Government did in their last term, let alone the promised 1.5 million in the next 3.5 years left in this Government?
On buildout rates—the number of planning permissions in place that are not built out—I think we can look to the previous Government for the answer to that question. We are changing incentives in the housing market, giving local authorities the tools that they need to speed up delivery, requiring developers to commit to delivery timeframes and giving councils the power to refuse to consider applications from developers that consistently fail to build out quickly enough, as well as exploring a delayed homes penalty. As well as all the positive-side and demand-side incentives that we are putting in place, I think that will make the biggest change to housing delivery that we have seen in many generations.
My Lords, I am grateful for the answers that we have had, particularly around social rent and affordable rent. Does the Minister agree that we also need to make space for things such as community land trusts and other community-led social housing initiatives, which can often provide accommodation in particular niches and communities that is much more sensitive to the needs of local communities? They may not be volume builders, but I would urge that they have a vital part to play.
We need to take particular care to make sure that we use all the mechanisms to deliver some of the very specialised housing that the right reverend Prelate refers to. Some of those local trusts know exactly what is needed for their local communities. They do a fantastic job, and my Government want to support them through the funding that we are providing, as well as through any supporting measures in the planning reforms that we are bringing forward.