Clause 5 - Monitoring

Housing and Planning Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 19 November 2015.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Roberta Blackman-Woods Roberta Blackman-Woods Shadow Minister (Housing) 4:30, 19 November 2015

I beg to move amendment 73, in clause 5, page 3, line 28, at end insert

“which must be displayed on the authority‘s website and updated annually”.

The amendment would require local planning authorities to report on their functions in respect of starter homes annually and to publish the report.

Photo of Alan Meale Alan Meale Labour, Mansfield

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 74, in clause 5, page 3, line 28, at end insert

“and other types of affordable housing”.

The amendment would require local planning authorities to report on their functions in respect of affordable housing as well as starter homes.

Amendment 75, in clause 5, page 3, line 31, at end insert

“and to include information that starter homes remain to be sold at 20% below market value”.

The amendment would empower the Secretary of State to require local planning authorities to report information on starter homes that remain to be sold at 20% below market value.

Amendment 76, in clause 5, page 3, line 37, at end insert

“and to demonstrate that the land in question is not needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use”.

This amendment would empower the Secretary of State to require data on the extent to which land used for starter homes was not needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use.

Photo of Roberta Blackman-Woods Roberta Blackman-Woods Shadow Minister (Housing)

This group of amendments highlights our concerns about the degree of control the Secretary of State will take over the monitoring that local authorities will have to carry out on the effectiveness of the starter homes policy. All the amendments make suggestions on how the arrangements could be improved, and we hope that they will be helpful to the Minister. We are concerned that so much power over monitoring will be put in the hands of the Secretary of State. We have seen elsewhere from this Government how vital bits of information that we need to assess policy have suddenly disappeared from public view. We want to ensure that information about the effectiveness of the starter homes policy will be available in a particular form for public scrutiny.

Amendment 73 would ensure that information about the number of starter homes provided in a local authority area will be published on the authority’s website and updated annually. The figures could be fairly meaningless to the local people who search for them if they are not put into some sort of context, so we would also like information to be displayed about the general housing need in the area. We would particularly like information on the delivery of all other sorts of public and affordable housing to be published online.

I shall give an example to demonstrate the point. In a given year, a local authority might produce 640 houses under the starter homes initiative, but no houses at all for social rent. We think that local people should know that, because they can then question why no houses are available for affordable rent. Indeed, they might want to think about whether the starter homes initiative is the only one that is applying locally.

There are positive elements to the scheme, as well as disbenefits. It is important that the local authority uses its website to promote starter homes. As many people as possible should know about the initiative and as many people as possible who can take up the opportunity should be able to, but they must also be able to understand what is happening in their local housing market. That is the purpose of amendments 73 and 74.

Amendment 75 would ensure that the local authority collects and puts into the public domain information about whether starter homes are actually being sold at 20% below market value. There would have to be information to demonstrate that clearly to the local population, so, again, the local authority would need to publish starter homes information and the amounts of money the homes were being sold for within the context of local housing market conditions. Again, that is a useful check on the policy to ensure that it is doing what it is supposed to do, that it is providing homes for people who are seeking to get on the housing ladder at below market value, and that we do not get a gradual creep up above market value as the policy progresses.

Finally, amendment 76 would require local authorities to demonstrate that land put forward for starter homes development is not needed for some other significant use, such as employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution. Many commentators expressed concern that, in the drive to meet the starter homes target, local authorities will use land that should be used for other purposes that, critically, would support the necessary infrastructure to turn developments into thriving communities where people want to live.

The amendments are, in a sense, two-pronged. They seek to specify in the Bill that local authorities should make information about the effectiveness of the policy available, so that it is not all left to the Secretary of State, and that information about starter homes is put into a wider context.

Photo of Brandon Lewis Brandon Lewis Minister of State (Communities and Local Government) 4:45, 19 November 2015

Clause 5 requires English local planning authorities to prepare reports about the actions that they have taken under the starter homes duties in chapter 1 of the Bill. The Government’s current proposals strike the right balance—they give communities the information that they need and, essentially, avoid creating an overly bureaucratic process. I am absolutely clear that local communities, particularly first-time buyers, must be aware of the action that their local planning authority is taking to promote the supply of starter homes and the clause will deliver that as it stands.

Amendment 73 would require local planning authorities to report annually and to publish those reports on their websites. Clause 5(4) already provides that an authority must make its reports under this section available to the public. The clause also provides that the Secretary of State may make regulations about the timing of the reports and whether they should be combined with the local authority’s authority monitoring report, which must already be published at least on an annual basis. We do not want to introduce unnecessary burdens, and it would be sensible to combine reporting with the existing requirement.

Amendment 74 would require local planning authorities to report on their functions in respect of affordable housing as well as starter homes. Local planning authorities  are already required to do that. They must report on the extent to which their planning policies are being achieved through their authority monitoring reports. That is a statutory requirement in regulation 34 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012, which includes a specific requirement for a local planning authority to report on its affordable housing delivery performance against adopted planning policies. Both amendments 73 and 74 are therefore unnecessary and are already covered by the current legal framework.

Amendment 75 would require local planning authorities to report on the number of starter homes that remain to be sold at 20% below market value. Clause 2 provides that the Secretary of State can place restrictions through regulations on the sale and letting of starter homes, as we discussed earlier. Such restrictions on the sale or letting of a starter home at open-market value are likely to be for a period of five years. Starter homes will not be restricted in perpetuity as long-term restrictions make it more difficult for the first-time buyer to sell and move up to a larger home as their family needs change and grow. We want people to have a permanent place in the property market that evolves to suit their needs.

Therefore, amendment 75 does not reflect our central proposal for a starter home and reporting on the requirement would cause confusion. It is essential that we have a consistent set of scheme rules so that builders, lenders and, importantly, first-time buyers all have the same expectations of a starter home wherever and whoever they are. That will help to deliver on our manifesto commitment of building 200,000 starter homes over the course of this Parliament.

Amendment 76 would require all local planning authorities to report in detail about the appropriateness of all sites where starter homes are proposed. In particular, it asks local authorities to demonstrate that the sites were not otherwise needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use. The burden would fall on starter homes proposed on exception sites, as they use land that has not been previously allocated for housing. We see exception sites as playing a crucial part in delivering starter homes by providing communities with a stock of new and cheaper land that can be used to build the housing they desperately need. Because the land tends to have a lower value, it helps to improve the viability of starter home developments.

Let me be clear: this is not about building houses at the expense of all other types of use; it is about releasing land where there is no reasonable prospect of its being used for its original purpose. If there is a disused former garage site in a town, surely we all want it to be used to build new housing rather than sit there disused. We expect local authorities to be proactive in identifying and publicising exception sites. Where applications for starter homes are made, local authorities must be prepared to give planning permission. The intention behind the new duty to promote starter homes in clause 3 is to encourage local authorities to do just that.

Before local authorities grant permission, they will need to assure themselves that the brownfield land is an exception site and, in particular, that it is underused and unviable in its current land use. I believe that local authorities are capable of taking that decision without the Government’s looking over their shoulder. For that reason, I think that amendment 76, which would require  all local planning authorities to report in detail about the appropriateness of sites, is unnecessary and overly bureaucratic.

I return to what I said at the start. What matters in terms of reporting is that people have the information they need about the number of applications for starter homes that have been made and how many have got permission, and we should not create a burdensome reporting system to check every decision a local authority takes. I believe that the clause as drafted provides that information. With that assurance, I hope the hon. Lady will withdraw the amendments.

Photo of Roberta Blackman-Woods Roberta Blackman-Woods Shadow Minister (Housing)

I think our roll has come to a shuddering standstill.

We tabled the amendments largely as probing amendments because there is so little information in the Bill about how the monitoring will be carried out. Although it says that reports will be available to the public, it does not say how they will be made available, how often they will be available, in what form they will be published and whether they will be on authorities’ websites. The Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to outline the reports’ form, content, timing and so on.

Presumably, at some point we are going to see a set of regulations. Perhaps we will have to postpone some of the detail of this discussion until we see that. Our plea to the Minister is that he makes the information readily available to people. It should probably be made available on an authority’s website because that is how most people access information these days—not everyone, but most people. It needs to be available in other ways too, and it needs to be put in context. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.