Contribution
I want to add a few points to what I think has been a good and interesting debate. I remind the Committee of my registered interests as chair of development forums in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. Much as I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, I will not follow his track. I will revert to places where there is a very high demand for housing and a serious problem of affordability for housing. I want to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Best, in particular, and to ask him a question, if he has a moment to respond. It seems to me that he is looking to target the social rent sector by reference to the definition that he includes—not the definition for social housing in the Bill. He effectively said: social rent under Section 69 of the Housing and Regeneration Act but not Section 70 of that Act, which relates to low-cost home ownership. The targets he refers to would have the effect of squeezing the availability of support for low-cost home ownership. I wonder if that is his intention, because it is not one that I would be wholly supportive of.
However, I do support the delivery of affordable housing. He mentioned the National Audit Office report from June this year and I want to follow up on two or three points. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and I have both asked questions about the take-up of contracts for affordable housing under Section 106 obligations entered into by developers. In addition to what he asked, the National Audit Office said that it felt that the Homes England clearing scheme should become permanent. Since it published its report in June, the Government have provided a substantial and welcome increase in the affordable homes programme. The question is: to what extent is Homes England, through the affordable homes programme, going to be empowered to use those resources to take up those contracts, even if it does not go on to own the homes itself but rather acts as a clearing house by taking up those contracts and then making them available to registered providers who can access the affordable homes programme?
In addition, I will mention two things. The National Audit Office said that it wished the Government would proceed with issuing financial viability guidance. We are going to talk later in the Bill about further issues relating to viability guidance. I know my Front Bench colleagues share my view on this. In order to deliver more housing, there are powers available to the Government that need to be used quickly. Part of that is the issuance of guidance that will allow procedures like Section 106 to make progress. The Government have powers to reform Section 106 and the community infrastructure levy and they have not done so. They also have the power to issue new guidance relating to financial viability and they have not done so. So can the Minister, who remembers our debates on these things in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, tell us when progress will be made?
The final point is about Section 106 funding. The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that developers provided less last year by way of Section 106. I think that is principally because they provided less housing, so it is a simple consequence. If we can deliver more market housing, we should be able to deliver more by way of resources for the delivery of affordable housing. I think the noble Lord and the Committee will not criticise developers who feel somewhat unhappy. The National Audit Office reported that last year there was £8 billion in unspent Section 106 contributions. This is overwhelmingly for infrastructure that has not been delivered, but quite rightly the National Audit Office thinks it not helpful for local authorities to be placing obligations on developers—taking substantial resources, which sometimes can imperil the viability of a project—and then not delivering the infrastructure that is committed. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, quite accurately said, it is a contract, in effect, between developers and local authorities. Sometimes developers let down local authorities, but sometimes local authorities let down developers.