Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate on social and affordable housing. As Members of this House will know, I personally and the Government are very supportive of the intent of the amendments in this group, which is to increase the delivery of affordable and social housing. Noble Lords will already be aware that this Government have committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, and to prioritising the building of new homes for social rent. As other Peers have indicated, we allocated £39 billion over 10 years of this Parliament to social and affordable housing, the biggest amount for generations, and we have indicated that 60% of that should be for social housing. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, spoke powerfully about the crisis we faced when we came into office and frankly—and I have said it before—169,000 children in temporary and emergency accommodation is a shameful record. We will tackle that. We are working on it immediately and doing everything we can to address it. The investment made at the Spring Statement, which was the £39 billion, follows the £800 million new in-year funding which has been made available for the affordable homes programme 2021 to 2026 that will support the delivery of up to 7,800 new homes, more than half of them social rent homes. That is significantly up on the £700 million that was mentioned. Furthermore, we have announced changes to allow councils to retain 100% of receipts generated by right-to-buy sales. This is not a one-off. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, spoke about the net gain in housing and there are other issues we need to address, including right to buy. We recently consulted on wider reforms to right to buy; that consultation has closed. We also consulted on a long-term rent settlement that would allow rents to increase above inflation each year for five years from 2026. That consultation has closed, and we are looking at responses from the sector to deal with that. It is our intention to give long-term rent settlements so that registered providers can have the certainty they need to invest in housing. Amendment 122, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, seeks to set out a minimum proportion of social rent provision on new developments and require any affordable housing requirements to be fully implemented on them. I thank the noble Lord, as ever, for being such a passionate advocate for affordable housing. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, mentioned the definition of affordable homes. It is now specific in the NPPF that authorities should separately set out social housing need in their local plan and not just use that broad term of “affordable housing”, which was never very satisfactory. The Government agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best, that we need to significantly increase the number of affordable homes built each year, with a particular focus on delivering homes for social rent. We will continue to take steps to deliver a planning system that supports this. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, mentioned that the target has not yet been achieved. We need to lay the foundations for this. We need the funding that we have put in to deliver social housing. We also need this planning Bill to go through to free up the planning system so that we move it forward quickly. I know our new Secretary of State will be very focused on that: I have already spoken to him today about it. We will continue to take the steps we need to deliver the planning system that supports this, but I do not believe this amendment goes quite in the direction that we need to go. Our revised National Planning Policy Framework provides greater flexibility for local authorities to deliver the right tenure mix to suit particular housing needs. The framework makes it clear that local authorities should, when producing their local plan, assess the need for affordable housing and homes for social rent and then plan to meet those needs. This includes setting out the amount and type of affordable housing that should be secured on new developments. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned viability guidance. We are reviewing the planning practice guidance on viability to ensure the system works to optimise developer contributions, allowing negotiation only where that is genuinely necessary. We will produce this guidance later this year, so I look forward to discussing that with noble Lords. We must also acknowledge that there are times where flexibility is necessary to ensure sites can commence when there is a change in circumstances, such as a change in the economic situation. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, referred to the CMA report which resulted in a fine of £100 million to the major developers. We need to carefully consider—and we have talked about it before in your Lordships’ House—how to make sure that that does not just get recirculated to develop further profits for the same developers that caused the problem in the first place; that is, those that were fined. We have already allocated a package of support for SME builders and I hope the very significant sum allocated in the affordable homes programme and other funds that may come forward will help to support local jobs, training, apprenticeships, supply chains and those SME builders. It is very important that we all focus on that as well. Consequently, we must aim to balance strengthening the developer contribution system with retaining the necessary degree of flexibility, allowing negotiation and renegotiation to take place but only where it is genuinely justified. Planning obligations entered into under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 are legally binding and enforceable. A local planning authority may take enforcement action against any breach of a planning obligation contained within a Section 106 agreement, including any breach of the affordable housing commitment. We will also consider further steps to support social and affordable housing as we take forward work on a set of national policies for decision-making later this year. Amendments 141, 150A and 151, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, seek to ensure that a majority of any affordable housing specified or described by a strategic planning authority in its spatial development strategy is housing for social rent as defined in paragraph 7 of the Direction on the Rent Standard 2019 and paragraphs 4 and 8 of the Direction on the Rent Standard 2023. The wording of the Bill gives strategic planning authorities the flexibility to plan for a broad range of affordable housing types, allowing them to respond to the specific needs of their areas. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, rightly mentioned nationally important landscapes. In this new planning Bill, they retain their very strong protections. We are very interested in—and have talked a lot about—the rural exception sites and, where housing is necessary, working with local areas to determine where that housing should go and potentially have local lettings plans to go with them. The Government have already put forward some strong measures, particularly on empty homes but also on second homes in terms of council tax measures and so on, that can be taken. Insisting that spatial development strategies must specify or describe a certain amount of one type of affordable housing could prevent authorities including other important forms of affordable housing when setting out the amount or distribution of such housing that they consider to be strategically important to their area. This could significantly reduce the variety and volume of affordable housing delivered. I turn now to Amendment 137, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. This would require a spatial development strategy to have regard to the need to meet a specific target for new social homes each year. New Section 12D(5)(b) already enables a spatial development strategy to outline an amount or distribution of affordable housing or any other type of housing—social housing, certainly—that the authority deems strategically important for its area. Amendment 171 asks the Government to commit to update guidance in relation to affordable housing. I am in full agreement that we have to ensure affordable housing is genuinely affordable to local people and addresses local needs. That is why we have made changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to provide greater flexibility for local authorities to deliver the right tenure mix to suit housing need in their areas. In addition, we have committed that new investment to succeed the current affordable homes programme will have a particular focus on delivering social rent—that is the 60% I referred to earlier. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to net new homes. Delivery of new homes is only one element of that; so are changes to right-to-buy provisions which the Government have already outlined. Planning policy already supports many of the aims of this amendment, requiring local planning authorities to assess the range of affordable housing needs in their area and set out the types of affordable housing to be prioritised. On a couple of other points, the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, reminded us that there are economic benefits to providing social housing. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, referred to the Benefits to Bricks campaign. It is very important as we look to reduce the benefits bill that that £30 billion—or £35 billion, as I think she cited—often used to house someone in expensive accommodation that does not meet their needs, is much better focused on delivering social housing where we can ensure that it meets the needs of those who live there. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to the amendments on shared ownership from the noble Lord, Lord Young. They are part of the Renters’ Rights Bill, and we have had very useful meetings with the noble Lord. No doubt that will come back to us when the Bill comes back from ping-pong. We have already made a clear commitment to consider further steps to support social and affordable housing as part of our intent to produce a set of national policies for decision-making in 2025. It is as part of these changes that the content and timing of further updates to guidance are best considered. For these reasons, I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.