Member

Amendment 72 talks about the cumulative regulatory burdens which are impacting on the delivery of social housing, I simply say that, in my experience, developers regularly lobby and complain about regulatory burdens, regardless of what form of tenure they are building. The legitimate issue with building social housing is the cost of delivering it, and the Government are trying to make social rented housing stack up financially with the more recent changes which the Minister has already outlined to us. Noble Lords will have to forgive my cynicism, as we have lived with the so-called viability loophole for many years, where developers try to renege on building social housing, or defer it until the very end of the scheme—sometimes years later, in larger schemes—or say that they are delivering affordable housing.