Budget Resolutions
Will the hon. Member give way?
Liberal Democrats MP for Taunton and Wellington since (elected).
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Will the hon. Member give way?
Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituent, Philippe Messy, who runs the excellent Little Wine Shop in Taunton, who was hoping to see a big move in VAT, but who has instead described the Budget as “a soufflé that did not rise—flat, flat, flat”?
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, although I confess that I would rather see the social media companies give way and accept ways of cleaning up their act, rather than young people having to give way and lose their access. He mentioned the checks, and passports and driving licences will be required. Does that not disproportionately disadvantage poorer households, which are less likely to have those documents?
It is a pleasure to serve the Committee with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond, and to continue the almost daily tradition of meeting the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, in these Committee Rooms. The Liberal Democrats support the principle of directing interest payments towards tenants and the schemes that they want to see for their communities. The 9,000 private tenants in Taunton and Wellington would very much like to see the proceeds of these profits being directed in that way, although we do not see any guarantee in the order that the funds will be ringfenced for the use of private tenants. Paragraph 5.6 of the draft explanatory memorandum says it is an “expectation” that “The Secretary of State would use the funds received towards programmes or activities that benefit tenants in the private rented sector”. Paragraph 5.8 says, as an example, that the Secretary of State could require funds to be “used to fund a programme supporting vulnerable tenants.” We would like to these funds to be ringfenced, so that they are used for the benefit of tenants and do not disappear into some Treasury coffer. At this stage, without that guarantee, we have difficulty supporting the order.
The increase in starts is welcome, but the Government’s package of reforms was designed to increase consents. The most recent quarterly figures show that although consent applications are down, the rate of granted consents remains high at 88%—that figure is over 90% when councillors are involved in making the planning decisions. Does that not show that taking away powers to make decisions on major applications—those of over 150 homes—from councillors through the NPPF has made no difference whatsoever to the number of consents? Will the Government give those powers back to councillors, who support over 90% of applications when they come to committee?
The Minister clearly did not hear: I referred to the removal of councillors’ powers to make decisions on applications relating to over 150 homes, which happened at an early stage of the year. Moving on, the warm homes grant has come in for cuts. We have now discovered that not only is £1 billion being cut from the scheme, but an extra £1.5 billion will be cut from the loan system that goes towards those warm homes. How will people get the renewable energy and efficient homes they need if the scheme is being dismantled in this way?
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. New clause 1 would require a strategy for the provision of 150,000 new social homes a year in England, which is the Liberal Democrat target. We welcome the Government’s commitments so far to funding and supporting the delivery of social homes, which are of key importance—in fact, we welcome those proposals a lot more than some of the planning system proposals for private housing <span id="104" class="column-number" data-column-number="104"></span>development, but the focus of the new clause is on social homes. However, we need a significant target. So far, the Government have not set a statutory target, or indeed any clear target at all. The National Housing Federation and Shelter estimate that 90,000 more social homes are needed per year. Why did we go to 150,000? Because social homes should not be for just the most excluded, desperate and challenged in our society; they should be for working people in low-paid jobs.
I welcome the hon. Lady’s question about the details of Liberal Democrat policy, upon which I shall be delighted to expound. The challenge I was making is that the Government’s overall target for homes is mainly for private homes, so we have situations in Taunton where thousands of homes will be imposed on a community that will not be able to afford them or have any access to them. They will not be for local people. Those targets come alongside the planning reforms, which seem to celebrate a confrontational approach—I think the Labour party called it a “blockers versus builders” approach. The notion that that will somehow lead to more community acceptance of housing development is wrong-headed. That is why we believe that the overall housing target needs to be based on household projections, as it once was, rather than on the current standard method. However, we would stick rigidly to our target of 150,000 social homes.
To be fair to Conservative Members, which is something I do not often say, they raised the point in earlier sittings that there is too little in the Bill to secure the delivery of social homes—the really affordable homes that we need to see. That is why our new clause 1, the very first amendment that we tabled, would insert such a target into the Bill. Let me return to the objective of the delivery of social homes. The Budget gave an extra £1.5 billion to the programme, which is incredibly welcome.