THE “deep roots” of the UK housing crisis mean that it requires a long-term strategy, as well as immediate solutions for homeless people and those living in rural areas, Bishops have told the Government.
They were speaking in the House of Lords last week during the first of six days of debate on the King’s Speech (News, 19 July).
The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, who leads on rural affairs, welcomed government plans to tackle pollution in rivers, lakes, and waterways. In his diocese, which covers Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, he said, “we are home to several of this country’s beautiful chalk streams, which, despite being extraordinarily rare and precious habitats, have been utterly devastated by both extraction and pollution.”
The River Ver, in Hertfordshire, had been found to have six times higher levels of E. coli than was acceptable in bathing water; between March and June, he said, sewage had been discharged directly into the river for more than 2400 hours.
Agricultural run-off was part of the problem, he acknowledged, and asked the Government to work closely with British farmers and invest “in research and development for better fertilisers and solutions to reduce the volume of manure and slurry”.
On the related topic of food security, he welcomed the pledge to source a minimum of 50 per cent of government-procured food from British producers. He called for “an increased, multi-year agricultural budget” to secure the future of the farming industry, including environment targets.
Another rural issue was the closure of shops, schools, and other services, which, he suggested, was linked to “the lack of genuinely affordable housing” which was a “drain” on young people and families.
He called on the Government “to consider, as part of their reforms to planning, introducing a planning passport for rural exemption sites which have been highlighted as an avenue of great potential for mitigating the housing crisis”.
That there was a housing crisis with “deep roots” was “undeniable”, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, lead bishop on housing, said later on in the six-hour debate. “Too often, housing has been viewed as a financial asset rather than a fundamental human need.”
Introducing the debate, Lord Hunt, Minister for Energy, Security and Net Zero, had said that the issues faced by the department were “undoubtedly more profound” than they were before the Conservatives took power 14 years ago, and that the lack of housing was a key issue, affecting the quality and cost of living, and livelihoods.
Dr Francis-Dehqani expressed gratitude for the commitments in this opening speech, “but the housing crisis has been escalating for decades; so we should not underestimate just how long it will take to fix,” she said. “Therefore, I cannot overstate the need for long-term thinking in tackling the housing crisis.” This point had also been made by Baroness Warwick.
The Bishop drew attention to the new church-backed vision for housing, Homes For All, published in April (News, 3 May). Recommendations include a limit on rises in house prices and rents “in line with inflation”.
One example of the need for strategic thinking, Dr Francis-Dehqani told peers, was the allocation by the previous Government of £11.5 billion to the affordable homes programme between 2021 and 2026; “but, in the same period, the New Economics Foundation estimates that the Government are set to subsidise private landlords by more than £70 billion through housing benefit and the housing element of universal credit.
“We clearly have the balance wrong here. We should be using more of that funding to build up our stock of social homes, locking in the affordability for good, rather than subsidising private landlords, month in, month out; otherwise, the housing benefit bill will continue to rise without giving anyone in housing need the security that they deserve.”
And while it was true that a long-term fix was needed, “people living in this crisis need change now.” Rough sleeping had risen, and thousands of children remained in temporary accommodation.
She asked for more clarity on how this would be tackled, and reassurance that any housing policy would not inadvertently make it difficult to provide retirement housing for clergy.
She concluded: “Housing is not just bricks and mortar. Our housing system should not primarily be an opportunity to amass assets and wealth. It is about people’s homes and their lives.”
In a wide-ranging maiden speech, the Conservative peer Lord Fuller said: “Not building new homes does nothing to clean up our rivers. Wheeling out rogue algorithms on bat numbers should not blindly condemn communities to congestion for ever. Forcing councils to hire people in yellow coats to tell ramblers how to walk their dogs in the name of GIRAMS* regulations is simply pointless posturing. Preening, self-serving bureaucracy by unaccountable agencies acting as activists rather than as regulators must be rolled back if we are to progress.”
He continued: “Ah, the targets — we have been in this place before. All I will say is that simply wishing for houses to be built is not a strategy; to make progress here, we need to recognise that there is a world of difference between funding new homes and financing them.”
Responding on behalf of the Government, Baroness Hayman said that it had pledged to deliver 1.5 million homes during this Parliament. On rural issues, she said: “As someone who lives in a very rural part of Cumbria, I completely understand their concerns. We have rural communities at the heart of everything we do, as we do urban: this is designed for all communities to thrive, but I will, of course, be talking about rural matters right across other departments as part of my brief.”
*Green Infrastructure and Recreational Impact Avoidance and Mitigation Strategy