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House-building Programme

My Lords, I too will touch on the subject of affordable rural housing. I have three points to make. First, the social consequences of doing nothing about the rural housing crisis would be serious. We are beginning to create unbalanced communities. If you are rich, you live in the countryside; if poor, you live in the towns. That does neither towns nor villages any favours at all. In my part of the world, in Somerset, we are becoming a haven for the retired. People who are moving in, usually from the south-east, are prepared to pay almost anything for a small cottage in a village. Younger local people—who are, after all, the active members of our village communities, and who are the workers our local businesses depend upon—cannot get a look in. In fact, our young are leaving the county in droves. Key workers, particularly health and social care workers, who will of course be needed more and more to look after the ageing retired population, cannot earn the wages to stay in the countryside. We have not yet seen the nadir of the social consequences of this problem, either for the countryside or for the towns. Secondly, the environmental consequences of adding 9,000 to 10,000 new affordable rural homes per year for the next decade would be negligible. Provided that they are added as small developments to each and every community, it amounts to an average of just over one house every two years in each parish in England over the 10-year period. The crucial factor, however, is that these houses must remain in the affordable sector in perpetuity. The right to buy has had devastating consequences in rural England, and to leave it in place—or, worse still, to consider extending its provisions—while this crisis exists is like trying to run a bath while leaving the plug out. It does not matter whether these houses involve some form of equity holding or are merely rented. Personally, I believe that the uniquely British emphasis on home ownership is largely overdone. The main point is that tomorrow’s young and active generations, trying to live on the lower-than-average rural wages, would have the opportunity to stay in their community and provide a social network and support—and this is very important—for family and friends, who might be ill, old or young—a service that is so expensive if government alone is left to deliver these services. Sustainable communities are made up of sustainable networks. Sustainability is not all about CO&2sub;. Thirdly, various groups are now looking at this problem. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has a small group, including various Members of your Lordships’ House, that is carrying out a short investigation into solutions. The new Commission for Rural Communities, though not yet statutorily in place, is doing an in-depth countryside analysis, listening to views of people on the ground in every region. Above all of this, pulling it all together, is the new Affordable Rural Housing Commission, chaired by Elinor Goodman, which is due to report to the Government next spring. At that stage, we will have done consultation to the death, and the time for action will be upon us. This is a problem that has been hanging over rural Britain since the second half of the 1980s—dare I say it, since not long after the right to buy was introduced. I cannot emphasise enough the social and economic consequences for both rural and urban Britain if we do not deal with the issue properly this time around. The Affordable Rural Housing Commission must come up with some practical solutions. These will have to involve incentives for every local authority, housing agency, local and national charity, perhaps every financial institution, and every landowner, housing association, RSL and parish, to encourage them actively and financially to utilise all the resources at their disposal and pull together to solve this problem. The essential tool in this process of pulling together is the Rural Housing Enablers. They are crucial people, and they must remain properly funded. I hope the Minister will give me some commitment on that. Unless these bodies are actively encouraged to pull together, we will never resolve the number one problem for our rural communities in this country.