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7.56 pm
Mr. Harold Elletson (Blackpool, North): I am grateful to the Government for finding time for us to have this important debate on housing need. The Environment Select Committee's report on the subject was the result of a major inquiry into an important matter of social and environmental concern. It is good that we now have the opportunity for a wider debate on the Floor of the House. I welcome the chance to discuss the work of Select Committees in this way.
The Environment Select Committee's report examined the way in which the Government assess future housing need and prepare themselves to meet the challenge of housing the nation within the framework of the planning system and their overall environmental objectives. I shall focus on meeting housing need and its impact on the
countryside. Housing policy has to be seen very much within the wider environmental context. New housing development is responsible for a greater loss of countryside than any other single factor. Hon. Members would agree that new housing seems to upset constituents more than any other local environmental issue.
Britain has undergone, and is still undergoing, profound social and demographic changes, which are bound to have a significant effect on housing in the future. Every reliable survey indicates that the population and the number of households are growing. There is bound to be a consequent need for new homes--particularly for affordable new homes. The Government have to assess the likely need for social housing in the future, and to ensure that their planning policies take account of that and of increased demand in the private sector for new homes.
In the past, the Department of the Environment and local authorities have sought to make this sort of estimate, mainly on the basis of household projections. However, household projections are notoriously unreliable and difficult. Indeed, several of the Environment Select Committee's witnesses questioned whether household projections were the best basis on which to assess either the need for social housing at the national level or the requirements for additional housing land at the local level.They were right to question that--after all, household projections are not sensitive to local conditions or to the environmental implications of current planning policies. The use of household projections as a method of estimate fails to assess the nature rather than the numbers of housing need, especially the need for housing geared to specific needs. This is clearly a major problem at a time of such enormous demographic change, particularly with the growth of the elderly population.
Housing projections have been, and are, used to define the scale of overall housing requirements. They dominate the preparation of regional planning guidance and development plans. However, they are not policy neutral: they are the major tool used by the building lobby to bludgeon the Government into releasing more land for development. We need to base our housing requirements and policies on a wider set of objectives than demographics and a highly contentious and unreliable system of projections.
Therefore, I warmly welcome the Environment Committee's recommendation that the Government and local authorities should attach much more importance to local environmental concerns, and much less importance to statistical projections of household formation when deciding upon building levels. The importance of that recommendation cannot be underestimated.
There is massive pressure for new housing development on green-field sites in the countryside, on the edges of towns and villages, and on every available strip of open land. That pressure is widely resented by people all over the country, whether they live in towns or in the countryside. They realise that, left unchecked, it would swamp rural England and destroy our countryside heritage.
We have a magnificent rural heritage. Last summer, I walked across the north of England from Scarborough, up the coast to Whitby and down to Blackpool. I know that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish
(Mr. Bennett), the Chairman of the Environment Committee, is also a keen walker. Anyone who goes into the countryside and sees what a magnificent place England is--particularly the north--will realise what a great heritage we have to pass on to our children. That, more than anything else, is the jewel of our national heritage, and we must treasure it.
However, every year we lose 11,000 hectares of countryside to urban development--most of which is new housing. A recent report in The Daily Telegraph claimed that unpublished Government research predicted that an area of rural land the size of greater London would be urbanised by 2016 at a rate of development one third higher than that experienced in the 1980s, during a peak period of private sector housebuilding. By 2016, there may be as many as 4 million new households in England if current demographic trends continue.
We have not begun to pay enough attention to the consequences of simply building houses to meet those trends. Those consequences are horrifying. If current rates of development continue, 20 per cent. of England will be urban by 2050. That would be a terrible legacy for our children. It would be an environmental nightmare and a betrayal of the greatest treasure in our children's inheritance: England itself.
That would also be utterly pointless, because, while demographic trends are bound to create a strain, there is no need to try to solve the problem by releasing more countryside for building. Much more can be done to meet housing needs from the existing stock of buildings. The vast bulk of future housing provision already exists, and new development adds only about 1 per cent. to existing stock each year. There is significant under-use of the existing housing stock. During the Committee's inquiry, I realised that little research has been done in that area. However, it is clear that almost 800,000 homes are currently empty.
Therefore, a widespread programme of new housebuilding, coupled with the relaxation of planning controls, would clearly be an absolute disaster. We must respond to the challenge of meeting future housing needs in ways other than simply taking account of statistical projections. We must attach more importance to local environmental concerns, such as those expressed by the residents of Cleveleys on the edge of my constituency. They are objecting to the development of open farmland on College farm between Cleveleys and Fleetwood. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will look carefully at that matter when he receives the residents' representations.
We must encourage local authorities to prepare local planning strategies that are based on the capacity of their environment to accommodate new development, rather than simply imagining that the countryside is a renewable resource which can be squandered at will to meet the demands of the building industry. Against that background, it is clear that the Government will have to plan for a significant increase in the demand for social housing.
The Environment Committee report is correct to highlight that aspect, and to stress the need to plan much more carefully for special housing needs. The members of the Committee were unanimous in the view that the Government must provide more social housing if we are to meet future needs.
The Government have already done much to provide affordable homes for families on low incomes. They spent £5 billion on grants for social housing in 1994-95. That enables 300,000 families to find homes in the social rented sector each year, and has provided an extra 72,000 affordable homes on average in each of the past three years. That is an impressive record, upon which the Government must build. Much of the demand can be met through the better use of existing sites, and the Environment Committee recommended increasing the share of new development in towns and cities.
I mentioned that about 800,000 homes are currently empty. Of those, 700,000 are in the private sector. The Government are committed to reducing the number of empty homes in England from 4 to 3 per cent. They have encouraged people to make use of empty homes and dwelling places through measures such as removing the need for planning permission when converting space above shops into housing; by encouraging the conversion of older offices into flats; by making it easier for, and more attractive to, people to become landlords; and by creating the conditions for a healthy housing market so that empty homes can be sold.
The Government are also disposing of surplus accommodation among their empty stock. In 1994-95, nearly 4,000 homes were brought back into use or resold. They have gradually made it more attractive for landlords to let empty properties. Most importantly, the Government are trying to encourage the construction of houses on urban, as opposed to rural, sites. Last year's housing White Paper set a target that 50 per cent. of new houses should be built on land previously in urban use. I understand that that target is being met, but I do not think that it goes far enough.
That was also the Environment Committee's view: we concluded that every effort must be made to increase the scale of re-use of brown-field sites that had been built on previously. The report says that the 50 per cent. target can be met and improved in the future. I hope that the Minister will take the recommendation particularly seriously, because that aim is realisable and will help to take pressure off the countryside.
A wider question, which the Environment Committee has addressed in previous inquiries--particularly in its examination of out-of-town shopping--is the quality of life in our inner cities and towns. It is not enough to respond to the challenge by developing brown-field sites--and I am sure that the Government will not respond in that way. As a nation and as a Government, we must do a great deal more to improve the quality of life in the urban environments in our towns and cities.
We cannot underestimate the challenge that faces us as we approach the 21st century. For many people, inner-city areas and towns are empty, desolate places of despair. Many towns in this country have been effectively abandoned. I believe that that is the great challenge facing the Government and the Department as we approach the 21st century.
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