Housing Waiting Lists

Anne Main calls on the Government to address the skills shortage in local government planning.

Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): The Government set themselves what I believe was an over-ambitious target of 2 million homes by 2016 and 3 million homes by 2020-a significant number of which I assume would be affordable homes for sale or rent. I dispute the Government figures, particularly when we have so many perfectly useful homes lying empty-a matter I shall touch on later.

In response to my inquiry about skills shortages, the Minister for Housing said that she was dealing with the matter. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) is, like me, a member of the Select Committee, and I hope that he will reflect on some of the comments I am about to make about skills shortages, which I believe are further delaying the Government's delivery of their particularly ambitious housing agenda.

What, then, are the main obstacles to the delivery of the Government's proposed housing targets? They are skills shortages in planning. In July, the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, on which I serve, published its report, "Planning Matters-labour shortages and skills gaps", regarding the lack of skilled staff in planning. Anyone living in a high-price area such as St. Albans will testify to the fact that it is extremely difficult to get experienced planners into the system and then to retain those officers.

The Government published their response on 3 November 2008. To say that the Government have given a somewhat vague and lacklustre response to this report would be an understatement. If they are really serious about delivering their housing targets, however ambitious, and if they are really serious about cutting waiting lists for social rented housing and about speeding up build delivery, it would be logical to assume that they would be really serious about ironing out some of the obstacles or problems that appear to beset our planning delivery at a local level-obstacles and problems that have been pointed out to them by the Select Committee, most noticeably shortages of planning skills.

Our Committee concluded in its report:

"Perhaps the most surprising, and frustrating, point to arise repeatedly from this inquiry is the fact that labour and skills shortages in planning are so unsurprising. They have been evident for well over a decade, but review after review, report after report, recommendation after recommendation have not resulted in their reduction. This must change."

That is a damning indictment of 10 years of the Government's inability to tackle the problem. Although the Government acknowledged in their response that progress had been slow and that there was more to be done, they maintained that

"the Government is confident that there will be both a greater supply of people to work in planning, and that professionals working in local government will have a more appropriate skill set to do the work which is necessary".

Where, given the years of inactivity that I have alluded to, do they get that confidence from?

The Government's response contains little or no detailed commitment to specific action. We cannot build houses if the planning system cannot deliver them. Instead, the Government showed an over-emphasis on the roles of others, rather than themselves, and simply restated existing or past initiatives without any new proposals to deal with those acknowledged problems. Do the Government really expect us to accept that the constant assertion that progress will be made will indeed mean that progress happens?

A key issue raised in the report was training for councillors in planning matters. Again, it was acknowledged that many councillors were expected to make complex decisions and that the turnover of councils sometimes means that there is little in the way of a training base for councillors. Again, we are led to believe that development is thwarted or held up through lack of informed decision making. Our recommendation 22 urged the Government specifically to address that problem, but in response to our request for councillor training, the Government simply agreed that it should not be compulsory and provided examples of where training was already given. One of their key examples, however-the Planning Advisory Service 1:1 support programme-has delivered training to only 36 councils, which is hardly a seismic shift in speeding up the planning upskilling that councillors need.

The Committee's report concluded:

"The Minister for Housing and the Department for Communities and Local Government seem likely to continue to suffer from 'review-itis'"-

I am not sure that that is really a word, but it appeared in our report-

"until the repeated concerns expressed and recommendations made over the past 10 years are translated into actions that raise both the number of people who want to be planners and the range and level of skills they possess."

So, instead of the decisive action that we urged on the Government, who have set themselves hugely ambitious targets to deliver more and more houses, they have buried their heads in the sand. The Government's response disagreed with, or failed to address, the key issues in the report's recommendations.

Given the stated recognition by the Government that

"planning is crucial to the economic prosperity of the country"

and the acknowledgement that there are low numbers entering the profession, our report recommended annual assessment so that shortages could be addressed and more encouragement given to get more people into a profession that is so sadly lacking in critical numbers. However, the Government chose not to accept that recommendation; they simply gave a commitment to undertaking three-yearly audits of existing numbers of planners and of their skills base and needs. This three-yearly audit of trends implies a passive monitoring role on the Government's part rather than proactive engagement in, and pursuit of, a solution to this serious professional shortfall, which will no doubt hobble the Government's intention to build more houses. Why, if the Government want to speed up delivery, do they fail to accept the report's findings? I would like the Minister to answer that.

In the case of planning skills shortages, the Committee was so concerned that it felt it had to point out to the Government:

"There is a significant risk that major Government targets for development and regeneration will be missed because our planning system is unable to manage either the volume or the variety of tasks it will be asked to perform between now and 2020."

What is the Government's response? To do nothing. Perhaps the Minister will at least attempt to explain how even a reasonable percentage of those extra homes can be built when the Government have refused to address one of the biggest obstacles to delivering them-the lack of skilled planners.

The Government's other glaring deficiency is their absolute failure to deliver their own legislation in the shape of empty dwelling management orders. As we have already heard several times today, the Empty Homes Agency has estimated that more than 1 million homes in the United Kingdom are empty. The vast majority-more than four out of five-are believed to be owned by private landlords. The Government have been intending to address the problem, but little has been done.

The EHA estimates that of the 762,000 empty residential properties in England, 650,000 are owned by private landlords, and almost half are thought to have been empty for more than six months. According to the charity's own estimates, there are at least another 77,000 empty residential properties in Scotland and 50,000 in Wales and Northern Ireland. Surely, at a time when we are being pushed to "build, build, build", if there are tools in our toolbox enabling us to return empty, serviceable homes to use so that families can live in them, that should be our first duty. I do not know why the Government have abandoned it.

The EHA's chief executive, David Ireland, predicts that the total number of empty residential properties will pass 1 million, a prediction that we have heard again today. He has said:

"The situation is getting worse...Even these figures were compiled in October 2007, before the property downturn led to a rise in repossessions. We're at the beginning of a trend of rising empty homes, which is what we have seen at the beginning of other recessions."

The Housing Act 2004 made provision for local authorities to take over the management of certain residential premises, but, in October 2007, the Government reported that only six interim empty dwelling management orders had been approved since that provision came into force, and very few orders have been employed since then. In November, in reply to a question asked by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), the Minister for Housing revealed that only 15 had been issued-15, when 1 million homes stand empty! In St. Albans alone, an extremely highly priced area, there are 1,500 empty domestic dwellings. The Government's council tax records show that, in 2007, there were 762,635 in England as a whole, so St. Albans is fairly typical.

The Government are now quietly shelving the EDMOs. Although levels of homelessness are expected to rise, we shall have 1 million empty built homes along with the sclerosis in the planning system that prevents us from building the homes that are desperately needed. I pay tribute to the charities in my constituency that pick up the pieces for those 1,500 people: Centre 33, Emmaus and Open Door. I visit all of them regularly, and all of them tell me that this is a growing problem affecting homelessness in St. Albans, and a growing problem for all local authorities that cannot deliver fit and decent homes for people speedily enough.

2.23 pm

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ANNE'S PREVIOUS INTERVENTION IN THE SAME DEBATE

Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): Before the Minister gets overly confident with her remarks about skills and keeping the construction industry afloat, I draw her attention to the DCLG's conclusion, which says:

"There is a significant risk that major Government targets for development and regeneration will be missed because our planning system is unable"

to deliver. Indeed, the Government have had that pointed out to them for several years. There is a skills shortage in the planning system and they are repeatedly refusing to address that problem.

Margaret Beckett: We are taking steps to reform the planning system; we published a review only a few weeks ago. One of the major changes that has been made is the recent passage of the Planning Act 2008. I do not wish to mislead the House, but I think that I am right in saying that the Conservative party did not support large parts of the improvements that we made, including the creation of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. I entirely accept that there are defects in the planning system, but we are beginning to address them. I certainly accept that there is a skills shortage; we are addressing that and encouraging local authorities to do so."