(Ben Everitt MP)
The coronavirus is has shown us that there are unprecedented challenges that could just be swept around the world. But it has also shown us that as a society and as a government, and in particular, the civil service, can move quickly and address some of these fundamental challenges that we face. And I think there's a there's a real positive to take from that because whilst the coronavirus has changed the landscape of our economy and our society it is also highlighted some of the stresses and strains within our current housing market in the system that supports it. So, really, we've got an opportunity once we've dealt with this virus to be able to address some of these fundamental policy challenges in a way that joins things up.
(Paul Holmes MP)
One of the crucial lessons that government has learned that we can't have the economy and the market disrupted as much as it was last time. And where possible, ministers will try to get to unlock the activity that needs to happen with those businesses. But I think Ben has hit the nail on the head when he says that this crisis presents opportunities, and we all know that historically, housing is the most under addressed and most important domestic policy that I think has not had government action on it for a number of years, probably since the fifties and sixties. And people like Ben and myself are constantly banging on about the need to another public sector land, about the need to build more social housing, and about the need to have a vibrant housing mix across the whole of the UK, because sitting here in Eastleigh at the moment we do have some housing issues where it is the supply of land, absolutely the need to build more social housing because we have some of the most deprived areas just across the border from Eastleigh, but also Eastleigh town centre.
So, there is, I think, through crisis such as this an opportunity to completely reset the housing policy agenda. And actually, we have an example of that last time when the stamp duty frees came in, which is still ongoing, and has meant that some activity within the housing market can lift up. And I do think you'd expect me to say this as a conservative MP, but do you think we have some exciting policies coming forward. You know, the white paper, the planning white paper. Although I have some concerns about the planning white paper with some of the detail in it, I think that is a good thing to streamline, and make the planning system more efficient. Both for both for the public, but also both the developers, housing associations, another stakeholder. It has also meant that we are looking at national housing figures, which I think will drive some of the inefficiency that we've seen from a public sector approach into a unlocking that land and making sure that we build. And it has, of course, the unfortunate side in the housing market. It has meant that we need to get better and faster at addressing the homelessness crisis that's going across the UK, and there are some policies that have come out on that.
(Peter Truscott)
So, first and foremost, it is a supply and demand issue in terms of pricing. Housing is no different to any other commodity, and for a generation we have simply not built enough homes to meet the demand side. There are a number of reasons for that, but there is no quick fix to it. I'm sad to say that it's taken 20 or 30 years to get to this position and it will take a long time to recover that.
(Tom Paul)
One of the concerns on our mind at the moment is about the robustness off that supply chain, perhaps that's something that we might be talking about later. We're unlike the house builders, we are sort of asset rich, and our financial plans stretch well into the future, and so on our horizon and thinking about our capacity to invest and deliver the homes we need, the long term costs of environmental change weigh heavily. The costs that are hitting us as a result of all this sort of reassessment of fire safety after the Grenfell fire, that's really denting our capacity to invest now. Having to look at all the homes we have, and make sure that our residents are safe in them and that we're following the latest guidance.
(Anne-Marie Mountifield)
I just wanted to pick up a few points on the supply and demand side. So, on the supply side, picking up on some of the initial addresses from Ben and Paul and Opportunities, I think there's a real opportunity here to look at the skills issue as well as the kind of wider demand side. Certainly in our area, we do have some quite significant skills shortages, they're quite far reaching.
So for us, a really important part of the jigsaw puzzle is making sure that as a part of that supply chain support we have the right skills in place and the right ecosystem of small companies, and certainly that's been hit in the early part of the lockdown.
(Fiona McMurray)
Around supply. Yes, we do know obviously, that's a kind of key issue for the Southeast and across the country. A housing study that we, as a LEP undertook to support our strategic economic plan a few years ago, that indicated to us that from planning perspective, there was about 5,500 homes per year, that could be delivered, were being delivered in terms of agreed permissions. And yet the study indicated that we need over double that to meet demand and need from our communities.
(Tim Miller)
How housing and affordability and availability matters for businesses because people who live in homes are employees of businesses all over the country, and a lot of them take a big interest in what is happening in the housing market, whether or not as a business, they have anything to do with it, whether they touch it or not. So, it's an issue which is really quite fundamental for the business leaders when they look at their workforce, the makeup of their organization, what issues are impacting their successful operation, really. From a housing market and housing industry specific point of view, I think, to build on what has already been said. There are three distinct issues with areas of challenge, particularly around the supply chain, and they have already been mentioned. But I think looking ahead to the absolute need to build homes and other buildings with the UK's binding 2015 net zero target in mind. It is critical.
(Nigel Holmes)
We all know about the rising numbers of older people. That's particularly so in the Southeast, particular around sort of coastal areas, or the new forest where I live. What we find is that, you know, there is another supply off specialist retirement housing for older people. The new build levels are much lower than they were previously. I think there is a general lack of choice, arguably, there's got a lot of provisions for sort of rented accommodation but that's not always the most suitable shell of housing. There's some stuff for the more top end, high sort of expensive luxury stuff, but not perhaps, in the middle. But there is, despite that demographic changes and we all know about those. It's particularly very elderly, but with that comes, I think quite an opportunity, because there's about sort of about £1.6 trillion of equity tied into people retired households.
(Andy Mason)
Three things I would focus on. First of all, help to buy. I think Fiona and Ann-Marie mentioned help to buy. Now there's lots of different takes on help to buy, but I think one thing we can't argue with it's definitely helped people have access to a deposit and reduce the cost of their mortgage. Now we know help to buy is changing. I think a good thing to do is to focus it on what's really needed, which is first time buyers really need the help.
So, Step one, I think, is definitely helpful. But we're very conscious about 2023 need to think about what, what will be the thing that helps to plug some of the deposit challenge gap in a post help to buy world and there's lots of different solutions that are potential, you know, access to high loan to value lending. You know, we've talked about potential introduction of a government guarantee scheme to encourage more lenders to participate, high loan to value. There's private schemes that more and more private firms could step in to be the equity provider. So, I think there's a there's evolution there. So, I think there's definitely help from a deposit perspective.
Another area, I think that could be helpful in several of you mentioned this already shared ownership seems to have kind of a bad reputation on. I think the industry needs to do more. First of all, to address that, because I personally think shared ownership is a fantastic first step for a first time buyer who otherwise would be, you know, paying £1000 a month of rent much longer. So would you rather own a bit of your home or all of your home? I think it's much better or none of your home? Sorry. I think it's much better to get a toe on the ladder and start to build two a broader or to a fuller ownership of homes. I think I put a key worker lens on that. So, could we do much better as an industry? I think somebody said, can we share the risk from finance perspective where the populations that really need this help, that the industry can say, you know, we could do that in a in a safe sense.
From our perspective, consumer perspective to shared ownership is definitely something that's interesting. And then I think there other policy ideas, you know, so it is incredibly challenged to save for a deposit, emergencies and pensions. So, one of the areas were keen to explore is how can we simplify that from a young person who is just starting work? And we say, you know, save for your pension for your retirement? It feels like it's a lifetime away, so is there a way of combining both pensions and savings to say as part of that saving journey, you may be allowed to use some of that funds either a security or genuine cash when you're ready to have enough deposit to pay for your first home.
(Ben Everitt MP)
We can kind of see the scale and the complexity of the problem because when you look at exactly what is going on in the housing market, it's sort of broken at every stage and I think one of the things that has brought it home for us this morning is that when Andrew and Nigel and Andy we're talking about the particular challenges from their perspectives. It wasn't necessarily the market itself. It was the people who live in those houses, the types of tenure, the types of people that we're talking about.
(Peter Truscott)
It comes back to allocating enough land, and it ought not be that difficult because you start off with the national requirement, you break it down into regions and subregions, and I do think you need to talk about markets as opposed to local authorities or counties or unitary authorities, because you get these massive conflicts when you think about the area where I'm from Southampton. You know there are different local authority areas trying to serve one city region and each guard their own local area very jealously, as if it is a separate locational city where actually it is a sub region. And whether it's in Leicester, in Nottingham, in Southampton, in Portsmouth, that these are all city regions that need to be thought of holistically so national level of house building broken down into regions different in rural areas but cities it needs to be in a more regional level with an absolute requirement that you will allocate enough land. And if you don't, then somebody else will do it for you.
(Paul Holmes MP)
I think Peter being based in Southampton and I know, Peter, sorry Southampton very well. I know that you used to be a counsellor there. I think he's point about the different competing interests off local authorities is absolutely spot on and I personally know that I am in favour of a larger regional set of government through the evolution reforms that are coming up and I think what he said actually shows that if we pushed devolution a bit more further, where currently Eastleigh Borough Council has a small budget, but is the planning authority you have the overarching Hampshire County Council is a planning authority in some areas, Southampton has its own one. I think his point about competing interesting burrows is something that really does mean that we have a dirt quality planning that is uniform across that area on having that larger scale devolved Government, local Government, I think, could possibly unlock some of the problem that we have behind their and also unlock some of the development that we need in a kind of uniformed way.
(Michelle Blayney)
I think articulate some of the key points, I think. Honestly, Ben, Paul, from a government perspective, you know all the problems. But what can we really do? To charge the difference here. But there's been about community on people on really taking the focus, you know, in terms of thinking about where people live, and those communities and what we can do. I think that is a really key one on the fact that it is broken at every stage, we've got to nail planning. That is a theme that we come back to over and over and over again. Some fantastic suggestions around the things that we can do and how we can look at it rather than in a desperate way, but much more in a in a cohesive joined up way. I love the idea, actually, of large scale council house building, but I am absolutely very thoughtful about the impact that would have, as Peter said in terms of, actually we would just be competing for the same resources So you couldn't do that without really understanding the impact on skills on the flow skills on what we need to do that. And I think, you know, again, Anne-Marie makes some incredibly valuable points around that. And I think we could make this market incredibly attractive. And there's a lot of things that we could talk about in terms of apprenticeships. But we should be massively leveraging with organization to think about, how do we use those and take that forward? Tom made some great points. I think, in terms of just the nonsense of how we are paying for private rent, and universal credit. Couldn't we do that in a much better way in terms of, to be joined up with our social housing perspective, but fundamentally, it is broken in every place. We've got an opportunity here to think about how we can fix it on pull these together to say, What are the key policy things, and how do we lobby the policy makers to make sure that we make the right interventions? How do we fix the lack of housing supply? How do we get it right in terms of affordable housing poor quality housing, energy, inefficient homes? You know, we've got an aging population and a real challenge to stare into there. But that is also a massive opportunity for us. How do we make sure that we're supporting our businesses on our SME's on the labour shortages that we've got? So, thank you very much to everybody. Thanks for joining. We will take it from here.
