On 29th February 2024, the Bishop of Chelmsford led a grand committee debate on the delivery of a long term national housing strategy, calling for commitment to improving housing on a cross party basis, and a clear vision of what good housing looks like:
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to promote a long-term national housing strategy, and to seek cross-party support to ensure its effective delivery.
My Lords, it is a great privilege to open this debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have signed up to speak. I look forward to hearing from the great wealth of expertise and experience.
We are in the midst of a housing crisis. For too many people in the UK, home is not a place of safety and security but somewhere expensive or temporary, insecure or unhealthy. There are 140,000 children living in temporary accommodation, 1.2 million households on waiting lists for social homes, and numerous young professionals consigned to be part of “generation rent”. Inadequate housing has knock-on effects throughout a person’s life: on their education, their mental and physical well-being, their relationships and their ability to put down roots. It does not have to be like this. It is worth restating that decent housing is one of the basic essentials for a fulfilled and healthy life, yet we have some of the poorest quality housing in Europe. We can do better than the current system—indeed, we must do better.
Today, I would like to put forward three steps that I believe we need to take in order to transform our housing system. First, we need a clear, shared vision of what good housing looks like. Noble Lords will be familiar with a range of policy solutions that try to address individual elements of the crisis, but we need an overarching vision. What are we working towards? A “fixed” housing system is not just about interventions that respond to symptoms of brokenness; it is about tackling root causes and creating a housing system we can all be proud of.
Although there is broad agreement that our housing system is failing, there is no clear vision of what a “good” system would look like. We might start by saying that everyone should have a home that is a place of comfort, safety and security. Our homes should sustain us and help us maintain physical and mental health. They should offer access to work opportunities and public services, to peace and quiet for relaxation, and to places to socialise with family and friends—where children can grow, play and study and achieve their full potential. In short, we might say that decent, affordable homes should be available for every household. It is possible to realise these aspirations, if all political parties and stakeholders agree on a common vision of good housing, and a road map for getting there.
That is why, secondly, we need a long-term national housing strategy. In 2021, the report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community concluded:
“Our most important recommendation is that Government should develop a coherent long term housing strategy”.
Working in parallel was the Affordable Housing Commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best, whose contribution I am looking forward to hearing today. It made similar, equally strong recommendations, calling on the Government to
“make affordable housing a national priority and to put it at the centre of a national housing strategy”.
In advancing these recommendations, both commissions echoed many other recent housing investigations.
Most experts agree that the housing system is failing in substantial part due to the absence of a long-term strategy. Indeed, reactive, short-term and contradictory policy interventions have possibly exacerbated the crisis. We need an appropriate strategy to pull together disparate policy goals and short-term targets into something comprehensive, leading to realising a shared vision of good housing.
Decades of consistent action are required to address the challenges which make up the current housing crisis, because years of failure have got us into the situation we face today. It will take a generation to transform our housing, so we need to think in terms of 10, 20 or 30-year horizons. A strategy is also far more than achieving housebuilding targets. It must take into account all tenures and aspects of the current system, improving our existing stock as well as building new homes. I am confident that we can achieve this long-term vision and strategy, but it will of course take more than just good intentions.
So, thirdly, for this proposal to be effective, we will need the commitment of the main political parties and a governance mechanism to keep it on track. All parties will need to have a sense of ownership of the vision and strategy if it is to survive changes of government. That is why it must be comprehensive in offering good news for all: owner-occupiers, social housing tenants and private sector renters, as well as those with specialist housing needs.
The agreed housing strategy will require a statutory footing to ensure that it has the longevity and resilience to be carried out over a sustained period. Otherwise, policy decisions could be driven by short-term political aims, to the detriment of the long-term housing goals. One idea for putting a robust governance structure in place is to create a housing strategy committee, modelled on the existing Climate Change Committee, to provide annual progress reports to Parliament and hold the Government to account. Specific and robust targets will need to be set, based on need and the economic, political and social context at any given time.
Today I have put forward three fundamental steps which I believe will need to be taken to transform our housing system in the long term. There is no quick fix, but that does not make this response any less urgent. We must build a shared vision, a shared strategy and a shared political will to deliver it over a generation.
In my role as lead Anglican bishop for housing, I hear constantly that the housing system is broken. I am urging all political parties to rise to the challenge of fixing it today. I would welcome a commitment from each party to prioritise creating a long-term strategy for housing, and to commit equally to working with the other parties to ensure that it has cross-party and therefore long-term support. No one party will be able to turn around our broken housing system. It calls for a shared endeavour and a common commitment to prioritise current and future housing needs over short-term political advantage. I would welcome further conversations with Members from all political parties on shaping this vision, forming a strategy and ensuring that it is delivered.
I have already drawn together a steering group, which includes several noble Lords, some of whom will speak today, and work has already begun in partnership with the Nationwide Foundation on what the principles of a long-term strategy might look like. Time does not allow me to expand further, although others may yet comment; but I hope the seed may have been planted today and that the Minister will agree at least to finding out more about what we are trying to work towards.
Our homes and communities are fundamental to our lives flourishing. The current system is broken, but with long-term, concerted and coherent action, we can transform our housing system so that everyone has a decent, affordable place to call home. Let us rise together to this challenge, and together consign the current housing crisis to history.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Lilley (C0n): My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this debate and recognise that the Church, through the Archbishops’ Commission, is almost alone in having offered to help alleviate the problem by making land available for building.
The housing shortage is a crisis and a scandal. We talk about it, we set targets and we tinker with the planning rules, but we avoid debating one fundamental cause. The right reverend Prelate is doubtless familiar with Zen Buddhism, and with the Zen master challenging his disciple to describe the sound of one hand clapping. The answer lies in the debates in this House on housing. There is a lot of talk about housing supply and next to nothing about housing demand. We do not talk about housing demand because the increase in demand comes overwhelmingly from immigration.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab): My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for tabling this important debate. We are desperately in need of some consistency in decisions about housing supply, and the Church of England, along with others such as the National Housing Federation and Shelter, have led the way in calling for a long-term national housing strategy.
For those living at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, a socially rented home is the only truly affordable solution. For decades, the number of families who cannot afford a safe, secure home has been rising. There are now 8.5 million people in England who cannot access the housing they need. That includes 2 million children who are living in overcrowded, unaffordable or unsuitable homes, and record numbers of children are living in temporary accommodation.
Recent research from the National Housing Federation looks at what will happen if we do not act to put a long-term housing plan in place. By 2045, around 5.7 million households could be spending a third of their income on housing expenses—an unaffordable amount, and nearly twice the number of people doing so today. The impact of this on future generations would be stark. Both young and old would be worse off. In a society with a growing ageing population, we are already experiencing a severe shortage of homes for older people and an acute lack of specialist housing. By 2035, the number of people over the age of 60 in England will reach 29% of the entire population. Without a long-term plan for housing that accounts for changing demographic needs, by 2045 roughly 2.3 million older people could be living in homes that just do not meet their needs.
These figures offer a stark illustration of why a new long-term approach to meet housing needs in this country is urgently required. It took decades, as the right reverend Prelate said, to reach this crisis point. Clearly, it will take systemic change to solve it.
Lord Best (CB): My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for initiating this debate; indeed, I thank the Church of England for re-engaging with housing issues, not just with a welcome report but in taking some practical steps to maximise its direct contribution as a major landowner and investor. I join the right reverend Prelate in seeking consensus on a forward vision to solve the nation’s acute housing problems over the longer term.
A national housing strategy would mean, irrespective of innumerable changes of Housing Minister, having agreed goals for which a road map can set out the steps ahead. This needs to take a coherent, co-ordinated and cross-departmental approach which is sustained, irrespective of political change. To devise this strategy and maintain progress toward its goals, suggested approaches have included: creating a royal commission; setting up a new Cabinet committee to bring together the seven departments which all have a housing interest; establishing a government unit with the capacity for evidence-gathering and policy advice; or, and this is my favourite, creating by statute a national housing committee, along the lines of the Climate Change Committee, to act as a watchdog that monitors progress toward fulfilling the strategy’s objectives.
Lord Stunell (LD): The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, standing aside from the political fray, has been bold enough to tell us that, unless we can co-operate to deliver a broad consensus that can survive the day-to-day political battles, there will be no end to the housing crisis. Some of us are working cross-party to see how that might be achieved. It is still work in progress, and I want to hear from the Minister that she and the latest Housing Minister will keep their minds open to the opportunity the right reverend Prelate’s initiative gives them to play an important role in delivering a long-term housing strategy that reaches rather further than the forthcoming general election.
Baroness Swinburne (Con, DLHC): My noble friend Lord Bailey mentioned young people. Indeed, first-time buyer numbers have been steadily improving over the last decade, and in 2021 we saw the highest number of transactions in 20 years. However, there is more that can be done and, I hope, is being done. We are committed to providing a secure path to home ownership by increasing the number of first-time buyers, helping people access homes and make true freehold ownership the standard. Since 2010, over 876,000 households have been helped to purchase a home through government schemes, including Help to Buy, right to buy and shared ownership.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned various schemes, but in particular those for key workers. Our first homes programme is designed to help local first-time buyers in their locale and indeed key workers on to the property ladder by offering homes at a discount of at least 30% compared to the market value.
My noble friends Lord Bailey and Lord Jackson, and others, mentioned public sector land. We are setting up a new public sector land for housing programme which will release land for at least 15,000 homes this year and the next, and we have been working with large landowning departments—
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: I am grateful to the Minister for outlining some of the Government’s response to the crisis, and indeed for referencing their own long-term strategy. Does she agree that seeking to find cross-party support for their long-term strategy is different from sitting down and working together cross-party towards the creation of a long-term strategy, with a national housing committee, that would report progress and seek to hold the Government of the day, of whatever party, to account?
Baroness Swinburne: I appreciate the sense and sentiment behind that; therefore, although I am not personally familiar with the issue, I will take it back to the department to discuss where we are at. But I point out that this is a sensitive area in which collaboration is really important, not just with government at the highest level, but with local government and delivery partners, so collaboration is in the DNA of this. We need to figure out how this is going to work; however, I will come back on this issue when I have spoken to the department.
(…)
I am now out of time, but there are several pages of points I have not got to. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are delivering a long-term housing strategy that provides safe, decent, warm and beautiful homes for communities across the country. We are determined to work with the housing sector, local authorities and all of your Lordships to make our ambition a reality.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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