Sunday with Niall Paterson Interview with Dominic Raab Housing Minister

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON, SKY NEWS

NP: The Prime Minister is expected to deliver a speech on housing tomorrow so who better to talk to than the Housing Minister, Dominic Raab, a very good morning to you Mr Raab.

DOMINIC RAAB: Morning.

NP: Some of the details have crept out this morning so I wonder if we might dwell on that, some interesting proposals in terms of tackling the lack of development that we see, local authorities very much in the firing line. What’s the proposal?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well look, we’re changing the planning rules, that’ll be announced tomorrow and what we’re saying effectively to local councils, many of whom are really ambitious about building the homes their communities need, we want to give them wider choice and more tools to get those homes built and we want to give them some support through things like the Homes Infrastructure Funding for roads, for schools, for utilities, things like that but we cannot, whether it is individual local authorities or the government as a whole, duck this anymore, we must get those homes built and there’s a shared national endeavour, it’s a two way street, but we can’t duck this.

NP: So the idea is that you would remove planning permission responsibility from the local authority and give it to another body?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well you’ll see the detail of it tomorrow but there will certainly be phased pressure on those local authorities who know the homes that they need to build and really are just abdicating the responsibility to get them built. We want to support them, there are lots out there who say for example, you know, communities, residents, worry about the pressure on roads or where will the extra school places come from. We’ve got £5 billion worth of funding to make sure targeted investment can be there to help them not just build the homes they need but also build up stronger communities but the key message is that neither central government nor the local authorities can duck this any longer.

NP: Isn’t it the case that those local authorities who have vast tracts of land, ether with or without planning permission, they don’t tend to be metropolitan areas, they tend to be in the leafier corners of this green and pleasant land and generally run by Conservatives. I mean isn’t it the case that you could just pick up the phone and ask them to build some more houses?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well it doesn’t really work like that but I’m not sure also that that’s quite right. There’s certainly more we can do for example in releasing public sector land and that’s true right across the country but also in some of those built up areas, whether it’s towns or cities, where there’s often very high property prices, those are places where people want to live the most, those are places where demand is the highest. For example we want to give local authorities to build up a couple of floors so that where you’ve already got existing residential space we make the best use of it.

NP: But planning permission doesn’t strike me as the biggest problem in terms of the housing supply. We’ve got the best part of half a million homes with planning permission waiting to be built and targeting the local authorities does nothing to deal with that, it’s down to the developers isn’t it?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well it’s a bit of both. The truth is there’s not one silver bullet, there’s not a magic wand that can solve this. There are bits of the jigsaw puzzle that strategically we need to put together, planning reform is important, release of public sector land is important, the targeted funding I mentioned is important and you’re right, what we are going to be talking about more tomorrow in the months ahead is the changing nature of the way planning permissions are viewed. I think you’re right, that when a developer has gone into a planning permission and has got it based on affordable homes that are going to be delivered, homes being built over a certain period of time, there needs to be some accountability for that as well, if you like treating those planning permissions a bit more like contracts for delivery.

NP: Yes, but we’re sitting on, as I said, 500,000 units of housing stock that could be started tomorrow. Where is the blue sky thinking targeting the developers themselves? I mean local authorities understand that this is an issue but they feel their hands are tied.

DOMINIC RAAB: Well first of all the planning reform changes tomorrow will start to address that. We have also got Oliver Letwin reviewing the issue of build out, which is the issue you are touching on where developers sit on land and don’t get the homes built as quickly as possible, so there will be a phased approach but you’re right, we can’t duck that either and it will be a team effort, central government, local authorities, developers.

NP: Isn’t part of the reason that you’re not targeting the developers as strongly as some might suggest you should is because you are a bit embarrassed about it? You’ve got the boss of Persimmon in the last few days has handed back a chunk of what was originally a £110 million bonus and a bonus that he attributes directly to your government’s Help To Buy.

DOMINIC RAAB: Well Help to Buy has helped a lot of people get on the housing ladder who otherwise wouldn’t have done but certainly on the issue that I think local authorities raise with me and that you’ve rightly cited, is that planning permissions that are passed then the homes don’t get built, you are going to see some more proposals on that tomorrow and that’s something where over time, not least with the Letwin Review, we are actually going to be putting the squeeze on the developers too.

NP: But the developers seems relatively sanguine about it, particularly given some of them are sitting on, well now one imagines the best part of £100 million in bonus. How sanguine are you about the fact that public money has gone directly into that bonus, has made up a substantial chunk of it in fact?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well look, the things that matter most is that we get more homes built. We’ve got a 50% higher build rate or delivery rate compared to the last year of the Labour government, we are ambitious to go much further. You are absolutely right to talk about the individual aspects, for example developers land banking, we’ve got a review that’s going to deal with that but I wouldn’t rule out the, I wouldn’t be quite so withering about the benefit that Help to Buy and Right to Buy have because these are helping the teachers, the nurses, the young family that want to settle down but can’t afford a deposit, the ability to get on the housing ladder and that’s what we’re all about.

NP: I wanted to talk about Right to Buy in just a second but in terms of your focus on affordable housing, it will be predominantly in parts of the country where homes are the least affordable which essentially means the south-east and affordable housing in the south-east is not affordable by any stretch of the imagination. If you look at those people who are currently in receipt of housing benefit, nine out of ten of them, that figure does not cover their rent so what are you going to do about it/

DOMINIC RAAB: Well we’ve got a social housing green paper, I’ve been going to some of the workshops talking to tenants about the challenge they face but there are two big things that we’ve got to do when it comes to social housing, is get the supply, the stock of affordable homes to keep on increasing but also create those ladders of opportunity, the opportunity of social mobility, whether it’s through having more affordable rent but also things like shared ownership and Right to Buy, all of these things are important.

NP: With respect we’ve heard this before. 2016, how many social houses were built? It’s less than 6,000, it doesn’t scream that this Conservative government is committed to getting the poorest people into good quality housing.

DOMINIC RAAB: Well actually if you look at over the last seven years we have had more affordable homes built than the previous seven years so actually we’re making progress but what I do accept in the premise of your question is that we’ve got to do much better. 217,000 new homes built last year, we want to get that up by the middle of the 2020s to 300,000 and the reason is that’s the point at which it gets more affordable for the teacher, for the nurse, for the young family wanting to get on the housing ladder.

NP: I understand that you’ve been in the job for five minutes but the fact remains that actually it’s your predecessors that do bear some of the responsibility for all of this. Building less than 6000 social homes, that’s an embarrassment but to deal with Right to Buy, that most totemic of Conservative policies, now almost half of all council houses that were sold under Right to Buy are now in the hands of private landlords who are charging twice, at least twice, the rent they once were. Right to Buy was a mistake wasn’t it, it’s the time to admit it.

DOMINIC RAAB: No, I don't think so. If you look at those people that have got on the housing ladder as a result of it, we are talking about thousands of people who didn’t have the dream of home ownership who now do but you are absolutely right to say …

NP: But we are talking about people who would never have had the dream of home ownership, people at the very, very bottom whose housing benefit doesn’t cover the rent, who are looking for somewhere safe to live. Again I would turn to that figure, 6,000 social homes built in 2016, we see rents going up massively across the sector …

DOMINIC RAAB: But you’re just picking one indicator. If you look at affordable homes actually we are making progress, if you look at homes across the board, 217,000. If you look at new builds and new starts and first time buyers getting on the ladder there is some positive news. I certainly accept the need to do much better, planning reform is part of that, releasing public sector land and you’re right, looking again at the relationship that developers have with their local authorities. There’s no single silver bullet, there’s no magic wand, we’ve got to yank every one of the levers we’ve got 20-30% harder to get the homes built and make them more affordable.

NP: Okay, let me give you another metric, 60,000 households are now accepted to be homeless and in priority need in 2016/17, that’s doubled since 2009/10. If you look at the number of people who are sleeping rough at the moment, that similarly has doubled since 2010 according to your figures. Your government’s housing policy by that metric has increasing homelessness.

DOMINIC RAAB: If you look at what actually you have in the situation of homelessness, and I’ve been and volunteered at Anchor House, one of the ground-breaking homeless centres in Newham, one of the toughest areas of London, and if you look at the kind of problems the people have when they are made homeless, not having a roof over their head is the symptom of a wider range of issues, it could be family breakdown, it could be debt …

NP: Okay but we are talking about a doubling in the number of rough sleepers, we’re talking about a doubling to 60,000 of the households accepted to be homeless and there are varieties of ways you can characterise that, and in poverty.

DOMINIC RAAB: And that’s why we are putting a billion pounds into the rough sleeping agenda, that’s why we want to eliminate it by the end of the 2020s, we want to by the next election to have it halved and we’ve got a new Housing Minister, Heather Wheeler, specifically dedicated to that issue but at the end of the day we’ve got to get more homes built overall and that’s …

NP: But you said that ten years ago.

DOMINIC RAAB: But we’re making progress. Compared to 2010 the latest figures show 217,000 new homes being delivered, that is 50% higher than in 2010 but it is a tough challenge and that is why we are going to be absolutely redoubling our efforts, you’ll hear more from the Prime Minister tomorrow and planning reform, not the silver bullet but one part of getting this right.

NP: Just in terms of the cold weather this week, do you know how many people have died as a result of sleeping rough over the last few days?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I have read of at least a couple of cases but I don't know the total figures.

NP: Do you know how many people have died in their own homes as a result of the cold weather this week?

DOMINIC RAAB: I don’t.

NP: I mean these are figures that one would assume that particularly someone who is new to the housing brief would be desperate to find out, particularly when you bear in mind that rough sleeping has doubled under this Conservative government and the number of households who are considered to be …

DOMINIC RAAB: I’m sorry, the number of people who have died at home, I think you are jumping from one statistic to another. But look, anyone, any individual that dies because of the cold weather conditions, that’s a personal tragedy, of course we feel awful about it and that’s why we are redoubling our efforts to get the homes built but also, let’s face it, some of these issues relate to health, some of them will relate to family breakdown, there are all sorts of complex social issues underlying it and I’m not sure it’s all about the housing situation, it isn’t.

NP: But quite a bit. On Brexit, the speech made by the Prime Minister does seem for now to have satisfied both sides of the Conservative divide, wouldn’t it have been better if that speech had been made a year ago?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I think that’s a bit churlish of you Niall, even on a Sunday morning. The fact of the matter is it was a strong speech on the substance, there was new stuff on financial services, on the digital market which is so important, it was ambitious, it was well received by Michel Barnier and from Jacob Rees Mogg to Nicky Morgan and I hope the interview with Stephen Hammond, actually you’ve got a lot of people saying this is a good stepping stone and now at the diplomatic level we need to get down to brass tacks.

NP: Just in terms of where we go next, in terms of Northern Ireland, the announcement that was made on the border issue was exactly the same position we were in in August last year.

DOMINIC RAAB: Well it is absolutely the right one which is you know what your border position is going to be, once we get down to the trade talks, that’s why we have been pushing the EU to get on and let’s talk about the trade position but if you look at the policy position we set out about how you make sure you have, you don’t revert to the hard border, you’ve got proper management of the border, the role of technology, actually there’s a path through. It’s a technical path but we need to get down and talk about the detail with the EU and it’s a two way street.

NP: Very, very briefly, I asked John McDonnell this and I really should ask you, pay rise this week for MPs, what are you going to do with it?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well you know I have given back over £10,000 of the pay rise because I didn’t accept it originally but once we’ve got beyond, and we’ve got certain bits of the public sector accepting more than 1% as we have in certain areas, I’m going to allow the pay body which is independent to do its job.

NP: We have to say goodbye. Dominic Raab, thanks very much indeed.