Councils will be allowed to decide how many starter homes are built in their area after peers supported two amendments to the Housing and Planning Bill.
Yesterday the House of Lords voted to make key changes to the government’s Starter Homes policy. This includes giving local authorities more power to protect the supply of affordable housing in their local areas.
Peers also voted in favour of making people pay back a proportion of the discount they receive if they sell the property on within 20 years rather than the proposed eight years.
John Healey, shadow housing minister, welcomed the defeat, saying the original policy would ‘sound the death knell for new genuinely affordable homes’.
‘It is welcome that Ministers have conceded ground on Labour-backed plans to protect affordable homes in rural areas. Ministers must now urgently listen to the wider concerns with the Housing and Planning Bill, including on their own side, and come back with changes to improve this Bill,’ he said.
The Liberal Democrats called the housing reforms a 'shambles' and a 'patchwork of ill-conceived ideas'.
Housing spokesperson Baroness Cathy Bakewell added: 'We have forced the Government to think again about giving large cash handouts to the better off. Starter Homes must be delivered fairly and should not simply exacerbate housing inequalities.'
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