Housing: Impact on Child Development
Baroness King of Bow
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of low-quality housing on child development.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will open the debate on behalf of my noble friend Lady King of Bow. Her surrogate is presently in labour so she cannot be in the House this afternoon.
When my noble friend was first elected to the other place 15 years ago, she was inundated with pamphlets and reports from her constituency and beyond. One grabbed her attention. It was called, I Mustn’t Laugh Too Much.
Now I, like my noble friend, like to laugh a lot. She wanted to understand why anyone would post such silly advice to people. As she read the report, she discovered that the title was based on advice given by a doctor to a young woman in a cold, damp and overcrowded flat at the top of a tower block on the Ocean estate in Stepney. The report went on to detail the housing conditions that the family was living in. Despite the heating being on constantly, everyone suffered from the cold in the winter and frequently fell ill. There were no drying facilities and clothes had to be dried in the bathroom and hallway. There was severe damp which produced black mould and the windows were always dripping wet. The three eldest children had asthma and used inhalers; the youngest boy had heart trouble and had suffered from persistent colds and coughs since birth. The doctor warned the family that asthma attacks could be precipitated by fits of laughing—hence the doctorly advice.
My noble friend grew up in north London. She had already seen plenty of run-down housing before becoming Labour’s candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow in 1997. Families on low incomes are as proud as anyone else and always tried to put on a good show when visited during that first election campaign. The intense and grinding daily impact of living in such conditions was really only truly brought home to her for the first time on reading that report. In surveys of 100 families on the Ocean and Limehouse Fields estates, it calculated the number of days lost in work or school through sickness and described the extent of damp throughout badly constructed and poorly maintained tower blocks. It revealed that many buildings were running alive with mice and cockroaches; exposed that the lifts were constantly broken and took weeks to repair; and showed that the stairwells of those blocks were plagued by drug users. Most of all, it painted a vivid picture of how bad housing affected the health, education and well-being of children and undermined their long-term life chances. At that moment my noble friend became a complete convert to the central importance of decent, secure and affordable housing in ending child poverty.
In the years that followed 1997, the blocks in which the young woman and her neighbours lived were demolished and replaced by excellent, family-sized social housing built by Bethnal Green & Victoria Park Housing Association under the single regeneration budget programme—the kind of homes Nye Bevan would have been proud to be associated with.
In 2000, my noble friend received a follow-up research report, A Drop in the Ocean, which showed that the health gain of the families who had moved into the first new homes on those estates was already dramatic. Finding and staying in work continued to be a problem, but the children were healthier and doing much better in school. Its most important recommendation was that that the SRB needed to be extended to benefit families in the rest of Stepney too.
My noble friend was delighted when the Ocean estate was included in the New Deal for Communities programme, with a £55 million budget to transform the area. Thanks to that initiative and much extra schools funding besides, the exam results at Stepney Green and Sir John Cass secondary schools are now well above the national average. Those children have a real chance to fulfil their potential.
The ideas behind the single regeneration budget and the New Deal for Communities programme were not new or even very innovative. The East End is the birthplace of council housing; many of you will have heard of the Boundary estate. Some of you even may have read Arthur Morrison’s novel A Child of the Jago, which was based around life in the Old Nichol slum on which the estate was built. The London County Council built the Boundary estate out of its desire to improve the squalid and overcrowded housing conditions in which children were growing up. The challenge then, as now, was how to roll that out borough-wide, city-wide and nation-wide. Our predecessors in central and local government determined that a decent, secure and affordable home was essential for children to fulfil their potential. The funding followed that political priority.
At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, however, those governing our country—and some local authorities—lost sight of that objective. Investment was salami-sliced away and councils stopped building. I would be the first to admit that it took the Labour Government whom I supported far too long to rediscover that objective. However, rediscover it they did, especially after the 2004 spending review, to the extent that almost 50,000 new social homes were completed in England in 2010-11 —more than 1,000 of them in Tower Hamlets alone. Tower Hamlets Council was granted a further £43 million to complete the physical regeneration of the Ocean estate and was promised £222 million to bring its remaining council homes up to a decent standard.
My noble friend tells me of the Liberal Democrat MPs who stood alongside her in many debates, calling for Labour’s Ministers to increase investment in housing. All that makes the housing policy and budgetary decisions taken by this coalition Government the more dispiriting. There has been a two-thirds cut in the Homes and Communities Agency’s budget; a benefit cap that punishes tenants for the greed of their landlords; “affordable” rents at 80% of market levels, which most of my noble friend’s former constituents who are working cannot afford to pay and so do not bid for; and an end to proper security of tenure in social housing.
There are clearly individuals in this Government who recognise the value of building social housing to give children the home they need to succeed in life. But the Deputy Prime Minister’s hopelessly inadequate announcement last year of just £300 million—a fig leaf for tearing up Section 106 agreements for social homes—shows that he is not one of them.
This country urgently needs a proper housebuilding programme. I am delighted that the leader of the Opposition, in his excellent speech to the Labour Party conference last month, promised that we will deliver it. Two hundred thousand new homes a year is double the number achieved by the coalition in any of its years in power.
The report to which I referred at the beginning of my speech was written by Professor Peter Ambrose. Some of your Lordships may know Peter through his tireless work and support for the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust campaign on behalf of families in poverty. Sadly, Peter passed away last summer. His passion and compassion are sadly missed, especially in Stepney, but I and my noble friend are confident that his work will continue to inspire a new generation campaigning on behalf of homeless and overcrowded families. Over the summer, my noble friend received a briefing note from the Zacchaeus Trust reminding us that 2 million children still live in bad housing. They live in cold, damp homes that result in their missing far too many school days off sick and falling behind in their studies, or growing up in overcrowded conditions of three or four children to a bedroom, with no quiet place in which to study. For those children who go on to secondary school, the overcrowding at home will make it almost impossible for them to find the quiet space that they need to concentrate on their homework properly and study for exams.
The cuts to housing benefit mean that homeless families are again spending months on end in totally unsuitable bed-and-breakfast accommodation, cooped up in single rooms where babies do not have even the space to learn to crawl and toddlers are at risk from all sorts of hazards in the communal areas, as well as inside the room. The previous Labour Government banned that practice for a reason, but the coalition Government allow it to arise again and again. Mr Pickles’s offer of £1.9 million to all councils struggling with the pressures of increased homelessness was totally inadequate. It was no surprise that Ministers gave Tower Hamlets not a penny, while Westminster Council got another big wodge of cash.
I am very grateful for the chance to initiate this debate on behalf on my noble friend and look forward to the contributions of others. I urge Ministers to think again about the devastating cuts to the Home and Communities Agency budget and to start building the homes that our children need so that the next generation of children does not have to worry about laughing too much.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for introducing this important debate today.
The quality of the home has a substantial impact on health. A warm, dry and secure home is associated with better health. In addition to basic housing requirements, other factors that help to improve well-being include the neighbourhood, security of tenure and modifications for those with disabilities. Poor quality housing, which could include overcrowding, dilapidation or dampness, can impact on children’s development in a range of ways—on their physical and mental health and educational attainment—and can have a knock-on effect in adulthood as well as causing them problems in childhood.
The list of health conditions associated with bad, damp housing is indeed distressing, and a reason why we should all be committed to the provision of good housing stock. Poor housing conditions increase the risk of severe ill health or disability by up to 25% during childhood and early adulthood. Children in overcrowded housing are up to 10 times more likely to contract meningitis than children in general. Children living in overcrowded and unfit conditions are more likely to experience respiratory problems such as asthma and wheezing. Overcrowded conditions have been linked to slow growth in childhood, which is associated with an increase in coronary heart disease in later life. Almost half of all childhood accidents are associated with physical conditions in the home. Mental health issues such as anxiety and depression have been linked to overcrowding and unfit housing. Children living in bad housing are more susceptible to developing behavioural problems such as hyperactivity and aggression.
Bad housing affects children’s ability to learn at school and study at home. Children in unfit and overcrowded homes miss school more frequently due to illness and infection. The lower educational attainment and health problems associated with bad housing in childhood impact on opportunities in adulthood, including increasing the likelihood of unemployment or working in low-paid jobs.
In 1997, there were 2.1 million houses owned by local authorities and housing associations which did not meet the decent homes standard. By the end of 2010, 92% of social housing met the standards of being warm and weatherproof with reasonably modern facilities. The Local Government Association, working with ARCH and other housing providers, surveyed local authorities with their own stock last year. Councils reported that their top priority was investment in their existing stock to ensure that it meets and maintains the decent homes standard. In many cases, local authorities are going beyond this standard. In the private rented sector, energy efficiency has improved in recent years, but 11.4% of properties received F and G ratings for energy efficiency compared to 7.7% across all tenures.
The incidence of homes failing to meet decent homes standards is highest in the private rented sector. HHSRS safety hazards were present in 21% of private rented sector dwellings compared to 7% in the social sector. They also have a high incidence of damp problems, linked to the age of the stock. Where quality standards reach unacceptable levels, local authorities have regulatory and enforcement tools available with regard to the private rented sector. Using these tools is often a last resort with a focus on engagement with good quality landlords through forums, accreditation schemes and training. Councils will seek a dual approach, where good behaviour is encouraged through licensing and support to follow enforcement processes. The other side of this is action against poor behaviour, for example by using powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
There are a number of ways that the Government could support local authorities in their work with the private rented sector. They could help reduce the amount of bureaucracy involved in working with the private rented sector to raise standards and free up front-line services. They could be realistic about the scale of the challenge. Any new requirements for local authorities on the private rented sector must be properly resourced and funded, without creating additional burdens. We should help create streamlined and improved enforcement tools so that local authorities can tackle criminal landlords, for example in the rise of illegally rented outbuildings or “beds in sheds”.
It is quite clear from what I have said so far that poor quality bricks and mortar have a detrimental effect on children’s health. What is also of great interest is the work of John Pitts, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Bedfordshire. He has done considerable research into the well-being of children and has come to the very interesting conclusion that the neighbourhood where a child lives has more influence than the family circumstances. A child from a family that works hard to provide a good home with good parenting will develop less well if the neighbourhood is a bad one than where a child from a bad or dysfunctional family lives in a good neighbourhood. Of course, housing conditions are very important. I am in no way understating their importance, but other things seen and observed can be as, if not more, damaging to a child. Bad neighbourhoods where there is a gang culture, low educational attainment, high levels of addiction, a dependency culture, and poor schooling will be equally, if not more, damaging to child development.
There are complex links between housing and education; however, disentangling the relationship between them is difficult. Neither housing nor education operates in discrete ways and each is affected by a range of other cross-cutting areas, such as health, transport, unemployment, crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as the state of the economy, political decisions and allocation of resources. The work established by the current Government, working with troubled families, is showing many ways in which society can help families which have found the provision of a stable and health background for their children difficult. The emphasis in the Localism Act on giving communities more control over their future existence helps to create safer and more suitable environments, with areas and neighbourhoods in which to bring up children.
Housing is a crucial element and while we can argue about the figures—I know that the statistics are always a difficult area—as we have heard, supply is now at its highest in new housing since 2008-09. New orders for housing are at their highest level since September 2013, with £19.5 billion having been invested in affordable housing, creating 160,000 new affordable homes for rent and ownership. There has been £15 billion invested in the voluntary sector and £4.5 billion in the public sector, while more council houses have been built under the present Government than under the 13 years of the previous Government.
Regenerating housing is a critical policy and the present Government recognise that good quality homes in a safe, clean environment provide all children with the best start in life. We have heard from my noble friend Lady Stowell, as the Minister, of a number of ways in which the Government are addressing and are committed to the development of safe, affordable housing. They are rising to the challenge.
Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)
My Lords, first, I have to say how very sorry I am not to have my noble friend Lady King here with us today. There are obviously reasons but, relatively speaking, I have known her for a very long time. I will leave that pun for your Lordships to ponder.
I want to congratulate the Library of this House which, in preparation for this debate, made available a document that was, substantially, prepared by Shelter. It is on the impact of bad housing on physical health, mental health and education. It is very timely and while it is a horror story, it is a bestseller and I soundly urge any Member who is interested in this aspect of our work to ask for a copy because it will certainly come in handy.
I referred briefly in the debate earlier this afternoon to background: where we have come from and what we can expect. We are cocooned in this Chamber and we have got where we are, on either side of the House, because we have some substantial attributes. However, during my life as a Member of Parliament for Edmonton many years ago and as a councillor in the same part of the world, I came across situations which are very much reflected in the report from Shelter. I want to quote from it at length and I hope that the House will understand.
As far as physical health is concerned, the report says that:
“25 per cent of children who persistently lived in accommodation in poor state of repair had a long-standing illness or disability compared to 19% who lived in this type of bad housing on a short-term basis … Children living in bad housing are almost twice as likely to suffer from poor health as other children … Children living in unfit and overcrowded accommodation are almost a third more likely to suffer respiratory problems such as chest problems, breathing difficulties, asthma and bronchitis than other children … There is a direct link between childhood tuberculosis and overcrowding … Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to a Shelter survey said their health or their family’s health had suffered as a result of living in temporary accommodation”.
Those are the impacts as far as health is concerned. For mental health there is another grim picture:
“Mothers living in bad housing are almost three times as likely as other mothers to be clinically depressed … Homeless children are three or four times more likely to have mental health problems than other children … More than 60% of respondents to a Shelter survey said that living in temporary accommodation had worsened depression and other mental health problems”.
As for education:
“Children living in bad housing are nearly twice as likely as other children to leave school without any GCSEs … Children living in acutely bad housing are twice as likely not to attend school as other children … Children who live in bad housing are five times as likely to lack a quiet place to do their homework as other children”.
I shall finish my quoting there. There must be 35 conclusions. It is a brilliant piece of research and quite frankly, until I read it I had not appreciated just how desperate the situation is. The report also tells us that there are 1 million children living in what we might call poverty. My heart bleeds for them. I have a background on Tyneside, where from 1930-39 my father was out of work. I was the eldest of five children. I passed what was called the secondary school exam—I was going to an elementary school then—but could not go because my dad was out of work. I finally made it to a degree through the Open University, for which I say very many thanks. The fact that one is born into poverty or lives in poverty does not exclude you from rising above your poverty, by one means or another, and making an impression in some place or another. All I can say to the Minister, and I am grateful that she is here in her capacity, is that these are not sticks to beat the Government or to beat society. I believe that the value of this report is that as it is used by politicians and others it should strike a chord somewhere among our communities.
At the end of the day, I know all about resources, priorities, budgets—I have been involved in those all my adult life—but the situation we face is that the generation that is coming through our schools and living in our conditions now, as outlined in that report, have a very steep hill to climb. I hope that the Government have some kind words to say about their priorities and initiatives because our children and grandchildren will need them very badly.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend. He comes to this House with many years’ experience, but he can talk with passion, understanding and experience of being brought up in poverty, and that enriches our debate and helps us understand the difficulties that many families face.
This debate is of fundamental importance because of the poor standard of housing that thousands of children will return home to this evening, housing that will adversely affect them and society for years to come. The World Health Organisation notes that early childhood development is the most important factor in,
“the quality of health, well-being, learning and behaviour across the life span”.
The impact of low quality housing upon these youngsters in their early years is both severe and lasting. In the short term, it adversely affects their health and well-being and hinders their learning. In the long term, it diminishes their chances and opportunities, causing problems which society must later address. A clear example of this is the disruption that overcrowding causes to children’s education and learning.
The Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) recently highlighted cases not so very far from this Chamber, where a shortage of adequate social housing for families means that children simply do not have the space to sit and study at a table. In one household, typical of many, the two youngest children share a room with their parents, while the teenaged children have to lie on their beds and do homework in a cramped adjoining room. For any effective studying, they must find space at school early in the morning or before it is locked up in the evening. How can they realistically be expected to keep up with classmates who have the simple benefits of a desk, a work surface or some quiet space in their own home? How can they properly develop the skills and knowledge required to compete in a difficult job market when their physical surroundings obstruct their studies? Children in these circumstances are being dealt an unacceptable blow to their life chances from a young age. However, the true impact is likely to be even wider, as pressure on the education system increases and employment opportunities are hampered.
Overcrowded housing not only causes immediate harm to children but causes long-term societal problems, whether in our schools or, eventually, in our economy. A 2003 study considering the cumulative lost earnings of children growing up in poor quality housing compared to their peers projected that the figure would stand at £14 billion. This figure starkly illustrates how the childhood impacts of low-quality housing continue into adult life and the hard cost of needlessly diminished life chances and lost opportunities.
The correlation between substandard housing and poor health is indisputable, with the burden more often than not falling upon the National Health Service. I shall give just one example, that of a family in Liverpool who are helped by a charity, Nugent Care. Its report on them shows how problems of poor housing blight the health and well-being of entire families. Over the years this family had reported various problems to their housing officers, from damp and cracked walls to the front door not shutting properly and the windows being smashed by a local gang. The mother, Anne, informed her support worker that she had given up on painting and decorating as she simply could not see the point any more. She had come to despair of her own home, if it could be called a home. Every time she put up new wallpaper or freshly painted, it simply cracked or peeled off due to damp and poor construction. At the age of 17, her daughter Leanne developed severe clinical depression, which, according to the Nugent report, was,
“possibly brought on by her mum’s depression, possibly by her own experiences and certainly not helped by sitting in an unloved house in need of repair”.
Not only is this a tragedy for Leanne and her family, tarnishing what should have been happy and formative teenage years, but it also requires considerable public healthcare provision, otherwise unnecessary if she had simply been given the decent housing that every child deserves.
The impact of low quality housing on the mental health of children and young people is shocking and tragic. The impact on children’s physical health is, sadly, just as shocking. Multiple housing problems increase the risk of illness or disability by up to 25%. Children living in cold homes are more than twice as likely to suffer from a variety of respiratory diseases than those with adequate heating, and children living in damp and mouldy homes are up to three times more prone to coughing and wheezing.
Of course, no one is under any illusion about the scale of the challenge that we face when it comes to ensuring that children grow up in an environment that nurtures their health, education and overall well-being. It is imperative not to make the situation worse, particularly with regard to policies where all the indications point to significant long-term harm. An impact assessment carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2010 on the local housing allowance found that families,
“could be affected by overcrowding, particularly where they downsize to find affordable accommodation. This could have an adverse affect on health and mental well being … For children, particularly those of school age, overcrowded conditions could hamper their ability to do homework and affect educational attainment”.
It went on to warn of particular dangers for the children of younger mothers, stating that,
“Even if their re-housing is managed so they do not become homeless, teenage mothers affected are at risk of mental problems as a result of their isolation in their new location and poorer outcomes for their children”.
In spite of such warnings, the housing allowance changes were implemented and we are now witnessing the consequences, particularly in London, where instances of overcrowding are already worryingly high and the stock of decent, affordable homes is exceptionally low.
Based on a freedom of information request to local councils, the Caritas Social Action Network recently projected that in more than 20,000 households across London whole families are now sharing a single room, with potentially serious implications for their well-being. Beyond the immediate human impact of this, it is a concern that there has been little or no official analysis of the costs that will be incurred by the public services as a result of this. Factoring these in, it is likely that some of the cost-saving measures under way at present may in fact be having precisely the opposite effect.
It is therefore essential that as further changes to housing and welfare policy are considered and undertaken, the full range of short-term and long-term impacts on children are properly accounted for. The impact of low quality housing on the health, well-being and education of children across their entire lives, and for the whole of society, is stark. Proper accounting is morally and economically sound, and I hope that today’s debate will underscore the urgency of taking it into consideration. The Government must do more than take note. They must act.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to respond to this brief but important debate. It is also notable that we are having two debates on housing back to back on a Thursday. This may tell us how important the issue has become, not just in the lives of politicians, but in the country as a whole.
It is a pleasure to engage with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, on her first day out. She has certainly been put to work on day one of the new brief. I am sorry not be facing her across the Dispatch Box on DWP matters any more, but she has already noticed that although she has moved she has failed to escape the expert and determined ministrations and opposition of my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, who is following her wherever she goes.
I am delighted to respond to this debate put down by my noble friend Lady King of Bow. I know that she will be disappointed not to be here, but she will be assiduously reading Hansard. When she next goes back, she can look her former constituents in the eye, having raised in the House of Lords those issues that she saw so early on in her political career. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Kennedy, who is doing double duty by staying on after his own debate on housing to introduce this debate so effectively.
At the heart of this debate is a moral issue. We are a developed country, rich by global standards, whose children should be able to live in homes that are fit for human habitation. It is, or should be, part of the social contract that we have with our citizens that families can expect to have a secure, warm, decent home to call their own is or should be part of the social contract that we have with our citizens. Thinking about this debate, I was reminded of the promise made by Lloyd George, almost 100 years ago, of “homes fit for heroes”, and I am sorry to see the Lib Dem Benches empty today. I was thinking of that coalition a century ago and wondering whether today’s coalition might have aspirations even a fraction as ambitious as those of that coalition Government so long ago.
In 2013, it is sad to think that we are still hearing so many horror stories, as my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton put it so well, of children’s home lives. We have heard a compelling case today from all the speakers about the impact of poor quality housing has in damaging outcomes for children. Many speakers have developed the themes that describe graphically the impact on children’s physical and mental health, their educational outcomes and their aspirations for the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lord Touhig were very clear in setting out the impact on a child’s mental as well as physical health. This is something that we need to take very seriously.
My noble friend Lord Graham gave us those very worrying statistics from that rather impressive Shelter report about the risks to children. They are twice as likely to have poor health and asthmatics are twice as likely to live in a damp house. The report looked at the impact on children who live in temporary accommodation and at how much they suffer. The worry must be not just that these illnesses affect these children in childhood, but that these conditions follow them through into adulthood. There is a scarring effect on both the physical and mental health of children, and on their achievement, that goes right through into their adult lives.
We have also heard some horror stories about the impact on parents and children of living in an overcrowded home. I was shocked by the statistic from Caritas shared by my noble friend Lord Touhig. The idea of 20,000 families in London living in single rooms should be genuinely shocking to all of us. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lord Touhig looked at some of the impacts of living in crowded accommodation: disturbed sleep, poor diet, and we know that children are more likely to have behavioural difficulties such as hyperactivity or aggression. Living in a tight space is stressful; children are more likely to have stress-related problems such as bed-wetting and soiling. Overcrowding affects family relationships as well as the mental health of both parents and children. It is challenging to keep happy and cheerful when your housing is insecure or your home or succession of homes is inadequate, damp or simply inappropriate.
Low aspirations are common for children in poor housing. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, about how complex it is to understand the inter-relationship of factors. However, the evidence is pretty strong about the connection between housing and aspirations and outcomes. Even if we think about ourselves, how many of us would be confident that we could maintain morale and raise the aspirations of children if we were one of a couple raising two kids in a one-bed flat in a high rise building in a very hostile environment? I was also very glad to hear the comments made by various noble Lords, my noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lord Graham in particular, about the impact on children’s educational development and standards. I was very worried to hear the idea that children are five times more likely to have no quiet space for homework. Has anyone told Mr Gove? This must be rather worrying. We put such an emphasis as a country on the importance of homework and of children being given homework, and yet some of our own children are unable to do it because they do not have the space.
Children are missing school because of the ill health that is associated with bad housing, as we heard earlier. I also wish to highlight the difficulties caused by children who experience disruption to their schooling caused by moving homes, a point that was touched on by my noble friend. It is a particular problem for the 1.2 million families who live in the private rented sector, where the tenancies tend to be short. Moving repeatedly can cause children to miss more school, and as we heard earlier, parents can become depressed and the children insecure.
We have heard some real horror stories, but I was very moved to hear my noble friend Lord Graham describe how he was unable to go on to secondary school because his father was unemployed. Like my noble friend Lord Touhig, I find it a real privilege to hear him share his experience with us. I can only say to him that if his father is looking down now he must be so proud of what he has done and what he has come to, as indeed we all are to be sharing these Benches and, I am sure, this Chamber with him.
As well as hearing horror stories about specific cases, the truth is that we are living through the biggest housing crisis of a generation. Families are struggling to afford decent homes because of the combination of the crisis in living standards and the simple lack of housing. This debate has surfaced two or three key issues which I will be grateful if the Minister would respond to. First, on the point I just raised about the insecurity for children and families, tenancies in the private sector last on average 19 months. Many of them, of course, as a condition of the mortgages given to those who own them, are limited to a maximum of 12 months. However, families with children now make up a third of renters, so some solution has to be found to enable families with children to have longer tenancies, because the welfare of their children depends upon it. Will the Minister tell the House what the Government propose to do to ensure more secure tenancies for families?
Secondly, all noble Lords raised the issue of the quality of the housing stock, again, especially in the private rented sector. The consequences—the outcomes for children—have been very clear. However, we also know that some landlords are making plenty of money but are failing in their responsibilities to invest in maintaining their properties to a decent level. With so many new people entering the buy-to-let market, what are the Government doing to inform them and to enforce the responsibilities of landlords, and what are they doing to ensure that rogue landlords are tackled properly?
The broader issue of the role of local authorities in this area was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. I shall be interested to hear how the Minister responds to her. I also wonder whether she has had the opportunity to look at the work of local authorities such as Newham, which has sought to tackle the problem of rogue landlords and poor quality housing head on, by measures such as establishing licence arrangements, fining unlicensed providers, setting clear expectations and standards and improving enforcement. Newham has found that families moving into the borough seeking cheaper housing has caused quite a lot of churn, so it has also been trying to find ways of supporting stability in those communities, to improve the quality of life for families. However, those problems cannot be tackled locally, so will the Minister please tell us what the Government are doing at a national level?
Finally, the biggest question is: what are the Government doing about the desperate shortage of housing in this country? I arrived at the end of the previous debate just in time to hear the Minister share a positive barrage of housing statistics, and I am sure that she will not want to repeat them. However, I shall simply put one statistic on the table: the number of households in England is projected to rise by more than 230,000 each year, yet David Cameron has presided over the lowest level of housebuilding of any peacetime Prime Minister since the 1920s.
I know what the next Labour Government will do to turn that round; we have been very clear about this. We are committed to increasing the supply of new homes by 200,000 a year by the end of the next Parliament. We will give councils “use it or lose it” powers to stop land hoarding, we will build the next generation of new towns and we will support communities that want to grow. We have asked Sir Michael Lyons to chair a housing commission to draw up a road map for delivering on these promises. But for the sake of this country, and of all those children we have heard about, I do not want to wait until May 2015 to see some action. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what the Government will do right now.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for introducing this Question for Short Debate on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, and I join others in wishing her and her family well. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her remarks about my new role, and I welcome her to her leading role on Department for Work and Pensions matters on the Opposition Front Bench.
As I said in the previous debate, I always listen carefully when the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, contributes to our debates in this House. He is someone of huge experience and great wisdom, and I shall certainly reflect on the points that he made about those who have experienced poverty but have been able to go on and enjoy great success, and about how we must support people in their escape from poverty and acknowledge their achievements. I can tell the noble Lord that a person who offers me great inspiration in that regard is my own mother. I have someone in my own family whose experiences I am regularly reminded of, and reflect on.
There is no doubt that low-quality housing can have a terrible impact on child development. In 2006 Shelter conducted some powerful research that conclusively demonstrated the links between poor housing and poor outcomes. It is intuitive that that should be so, but Shelter provided evidence—much of which others have already mentioned, so I shall just mention a couple of points. Children living in damp housing are more likely to develop respiratory conditions, unsafe housing is linked to greater numbers of accidents and injuries, and children who become homeless are more likely to suffer with mental health problems and to struggle at school. None of this has any place in a modern society today. Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the best possible home in which to grow up to help them develop and achieve their potential.
There is much that the Government are doing to address the problems of endemic and intergenerational poverty that forces people to live in poor housing, whether by addressing the factors that trap people on benefits by helping them into work, or by tackling the failures in education that have meant that the children who most need the best schools have instead been let down for too long. There are also steps that we are specifically taking to ensure that every child grows up in suitable housing, and the first and most important is by simply building more homes. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, mentioned the detailed summary that I provided in the last debate about what the Government are doing in this area. We are doing a huge amount to increase the supply of new homes, both in the private sector and in the social housing sector. I shall not take time by going over them all in great detail. But while I take on board what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said about housing and poverty not being political issues—and I agree with him on that—I still think that, if we are going to trade statistics, as we do in these debates, I have to respond to some of the points that are put to me.
It is worth reminding the House that the numbers for social housing fell under the last Labour Government and that, under this Government, we are taking big steps to reverse that decline. I shall not go through all the numbers and the stats again in detail, but that is an area in which we are reversing the trend substantially and making it a huge priority. As was mentioned in a previous debate, this is something of huge importance and great concern to everybody.
As has also been acknowledged, we do not just have to build new homes—we also have to improve the standard of the existing homes and ensure that all social housing meets a minimum standard of decency. We have invested £2 billion in this spending round to bring the remaining 127,000 of what were rather shockingly 217,000 non-decent homes up to standard. I note that my noble friend Lady Eaton referred to the efforts in this area that the local authorities are making. The funding that has been made available so far has led to more than 58,000 homes being upgraded which means that, outside of London—and London is slightly different—we are now nearly at 100% of council homes meeting the formal standard of decent homes. There is more work to do in London, and we have announced additional funding for London in the next spending round. Clearly, the noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, if she was here, would be interested in what we are doing in that area, because of her personal history in representing Tower Hamlets.
Addressing supply and the quality of existing stock will not alone address the immediate problems of demand and overcrowding. It is worth noting that overcrowding is quoted extensively in the latest Shelter briefing, to which the noble Lord, Lord Graham, referred. Overcrowding is perhaps referred to more than anything else as one of the main factors for children suffering from a wide range of concerns and conditions. It was highlighted by all noble Lords, especially the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in his contribution. It is important to recognise the facts here; waiting lists for social housing have doubled since 1998; there are now 1.8 million households on waiting lists. Nearly 250,000 of social homes in England are overcrowded, while nearly 390,000 are underoccupied by two bedrooms or more.
Overcrowding—a very important issue—was behind two important new measures in the Localism Act 2011. The first gives councils more freedom to innovate and develop local solutions, and make the best use of limited stock by using the private rented sector when it makes sense to do so. This gives councils more flexibility. Part of this involves making sure that we get the best use from what is available to us. The second measure gave councils powers to match the length of tenancy to the household need, and made it easier for social tenants to move house as their needs change.
It goes without saying that housing is a complex issue. Clearly, I am discovering this personally, having just taken over responsibility for the DCLG in your Lordships’ House. It is clear that there are no easy solutions, and we need a range of measures. It is fundamental to make the best use of all that is available, and to treat everyone fairly. I must say that, because of noble Lords’ focus on the issue of overcrowding, I am somewhat surprised that as far as I can recall no noble Lords have raised the Government’s decision to remove the spare room subsidy. That decision was very much part of a range of measures to tackle overcrowding, and the Opposition have now committed to reintroducing it.
It is probably worth placing some facts on the record, not least because this is the first time that I have raised this in my new role. The housing benefit bill doubled between 2000 and 2012-13, and we are now spending almost £24 billion per year. There are approaching 1 million extra rooms paid for by housing benefit for working-age social sector tenants. The removal of the spare room subsidy applies only to working-age people in receipt of housing benefit, and it means that the benefit meets the cost of accommodation appropriate to the household’s needs. Removing this subsidy brings estimated average savings of £500 million a year.
In removing the spare room subsidy we bring social sector benefit entitlements into line with long-standing private sector entitlements, which I think is really important. Before making this change there was a difference in treatment. People receiving housing benefit who live in private rented accommodation have not enjoyed the subsidy that those in the social sector have had for more than 20 years. This has not been tackled before. We believe that it is appropriate to do so, because it will reintroduce the important aspect of fairness between people in different kinds of housing. This must continue if we are to make the best use of the available stock.
In making those changes, there are of course special mitigations in place to safeguard the needs of particularly vulnerable children. There are also measures in place for disabled children. We have a special fund available, £180 million in this year alone, to enable local councils to make discretionary housing payments to ease the transition. This is about making sure that funding is there to deal with those special cases that may need proper attention by the local authorities in that area. We will measure the impact of these changes, and the first report is due next year.
This is an important area. Housing is absolutely essential. Noble Lords have raised several issues to which I have not had an opportunity to respond, and I will do so in writing. Finally, I will make a couple of brief points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, raised an important point about the range of housing available and the effect on some families of what she described as insecurity through being housed in private rented accommodation as opposed to social sector accommodation. I would say two things to her on that. First, we recognise that, where possible, people want to own their own home—it provides the security and stability that is so important to families. That is why we are very committed to the right-to-buy scheme. Secondly, we have also introduced a new scheme called the right-to-rent fund, which is about providing £1 billion of investment for the building of specifically designed accommodation for rent. This new accommodation will be for rental and will not be subject to subsequent on-sale. Something that we have not done in this country until now is to create a market that people can take advantage of where renting is the only option for them, or indeed an option that they choose, but we have to make sure that it is done professionally and that it is never seen as second rate compared with owning the property.
All children deserve, as well as need, a safe, secure and loving home. The Government are committed to addressing the causes of child poverty and are doing so by helping parents to get back into work, improving education and building more new affordable homes. We are delivering, although there is still more to do. This issue is very important. I am grateful to all noble Lords and I shall certainly reflect on all the comments that have been made here today.