Housing (London)

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Slaughter]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that, of course, budgets and housing benefit would have been reviewed, but he is wrong to think that a Labour Government would have been party to the mass eviction of hundreds of families from areas in which their children attend school and they have low-paid jobs. We are talking not about indolent people but those doing low-paid essential jobs in inner London. Before the hon. Gentleman gets on his high horse, he should think about the consequences of his Government’s policy.

Far more fundamental in the long term will be the review of social housing policy. I almost admire the speed at which the Government have moved to ring the death knell of social housing. There has been consensus on that policy certainly since the second world war, and in the charitable sector since the beginning of the last century. That, however, is not good enough for this Tory-led Government.

There are four principal changes. The first is the introduction that I alluded to earlier of near-market rents for new lettings. In London, they will effectively be unaffordable, even to those on average incomes. Rent for two and three-bedroom flats in Hammersmith will rise by three or three and a half times. The second is the two-year tenancy. The speed of their introduction is amazing. I printed a leaflet to warn tenants that the Government might be introducing five-year tenancies, but before I was able to deliver it they had introduced two-year tenancies. The third element is the almost complete collapse of capital funding for the social sector.

As I mentioned earlier, there is the end of the requirement to provide permanent housing in the long term, with the private sector being used to discharge housing need obligations. If, God forbid, the Government were elected for another term, within 10 years there would not be a recognisable social rented sector left in this country. The proud tradition of providing affordable good-quality homes for people on low and average incomes will be gone, and a fundamental part of the welfare state and the post-war settlement will be gone with it.

Finally, let me turn to planning policy, which is a slightly trickier area to consider. I accept what Government Members say about the previous Government’s record in this regard. Over the past 40 years, our record on building sufficient numbers of high-quality affordable homes in this country has not been good. It is almost as if we lost the will to build such homes in the 1970s. In my constituency, we have good examples of the estates and properties that were built in the 20th century: the “homes for heroes” in the 1920s, the “garden” estates in the 1930s and the good quality brick-built council estates of the 1940s and 1950s. We even have some 1960s properties, which, although they have gained a bad reputation, are generally solidly built to Parker Morris standards. They are popular with people who live in them, even if they have not been maintained properly over the years.

The consensus on the will to build good quality council and housing association properties in sufficient quantities has gone. Individual local authorities—including, I hope, my own when it was under Labour control—did their bit and had to be resourceful in doing so. For example, there were the infill developments. We saw building on existing estates, public land being given to people who were prepared to build affordable housing, and building on top of supermarkets. We managed to build about 3,000 good, affordable units over a period of years, but it was a struggle. I do not pretend that it is easy to build social rented houses in areas of high land prices. Nevertheless, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North said, for many people—even those on average and above average income—social rented housing is the only type of affordable housing. The definitions of affordability in London have been stretched to ridiculous lengths. The Mayor and some councils say that an income of £70,000 to £80,000 qualifies under the affordable definition, because the types of discounts available on properties for sale or for rent in new developments demand such an income. I am sorry, but I do not accept that people who earn £80,000 a year are in housing need—even in London—which is the perverse definition of my own council.

The problem of planning development is slightly more complicated. At the moment—and the debate is opportune for this reason—London councils are going through their process of approving local development frameworks, which replace the unitary development plans. In preparing for this debate, I looked at my own borough’s LDF, which may or may not be typical, and it appears to give good news. It seems to say that it will build 13,000 houses over the next 20 years, with a maximum of 20,000 allowable. However, when I examined those figures I found that what is actually planned goes well beyond them.

Perhaps the biggest new development under planning consultation in London is the Earl’s Court and West Kensington Opportunity Area, which the LDF says could provide about 2,000 new homes, at least in Hammersmith, over the next 20 years. The developer says it will provide 8,000 homes over the next five to 10 years. The Hammersmith town centre development, which is somewhat misnamed because it includes areas way outside the town centre, including the historic riverside—the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) may be interested in this because he has written about it—is not one development but a string of developments along the riverside. The traditional low-rise buildings of this historic area are being converted into hideous tower blocks of luxury one and two-bedroom apartments. We have seen such developments springing up along many parts of the river on the south side of the Thames. The apartments are built principally for people coming from abroad or for those who wish to have a London pied-à-terre in addition to accommodation elsewhere. We are talking about buildings that are not just at the top of the market, but above it. The LDF for Hammersmith says that over 20 years, up to 1,000 new homes will be built in this area. Some 1,300 homes are currently being built or are under planning consideration for this area, so that target appears to have been exceeded already.

What we are seeing in planning terms, certainly in central London and in my part of London, is a development grab. Those parts of land that might be available for affordable and sustainable development in the future are being cannibalised for luxury high-rise blocks. Some of the blocks on the riverside are up to 15 storeys, and some in the west Kensington area are up to 30 storeys or more. That is a massive increase in residential units, but they are exactly the wrong type of residential units for the local population and will not meet housing need in London. That is a scandal and a misuse of planning powers. Of my local authority, the developer of the Hammersmith riverside says:

“Now the council says it is ‘open for business’, and I think they are—that’s why the development community has embraced the new administration”.

You bet they have. Helical Bar, the developer of the Hammersmith riverside development, has a dispensation to have no affordable housing in it whatever; in fact, there will be a net loss of affordable housing because trust properties for visually impaired people will be demolished to make way for the skyscrapers.

Mr Slade, the founder of Helical Bar, gave £20,000 to the Mayor in the run-up to his election campaign. He made this very prescient comment:

“You do run the thin line of someone saying: I am doing this to have access and influence, but that was what politics was always about. It is a little unfair, but there must be 20 per cent truth in it.”

Helical Bar wants to build high-rise flats in outer London. It now has that consent on the way despite the opposition not just of the hon. Member for Richmond Park, but of almost all my constituents, who do not want to see the destruction of their living environment and of the things they hold dear. They want to see not luxury high-rise flats, but affordable homes for themselves and their children.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I absolutely share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the nature of this development. As he knows, I have spoken on the record about it and submitted a number of objections. However, is it not true that the decision comes from the local authority and is not one over which the Mayor has any influence at all?

[Mr Slaughter]

The developments I am talking about are of sufficient size and scale to require the Mayor’s approval, or the Greater London authority’s dispensation regarding factors such as their height and their not containing affordable housing. In addition to the town hall development to which the hon. Gentleman refers, there are other developments along the river. St George has just decided it wants to build 750 similar properties with no affordable housing in them just south of Hammersmith Broadway, and has its eye on redeveloping a council estate, which the council may wish to demolish, for luxury housing. We are not talking about not enough being done to promote affordable housing in London, or about neglect or negligence. We are talking about a concerted policy to socially engineer areas by demolition, and the removal of social housing units in London and their replacement with luxury, small high-rise developments. The ability to build in London for London’s population will not exist again for another generation. That is the real damage being done by this Tory-led Government and their creatures in town halls around London. I am afraid that that is the depressing message.

I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North said. I fear that the news, when one looks at the situation on the ground, is actually worse than inaction: it is the deliberate destruction of the consensus on housing policy that has sustained this country for many decades.