Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). I represent a very rural constituency, so I suspect there is a great deal of difference between our two patches, but I recognise from my constituency a great many of the things she said about addressing rough sleeping and homelessness.

As the virus began, in March, all of us across the House were deeply concerned about the impact it could have by closing businesses, driving up job losses and leaving people unable to make their rent and mortgage payments. Moreover, there were concerns about rough sleepers, who lived in close proximity to one another, and many of whom had pre-existing health concerns and could have been particularly hard-hit by the virus. That is why I welcome the unprecedented action of both the Government and local authorities across the country to support rough sleepers and homeless people in the face of covid-19. The Government’s furlough scheme has protected 9 million jobs and helped safeguard people’s pay packets, which has helped them keep on track of mortgage and rental repayments. However, as ever, there is more to be done. We need to help those who have suffered so very badly over the year.

With today’s welcome news from the Health Secretary that the covid vaccine will be rolled out from next week, more thought should be given to how to end homeless- ness and rough sleeping. First, we need to ensure that those rough sleepers who have been provided with accommodation as part of our response to the pandemic are never returned to the streets. The Government’s £433 million investment to provide 6,000 safe and long-term homes for rough sleepers will be invaluable in achieving that. We should be providing rough sleepers with the wraparound support that they need to tackle the long-term mental health and addiction problems that some of them may be suffering from.

Evidence from around the world shows that a Housing First approach is the best way to help rough sleepers rebuild their lives off the streets, and the Government have taken the initiative in piloting such a project in Greater Manchester, the west midlands and the Liverpool city region. I believe it is highly advisable to roll out a Housing First programme throughout the rest of the country, as it would be beneficial for all those in need of housing across the country.

Secondly, the key to ending homelessness is not just supporting those already sleeping rough or living without their own roof over their head, but tackling the long-term structural problems in our society that can lead to homelessness. Above all, more must be done to ensure that we can enable everyone to afford to buy or rent their own home. Although my community is blessed with relatively low levels of rough sleeping—that has not always been the case—the latest count, from autumn 2019, found that just one person was sleeping rough in my local area. That is not true—it is undeniably not true. The statistics collected by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on that are wrong, as local charities will be able to see, so we need to review how we are engaging and calculating that data.

My time is almost up. As I said, there is more to be done, and I hope that the Government will listen to us on what we have been asking for.

Planning and House Building

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Seely]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and I agree wholeheartedly.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he has done supporting communities such as mine in Totnes in south Devon. He talks about the need for a plan to be reasonable, but it also has to be realistic for our communities. He has also just mentioned engaging communities and ensuring that there is a community spirit about the way in which we develop. It was our party that pushed forward the idea of neighbourhood plans, and neighbourhood plans must be enshrined in the development of housing across the country.

[Bob Seely]

I agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for his intervention.

I will now make a few brief points about my constituency. The Government tell rural England that it needs to do its bit, and the Isle of Wight has a story that is similar to many others. Since 1960, the population of our beautiful small Island has grown by 50%—not 15%, but 50%. In the same period, the populations of Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Stoke-on-Trent have all declined, not relatively but in absolute terms. The message from many parts of Britain is that we have been doing our bit for decades, and levelling up is about other people now doing theirs. The new standard methodology simply does not make sense for the Island. It is based on local income calculations, but housing demand in my patch, and others, is driven by other factors—in my case, the migration of retirees from across Britain.

[Bob Seely]

I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. The good folks who retire to the Isle of Wight use assets. They use cash from house sales, not income, to buy. Therefore, affordability criteria based on income make little sense and artificially inflate our housing need by 70%. Our targets have little to do with our need. The indigenous population of the Isle of Wight is expected to decline by 11,000. Official figures show that all our population growth until 2034 will come from those who are 65-plus, either indigenous or retirees. It is great that we have retirees—don’t get me wrong—and I look forward to being one, one day. However, the demographic imbalance damages our society as well as our economy. For the first time in 50 years, we need the White Paper to prioritise Islanders, young and old, and not primarily to build for a mainland retirement market. I have yet to meet a single Islander who disagrees with that agenda.

We face exceptional housing constraints. We have our own housing industry. As a legal baseline, our housing industry can build 200 to 250 units a year. We have managed 350 units in the past few years—not affordable, and almost all on low-density greenfield estates that damage our tourism economy. The Government might as well be asking us to lead a moon landing programme, for all our ability to deliver either the current targets or the new ones. We are being set up for failure, and like other Members, I find that difficult to accept. If the Minister wishes to build for young Islanders, I will show him where and how to build, and I will tell him what we need. The answer is not low-density greenfield sprawl, or the numbers demanded. The Isle of Wight Council and I are at one on that.

Time prevents me from going into other reasons such as infrastructure, all of which are made worse by the Island’s electricity, sewerage, water supply and hospitals, which are under pressure. In 40 years, we have had a 50% increase in population, and we had have half a mile of dual carriageway, and some cash last year to tinker with the wrong roundabout in Newport. Our 1938 rolling stock on Network Rail will now be upgraded to stock from 1970, which I suppose is modernity of a sort.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I am sorry to have two bites of the cherry, but—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. For people on the call list to have one intervention is pushing it a bit, but to have two is a little discourteous, given the amount of people who also have major constituency interests. If the hon. Gentleman wants to go ahead, fine, but he will go down the call list.

[Anthony Mangnall]

Fine, Mr Speaker, but my hon. Friend is making an important point about the need for infrastructure. Our manifesto said that it would be “infrastructure first”.

[Bob Seely]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as well as you, Mr Speaker. In general, whether we represent suburbs or national parks, islands or cities, there is worth in the beauty of nature and place. We cannot keep ramming in housing without damaging our stewardship of the world. We must think long term, and not just until the next election. The poet Tennyson and the painter Turner did not come to the Island because it was convenient; they came because it was beautiful and it inspired them. That is one reason why the Island is an UNESCO biosphere reserve. Our beauty has an economic as well as a moral value. Visitors spend half a billion pounds a year on the Island, and the greater the urban sprawl in the name of random algorithmic targets, the greater the damage to our economy, our quality of life and the intrinsic worth of our landscape and natural beauty. I fear that long-term overdevelopment in some parts of Britain is now destroying the things we love.

As I am keen to get as many other people in as possible, I am just going to make a couple of points on the White Paper, but I will speak for no more than another three minutes or so. There is good stuff in the White Paper, but I fear the Government have not made the case for why the current system should be scrapped, as opposed to reformed. What are the unintended consequences here, and is the way to stop building firms land banking to give them more land with which to land bank? I am not quite sure that that makes sense.

Here are some ideas that a Conservative Government should follow, in my humble opinion. They should stick to the levelling up agenda; if not, shire Tories will be furious and red wall Tories betrayed. They should legally exhaust brownfield sites before greenfield is allowed; give communities the right to ban low density greenfield development; strengthen, not weaken community engagement; respect the rural, suburban and, indeed, city natures of a place; and develop a plan-led system. Above all, we need to change the incentives. If the Minister wants a sustainable future, let us be radical: put VAT on greenfield sites and provide financial incentives for brownfield sites; make developers pay council tax on undeveloped plots—that will get them focused; incentivise small developers to build out small plots or build above shops, where there is much more popular support for unused buildings; free up Government land for large-scale projects, but let us make it beautiful and respect the work done by Sir Roger Scruton and others; and, potentially in London, tighten the rules on foreign buyers who leave property empty and ban offshore shell purchases.

The White Paper needs to herald an era of sustainable, greener development in significantly greater harmony with the world around us. I hope this will not be a missed opportunity, and for that reason I support this supportive motion.