Children and Families Bill

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I agree with everything that has been said. There is often criticism in my native city of Glasgow that the housing estates are too big, but those of us who know those housing estates know that there are excellent communities within them. In fact, those of us who have lived in big cities think of them not as a big city but as a collection of villages and communities. Many of the housing estates that I know of and are excellent were built just after the war, when the soldiers came home from the forces. The families were regarded as big. I came from a family of five living in a tenement, and in those days that was a small family—there were families of eight or nine.

Noble Lords are right to say that there can be a big impact on children if they have to move away from the communities that they enjoy. Most of us have happy memories of the childhood communities we lived in and the support of the extended families who were there. We could end up taking young children out of their school, as has already been stated, and away from their community facilities into a strange area.

I go back to where I was raised in the city of Glasgow. If a family is in an underoccupied house, that can mean that the house has a garden and a back and front door, which is regarded as significant for a family. To go to the proper size of house that the Government suggest could mean that they are forced to take a tenement flat. It has a big impact on a young person to go from a house with a garden to a tenement flat.

When I have spoken to the Minister, he has been very courteous to me and told me that he will give me a reply on this matter, but he has always mentioned the waiting lists and how long they are. The implication is that, if you have a long waiting list, you will fill the vacant accommodation. That is not necessarily the case. Anyone who has been a constituency MP or a councillor will know that people will come to you to say, “I’ve been on the waiting list for 10 or 12 years”, but when you say, “I can get you a house tomorrow”, they say, “Oh, but I’m not taking a house in this area or that area; I want this particular area”. Those who are on the waiting list exercise a great element of choice.

I personally have no housing problem either in London or in Glasgow, but I dare say that, legally, there would be nothing to stop me going to the local housing association in Westminster and saying, “I want to put my name on the waiting list”. By the same token, I could do that in Glasgow. Being on a waiting list does not mean that the person on the list is in need. I do not think that the waiting list is necessarily the best measure to use when saying that we can solve the problems caused by people being forced out of their so-called underoccupied houses.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, briefly, I think that the Minister has a choice when he responds to the amendment, which was so effectively moved by my noble friend. He can say either that children of a certain group—disabled children, children in poverty or whatever—are exempt from the application of the bedroom tax to the tenancy, or he can say, on the contrary, we will leave it to local authorities to exercise their discretion, so that the response you get is a lottery based on where you live, and you have all the problems associated with what is effectively means testing.

The advantage of the first path is that you can perfectly easily have ways of ensuring that certain families with children do not come into the category of the bedroom tax as such. You could say that children on disability living allowance, for example, would simply be exempt, but discretionary housing payments apply to other people, which may include disabled people and so on. If that is the way which the Minister wishes to go, that would be the clean and clear way to do it.