Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Meacher]

23: Insert the following new Clause—
“Rent arrears
The Secretary of State shall lay a report before Parliament annually about the impact of rent arrears on the health and wellbeing of men, women and children.”

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, requiring the Secretary of State to lay annually a report before Parliament about the impact of rent arrears on the health and well-being of men, women and children sounds like a rather academic point. However, every parent who finds themselves unable to pay their rent will feel an extraordinary sense of insecurity due to being unsure about keeping a roof over their children’s heads—along with the threat of eviction, homelessness and so forth. Therefore, this is a serious matter for each and every family affected.

Why is this happening? On the one hand, the housing shortage is causing rents to rise to levels never seen before. Council house tenants have seen their rents rise four times faster than average wages in the past five years, outstripping even the private sector. These rents are putting huge pressure on the welfare bill and on tenants themselves. The Government have redefined the word “affordable”, extraordinarily. For a council tenant, it used to mean half the open market rent. Now, the term “affordable” means 80% of market rents. In fact, such rents are of course utterly unaffordable in London, so they need to change the word.

The LGA estimates that 60,000 households will be forced into rent arrears in the next few years, and I imagine that that number will soar thereafter as all the welfare benefit cuts increase over time. The Bill will price social housing tenants out of their home areas. For families relying on grandparents to care for children, or relatives to look after disabled or elderly family members, moving from the local area has serious social consequences and may simply be completely impractical. Similarly, for some children, changing schools can have a devastating impact on their education. The RSA envisages that the numbers of children affected will grow. Instead of moving, many families will run the risk of moving into rent arrears.

Into this mix comes the Government’s decision to cut housing benefit while simultaneously freezing the annual increases in already very low benefit incomes, which are then subject to council tax payments. Paul Nicolson has made this point very strongly in the media. The consequences of these decisions are the development of rent arrears, the draconian enforcement of debt and the malnutrition of parents and maybe children.

The point of this amendment is that the impact on public health is simply not yet known and we need to have it measured. When the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, moved a similar amendment to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, responded with references to the Government’s commitment to reduce health inequalities and to ensure that ill health does not hold our children back from fulfilling their potential. Does the Minister accept that, if parents have insufficient money to pay for food for their children, to heat the house and to keep a roof over their heads, this will surely, over time, impact seriously on their children’s health and well-being?

The noble Lord, Lord Freud, talked about tackling the root causes of poverty—worklessness and educational underattainment. The majority of those in poverty today are in work. A root cause of poverty in this country is not worklessness, but the ever-diminishing level of in-work and out-of-work benefits, combined with low pay. The Government are making things worse and risking an unnecessary hike in rent arrears because, under universal credit, the plan is to eliminate any possibility that housing benefit could be paid directly to landlords. Conscientious parents who want to secure the roof over their family’s head will no longer be able to ask for their housing benefit to be paid directly to landlords. There is no doubt in my mind—none at all—that rent arrears will be very much higher under this new regime than under the old.

In conclusion, this amendment only requires the Government to report to Parliament annually about the impact of rent arrears on the health and well-being of those affected. Only if the Government and Parliament have this information can we hope that remedial action will be taken to mitigate the consequences of government policy. I ask the Minister to give serious thought to this amendment, rather than simply dismissing the idea. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am happy not to press my amendment after the explanation the noble Baroness has given us.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Shipley, Lord Judd, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for their considered, well-informed and powerful contributions to this short debate. I am not at all convinced that the Government’s housing survey will provide the necessary focus on the soaring levels of rent and rent arrears and their impact on families and children and on the Government’s emphasis on health, well-being, educational attainment and so on.

The Government and Parliament really need to understand what is happening now and what will happen over the next few years in these regards. However, it is a late hour. We will have to come back to this issue, and I will no doubt have a conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about precisely what the wording of the amendment should be. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 23 withdrawn.