Homes: Affordability

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

Follow that. It really is a pleasure to contribute to this debate, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Bird—the noble Sheriff Bird. I am a real admirer of his. His sense of compassion and commitment is legendary, and we saw that today. I agree with so much of what has been said. I could just say “#MeToo, I agree” and sit down—but I am a politician and, as a former elected mayor and a vice-president of the LGA, I want to make my contribution about the role that local authorities have played during the Covid crisis and their contribution towards the most vulnerable in our society.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, as we go about our daily lives it is probably quite difficult for us to imagine what a loss of £20 a week might mean to us—I suspect very little. After all, it is less than what I spend on a blow dry, or what we spend on our weekly coffees or a few drinks in the pub. Do we feel fearful when we hear that energy prices are to rise? Annoyed, maybe, but we will not have to make that oft-quoted choice between heating and eating. I was shocked to learn that more than 4 million people are on pre-paid meters. That means they unfairly have to pay the highest cost per unit for energy up front, before consumption, when those of us on our direct debits in effect get the cheapest rates in arrears. It is just wrong.

I learned the value of money from my bus driver father, who brought us up. Every Friday he would take from his back pocket his brown wage packet and physically count out the money for each of our household commitments. It was money for the mortgage—he was very proud that we were buying our little terraced house—and for gas, food et cetera. It would then go into a tin with slots for the appropriate payment. There were no slots for coffees, hairdos and the pub, nor for clothes or insurance—things that we would now call necessities. We managed but, looking back, I suspect it was only just. Our whole neighbourhood was like us, and many were worse. The local gossip was often about those at number such-and-such who had done a moonlight flit the night before because they were in rent arrears. The point is that it was a very real, constant weekly worry—a harsh reality of life on low wages.

Life is still like that for millions of people, and many of them are in work—insecure work and, as we have learned during the pandemic, often essential work. We know that life is precarious for many and the threat of homelessness is never far away for some. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We have had excellent briefings from Crisis, Shelter, Generation Rent and others, and the facts are crystal clear. The perfect storm—I am sorry to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for using the cliché—of all the points in the title of our Motion today will tip many into arrears and those already in arrears into homelessness and the route of temporary accommodation, and the insecurity that that brings with it. You try living with the family in a Premier Inn hotel room. There are currently more than 95,000 households in temporary housing. The Government’s own figures show that the proportion of tenants in rent arrears has tripled and, now that the eviction ban has ended, it can only get worse.

The debt charity StepChange released some telling research last month which illustrated, among other things, that there were more than half a million universal credit claimants in Covid-related rent arrears who say that, with the cost of living increases and cuts to universal credit, they will struggle to pay off their rent debt within 12 months. More pertinently, 225,000 private renters say that they expect to lose their home as a result of unpayable rent arrears. That is more than the size of the population of Luton—our rival town—Swindon, Rochdale or Portsmouth. One in 10 in-work tenants expects to be evicted from their homes as a result of their arrears. That is a lot of people, and a huge amount of misery.

People’s first port of call will be their local council. The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that councils can move quickly to build effective services that deliver better outcomes for residents, if given the powers and resources to do so. During the pandemic, councils responded rapidly to support people experiencing street homelessness through the Everyone In initiative. Figures from the Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities show that councils supported more than 37,000 individuals through that initiative, with more than 26,000 now moved on to longer term accommodation. I will credit the Government for that. Together, we did it: it worked.

My main point and underlying message today is about money and funding—no surprise there, Minister. My first plea is for consistency of funding. Please can the Government move away from a pattern of piecemeal and fragmented funding streams, as already mentioned? One of the key issues for councils is the need for longer term funding to aid the recruitment and retention of high-calibre staff and support long-term strategic planning around the issue of rough sleeping and homelessness. Councils have long called for more certainty when planning and commissioning local services. The administrative burden associated with multiple grant-funding applications sometimes appears disproportionate, with small operational teams needing to divert resources away from the front line to write multiple bids, with no guarantee of success. It is also known that multiple and unaligned pots of funding are generally inefficient, with the lead time necessary for effective recruitment not fitting well with truncated funding cycles.

Everyone working in this area knows that prevention is best. They are desperate to get upstream. Eventually, when a client gets a tenancy, they know that they need help to stay in their home. Those two things book end, but often, the funding is focused on what is in the middle—you could say, the meat of the sandwich, but try having a sandwich without the bread. I say that from my heartfelt experience with a charity I am involved in, New Hope, Watford, which is in precisely that situation year on year. It does amazing work, but with funding certainty, it could be so much better—if staff were not worrying about a round of job cuts and service cuts if their bid is unsuccessful.

I also bring to your Lordships’ attention the number of non-EU nationals who form part of the core of homeless people. The 2020 rough-sleeping count showed that 23% of rough sleepers had no recourse to public funds and fell outside councils’ existing statutory responsibilities. Government quite rightly asked councils to support these individuals and, quite rightly, they did—but with no additional funding to recognise this group or any change to the legislative powers and duties that remove access to benefits or council services. This, along with the additional call on councils to house the recently relocated and resettled arrivals from Afghanistan demonstrates the fluidity and unpredictability of this service and the need for long-term, joined-up solutions in housing.

This leads to my third area of concern, mentioned forcefully by my noble friend Lady Pinnock: the lamentable decline in homes for social rent. Social housing is a major tool used by councils to mitigate homelessness—yet, in real terms, provision has decreased over decades. The picture is often clouded by the use of terms such as “affordable rent” or “intermediate rent”, which is now the more usual tenancy. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, eloquently amplified, they are often unaffordable. But, if a tenancy is to survive for an individual or family coming from homelessness to a stable home, that survival may well depend on social rented accommodation, which is becoming less available.

The number of council and housing association homes being let at social rent fell by 210,000 between 2012 and 2020. Added to their woes is the fact that councils cannot keep all the money from their right to buy sales—is there any movement on that issue, Minister? There is a time limit within which they have to spend the money, which is not always possible when you are trying to build social housing. Perhaps it is time to review that—or, better still, not have a limit at all, to allow the one-for-one replacement that was always promised.

I have some final thoughts. As several noble Lords have asked, is it not time to raise the local housing allowance to cover median local rents, to prevent the shortfalls that my noble friend mentioned in rents occurring and debts building up—or to scrap the household benefit cap to ensure that families are able to access the higher local housing allowance rates? Is there any sign, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, asked, of ending unfair evictions, as was pledged in April 2019?

I am certain that the Minister will tell us of the money that the Government are already providing and have promised to provide, but I am sure that he will expect the usual retort from me: “It is not enough”. It never is. The last thing any of us wants for those who are struggling to get out of debt is for them to resort to the services of loan sharks—another harsh reality from my past. They are still in business—and that in itself is a tragedy.

Covid-19: May Elections

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly agree with the noble Lord. We have given local authorities additional extra resources, and we will support and encourage them to do everything that the noble Lord so wisely suggests.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I pay tribute to the way in which local government is swinging behind these elections and getting them done. I want to hone down on the count. ROs and election officers in Hertfordshire have written to the Cabinet Office and are very concerned about the count process, which, as we both know, can be intense and very long. Certainly there is a fine balance to be struck between safety and scrutiny; indeed, when I am a scrutineer, I am definitely closer to people than I am to, say, my noble friend. So how can we ensure that social distancing is maintained during the verification and counting of votes, and when will we get that guidance?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that it will very soon. Yes, I have felt sharp elbows at counts and hope that I have not used too many. Further guidance on this important matter will be given very shortly.

Housing: Permitted Development Rights

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornhill]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review permitted development rights following a planning inspector’s decision to overturn Watford Borough Council’s rejection of plans to convert a light industrial unit into flats of 16.5 square metres and with no natural light or fire escapes.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, all homes created through permitted development rights for change of use are required to comply with building regulations, including in respect of fire safety. We announced in a Written Ministerial Statement on 13 March our intention to review permitted development rights for the conversion of buildings to residential use in respect of the quality standard of homes delivered. This will inform any future decisions on permitted development rights for change to residential use.

[Baroness Thornhill]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but building regulations are not quite the same thing as standards. Does he agree with Watford Borough Council in this instance that, with a total floor space of 16.5 square metres and containing no windows, these do not constitute homes in 21st-century Britain? As for the welcome review, the spring is quite a long way off. Can the Minister indicate how quickly changes will come into place and whether he can inject a little urgency into the process? Does he also acknowledge that these controversial permitted development rights have damaged relationships with an already anti-development public, who were quite incredulous that such standards were permitted without planning permission?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the case concerning Watford which the noble Baroness mentioned, the borough council may appeal against the planning inspector’s decision within the next few days, so she will understand if I put that to one side. I make two general points: first, I hope all noble Lords will agree that, if you have redundant office or industrial buildings in an area where there is a severe shortage of residential accommodation, it makes sense to convert the one to the other. That is why the coalition Government in 2013 issued the permitted development order, which said that if you have planning permission for an office, you have planning permission for residential. That policy has produced 46,000 new homes, the vast majority of which are of good quality. Secondly—here, I agree with the point the noble Baroness made in a debate last week and which the noble Lord, Lord Best, raised yesterday—there have been some very unsatisfactory applications of that policy and some homes of very poor quality have come on to the market. That is why we have announced the review. We want to learn from Watford. The review is scheduled to complete by the end of the year. I take what she says about urgency: we want the policy to produce properties of a decent quality.

Social Housing

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. From these Benches I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Osamor, to the House. I am sure that her authentic voice will ring through for years to come. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for this opportunity to contribute in a very small way to this really important debate.

I am in no doubt that the Government are committed to increasing the delivery of new homes—the legislation and consultations over the last four years have been quite prolific—but my questions are as follows. Are the Government committed mainly to increasing home ownership as the core plank of their housing policy, or do they recognise that the country needs a strong social rented sector? If it is the latter, is that actually being left to local authorities to provide only if they choose to do so? How are the Government working to overcome the well-documented affordability crisis?

A quick calculation shows that the majority of government housing money is spent on schemes to promote home ownership, including shared ownership, starter homes and Help to Buy, to name but a few. The amount of money spent on housing benefit is also rising as the private sector as a provider is expanding, while the amount spent on social housing has significantly decreased. I acknowledge that the lifting of the borrowing cap in October was helpful, but I do not believe that local government alone can transform the social rented sector without considerable subsidy and a real plan of action. I fear that we are being set up to fail despite our best endeavours and some excellent innovative schemes, such is the scale of the task nationally.

My own authority has been fortunate in receiving grant in the last round of funding, which will help us to build 55 socially rented homes. That is small beer, though; we were averaging 200 a year before the damaging viability clause mentioned by the right reverend Prelate was introduced. To make those 55 homes viable we have had to gift the land, borrow £6.7 million and contribute £2 million, and we have received £3.3 million in grants. That level of borrowing and contribution is beyond many district councils and small housing companies.

Many councils are reluctant to build for social rent when properties can be lost to them via right to buy within three years. Will the Government consider allowing councils to set their own right-to-buy policies for their area, or at least allowing councils keep 100% of right-to-buy receipts? In future assessments of housing need, will the Government specify for all local authorities the need for social housing and set clear objectives for the number of social homes that they wish to see built?

Tenant Fees Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, all the amendments in this group are in my name except Amendment 37, although I support that amendment as well. They seek to amend Schedule 2, which concerns holding deposits. Amendment 33 would remove from the Bill the ability for a holding deposit to be withheld if the prospective tenant is prohibited from being granted a tenancy due to the restrictions of the Immigration Act and has failed the right to rent check. It is of course a probing amendment and I look forward to the Government setting out their case to justify this part of the Bill.

Amendment 34 would strengthen paragraph 8 of Schedule 2 by adding the word “knowingly”. That is a reasonable bar to have to reach for a deposit to be lost. Otherwise, it is unfair on the prospective tenant. If you knowingly provide false and misleading information, fine, but if it is unintentional, it seems harsh that the deposit can be withheld.

Amendment 35 would allow a tenant to decide not to proceed with a tenancy by notifying the landlord or letting agent before the deadline. It gives the tenant a reasonable period in which they can change their mind and not lose the deposit. I hope the Government can respond positively to that amendment.

Amendment 36 seeks to put into the Bill a requirement, where a holding deposit is withheld, that the landlord or agent say why they are doing so; that they set out the information they believe is false or misleading and which has been relied upon to withhold the deposit; and that they explain how the tenant can challenge the decision, including how to get advice on doing so, to ensure that the decision is sound. Again, I hope that the Government can respond to this amendment because people should be able to understand why a decision has been made and be clear on whether there is anything they can do. If your deposit is withheld, it must be right that you be told why and that the reasons be set out. If you do not like the decision, you should be told where you can go to get further advice and challenge it.

The final amendment in the group, Amendment 37, has been tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender and Lady Thornhill. It looks sensible and I look forward to hearing the explanation behind it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to the final amendment in this group, Amendment 37. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his remarks and I should say that we support his amendments.

If the Bill is rightly concerned with redressing the balance of power a little more towards tenants, this modest amendment would surely do that. Its purpose is to ensure that on payment of a holding deposit, which can sometimes be a significant amount of money, the tenant actually gets to see the tenancy agreement and therefore knows the terms of the contract that they will be asked to sign and abide by. The real question is whether there is a good reason for tenants not automatically and always being given this right. I am at a loss to understand this. In life, if we buy a product or a service, we see all the terms and conditions. We tick the “I agree” box online, while on paper we sign on the dotted line—although, like me, I suspect that we do not actually read all of the small print. The situation we are discussing would not arise in any other consumer transaction, so the amendment seeks to ensure that the same applies when people rent their home.

It is impossible for tenants to spot and negotiate out of the tenancy agreement any unfair terms if they have not received it before signing or moving into the property, the more so as they might ultimately incur default fees. Even if they receive the agreement in good time, they do not have much power to negotiate the terms because they stand to lose their holding deposit if they walk away. The ability of tenants to negotiate unfair terms out of a contract would be made just a little easier through the provision in this amendment.

It is equally important that the Bill makes it clear that the draft tenancy agreement must meet a certain universal standard. Thus the amendment refers to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the legislation that would form the basis for the standard. The rationale is that if the tenancy agreement contained unfair terms, the tenant could ask for those to be removed. If the landlord refused to remove them, the tenant could pull out of the tenancy and claim the holding deposit back on the basis that the draft agreement did not comply with the Consumer Rights Act.

Existing government guidelines for the Act on what are and are not “unfair terms” are quite clear. They talk about transferring risks to consumers—in this case the tenant—that cannot be controlled. The tenancy agreement might be the first time the tenant gets to see what default fees the landlord is setting, and sometimes, even more significantly—and perhaps horrifically—it does not specify the level of default fees they might subsequently wish to apply. Efforts elsewhere in the Bill to define default fees more tightly might help to address these concerns, but surely it is both fair and reasonable for tenants to have some ability to negotiate the terms of their contract before signing it.