Housing: Spending Review

Baroness Wilkins Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hollis on securing this timely debate and on her excellent and devastating speech. I declare my interest as a patron of the Foundation for Lifetime Homes and Neighbourhoods.

Good housing that meets the needs of all sections of society is not only the answer to many of the social, health and employment problems, but it can prevent many of them occurring in the first place. Lord William Beveridge summed it up best when he said, in 1944:

“The greatest opportunity open in this country for raising the general standard of living lies in housing”.

I therefore welcome this opportunity to debate housing policy.

What I do not welcome are the Government’s housing policy proposals, which, as we have heard from around the House, will profoundly damage the delivery of housing, particularly social housing, in this country for many years to come. The drastic changes to the housing benefit system will have a particularly negative impact on the lives of disabled people—and the effect on disabled people is the focus of my contribution.

I accept that the previous Labour Government, and many Governments before them, did not give sufficient priority to housing, as I am sure the Minister will note in her reply. The previous Government certainly did not build enough houses, particularly accessible ones, but the current proposals will just make things much, much worse, and if the housing situation is bleak for the general population, it is doubly so for disabled people, who are disproportionately dependent on social housing and housing benefit. Disabled people are twice as likely to live in social housing because of their poorer economic position, and they are more likely than any other sector of the British population to live in a dwelling that does not meet decent home standards.

As we have heard, the Government have stated that between 2011 and 2015 there will be a real-terms cut of 63 per cent to the national affordable housing programme compared with the 2008-11 period, and that this is a far greater cut than the cuts imposed on many other parts of the economy. The Government will no doubt trumpet the 150,000 new homes that they estimate will be built using public subsidy in the next four years, but I invite noble Lords to look behind this figure; to achieve this heroic build, the Government are relying on all the new social housing that is funded by the Government’s housing programme, and on one in four re-lets in the social housing sector being let at 80 per cent of market rent, making them unaffordable and driving people into poverty. My noble friend Lady Dean has just thrown considerable doubt on the Government’s plans.

Will the Minister say what the outcome was of the equality impact assessment that was conducted on this new rental policy with respect to disabled people, who, as I said, are twice as likely to live in social housing as non-disabled people? How will new supported housing for vulnerable people be funded under this regime? Do the Government expect tenants living in supported housing to pay 80 per cent of local market rents? Is this realistic in central London, or will people be driven to live somewhere cheaper, far from their existing social networks?

I welcome the news that disabled people claiming disability benefits will be exempt from the housing benefit cap due to the extra costs that they face. However, DLA reforms mean that many disabled people with lower-level needs will not receive the benefit by 2013 and so will not be protected by this exemption. Their needs will not disappear, so the cap will simply deepen inequality, as commentators have noted, creating yet more poverty among disabled people. The funding for an extra bedroom for a non-resident carer from next year is welcome, but will the Minister outline a few more details about how this new scheme will work? Will it just be for paid carers or will unpaid family carers also count?

The Government plan to limit housing benefit for working-age claimants in social housing to the size of accommodation they are deemed to need. How will the size of a property be calculated for people like me who are wheelchair users, and for disabled people who may have to have medical equipment due to their disability? Will a child's disability be taken into account, and the fact that his or her space needs may change over time?

This huge rise in rents and cutting of financial support will force disabled people to move from their accessible homes, but where to? There is a dearth of accessible accommodation, as this House has been reminded many times. Landlords do not routinely keep records of their accessible or adapted property, so finding cheaper accommodation will be hard, if not impossible. What of the resulting cost to the state? There will be far more demand on the health and social services, because, as repeated surveys show, living in non-accessible housing makes disabled people more dependent on other people and less able to take advantage of employment, training or other opportunities. What if the disabled person has a care package? The lack of portability means that they cannot look outside their borough for housing without incurring all the personal and social service costs of re-assessment all over again. If it is impossible to move, the result will be progressively to cut financial support and drive the disabled person further into debt and utter misery.

Housing let at a subsidised social rent is one of the central pillars of the welfare state. It offers people who are unable to enter the private housing market a way out of squalid housing, overcrowding, slums and grinding poverty. Lord Beveridge would be weeping in disbelief that a Government—any Government, let alone one supported by his Liberal Democrat successors—are putting forward a package of reforms that spell the end of social housing as part of the welfare state that he helped to create. I urge Ministers to reconsider.