Housing and Planning Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I have tabled an amendment in this group. I declare my interest as a landlord and a landowner involved in property development, and I very much associate myself with all the amendments in this group. I particularly associate myself with the words of my noble friends Lord Best and Lord Kerslake.

Shortly after I took my seat in 1998, I remember going with a health visitor to see several families in Redbridge in east London. I was shocked and appalled by what I saw at that time. The accommodation that many families were struggling to live in was absolutely appalling, and this was many years ago. The point that may be missing from this debate, and which probably has been made, is that we have a historical deficit of investment in social housing. Some of the things that have been said in support of what the Government are proposing might be all very well but we have a profound historical deficit in social housing. These families are unheard: none—or perhaps one or two—of us politicians come from that background. They are living in houses in multiple occupation and in damp, overcrowded conditions, and they get overlooked. They have been overlooked by the Labour Party and the Conservative Party: all parties will hold up their hands to that. That is a particular problem with what the Government are proposing.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for supporting my amendment, among the others here. I will give one example of a mother to whom I spoke last week. She has four children. The eldest, I think, has a disability, but the youngest—a two year-old—experienced a haemorrhage while in his mother’s womb, and as a result was born with palsied arms and legs. He is blind and has hearing issues and, at two years old, is much smaller than he should be. The 10 year-old brother has ADHD and one other issue. As a consequence, she and her husband are both unable to work now; they are full-time carers for their children. She has been on the housing list for two years. She recently visited a house to look at it and found that there were 27 people higher up the housing list to look at it. She is living in three bedrooms with her husband and four children. From both her front and back doors, there are steps leading up, so as her youngest child grows bigger, it will become more and more difficult for her to enter and exit the house. So many families are like that: they are stuck with inappropriate housing because of the failure of successive Governments to provide sufficient social housing. I thank the Minister for her helpful reply and assurance earlier on.

Turning to my Amendment 48B in this group, its purpose is to ensure that a local authority, in relation to starter homes,

“must also ensure that there is an adequate supply of affordable homes in its area for … key workers; and … families requiring temporary accommodation”.

I have not spoken on the Bill yet, but I welcome much of what is in it, particularly with regard to streamlining the planning process—of which I have had experience—and many other areas. However, I am concerned—and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, alerted us to this—that in 2018, the Government will invest £2.3 billion in starter homes, self-build homes and other areas. However, from 2018 the funding for the sort of social housing that I have just described will be declining.

Not so long ago, I visited the University of East London, which is doing some work on the impact of homelessness on families. It highlighted to me that, all across London, the social housing stock is so severely depleted that it would take many, many years to replenish it. I understand the Government’s concerns, but the suffering of so many families in such appalling conditions really needs to be given priority.

In 2011, the OECD produced a report that found that a fifth of children in this country were growing up in a family without a father and a quarter of children in the United States were growing up without a father in the family. It predicted that in about 10 or 15 years, we would overtake the United States, and 30 % of our children would be growing up without a father in the family. Of course, living in temporary accommodation has an impact on the mental health of adults in those circumstances, and must have an impact on the parental relationships. I have just given that as one example of why we should be really concerned that so many of our children are growing up in hostels, temporary accommodation or bed and breakfasts. More than 100,000 children in this country are currently growing up in temporary accommodation.

I recently spoke to someone working on the troubled families initiative, a very welcome initiative from the Government. She told me how indignant she felt that she would make a relationship with a hard-to-reach family, begin to do some good work and then that family would be moved on elsewhere because they were living in temporary accommodation. They would very frequently move on.

I am particularly concerned by the growing information about families being moved out of London because of shortages here. Many years ago I visited the Families in Temporary Accommodation project run by John Reacroft at Barnardo’s and met many such families. Of the themes that came through, there was particularly that of isolation. So many families had been placed a long way from their community, friends and family. Now we see that families are placed far out of London and their local authority, and may well be moved on once more so become more and more isolated and separated. There are real reasons to be concerned about the increasing numbers of children growing up in temporary accommodation. I hope the Minister can offer some reassurance in her reply that that will be addressed. My other matter was to do with key workers. It is so important for these families that key workers can work close to them. That needs also to be kept much in mind.

The only thing I disagree with in what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said—if I understood him correctly—is that this is about housing supply rather than varieties of tenure. I strongly disagree with him there. There is a desperate need to increase housing supply within the particular tenure of affordable and social housing. That is a long-neglected area and the Government need to take that issue away and think about it.