Select Committee on Communities and Local Government

Debate between John Healey and Clive Betts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

That was an issue the Committee was mindful of. That wording in the report is very clear. Where there are large surpluses, and there are housing shortages to be met, housing associations should look to make sure those surpluses are spent in a way that delivers more homes.

It is also important that housing association boards look at how their resources can be managed to the maximum efficiency. The public sector as a whole has had to have an eye on efficiency in the last few years. The housing associations are deliberately not in the public sector, and the Government have taken steps to deal with that issue. Nevertheless, they receive public funding, and they should make sure they spend that public money as efficiently as possible.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I welcome this unanimous cross-party report, which reinforces criticism and opposition already voiced by Conservative Members and by the Conservative-led Local Government Association about the huge loss of affordable homes in rural and urban areas alike as a result of the Housing and Planning Bill. The other place is set to examine the Bill’s provisions on housing associations’ right to buy and the forced sale of council homes on 3 March, so what steps will my hon. Friend take to make sure that peers know all about this important report before then?

[Mr Betts]

I would have thought that making this statement today was a start to that process and give the report some publicity. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be sending messages to his colleagues in the other place where he wants to draw particular aspects to their attention. A key issue is how the right-to-buy scheme should be funded. I think it would be very helpful for their lordships if the Government were to produce the calculations on how the sale of high-value council assets in relation to right-to-buy discounts, the replacement of the sold-off council homes, and the brownfield regeneration fund—which I think we can all support as a very good principle—can all be funded. We need to see the Government’s figures given that we had evidence from the Chartered Institute of Housing that the maximum amount raised from the levy would be about £2.2 billion a year, which would not cover the three costs that need to be covered to meet the Government’s intentions.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Debate between John Healey and Clive Betts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I thank my hon. Friend and applaud his effort to talk to providers in his constituency. The fears that Framework expressed are widely voiced and shared by providers who offer that type of housing and support. I do not know what figures he has for Nottingham, but Homeless Link cites figures in Birmingham that expose the shortfall. The average national rent in a homeless hostel is about £180 per week. The local housing allowance rate in Birmingham is half that figure, at £98.87 a week. The local housing allowance rate for a room in a shared house, which is all that single people under 35 are entitled to, is just £57.34 a week—a shortfall of over £120 per week, per tenant.

Supported housing is not just an emergency bed or a roof over someone’s head; the support helps people to get their lives back together. Last year, 1,500—or two in five—people housed by St Mungo’s in its hostels moved on from supported housing into individual accommodation. Last year, St Vincent’s—the Manchester-based housing charity—saw 15 of its young Foyer residents go on to university, one to Oxford. For thousands of other people with severe autism, learning disabilities, dementia and mental illness, living as independently as possible in supported housing, there is no alternative but hospital and residential care, which are much more institutionalised for the residents and much more expensive for the taxpayer. This policy risks turning the clock back on people’s lives and standards of care by 40 years.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend has illustrated his case by referring to people for whom the alternative may be much more expensive and less adequate care. There are other people, such as women fleeing domestic violence with their children, who come to very good accommodation in my constituency, who will have no alternative at all if those places are closed down as a result of these measures.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend, who chairs the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, understands this better perhaps than anyone in the House. There is no alternative to the supported housing needed by many of the most vulnerable people, and which they have at present. That is why Ministers must act immediately to exempt supported housing in full from the crude cuts and undertake a detailed consultation with providers about how such housing can be secured in future. Before Christmas, I revealed the scale of the problems facing people in specialist supported housing.

Housing

Debate between John Healey and Clive Betts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I am certainly in favour of aspiration and of home ownership. Under the last Labour Government, the number of homeowners increased by more than 1 million. However, I confirmed on Second Reading that we will oppose right to buy funded by forced sale of council homes because it will lead to a huge loss of affordable homes to rent and buy that people in this country need. That policy will penalise people on ordinary, modest incomes.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend not amazed that, despite the Government’s claim that their policy of selling off high value council homes will fund the replacement of housing association properties and council homes, as well as a contribution towards the remediation of brownfield sites, they still cannot table for hon. Members the figures to justify that?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right. Obviously, the Select Committee is examining those matters. It is not the first time that the sums do not add up, but if the Government are going to force the sale of council assets to fund the programme to extend the right to buy to housing associations, why do they not start with some of their own assets? Why do they not start by funding their policy with Government support, instead of taking it, like some medieval baron, from councils because their coffers are empty?

Ministers made much of starter homes and there is clearly a need for more affordable homes to buy, especially given that the number has fallen in the past five years by nearly 30%. However, the Government’s starter homes will be a non-starter for families on ordinary incomes. Shelter calculates that, across the country, one would need an annual income of around £50,000 and a deposit of £40,000 to afford a starter home. In London, one would need an income of £77,000 and a deposit of £98,000. That is simply out of reach for most of those on middle incomes—working families, who need help to buy the most. Of course, there are no controls to stop those who can afford to buy without help from the Government taking advantage of the scheme. There is a big risk that those who need it least will benefit most.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between John Healey and Clive Betts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

My guess is that the Conservative leaders of Kensington and Chelsea and of Westminster have had an influence on the Conservative leadership of the Local Government Association, because it has made it clear that it opposes the plan and it has warned of the consequences

“in particular on council waiting lists, homelessness and housing benefit.”

Alongside this policy, clauses 3 to 6 overturn 25 years of planning law established by the Conservatives in 1990, with cross-party support, to require developers to help to provide affordable homes. So the very system of planning obligations that has delivered nearly 250,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent and to buy in the past decade will be set aside by Ministers imposing starter home obligations only. It is a field day for developers, and a dark day for families wanting to rent or buy an affordable home.

[Mr Betts]

Are not the legislative proposals on starter homes worrying for two reasons? Irrespective of the merits or otherwise of the starter homes, the provision will not add a single property to those being built over the course of this Parliament. Every property built as a starter home will replace a home that would have been built under section 106 obligations on an affordable basis. Secondly, this is an incredibly centralising measure under which central Government will dictate the details of planning permissions given on every site for which a local authority receives a planning application.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee is right on both counts. His Committee is conducting an inquiry into housing associations and I look forward to the report, as it will have great cross-party authority and will help this House and the other place get to grips with what the Bill means for the future.

The Chartered Institute of Housing, the independent professional experts, says that this fire sale of affordable council homes to fund the extension of the right to buy could mean the loss of 195,000 genuinely affordable social rented homes in the next five years. Although housing associations might well build more homes as they sell under right to buy, many will increasingly build for open market sale and rent. Indeed, one third already say that they will no longer build any affordable homes. For organisations with a social mission that have played a big part in providing publicly funded homes for decades, that is almost as shocking as one third of NHS hospitals saying that they are prepared only to take private patients. The Bill is a milestone moment for affordable housing in this country and it is a massive step backwards.

Let me turn to starter homes. We welcome the Government’s stated aim of making home ownership more accessible to people on ordinary incomes and to young people in particular. The drop in home ownership over the past five years to its lowest level for a generation means that this is an essential element of meeting the country’s housing needs and aspirations. But what is being done is not working, and these plans will do too little to help. We need fresh thinking, radical ideas and a much wider public debate for the future, which is why I have commissioned Peter Redfern, the chief executive of one of the country’s largest house builders, Taylor Wimpey, to undertake an independent review of the decline in home ownership, supported by an expert panel of major figures in housing and economics.

The Secretary of State must face the fact that the Government’s starter homes will simply not be affordable and will be a non-starter for families on ordinary incomes. Shelter calculates that across the country a person will need an income of £50,000 a year and a deposit of £40,000 to afford a starter home while in London they would need an income of £77,000 a year and a deposit of £98,000. That is simply out of reach for most of the middle-income working families who need help buying a home the most. Furthermore, there are no controls on the Bill to stop those who can afford to buy without help from the Government taking advantage of the scheme, so there is a big risk that the people who benefit most will be those who need the help least. As Shelter says of the starter homes programme:

“The only group it appears to help on a significant scale will be those already earning high salaries who should be able to afford on the open market without Government assistance.”

Let me say this:

“When this was first put forward prior to the election, it was clearly intended to be focused on using that land that had not already been designated for housing. The aim was for it to be a brownfield ‘exceptions’ policy...which would be a welcome addition to existing affordable and other new housing. In the policy as now proposed, starter homes are clearly to be instead of, not additional to, affordable homes to rent”.

Those are not my words but those of the previous permanent secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government, Bob Kerslake—Lord Kerslake. The Government’s own impact assessment confirms this:

“Starter Homes will not be additional to housing supply”—

the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). So before this Bill goes through the House, the Government must, as a minimum, change it to do two things. First, they must make any starter homes built through developer obligations additional to affordable homes, not a substitute. Secondly, they must put in place a guarantee and a guard against any abuse or dead-weight in the scheme.

Let me touch on planning—parts 6 and 7 of the Bill. With Ministers in a political panic about falling so far short of the new build numbers that they have pledged, this Bill gives them wide-ranging powers to impose new house building and override local community concerns and local plans. With a total of 32 new housing and planning powers for the centre, this legislation signals the end of localism. We welcome the measures to speed up the planning process where there is a clear case for doing so and where local decision making is not ignored, but there are serious concerns about some aspects of this Bill that will be shared in all parts of the House. I say that to the Housing and Planning Minister, who is chuntering again, because he might want to address them when he winds up. Those concerns are heightened, first, by the fact that there has been no consultation on the most radical of these planning proposals; and, secondly, by the fact that so much is left as open-ended powers for the Secretary of State.

Clauses 3, 4, 97, 102 and 107 introduce very far-reaching changes. [Interruption.] Instead of laughing, I suggest that the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) look at those five clauses. These far-reaching changes must be clarified and justified by the Secretary of State, and they should be restricted as the Bill goes through Parliament if they cannot be justified. In order to do so, will the Secretary of State guarantee, as he should, that the draft regulations are available to the House when these clauses are debated in the Public Bill Committee?