Women: Homelessness, Domestic Violence and Social Exclusion

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to take part in this debate, and to join in the chorus of compliments that are being paid to my noble friend Lady King. She managed to compress a speech of 30 minutes’ length into 15, which I think is something of a record—but every minute that I heard, I said to myself, “Hear, hear”. If I was to be asked for my solutions to the problems that she raised, I would simply say, “Give me the sheet and I will sign it”, because her speech was compelling and full of conviction.

My case is to say to the Government Benches that it is all very well having conviction, but what we want is compassion. To add to the cases that have been made and drawn to our attention, I have got my own store of knowledge based upon what is now 40 years’ experience between the Commons and the Lords. I was born on Tyneside, the eldest of five children, and my dad was on the dole for 10 years. Having passed my 11-plus, I failed to go to the school because my dad was unemployed, so finally I had to wait until the Open University came along to get my bachelor’s degree and then my master of arts, which made me very proud.

It reminded me of the way in which I believe our housing policy is in a mess. By “our”, I mean that of the House and the Government and the country. I place no blame upon any one individual or one party, but when you look at some of the illustrations of how it has worked out, it could make you weep.

In 1979, councils had 6,568,000 council houses under their control, and people had the ambition to get on to a council house list. Having been the leader of Enfield Council, and operating down there for many years, I know that that was fair and right. However, you now find that by 2012, those 6,568,000 had been reduced to 2,096,000, many of them sold under the right to buy. The right to buy was used on 1,500,000 houses, which hitherto had been available to the community to be given to those who, in the community’s view, through the councils, were worthy of that assistance.

Looking back to where this started. I do not particularly laud the right to buy. When I used to go round the Hyde estate on Haselbury Road in Edmonton I would knock on the door and say, “Can I expect your support?”. “Well”, the current tenant would say, “not really, because if I vote Conservative, I’m going to be able to buy my house. After I’ve bought my house, I’ll continue to vote Labour, but in order to get the house I’ve got to get a Conservative Government in”. They did, and as a consequence people would come to me and say, “My son and daughter want to get married and go on the housing list, but the houses that normally might have been available to them are gone because they’ve been sold”. Houses were valued at £7,000 in Edmonton in 1979, but you now pay nearly £200,000 for a detached, three-bedroom house in good order—because you can say about most councils that they kept the property in good order.

On the other hand, that is the way it is. I want to know, if the Minister has the time—and I appreciate the pressure she will be under—what the Government are trying to do to replace and allocate funds to organisations that can keep housing in the control of people like the councils. I know that there are housing associations and co-operatives, and they all do a very good job. The consequences for housing started to go down then, and I am sorry to say that the policies that were started in 1979 were of course continued by a Labour Government when we were in power. Something needs to be done in that direction.

The other points I want to make are on the scandal that exists in a number of places. I have here a newspaper article that is headed:

“Council plans crackdown on ‘wild west’ landlords”.

A man is named here, who owns many properties in Pentonville Road and Caledonian Road. One of the properties mentioned was a hostel that was bought, then subdivided and let to 19 separate families. They are being housed in conditions that you and I would not dream of allocating to anybody, and yet that scheme is available. In another newspaper cutting a man is quoted as saying that if you have more than two children, are on a zero-hours contract, if granny moves in or if you are on housing benefit, you will be evicted from his properties—which under the law he is entitled to do. We have got a situation in which the Government are aware of all the facts that I have given noble Lords. I want to know, not only that the Government are aware—I believe that they are—but what they are trying to do to obviate that kind of situation.

The value of this debate is to underline the real situation: not statistics, not blarney, not cover-ups, not ignorance, but reality. I have spoken on housing, but I have not got time to speak on the other matters. My noble friend Lady King has given us an opportunity to vent our spleen about some of the bad situations in which other people live. All noble Lords in this Chamber have a decent home to live in. All of us have struggled, and we are where we are now. But the people on whose behalf we are pleading are women who are afflicted unnecessarily, not only by the nature of their partners, but the lack of direct attention by the Government. I hope very much that when the Minister replies—in what I know will be a long speech, because she has a lot to say and we will listen to her with attention—she will give some comfort to my noble friend Lady King for the excellent job she has done in putting this Motion before the House.