Housing Market

Lord Khan of Burnley Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe for introducing the debate so eloquently. I welcome this debate to consider the housing issues facing the UK today, but let me first say how proud I am to hear my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage make such an excellent maiden speech. She joins this House with a wealth of experience in local government and I know she has an enormous amount to contribute to the House, especially in flying the flag for Stevenage and Symonds Green.

Stevenage was established by the New Towns Act 1946 and represents the success of the post-war Labour Government who built homes for heroes from the rubble of war. In the years since, this country has changed far beyond what the builders of Stevenage could ever have imagined, but the news this week that a toddler in Rochdale has died from exposure to mould shows that the squalor in society that Beveridge identified persists today. Just yesterday, the Secretary of State told the other House that more must be done. I am convinced that “more must be done” is no longer enough. The only answer to housing conditions in the UK today is an effort that matches the Herculean effort of the post-war Government because, tragically, the death of two year-old Awaab Ishak is not an isolated case and squalid conditions are not the only problem. My noble friend Lady Warwick talked about 2 million children living in unsuitable, unaffordable and overcrowded housing in the UK.

Access to housing is increasingly difficult, especially for those who have traditionally benefited from social homes. There are now 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980, despite the population of our country growing by over 10 million in the same period. Building good-quality and well-regulated social housing is the relief that the Government can provide to so many millions of families struggling today. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, over half of renters on low incomes would be lifted out of housing unaffordability were they to be offered homes at social rent levels.

We must also look to new and innovative forms of community and co-operative housing, learning from successful models in places such as Sunderland, Liverpool and Lancaster, where they build community wealth or collective ownership and have seen over 25,000 houses built so far. Such models give residents a greater say over design and management and can be paired with new community land trusts to provide community-owned affordable homes.

I recognise that home ownership is an ambition for millions and an achievement for many more. In the more immediate term, we need to address the present mortgage crisis, which means that a household refinancing a two-year fixed mortgage will be paying £500 more per month on average.

The result of this crisis will be that people who have worked and saved to own a place of their own will lose the roof over their head. Needless to say, on home ownership the limit of ambition should stretch far beyond addressing the immediate crisis—we must ask why home ownership rates have fallen and the number of new affordable homes available to buy has plummeted.

Following the Chancellor’s mini-Budget, more than 40% of available mortgages were withdrawn from the market, and lenders priced in interest rates for two-year fixed-rate products at over 6%, and, unfortunately, the Statement today did not address the issues for many people. This has a very real and immediate impact. Mortgage repossessions soared by 91% compared with the same period last year, while the number of orders to seize property are up by 103%.

While the situation now is worse than ever in recent memory, this is the latest culmination of a trajectory which began in 2010. There are now 800,000 fewer householders under 45 who own their home and nearly 1 million more people in private rented properties than 12 years ago. For a significant part of the population, private renting will be the right option, but there should be an alternative. The Government’s own White Paper admits that the private rented sector

“offers the most expensive, least secure, and lowest quality housing to 4.4 million households”,

and they are correct. One-fifth of private tenants in England are now spending a third of their income on housing that is non-decent.

Unfortunately, soaring rents are not the only issue that private renters have to contend with, as we have heard in other contributions today. There is also an unfair power imbalance which allows landlords to act with impunity, as seen in the continued use of no-fault evictions, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and as demonstrated by the fact that over a fifth of private renters who moved in 2019-20 did not end their tenancy by choice.

My noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe in the title of this debate calls for a “coherent strategy” to address housing problems in the UK today. As I said earlier, that strategy must take inspiration from the post-war Labour Government. I want briefly to share a quote from the Health Secretary of that historic period, Nye Bevan, who said:

“We shall be judged in a year or two by the number of houses we build. We shall be judged in ten years’ time by the type of houses we build”.


I would add that we should judge ourselves by the health and quality of life of the people who today live in homes that were built by previous generations.

Turning to some powerful contributions from speakers with great expertise, knowledge and experience, the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, mentioned a speech he made in the other House many years ago in which he said that the cure for the housing crisis is to build more homes—that is absolutely clear. Many years ago, that was seen by the press in a different manner, but I am sure that everyone now appreciates that clear, simple message.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, talked about being a pro-development mayor, and we need a pro-development ministerial approach to address this crisis. The noble Baroness also talked about change being slow; in particular, she mentioned the renters reform Bill, and I look forward to the Minister’s response on that.

My noble friend Lady Taylor, while making her excellent maiden speech, made a very pertinent point: safe, secure and warm houses are essential to one’s dignity. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, repeated the idea that this is not just about buildings; it is about communities.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, made a very important point about affordability and looking at the underlying reasons behind the housing crisis. The noble Lord talked about the Oliver Letwin recommendations; can I press the Minister on whether they have been implemented? What assessment have the Government made of them?

I am afraid that the story of Awaab Ishak shows a tragic failure on many fronts. The death of Awaab was preventable; that it happened in modern Britain is unconscionable. Dangerous housing conditions are all too common. Today, we must mark a step change in the urgency shown towards safety and standards. The coroner said that the death of Awaab will and should be a “defining moment” for the housing sector. With the power and platform that the Minister has, what urgent steps will she be taking to ensure that this appalling tragedy never happens again? It should never have taken the death of a two year-old boy to get us to act on a widely accepted chronic problem in the housing sector.