Housing

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Dubs for securing this very important and timely debate. As chair of Midland Heart housing association, I declare an interest.

In any introduction, formal or informal, the first two questions are nearly always the same: “What do you do?” and “Where do you live?”. Sadly, for an increasing number of our fellow citizens, the answer to those two questions is very simple: “I do nothing, I am unemployed, and I live nowhere because I am homeless. I can’t get a job because I don’t have a home, and I can’t get a home because I haven’t got a job”. We can therefore conclude that the unmet needs of housing and indeed employment are the twin barriers to social and economic progress for many.

Housing and employment defines the individual. Those two essentials of life influence where we live, the choice of schools for our children, access to public transport and, of course, access to good healthcare. But I accept that we cannot all move to Chipping Warden. They would not let me in anyway. Perhaps they think that I would frighten the horses.

A recent report from Shelter and KPMG established that we are simply failing to build enough houses to meet demand. The House will forgive me for any repetition; a lot of the figures that we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, are also available to me, because we both chair housing associations and our source of information is broadly common. We know from our individual experience that house prices almost doubled between 1995 and 2007. In recent years, we have seen no significant increase in new-build housing. While I note the Government’s Funding for Lending scheme, the only visible outcome is the incentive for lenders and the creation of a possible financial bubble in the housing market. Indeed, the noble Baroness drew attention to the comments of the Governor of the Bank of England, who warned against making policies designed to boost the housing market artificially. Boosting the housing market is important, but we also want to boost housing build.

Everyone except the Government accepts that social housing providers have a critical role to play, particularly at a time of austerity when demand continues to outstrip supply. Reports of homelessness have increased, and the Department for Communities and Local Government recently recorded that in 2011 there were more than 48,000 homeless families, with the number of households in temporary accommodation standing in excess of some 60,000. Social housing providers accept that they have a role to play, but why are they unable to meet the demands of their customers? The DCLG report shows that nearly 2 million families and more than 4 million individuals were sitting on waiting lists.

In 2012, the National Housing Federation estimated that in the West Midlands metropolitan region alone waiting lists stood at nearly 99,000. In my organisation, Midland Heart, there are more than 20,000 on our waiting list, with our lettings at no more than 2,000 per annum. The problem for social housing providers is insurmountable unless we get real action and a positive and active partnership with government.

Among housing professionals it is common ground that the Government have not taken any real, effective measures to satisfy the increase in demand in the social housing sector. Indeed, the building of new social housing has dropped during the past 12 months. The magazine Inside Housing quotes the DCLG as showing that between January and March the associations built only about 4,800 houses. That is a fall of approximately 9% on the previous quarter. However, the really bad news for those on the waiting list is that completions have decreased. The reality is that families and individuals are simply unable to access affordable housing, and existing tenants are unable to move. To cap it all, the recent welfare reforms will bring more instability and fear to thousands of families.

My organisation works with some of the most deprived and financially excluded families in the country. Unlike many other social housing providers, it knows that the welfare reform cuts will bring real hardship to many of the people we serve. While providers are taking measures to help people through changes, many of those we serve are struggling to maintain their existing tenancies due to the rise in housing costs, which has been exacerbated by the bedroom tax, as well by the increases in the cost of living due to austerity.

The latest figures available to us indicate that we are seeing a possible 2% increase in homelessness, and indeed overcrowding, for the year ahead. There is no argument or debate on current trends: overcrowding and homelessness can go only one way, and that is upwards. The housing crisis is not coming—it is here; it has arrived—and because of the bedroom tax there is no room to which Cathy can come home.