Housing

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my indirect interests, which have been mentioned before in the House.

I welcome the new Minister for Housing to the role that I consider to be the most important in government outside the Cabinet. It is arguably more important than several of the recently invented roles in the Cabinet. Yesterday, we saw the end of the tenure of the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) in that office. He said that his tenure should be judged on a simple golden rule: if he delivered more homes than were delivered under Labour, he would consider himself a success. On his own test, he has failed. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) rightly drew attention to the national figures. In the south-west, the number of homes being completed is lower than in 2009, to use the year that the Minister, the former Minister and the Prime Minister have used. That figure is 7% lower this year than it was last year.

The knock-on effects are startling and shameful to behold. Statutory homelessness in the south-west is up 15% in the past year and rough sleeping up 24%. Those are the brutal consequences of a Government who, for all their bluster and sunny language, have failed to understand the nature of the housing crisis, set their aspirations low and lacked the will to deliver.

Nowhere was that better evidenced than by the Secretary of State and the former Housing Minister willingly offering a 60% cut in the housing budget in the 2010 comprehensive spending review. In its stead we have had a push-me, pull-you approach to affordable housing, with the Department for Work and Pensions reducing housing benefit while the Department for Communities and Local Government’s affordable rent model has not only made social housing unaffordable for hard-working families on low incomes but, by the DCLG’s own analysis, will increase the housing benefit bill by billions of pounds. We have heard about the bedroom tax, which is also hitting hard-working families, and the council tax benefit cut is coming. Like every other MP, I have people in my surgery who are in tears because they cannot cope with their housing situation.

The Government have lacked a joined-up, effective strategic vision for housing provision, and their aspiration of 170,000 new affordable homes is dwarfed by the 256,000 affordable homes that Labour delivered in the last Parliament despite the credit crunch and the global banking crisis. In the past two and a half years, the Government have refused to take the necessary action to deal with a crisis of their own making. The former Housing Minister talked a good talk, but for all the effective media spin, nothing substantial has happened and the numbers keep getting worse.

Labour’s call for a tax on bankers’ bonuses to kick-start the construction industry and deliver an additional 25,000 new homes was rejected by the Government, who instead chose to hand a £40,000 tax cut to millionaires. Ask any housing expert and they will say that the only way to get new homes delivered in the right place and of the right size to meet needs is to invest capital. I very much hope that the new Minister, with his understanding of construction and development and an open mind, will consider seriously how he can make the case for capital investment within the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) has given him a good starting point.

The Government continue to say that the problem is with planning. Across the country, however, there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of unused planning permissions. Those potential homes are not being built because financial backing is not in place, the banks are not lending and potential buyers cannot get a mortgage. The Government want to open the debate about greenfield land, which is a running sore on their own Benches. Government Members have raised some concerns about it today. However, people across the country whose lives are on hold will continue to pay the price. They are not just families on council waiting lists, dismayed by the Government’s decision to stop investing in new homes for social rent, but young professionals who once saw a simple route through renting to home ownership. They now find themselves in insecure rented accommodation in a sector that the Government have refused to regulate. The Government voted against our amendments to the Localism Bill last year that would have given renters greater rights and protections.

Last year, the number of homes started in Plymouth was down, and there is a 24-month build time for homes, which is not good enough. Plymouth city council recently wrote to the former Housing Minister asking for a meeting to discuss how we could invest in building 5,000 new homes, including through a significant self-build programme. I hope that the new Minister will agree to meet me and representatives of Plymouth city council. What this country needs now is not a plan B but a plan C—C for “crisis”, a crisis caused by the coalition.