Housing Supply

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I echo what he said about the bedroom tax, not only because of its effect on those it directly affects, but because of the attitude that it shows to the 8 million people in this country who live in social housing, which is that they are effectively second-class citizens so far as the Government are concerned. I am sorry that so many of his colleagues voted for the bedroom tax, although he did not, which is entirely to his credit.

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency is very different from mine, and I hope he will not mind if I move the subject on to London, where housing problems are writ large and are intensifying. We see that in every indication, from the gap between housing demand and supply—the gap in London is some 30% of the gap in England as a whole—to rough sleeping, which has gone up 75% in London over the past three years; that is more than twice the increase in the rest of the country. It is tempting to say that the problems are too difficult to solve, and that house building should therefore take place in areas where land values are cheaper. I am well aware of that, because the median rent for a three-bedroom property in my constituency is £550 a week, which is more than the average London wage. The average purchase price for any property is approaching £750,000, which is completely unaffordable even for those on several times the average income.

We have to address those problems, including in central London, because Government policy—and certain local policies, too—has intensified them. Local housing allowance for three-bedroom properties has been capped at £340. That is supposed to cover the bottom third of rents, but the valuation office’s up-to-date figures tell us that the lower quartile of rents in Hammersmith for a three-bedroom property is £459. The net effect of the change, and indeed of all the other changes the Government have made to benefits policy, is that it is almost impossible to find any property in the private sector that would be covered by housing benefit. We have therefore had an exodus—a process of social cleansing—that has forced people who, in many cases, have lived in London for generations out of the city, and away from where their homes, schools, jobs and families are.

That was intensified by a deliberate policy. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) for mentioning what happened at the local election in Hammersmith, which was a breath of fresh air to almost everyone who lives in the area. There was a deliberate demolition of council properties. Whole blocks of 200 or 300 good-quality council properties were held empty for six or seven years before being demolished to be handed to the private sector. Council properties were sold off as they became empty. Over the past four or five years, 500 homes have been sold that could have been used by families on the waiting list, had the waiting list not also been abolished.

I cannot understand the mentality of the Government or local councils, who want to exacerbate an already serious housing problem. I am therefore delighted that a Labour council came in, and the first thing it did on the day after the election was to cancel the demolitions and the sales. The first thing the council did at the first cabinet meeting was to say, “From now onwards we will again prioritise social rented housing, which for eight years has been excluded from the types of housing that could be constructed.”

I want to be a bit more optimistic, and talk about how we can achieve decent affordable housing in high-value areas. Our local plan envisages 50,000 new properties being built over a 20-year period. That is perhaps slightly over-ambitious, if anything, and somewhat unwise, in the sense that it means demolishing hospitals to build housing on their sites. I think that is somewhat short-sighted.

There are three opportunity areas in Hammersmith and Fulham. One is on the site that will be used for High Speed 2; it is envisaged that 24,000 new homes will be built there. The second is in White City, on the site vacated by the BBC, where it is envisaged that 6,000 properties will be built. The third is in the Earls Court and West Kensington area, where it is envisaged that 8,000 properties will be built. The problem is that under existing policies, not a single one of those almost 40,000 properties will be a social rented home. Clearly that will change with the planning policy, but many planning consents have already been given.

I draw attention to two facts. First, across London, and probably outside London, too, developers are relying on viability assessments, which are confidential documents that are not disclosed to the public, or even to councillors on most occasions. Developers typically say that they can afford to build 5% or 10% affordable housing at 80% market sale or 80% market rent. Every time that has been challenged and taken to the Information Commissioner, the documents have eventually been revealed. In the case of Earls Court, for example, we had to go to not only the Information Commissioner but the first-tier tribunal. It was only at that point that the local authorities gave in. Guess what? The viability assessments did not support the idea that there should be little or no affordable housing in those developments.

Secondly, much of these developments are on public land in the widest sense. If they are not on council-owned land or Government-owned land, they are on land owned by the BBC, Network Rail or Transport for London. If we cannot build decent affordable housing on publicly owned land, we are saying to developers, “In those cases, you can also get away with building 95% market housing.” In inner London, that means that properties are for sale abroad, off-plan. Most properties currently being built in my constituency are advertised on websites in the far east, Russia and elsewhere. One-bedroom and two-bedroom properties begin at £1 million-plus. Those properties are not affordable to anyone, by any means, which is why there is effectively a coalition between those who need social rented homes and those who could afford quite a lot on the private market. All my constituents say to me, “When will the Government act to ensure that houses are built that are affordable for the people who live and pay taxes in this country?”

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

If I am following the hon. Gentleman’s logic correctly, he is arguing for scrapping the ability of developers to vary section 106 agreements on the basis of a project’s financial viability. Is that the Labour party’s policy? Does he not understand that that may well reduce the overall supply of affordable housing?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am asking for the viability assessments to become transparent, open documents, so that everyone can see where the truth lies. I am also asking for Conservative local authorities to stop colluding with developers to drive out affordable housing for their own political, economic and ideological motives. That is what is happening across London, and I am sure outside London, too. I support exactly what Michael Lyons said yesterday at the LGA conference, which is that if local authorities are going to act in that way, there has to be an impetus to build more social housing, and that has to be in addition to any revival in the private housing market.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East that we do not want to change things back to exactly how they were, but the four principles that the Government have relied on need to be reversed. They have cut capital investment in housing, reduced security of tenure and almost eliminated affordability, certainly in London, and now they are refusing to determine on the basis of need how housing should be allocated. That is more than a generational step back. Frankly, those are not housing policies that any Government should support. I hope that when my hon. Friend is Housing Minister, she will reverse them.

Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

The hon. Gentleman can make his point in his own time.

Labour’s legacy was somewhat different from that of the Thatcher and Major Governments. The current Government published statistics that show that over the last Parliament, there was a 43% reduction in first-time youth offenders—down from 107,040 per annum to 61,387. As a result, there was a 34% reduction in offences committed by young people, down from 301,860 per annum to 198,449. As a result of that, there was a 15% reduction in young people in custody, down from 2,830 to 2,418. That trend has continued to date. Those are long-term changes in behaviour, in opportunity and diversion from criminality, not the quick-fix methods of trying to shave numbers off the prison population that the Justice Secretary favours.

Youth offending teams—multi-agency partnerships embedded in local authorities—dealt with young offenders from arrest to court to managing their punishment in the community or the securest date for reintegration. As the teams bedded down in their core statutory functions, the previous Government added prevention work to their remit and resourced them with expertise on gang behaviour and restorative justice. We also gave them considerable latitude for innovation to allow for the development of new ideas and local solutions. At the same time, we created the Youth Justice Board to ensure that places in custody were commissioned efficiently and effectively to co-ordinate best practice among YOTs.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Would the hon. Gentleman care to explain why Labour Administrations, in 13 years, lamentably failed to deal with key prisoner issues such as literacy, numeracy, health and mental health? When we had benign financial circumstances and a growing economy, they failed the general public and prisoners.

[Mr Slaughter]

That would be a good point, if it were true. My colleagues and I visit prisons and young offender institutions around the country, every week and every month, and see excellent education work, and vulnerable and damaged young people gaining skills. We also see YOTs at work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is committing himself to the coalition in perpetuity in making those comments, but he knows the answer to his question, because the shadow Home Secretary set it out very clearly. We would have made cuts, but we would not have made 20% cuts, and we would not have made the cuts in front-line police officer numbers that are happening everywhere, but particularly, as I can attest, in London.

We need options for judges; we need prison places, which, as we know, are already at crisis level; and we need community sentencing. Every probation service and YOT can name at least one community sentencing project that has had to shut down in the face of cuts, and that is without looking at the cuts in youth services that divert young people away from crime and anti-social behaviour.

The Secretary of State and his Ministers talk a lot about restorative justice, and we have heard about it today. Restorative justice can indeed be transformative justice. As compared with control groups, those sentenced to restorative justice see falls of between 10% and 50% in reoffending. However, despite its success in Northern Ireland, the Government will not resource restorative justice conferencing.

The Opposition support effective alternatives to custody, but where are they? If magistrates and judges do not have the option of, or the confidence in, community punishment, they will be forced to impose custodial sentences. Cutting probation service, YOT and community justice budgets to the extent, and at the speed, that this Government are doing will fatally undermine their plan to reduce detention numbers.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the hon. Gentleman answer a direct question? If he is not in favour of a 20% cut in police numbers, and, assuming that he would ring-fence any savings or cuts within the criminal justice system, how would he make up the difference between the 12% cut in police numbers that he would make to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, and the 20% cut that the Government are proposing? Where would that 8% come from in the criminal justice system?

[Mr Slaughter]

I hope that I have answered all questions directly. The hon. Gentleman is asking about an alternative Budget. He is asking what a Labour Government would do differently. We have made it clear that we would not ask police forces around the country to take a 20% cut. That will result in falling police numbers and an increase in crime, but as always the Lord Chancellor seems completely complacent about the idea that we are in a recession and therefore that crime will go up. We were in a recession in 2008-09 but crime was still falling.