Social Housing

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Siobhain McDonagh

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on his tireless work and campaigning on this incredibly important issue. I am sure that, as it is for me, 50% to 60% of the casework of every Member is on issues of social housing and the lack of it.

We can look back at Labour’s record and think that we could have and should have done more, but let us not take any criticism from those on the Government Benches. Under Labour, between 1997 and 2010, there were 2 million more homes, there were 1 million more homeowners and we saw the biggest investment in social housing in a generation. Fast forward to the present day and there are now 1.2 million people on housing waiting lists throughout the country. What was the Government’s response? Just 6,464 social homes in 2017-18—the second lowest total on record. At this rate, it will take 172 years to give everyone on the current waiting list a social rented home. That is simply a diabolical rate when compared with the 150,000 social homes that were delivered each year in the mid-1960s, or the 203,000 council homes delivered by the Government in 1953. The evidence is clear: it has been done before and it can be done again.

My constituency is in the London Borough of Merton —a borough that had just 255 lettings in the past year, including just 146 one-beds, 65 two-beds, 43 three-beds and, amazingly, just one four-bed. With figures like these, what hope do any of the 10,000 families on Merton’s waiting list have of ever finding a place to call home? I would be the first to criticise Merton for the level of importance it places on social housing—I do not believe the council concentrates on it enough or is innovative enough—but the Government cannot get away with just blaming Merton.

In 2010, George Osborne cut funding for social housing by more than 60%, leaving us reliant on private developers to provide social housing—the most expensive way to provide a social housing unit that could ever be dreamed up—or on housing associations developing on the basis of the new affordable rents. Surely we must all agree that it is a criminal act to the English language to use the word “affordable” in this context. I am not sure about other Members’ constituencies, but 80% of market rent is not affordable to the vast proportion of people in my constituency. This left housing associations with the dilemma: did they continue to endeavour to fulfil their historic mission to provide housing for people in need, placing themselves under the financial risk of having to charge those rents and to borrow so extensively on their assets; or did they simply give up the ghost? That was a really difficult choice to make and I criticise no housing association in that regard.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Some housing associations behave well and some behave badly under those circumstances. This was not only about new build, but about the conversion of more than 110,000 existing social rented homes to affordable homes, taking them out. Was that not a deliberate policy by a succession of Conservative and coalition Governments not just to not replace social housing, but to diminish the quantity of social housing?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I think that had many motives. One motive was to diminish social housing, but it had the consequence of putting housing associations at financial risk, leading to a terrible crisis and an expensive crisis. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) informed us of the amount we are currently spending on housing benefit. If we reduce grant rates, we increase the rent and simply place more demand on housing benefit.

Let me give as an example a London and Quadrant development on Western Road in Mitcham. I met my constituent, Tracey. She was desperate to move for many reasons. She had got to the top of the list. I said, “Tracey, bid for this lovely new place, which has been built by L&Q on Western Road.” She said, “I would love to, Siobhain, but the problem is that my partner and I work and the rent is £1,000 a month. We simply could not pay it.” The very people for whom these properties were intended cannot afford to rent them because they go to work.

It is people’s real experiences that motivate me to be interested in this topic. It is about the hundreds of my hard-working constituents who are living in overcrowded conditions at private sector rents that leave them with little to live on and some without even enough to eat. Those families cannot afford to get on the housing ladder. There are not enough social homes to go round. For those who do make it into the private rented sector, they are always just one step away from finding themselves without a home. Not a week goes by when I do not meet yet another hard-working family who have been evicted from their privately rented property and threatened with homelessness just because the landlord can collect more rent from somebody else.

Ms A, with her two young sons, lives in a privately rented property. She pays £1,200 a month, less than the market rent. The landlord could get £2,000 a month. Her young son found his dad dead in bed. The importance of their staying in that home is paramount: so the kids can get to school; she can get to work; and they can get the support from our local church, Saint Joseph’s. She cannot afford to lose that home. When she came to see me, she said, “Siobhain, it’s in a terrible state of repair, and the landlord just told me to think myself lucky. Will you get environmental health involved?” Over the weekend, I thought about it. I know what the consequences will be if I get environmental health involved: six months later, that lady will lose her home. My alternative is to go back to my church to see whether I can find people in that church who will do some of those repairs for her.

Another lady, Miss P, has been a tenant of her privately rented home for the past 14 years. She has never owed money. She has three children and her husband has learning difficulties and a number of health problems. She has received her section 21 notice. It has expired and she faces two years in temporary accommodation at the moment. In two years’ time, who knows how much longer she will be in temporary accommodation. She is desperate to find a property in the private rented sector, but nobody is going to rent to her and she finds it unimaginable that she is in this position.

At 7.30 last Friday, a lady and her 17-year-old son came to see me in a distressed state. They said they were a homeless family from Lewisham who had been housed in Morden for the past year. They had received a phone call that day from Lewisham to say that they must leave their property next Thursday and move miles away. So the eldest son cannot continue his A levels, the middle son cannot continue his GCSEs, and the third son is going to have to move away from his school. This is a vulnerable family who are in temporary accommodation as a result of domestic violence.

Thankfully, Lewisham has changed its mind and it is leaving the family there, but how many families are uprooted, with children having to leave their school? As other hon. Members have suggested, a housing problem is an education problem, is a mental health problem, is a family breakdown problem, is a crime problem.

I am tired of the endless reports, the countless debates, the fruitless words and the lack of action. The Government have a house building target of 300,000 new homes per year, and they cannot simply keep willing the end of more homes without finding the means to provide them. So what will it be? Will we back here at the next debate offering the same ideas and hearing even worse statistics, or will this Government finally open their eyes and see the devastating reality of Britain’s 21st century housing crisis?