Housing: Impact on Child Development

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to respond to this brief but important debate. It is also notable that we are having two debates on housing back to back on a Thursday. This may tell us how important the issue has become, not just in the lives of politicians, but in the country as a whole.

It is a pleasure to engage with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, on her first day out. She has certainly been put to work on day one of the new brief. I am sorry not be facing her across the Dispatch Box on DWP matters any more, but she has already noticed that although she has moved she has failed to escape the expert and determined ministrations and opposition of my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, who is following her wherever she goes.

I am delighted to respond to this debate put down by my noble friend Lady King of Bow. I know that she will be disappointed not to be here, but she will be assiduously reading Hansard. When she next goes back, she can look her former constituents in the eye, having raised in the House of Lords those issues that she saw so early on in her political career. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Kennedy, who is doing double duty by staying on after his own debate on housing to introduce this debate so effectively.

At the heart of this debate is a moral issue. We are a developed country, rich by global standards, whose children should be able to live in homes that are fit for human habitation. It is, or should be, part of the social contract that we have with our citizens that families can expect to have a secure, warm, decent home to call their own is or should be part of the social contract that we have with our citizens. Thinking about this debate, I was reminded of the promise made by Lloyd George, almost 100 years ago, of “homes fit for heroes”, and I am sorry to see the Lib Dem Benches empty today. I was thinking of that coalition a century ago and wondering whether today’s coalition might have aspirations even a fraction as ambitious as those of that coalition Government so long ago.

In 2013, it is sad to think that we are still hearing so many horror stories, as my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton put it so well, of children’s home lives. We have heard a compelling case today from all the speakers about the impact of poor quality housing has in damaging outcomes for children. Many speakers have developed the themes that describe graphically the impact on children’s physical and mental health, their educational outcomes and their aspirations for the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lord Touhig were very clear in setting out the impact on a child’s mental as well as physical health. This is something that we need to take very seriously.

My noble friend Lord Graham gave us those very worrying statistics from that rather impressive Shelter report about the risks to children. They are twice as likely to have poor health and asthmatics are twice as likely to live in a damp house. The report looked at the impact on children who live in temporary accommodation and at how much they suffer. The worry must be not just that these illnesses affect these children in childhood, but that these conditions follow them through into adulthood. There is a scarring effect on both the physical and mental health of children, and on their achievement, that goes right through into their adult lives.

We have also heard some horror stories about the impact on parents and children of living in an overcrowded home. I was shocked by the statistic from Caritas shared by my noble friend Lord Touhig. The idea of 20,000 families in London living in single rooms should be genuinely shocking to all of us. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and my noble friend Lord Touhig looked at some of the impacts of living in crowded accommodation: disturbed sleep, poor diet, and we know that children are more likely to have behavioural difficulties such as hyperactivity or aggression. Living in a tight space is stressful; children are more likely to have stress-related problems such as bed-wetting and soiling. Overcrowding affects family relationships as well as the mental health of both parents and children. It is challenging to keep happy and cheerful when your housing is insecure or your home or succession of homes is inadequate, damp or simply inappropriate.

Low aspirations are common for children in poor housing. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, about how complex it is to understand the inter-relationship of factors. However, the evidence is pretty strong about the connection between housing and aspirations and outcomes. Even if we think about ourselves, how many of us would be confident that we could maintain morale and raise the aspirations of children if we were one of a couple raising two kids in a one-bed flat in a high rise building in a very hostile environment? I was also very glad to hear the comments made by various noble Lords, my noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lord Graham in particular, about the impact on children’s educational development and standards. I was very worried to hear the idea that children are five times more likely to have no quiet space for homework. Has anyone told Mr Gove? This must be rather worrying. We put such an emphasis as a country on the importance of homework and of children being given homework, and yet some of our own children are unable to do it because they do not have the space.

Children are missing school because of the ill health that is associated with bad housing, as we heard earlier. I also wish to highlight the difficulties caused by children who experience disruption to their schooling caused by moving homes, a point that was touched on by my noble friend. It is a particular problem for the 1.2 million families who live in the private rented sector, where the tenancies tend to be short. Moving repeatedly can cause children to miss more school, and as we heard earlier, parents can become depressed and the children insecure.

We have heard some real horror stories, but I was very moved to hear my noble friend Lord Graham describe how he was unable to go on to secondary school because his father was unemployed. Like my noble friend Lord Touhig, I find it a real privilege to hear him share his experience with us. I can only say to him that if his father is looking down now he must be so proud of what he has done and what he has come to, as indeed we all are to be sharing these Benches and, I am sure, this Chamber with him.

As well as hearing horror stories about specific cases, the truth is that we are living through the biggest housing crisis of a generation. Families are struggling to afford decent homes because of the combination of the crisis in living standards and the simple lack of housing. This debate has surfaced two or three key issues which I will be grateful if the Minister would respond to. First, on the point I just raised about the insecurity for children and families, tenancies in the private sector last on average 19 months. Many of them, of course, as a condition of the mortgages given to those who own them, are limited to a maximum of 12 months. However, families with children now make up a third of renters, so some solution has to be found to enable families with children to have longer tenancies, because the welfare of their children depends upon it. Will the Minister tell the House what the Government propose to do to ensure more secure tenancies for families?

Secondly, all noble Lords raised the issue of the quality of the housing stock, again, especially in the private rented sector. The consequences—the outcomes for children—have been very clear. However, we also know that some landlords are making plenty of money but are failing in their responsibilities to invest in maintaining their properties to a decent level. With so many new people entering the buy-to-let market, what are the Government doing to inform them and to enforce the responsibilities of landlords, and what are they doing to ensure that rogue landlords are tackled properly?

The broader issue of the role of local authorities in this area was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. I shall be interested to hear how the Minister responds to her. I also wonder whether she has had the opportunity to look at the work of local authorities such as Newham, which has sought to tackle the problem of rogue landlords and poor quality housing head on, by measures such as establishing licence arrangements, fining unlicensed providers, setting clear expectations and standards and improving enforcement. Newham has found that families moving into the borough seeking cheaper housing has caused quite a lot of churn, so it has also been trying to find ways of supporting stability in those communities, to improve the quality of life for families. However, those problems cannot be tackled locally, so will the Minister please tell us what the Government are doing at a national level?

Finally, the biggest question is: what are the Government doing about the desperate shortage of housing in this country? I arrived at the end of the previous debate just in time to hear the Minister share a positive barrage of housing statistics, and I am sure that she will not want to repeat them. However, I shall simply put one statistic on the table: the number of households in England is projected to rise by more than 230,000 each year, yet David Cameron has presided over the lowest level of housebuilding of any peacetime Prime Minister since the 1920s.

I know what the next Labour Government will do to turn that round; we have been very clear about this. We are committed to increasing the supply of new homes by 200,000 a year by the end of the next Parliament. We will give councils “use it or lose it” powers to stop land hoarding, we will build the next generation of new towns and we will support communities that want to grow. We have asked Sir Michael Lyons to chair a housing commission to draw up a road map for delivering on these promises. But for the sake of this country, and of all those children we have heard about, I do not want to wait until May 2015 to see some action. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what the Government will do right now.