Local Housing Need Assessment Reform

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you for your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) for securing the debate. I intend to keep my remarks relatively short. I want to make it clear from the outset that I am speaking not to score political points or to point a finger, but to share my experience, which I hope will be useful.

I recognise the immense challenges that local authorities, such as mine in Harlow, face. Only yesterday, housing officers, led by the wonderful Cara Stephens, supported a number of families forced to leave their homes because of fire safety concerns. The challenge is partly caused by a lack of social housing.

Before I came to this place, as well as being a local councillor, I spent two years working for a homeless charity in Harlow called Streets2Homes, so I saw the challenge from both sides. Like the hon. Member for Horsham, I saw the reliance on the private rented sector. I have raised this issue a number of times, not because I think the previous Government had any malicious intent—absolutely not—but because when they raised the housing allowance of universal credit, it led to the private sector in Harlow raising rents, which ultimately meant that the state spent more money on benefits and it just went into landlords’ pockets. I ask the Minister to consider that point.

Streets2Homes had the resource to do what local authorities often cannot: sit down with those making homeless applications and really get to the root of the problem. Clients often said to me that during the process of applying for council housing, they felt dehumanised. The lack of council housing meant that it often became a tick-box exercise for housing officers. I recognise why that is the case, but for the person applying for housing—if they face homelessness, they may be suffering a huge amount of anxiety and mental health issues—it was not suitable.

On the substantive point that the hon. Member for Horsham made about housing need and local allocation, there is cross-party agreement about the need to build council and social housing in Harlow, although there is a limit to the amount of housing we can provide. I often say that Harlow is a very small district, and it is very much built up to its borders, so would the Minister comment on how local government reorganisation will potentially impact that? I have regular conversations with the Conservative leader of Harlow council, and we both agree that we need to build housing, but Harlow is limited in where it can be.

The new standard method includes consideration of the affordability ratio and average wages. I enjoyed the maths equation from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds)—as he knows, maths is one of my favourite things to talk about. Will the Minister touch on how the method will help constituencies such as mine?

I am concerned that the increase in the cost of private sector renting means that more and more people are reliant on social housing, so there is even greater need. I did not agree with the local authority’s decision to remove band 4. In Harlow, when there is an application for a council house or a homeless application, there are four bands: 1 to 4. The administration decided to remove band 4, which I opposed, mainly because I think it just pretends that the issue does not exist. There is a need for social housing, given the increase in the cost of the private rented sector.

Permitted development, which was a quick fix by the previous Government, has had a huge impact in Harlow. I echo the points that the hon. Member for Horsham made about housing conditions. He is right to champion new towns. Harlow is a fantastic new town—I am obviously proud to represent it, and I am proud of its sense of community—but one of the issues that new towns face is that things were built at the same time, so the houses need repair and wear out, almost, at the same time. I will never again defend anything that Margaret Thatcher did, but one thing I will say about the right to buy is that it allows housing stock to go into private ownership, so that repair is not then an issue for the council. However, my issue with right to buy is that it did not replace the stock and led in part to the issue we have now.

The other issue that Harlow faces—I am just throwing them all at the Minister now—is land banking. I take the hon. Member’s point about there not necessarily being a desire to land bank, although I think there is an element of that in Harlow. Finally—I said I would not speak for very long and I have managed six minutes, so apologies for that, Mrs Hobhouse—the housing crisis is without doubt one of the biggest crises this country faces. I absolutely welcome the Government’s attempt to tackle it, and I will do everything I can to support them to do so, because I have seen at first hand the impact that a lack of housing has on my community.