Affordable Housing: London

David Burrowes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate under your chairmanship, Sir David. It has the whiff of groundhog day about it as we regularly meet to discuss aspects of London’s housing crisis, but it is important to do so, and I very much congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on securing the debate. The truth of the matter is that this is not a static situation. Things are getting worse, so it is important that we review the changing and worsening impact of London’s housing crisis and continue both to support the new Mayor of London—as everyone from the Labour side who has contributed to the debate has done—and to press the Government for a review of the policies that are likely to exacerbate an already critical situation and try to get some support for measures to respond.

Why are things getting worse? As we have already heard, the truth is that the escalation of London house prices, driven in large part by the failure of supply, is worsening housing inequality and therefore general inequality in the city to a catastrophic degree. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) quoted a figure for rising house prices since the economic crash, but I think her figures may be slightly out of date as those I have seen today show that London house prices have risen by 91.6% since 2008-09. I do not have immediately to hand information on what London wages have done since then, but I can say that certainly at the lower end of the spectrum they have had a tendency to fall rather than rise. Therefore, despite the fact that the party in government has always traded as the party of home ownership, home ownership has actually been priced out of the reach of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, particularly in London.

There has also been continuing pressure on support for people who need assistance to rent their homes; in the private sector alone 250,000 London children are growing up in families who need assistance to pay their rent. That squeeze on housing support is continuing and deepening, and there are further reductions to come in the local housing allowance, which will also exacerbate the situation. Of course, as my hon. Friends have said, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 will have an impact.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

On the point about the LHA, I welcome the Government’s review. I hope it goes the right way and we realise the impact of the cap on supported housing. Does the hon. Lady recognise, not least in relation to Westminster, the impact on places such as Enfield of the pressure on temporary accommodation, and placements of vulnerable children with many needs? There is a need for a better, strategic way of handling such relocations. Property prices are cheaper in Enfield than they are, perhaps, in inner London. Placements of needy, vulnerable children are having an impact on outer London boroughs and there needs to be a better way of handling that across London.

[Ms Buck]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, although I am slightly baffled by the implications of his critiquing the policy of his party’s Government. I hope that the Minister is listening, because the hon. Gentleman is right.

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 will make the situation worse through reducing the stock of housing to rent; the extension of the right to buy to housing associations; the forced sale of so-called higher value properties in the social rented stock; the replacement, through planning changes, of the scope for negotiation of homes for rent in new developments with the starter homes policies; and the implications of pay to stay and fixed-term tenancies. We had many opportunities to discuss the measures and our concerns fell on deaf ears, but they are a poisonous cocktail and will only intensify London’s housing crisis.