Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Dawn Butler and Alan Brown
Alan Brown
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong about the quality standard. In my local authority, all houses bar a few that have exemptions meet the quality standard in Scotland.
In Scotland, we have built nearly 6,000 council houses in the same period that Labour built six. The records of the SNP and Labour are incomparable. There might still be people on council house waiting lists, but by building many more houses than Labour did, we are clearly moving in the right direction to tackle that.
In this Parliament, 30,000 affordable homes will have been built in Scotland under the SNP Government. We are aiming to increase that to 50,000 in the next term. We are certainly doing our best to tackle housing waiting lists.
In my opinion, right to buy has had its time. In Scotland, the SNP Government have legislated to take it away for council houses. That has clearly had an impact on waiting lists in Scotland, which the shadow Minister talked about, because it allows greater stock retention.
Government Members have been shouting about home ownership. As a point of interest, my parents bought their council house under right to buy, so I know that people have benefited from it and I have seen what happens. People who buy their homes take pride in them. I know that that has happened over the years. The policy was right at the time, but we now see the problems that have arisen. Initially, all the money went to central Government and was not used for stock replacement. That is why we have the problems that we have today.
In many areas, large family houses have all but disappeared from the stock because of the right to buy. As we have heard, it has led to an increase in private renting to compensate for the lack of social housing. That drives up housing benefit costs. It is therefore counterproductive to extend the right to buy to social landlords, because it will keep that vicious circle going.
A study by Glasgow University estimated that the right to buy cost £3 million a year in Renfrewshire in extra housing benefit. The same is true in England, where up to 40% of the flats that were sold under right to buy are now in the buy-to-let market. This is a UK-wide issue and it will only get worse with the proposed extension of the right to buy to social housing.
Another unintended consequence of the previous right-to-buy policy is that couples who bought their houses many years ago, including my parents, might end up living in a house that is unsuitable for their needs when they are elderly. There is a risk that people will be trapped in their houses because not enough social housing is available for them to move to, or because priority for those new council houses that are being built is given to people who already live in council houses so that there is a through flow. Houses are not always suitable for the needs of the people who stay in them.
As a councillor, I have also seen unintended consequences relating to the common repairs to, and upgrades of, tenement properties. When people buy such properties, the title deeds say that they are responsible for shared repairs and other upgrades. That all seems fine when they sign on the dotted line, but people often object when councils want to do work to the property. That is a particularly big problem with buy-to-let landlords who take over properties, because all they want is a return on their money. They do not want to shell out any more money than they need to, so they obstruct upgrades to properties. Some housing schemes whose properties require external rendering are left with a patchwork-quilt effect because private owners and buy-to-let landlords will not pay the money for the upgrades.
I have highlighted some of the problems that I have seen as a result of the right to buy council stock. Why would we want to repeat the exercise with social landlords? The Secretary of State keeps mentioning one-for-one replacement, but that proposal is as flawed as the maths accompanying the policy.
It is estimated that the right-to-buy discount payable to housing associations will be £10 billion to £12 billion. This is another area where the debate can be too polarised. The Government propose to cut £12 billion from the welfare budget—we have had a debate about tax credits—yet at the same time they want to make available a £10 billion to £12 billion taxpayer subsidy for people to buy the homes in which they already live. I ask Members to think of the difference that money would make if it were put directly into house building. It would create more homes, help drive down the cost of private renting and create more jobs. Those homes would also be more energy efficient, which would help hard-pressed families make their budgets go further.
On the maths accompanying the policy, the property agent Savills reckons that the Government have overestimated the average house price value and, therefore, the income it will generate. Councils therefore face the risk of having to pay more money than they will recover.
It is also a flaw that there is no guideline on how the one-for-one replacement will be managed in terms of house type, and there is no absolute requirement to provide a replacement in the same area. The housing policies of councils and local housing associations should be based on need and demand, but under the Bill they will be target driven and replacements might not be built on a like-for-like basis. Family homes could be sold off and there is a risk that decisions will be fudged and that they will be replaced by smaller units. That does not do anything for long-term housing need.
Dawn Butler
Westminster City Council, which is next door to the Prime Minister’s favourite borough, has a very wise leader who states that right to buy could wipe out swathes of social housing and that because of this Bill
“we will not be able to house the people that we need to house.”
Alan Brown
That is the risk I am highlighting, so I completely agree with that intervention.
Despite the Government’s bluster, if we look at the number of new build starts compared with the number of right-to-buy sales, we will see that their track record shows that one-for-one replacement has not worked. The SNP’s record in Scotland shows that completion rates for both private and social housing are much higher than those for the UK as a whole.
As a councillor, I have seen the benefits of targeted council house building in a locally led strategy. I have seen brownfield regeneration, town centre living to encourage vibrancy on their peripheries and—this is important to me—special needs housing and housing designed for the elderly ambulant. Such house building can be life changing for the new tenants, and it is heart-warming to hear the stories. We can talk about statistics and targets, but behind them there are real people and families who need houses. That is the most important thing. Another indirect consequence of a better housing strategy would be the health benefits—less bed-blocking ultimately means NHS savings—while more energy-efficient homes lead to healthier, wealthier families.
As I said, social housing will reduce housing benefit costs, so we would greatly appreciate it if the Minister considered devolving housing benefit in the Scotland Bill, as it would give the Scottish Government the risk and the reward in terms of house building. If we built more houses, we could reduce housing benefit and get more money back to recirculate. I would appreciate it, therefore, if he had a word with the Secretary of State for Scotland.
It is ironic that housing associations were originally seen as an ideal mechanism for keeping debt off the national balance sheet. We have already mentioned the ONS reclassification and the fact that this could become public debt. The Conservatives have argued that we need to reduce the debt in order to save future generations—it is the argument for cutting welfare—so it seems strange that a central plank of their strategy is to use taxpayers’ money to help people to buy their properties while forcing additional lending on to councils so that they can build replacement homes. Some of the economics do not add up, so I ask the Government to think again.