Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Dawn Butler and Sadiq Khan
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who, for the most part, made a very compelling speech. I rise to speak in an absolutely crucial debate for many Londoners. I commend the speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) on the Opposition Front Bench, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee.
There is a housing crisis in London, with a growing shortage of affordable homes to buy and rent. Precious public services are struggling to attract and retain workers, and the city’s businesses cite housing as their single biggest concern. Many Londoners are in distress over housing due to their inability to make any progress on a council housing waiting list or because of poor quality accommodation.
One of the biggest issues is the rising cost of housing to rent and buy, and, for many Londoners, buying their own home is simply a pipe dream. The average deposit to buy a place—not the purchase price—is now £100,000. That is three times the median salary of someone in inner London, and four times the salary of someone in outer London. As a result, more and more Londoners have no choice but to rent, yet rents in London have now reached an all-time high of £1,300. Rents are rising year on year, and have risen by 38% since 2010. Housing benefit spend—essentially, the taxpayer making up the shortfall between what Londoners can afford to pay and what the market is charging—increased in London from £5.3 billion in 2010 to £6.1 billion now. Add to that the Government’s welfare changes, the bedroom tax, cuts to tax credits and the lowering of the welfare cap, and that pretty toxic combination is hollowing out many inner-London boroughs. That is putting enormous strain on the social fabric of London, and increasing pressure on housing, transport and public services in many of London’s outer suburbs.
Dawn Butler
Does my right hon. Friend agree with the senior Tory who says that the right to buy will wipe out swathes of social housing?
Sadiq Khan
The Conservative leader of Westminster Council was speaking on behalf of Londoners who care about London’s social fabric and are worried about the hollowing out of our city—I wish that more Conservative Members would take up that debate. With the Bill, the Government have a real opportunity to start the process of solving this crisis, but they have flunked it. Instead of solutions, their proposals will make the problems even worse.
Let me turn to the extension of the right to buy to housing association tenants. Over recent years there has been no like-for-like replacement of affordable homes sold under the existing right-to-buy scheme. The Secretary of State could not dispute figures from his own Department that I put to him, which show that in London since 2012, only one in seven council homes sold have been replaced. How can anyone believe that it will be different this time? There is nothing in the Bill to guarantee that money must be reinvested in the local area, replacing like-for-like sold-off homes.
Some housing associations are relaxed about selling off homes in inner London and replacing them with units in cheaper parts of outer London or even further afield. That damages London’s social mix, accelerating the exodus of poorer people out of our great city, and making the affordability crisis even worse. To make matters worse, the only way the Government could fund this policy is by forcing councils to sell off the most expensive homes. In London, that means losing substantial amounts of affordable family homes, and the city’s low and middle-income families will be squeezed out to fund the sell-off of housing association homes nationwide.
Together with colleagues from across the House who want to join me, I will be fighting to retain the money from housing association and council property sales in London for Londoners. There must also be provision for like-for-like replacements in the same areas as where the properties are sold
It is not as if the Government are planning a big boost in truly affordable homes. They have put all their eggs in the starter home basket, but in London starter homes simply will not help struggling first-time buyers. With starter homes capped at a cost of £450,000, someone with a 25% deposit—that, by the way, is £98,000—would need an income of £77,000 to afford one. The Secretary of State talks about aspiration, but who exactly is he talking about?
This Bill is a missed opportunity. It will not fix London’s housing crisis; in fact it will make it worse. It will not deliver the genuinely affordable homes Londoners need to buy or rent. It will not help the councils and the Mayor to start to build the homes Londoners desperately need. It will not rein in spiralling rent rises for those in the private sector. It will not end the scandal of the homelessness problem.
Next May’s mayoral election is a referendum on the capital’s housing crisis. This Bill reinforces why that referendum cannot come soon enough.