Private Rented Sector

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is right. The disturbing evidence of the impact on educational attainment is associated with disturbing evidence that bad and overcrowded housing—sadly, 37% of the private sector is precisely that—has a serious impact on the GCSE results of children and therefore their lifelong earnings potential.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

On the length of tenancies, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is nothing to stop landlords and tenants agreeing longer terms? There is an institutional problem. People assume that the terms need to be six months or a year, but if we can make more people aware of the legislation, landlords and tenants should be able to agree longer terms.

[Jack Dromey]

I agree that there is an institutional barrier, but there is an absurdly short-termist culture in the private rented sector. In fairness, landlords face problems, including, for example, buy-to-let mortgages that insist that tenancies cannot be longer than a year. The question is how we achieve the security and predictability of affordable rents that I have described.

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[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why the Association of Residential Letting Agents, which represents letting agents, has been one of the most vociferous advocates of letting agent regulation, supported by the National Landlords Association, the Residential Landlords Association and the British Property Federation. There is a universal agreement in the sector that the time has come to regulate letting agents, so that in the future we do not have the practices of the past that she has detailed so graphically.

[Mark Pawsey]

rose—

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[Jack Dromey]

I am anxious for as many speakers as possible to contribute to the debate, so I want to start bringing my remarks to a conclusion.

There can be no place in future for rogue landlords. The time has come to drive them out, but the problem is not simply criminal landlords. There are also a large number of amateur landlords, who—through having inherited a property, for example—are often accidental landlords. Often well-meaning, many are unaware of their rights and responsibilities when letting out a property as a home for another. A recently publicised case illustrated the severity of the issue. It involved a young mother of two, just 33 years of age, who had made her dream move to a private rented home in Cornwall. Six days later she was found dead by her young daughter, electrocuted because of a faulty heater. The electricity had not been inspected since 1981, when the house was rewired.

Sadly, this is no surprise because, as I have said, 37% of homes in the private rented sector do not meet the decent homes standard—a greater proportion of the total stock than in any other sector. Nearly 15% of private rented homes lack minimal heat in the winter. Imagine, Mr Deputy Speaker, being unable to heat your home in this weather for even minimal warmth.

[Mark Pawsey]

rose—

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

rose—

Housing

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that England faces a housing crisis; further notes with concern that housing starts, including for affordable housing, are down, and that homelessness and rough sleeping have increased under this Government; further notes that the collapse in house building and contraction in construction are a major cause of the double-dip recession; believes that the Government needs to take urgent action to get the economy and house building going again; and calls on the Government to introduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund the building of 25,000 additional affordable homes, to bring forward infrastructure investment, including for housing, and to cut VAT on home improvements, repairs and maintenance to five per cent for one year to help homeowners and create jobs.

Let me start by welcoming the new Housing Minister, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), to his post. It is a really important job, and I am sure he will bring to it much-needed skill and insight, and I sincerely hope he will also bring a new sense of understanding and urgency. My experience from dealing with the hon. Gentleman is that he is a modest man, unlike his predecessor, who gave hubris a bad name.

As the hon. Gentleman is new to his post, it might be helpful if I set out why we are having this debate. Today, the country is gripped by the biggest housing crisis in a generation and the longest double-dip recession since the second world war. Since the spending review, our economy has shrunk by 0.6%. As a result of this Government’s twin failure on economic and housing policy, the reality is that Britain is one of just two G20 countries in a double-dip. The reality is also that this is a recession and a housing crisis made in Downing street—and is it any wonder, as the Chancellor has multiple jobs and yesterday’s Housing Minister multiple identities, and both authored worthless plans on how to bounce back from recession?

The facts are stark: house building is down, homelessness is up, private rents have hit record highs, and we have a mortgage market in which people struggle to get mortgages. The latest Government figures tell us that fewer than 100,000 homes were started in the 12 months to June, which is a 10% decrease on the previous 12 months and amounts to fewer than half the 230,000 new households being formed every year.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman care to tell us how many new houses were started in 2009?

[Jack Dromey]

As I will make clear later, I am prepared to defend our record at any time, but let me just give a few indications of our record: 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders, and over half a million new affordable homes. Also, we brought up to standard more than 1.5 million homes that were in need of decent homes investment, putting right the backlog left by the previous Government, and in 2007-08, the year before the bankers’ crash, we achieved the highest start point for new-builds in Britain at any time in the last 30 years, with more than 200,000 homes being built. When the crash came, our response was very different from what happened back in the dark days of the 1980s. Did we stand back and wring our hands? No we did not. We acted to keep people in their homes. Through Kickstart and other programmes, we took action, resulting in 110,000 homes built, 160,000 jobs safeguarded and 3,000 apprenticeships. So I will defend our record at any time.

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[Jack Dromey]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is welcome that the new Minister for Housing has taken that position. Perhaps he will follow that through in government.

Investment in the private rented sector should be encouraged. Many of the measures in the Montague report—for instance, those on the use of public land, on attracting investment and on standards in the private rented sector—are welcome. However, we strongly oppose the proposal to further water down the affordable housing requirements that councils place on developers. Those requirements enable communities and local authorities to insist on affordable homes in mixed communities. Developers simply should not be allowed to build for the well-off only.

The Government should cut VAT on home improvements, repairs and maintenance to 5% to help home owners and small businesses, and to create jobs in construction and building supplies, from glass and bricks to cement. They should also implement a one-year national insurance tax break for every small firm, including building firms, that takes on extra workers.

The Government have continued with Labour’s drive to free up public land for house building, but they must go further. Innovative deals are being done, but we believe that it is appropriate for the Government to consider schemes to provide public land to housing associations and other developers free at the point of use, with payback over time. Such schemes would overcome the problem of the initial cost of land and get affordable house building going.

I referred earlier to the way in which the Government tore up the planning system. They are now returning to fundamental reform of the planning system. It was ludicrous to blame the planning system before they reformed it. It is laughable to blame it afterwards. The Government cannot seem to make up their mind. The Chancellor said on “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday that the city of Cambridge was a good example of how the new planning framework that they introduced earlier in the year is working. Later, on “The World This Weekend” the Business Secretary used the same example to suggest that house building is being held back by the current rules. We warned of chaos and confusion on planning—that seems to have spread to the Government.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Gentleman persists in criticising the national planning policy framework. If it is not working, how does he account for the 13% increase in housing approvals over the past six months, compared with the previous six months?

[Jack Dromey]

I will come on to those interesting statistics. Under the planning system that the Government inherited, applications were overwhelmingly granted speedily and there was development land for in excess of 300,000 homes. The most recent data from the month following the NPPF’s introduction show that planning approvals fell by 37%.

The fact that homes are not being built is not the fault of the planning system. The principal problem is the failed economic and housing policies of the Government. To get Britain building again, we need to address the root cause of that failure—their failed economic plan, which has caused a lack of liquidity in the finance market, a shortage of mortgages for struggling first-time buyers, and the biggest squeeze on living standards in a generation.

Whether it is the economy or house building, the Government will always find somebody else to blame. The Chancellor blames the weather, weddings and bank holidays, and the last Housing Minister blamed the planning system and affordable housing. The truth is that the reason for the collapse in house building, the contraction in the construction industry and the double-dip recession is a failed deficit reduction plan that cut too fast.

We urge action in the motion that we have tabled. The Government’s failures in respect of housing are not just those of policy, gross though those are, but fundamental failures of leadership on an issue that is vital for the future of our country. If the Government really meant what they said about getting Britain building, they would have put housing at centre stage in their economic recovery plan and invested in it. They would have invested to build the homes that millions of families desperately need and to support those struggling to pay rent in the private rented sector. They would have invested in the future of our young people, helping them to achieve their dream of home ownership. They should be leading a real revolution in housing, building the foundations for Britain’s recovery. That is why we ask the House to vote today for real action to build Britain out of recession.