Private Rented Sector

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Robert Neill

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee. I have much sympathy with many of his points, but I welcome his generous and well deserved tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk). I am delighted to see him in the Chamber. He did a great deal in the sector in his time as a Minister and his work is appreciated on both sides of the House.

I declare an interest—it is in the register—as owner of a single property that I let out. That puts me in the same position as many private landlords, the vast majority of whom have a small property portfolio—it is generally fewer than 10 properties. I am also interested in the debate as a London MP. The private sector is particularly important in London, where housing costs are acute. I will then deal with the last point made by the Committee Chairman, which is on recommendation 30 of the report, on rents and affordability. I welcome the Select Committee’s view that rent control is not the answer, and I also welcome its view that what is really important is increasing supply. That is certainly critical to us in London.

The Government have taken commendable steps. The establishment of the Build to Rent fund, along with the raising of that fund to £1 billion, is a tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford, and to the continuing work of his successor, the current Minister. The £10 billion in loan guarantees for the building of homes specifically for private rent is another important step. So the Government are doing a great deal, but we should be prepared to think outside the box and think about other, more imaginative ways of leveraging private as well as public money into the private rented sector.

We all know that it is important for us to produce not just good-quality homes—and the quality of private rental stock is variable—but homes that will give people a degree of stability. An interesting comment was made in the pre-Budget submission by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which pointed out that a lack of affordable housing for rent in the private rented sector, and the difficulty experienced by many people—including many young professionals in London—in moving into market housing are increasingly presenting a potential bar to London’s economic competitiveness. It quoted a designer in London—very sensibly, I think; after all, the creative industries are an important part of the economy—who said:

“When my employees see their rents shoot up, they come to me for a pay rise that I can’t afford to give them. This means I am always at risk of losing my most talented and experienced staff.”

I think that many London business people will recognise his problem.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I, too, represent a London constituency. Rent levels in the private sector are rising astronomically all the time, out of all proportion to the value of the properties involved. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that the solution must be a rent regulation scheme of some kind, possibly beginning in London? Would that not stabilise the situation, and enable us to retain the diversity and population of our city?

[Robert Neill]

Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman about rents rising in London, I do not agree with his conclusion. I do not believe that trying to manipulate the market in the way that he suggests can be a long-term solution to the problem.

Social Housing in London

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Robert Neill

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on obtaining this debate. As has rightly been observed, he has been a consistent advocate of housing issues in the Chamber. He has advocated them seriously and with great commitment, and although I do not always agree with all his analysis and remedy, I respect how he approaches these matters.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

So the Minister agrees with some of it?

[Robert Neill]

I do not want to tempt the hon. Gentleman into being too optimistic, but I do appreciate the spirit in which he raises those matters.

It has been a worthwhile debate for all London Members. I thank all hon. Members on both sides of the House who have contributed. We have heard some thoughtful contributions. In particular, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), for Battersea (Jane Ellison) and for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), who have contributed thoughtfully, as have some Labour Members. Sometimes, that standard of thoughtfulness was not consistently applied, and we have heard examples of conspiracy theories reaching almost to the delusional. However, I put that down simply to the excitement of matters elsewhere in the country at the present time.

I am a London Member, I have spent the whole of my life in London and I recognise the importance of this issue. As hon. Members said, there are particular pressures on housing in London that put it in a different category from other parts of the country. However, the affordability issues and so on are not unique to London, which is a world city. The same problems will be found, to a degree, in New York, Paris and Tokyo. However, within the UK, London is in a unique situation, and as I shall mention later, the Government are recognising that fact by devolving much more power over housing policy and housing funding to the Mayor of London, who is democratically accountable and will have, therefore, the ability to respond in a more flexible and nuanced way to the particular London demands that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton and others mentioned.

I am very conscious personally of the importance of housing. I hope that Labour Members will take this in the spirit intended. My grandfather worked in the London docks. He was born in a slum in Stepney. He started his married life in rented accommodation in Canning Town. He managed to work his way to buying the semi-detached house in which I was born. Against that background, first I do not need to be lectured by anyone about the importance of affordable and decent housing for working people in London, and secondly I recognise the issue of security of tenure. However, I hope that hon. Members will recognise that that does not mean that we should automatically go down the same route that was perhaps appropriate and effective in the past. We might need now to be more imaginative in thinking of alternative solutions and other ways forward.

Housing (London)

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Robert Neill

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone, as it was to see Mr Turner earlier. I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing another debate about housing in London. We do not always agree on the solutions, but I pay tribute to the assiduousness and seriousness with which he regularly addresses the issue. Like other hon. Members, he has raised important points with which I will endeavour to deal. This has been a wide-ranging debate, and I will do my best to pick up the detailed points made.

I accept that housing matters to everybody. It is important politically and socially. Having a home that meets one’s needs is fundamental to achieving one’s aspirations for oneself, one’s family and one’s community. I hope that that is common ground for all parties in the House, and I want to make it clear that the Government regard it as a key objective to help people to achieve those aspirations. I will deal with general issues as well as points about London specifically.

We as a Government are committed to increasing the number of houses available both to rent and to buy. That includes affordable housing, but we must be imaginative in choosing models to use. We need to consider greater flexibility in social housing to ensure best use of stock and help people stand on their own two feet. We must also consider how to protect the vulnerable and disadvantaged and address homelessness, which the hon. Gentleman fairly and properly mentioned. We want to support people to stay in their own homes.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Minister will be aware that homeless charities in London—particularly Shelter, but also the Mary Ward Centre and others—have serious financial problems at present. Their grant funding has been cut, although they are trying to retrieve it from London local authorities. The cut in housing advice provided to homeless people by those organisations is devastating and can lead to only greater homelessness. Is the Minister prepared to look into the matter, receive a delegation and consider whether extra help can be given to ensure that those vital agencies remain open?

[Robert Neill]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government will happily get in touch with the hon. Gentleman. It is worth putting it on record that we are working with the National Homelessness Advice Service to ensure that front-line advice workers have the support that they need. We have established a cross-Government ministerial working group to examine the underlying causes of homelessness and we continue to invest in the Places of Change hostel improvement programme. We are attempting to address the problem, but I appreciate the seriousness with which the hon. Gentleman raises the issue, and I will ensure that the appropriate Minister is in touch with him. I will return to the broader issues of homelessness in due course.

We make no apology for saying that home ownership is at the core of people’s housing aspirations, and it should be at the core of our policy. It is a good thing. It gives people responsibility for their own needs, financial security and confidence. I think that it is good that housing wealth now accounts for nearly half of all household wealth, up from about 25% in 1980. Some hon. Members have criticised the right to buy and related issues in this debate, but I do not apologise for the right to buy. In the 1980s, I was a parliamentary candidate twice in Dagenham, which had one of the largest housing estates in Europe. I thought that it was utterly liberating for ordinary people—good hard-working families—to have the chance to own their home. Not everybody will always manage that aspiration, but we need to make sure that it is there, that we help people in that way, and that we also assist those who, for a number of reasons, will not be in a position to meet it.

Firefighters (Industrial Action)

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Robert Neill

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It cannot be acceptable, whatever the situation or dispute, for fire engines attending to a call to be forced to pull over to the side of the road by people who have pursued them on motorbikes, in cars and sometimes in black taxi cabs, for their water tanks to be emptied to render them useless, and for equipment to be removed, and nor is it acceptable for threatening text messages to be sent to people trying to work. That is utterly unacceptable behaviour, and I am sure that every Member finds it revolting. Of course, the Government will do all they can. I know that the fire commissioner is liaising with the police commissioner. The police endeavour to give appropriate support, but of course, given the nature of things, their resources are stretched as well. I am confident, however, that the Metropolitan police will give all appropriate support to those who are working to carry out a statutory duty.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not understand the anger of firefighters—who have kept this city safe for so long, and whom we all rely on and applaud when they put fires out and make places safe—when they are sent dismissal notices and are told that they have to accept a new contract without any negotiation, and when we have a Mayor who refuses to meet them and a Minister who is apparently not even prepared to meet the Mayor to discuss a resolution? Can the Minister not use this opportunity today to send a message to the Mayor and the chair of the fire authority to meet the union now, and come to an agreement that does not involve the wholesale dismissal of loyal public sector workers who have kept this city safe for so long?

[Robert Neill]

The context of my response has already been set out. It is quite clear that the dismissal notices, which are not issued lightly, came only at the end of negotiations that have gone on for something like five years. I am not going to start lecturing the Mayor of London on how to conduct matters, particularly when the management side on the fire authority has suggested that there should be negotiations through the recognised national negotiating body on 5 November. I would have hoped that the union would take up that offer, but instead it chose to call a strike. Perhaps the best people to advise, therefore, are those in the union, who should be asked why they are not taking up the offer and getting round the table on 5 November, rather than walking out.