Housing Association Tenants: Complaints Mechanisms

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Western

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to have been granted this debate.

I hope that it is fairly uncontroversial to state that everyone, regardless of their tenure, has the right to live in a decent, good-quality home. In recent weeks we have seen a litany of damning stories about the quality of housing provision in this country. No doubt there is poor-quality housing in every type of tenure, but social housing appears to be at the brunt end of this crisis of quality, although I might also mention one or two other areas. One in eight homes in the social housing sector fails the decent homes standard, which the Government website describes as

“setting the minimum standards that social homes are required to meet”.

Even by that lowest of bars, a combination of housing associations, successive Governments and construction companies are failing social tenants. It is a damning indictment of the state of the UK’s current social housing stock, and, unfortunately, the situation hardly looks likely to improve. Compared with 17% of tenants in the private rental market, 26% of social tenants report being dissatisfied with the way in which their landlords carry out repairs and maintenance. I think the House will agree that those are striking statistics.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for raising this issue. Does he agree that Government housing benefit funds are going to companies which are not taking care of their tenants, and that that is a problem not only for the tenants but for the Minister and the House, given that accountability is essential and the complaints procedures must be fit for purpose before any housing benefit is granted?

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The trouble is that there is almost a vacuum at present. I am sure that what I am pressing for would carry a great deal of weight throughout the House were it better populated at this time of night.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ own English Housing Survey reveals that 43% of tenants—just under half the total—choose not to make a complaint because of the hassle and time involved, and 63% are then unhappy with the response. I apologise to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for not having the statistics relating to Northern Ireland, but perhaps he can look into that and share them with me at some point.

Many of the cases that I want to highlight this evening stem from the deep dissatisfaction felt by many social tenants. They are all constituents of mine, but I have no doubt that the issues raised this evening will resonate with many beyond the borders of my constituency.

Last Friday I met a constituent from a development operated through Stonewater housing association who finds himself bearing the brunt of a completely inadequate complaints mechanism. Eight years after my constituent moved in, no work had been carried out to address several persistent structural issues in the property. Eventually, Stonewater carried out improvements which cost £330,000 and charged 24 properties in the building for the work, equating to just under £14,000 each. Stonewater has given each resident until the next financial year to pay the full amount, despite much of the work being substandard or unfinished. Disappointingly, Stonewater has not yet responded to complaints about its remedial work, and my constituent is left with a substandard set of repairs and an enormous, looming bill.

In another—particularly worrying—case, a 95-year-old constituent was living in a property managed by Orbit Housing Association. It was covered in damp. The walls were so wet that my constituent’s grandson claimed that the support bars she used to get on and off the toilet could have given way. Partly owing to significant damp arising from a leak upstairs, one evening the bathroom cabinet fell off the wall and narrowly missed hitting my constituent. Orbit had previously visited the property and added some new paint and sealant, but had not addressed the underlying problem of the damp.

When I visited the property myself, a month on, the issues remained. Seeing the nature of my constituent’s accommodation—including the bathroom in which this 95-year-old was having to survive—I was in a state of shock. Short of refitting the whole bathroom, the repairs were simply a sticking plaster, leaving my constituent in a home totally unfit for a frail 95-year-old woman.

I could go on, because the issues identified in those two developments are not strictly limited to social housing tenants. I have heard from residents in affordable housing, new-build developments and right-to-buy properties, all of whom are suffering similar problems with raising complaints.

Unfortunately, the issues I have just highlighted seem to represent yet more consequences of a failed housing market and permanent underinvestment. Over the past decade, money has been directed away from secure, affordable social homes to unaffordable homeownership products. Investment in social housing has dropped from £13.7 billion in 1979-80 to £5.1 billion last year, based on today’s prices, with 79% of spending up to 2020-21 reserved for the private sector. Is it any wonder, therefore, that housing developers are making record profits, with limited mechanisms to hold them to account?

I understand that the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill currently going through the House provides one potential avenue through which the social housing sector can be reformed. Many of the changes proposed in the Bill are broadly welcome, if not long overdue. I am pleased that the Government recognised the need for a professionalised social housing sector in their social housing White Paper in 2020. A professionalised housing sector, with managers undergoing continuous professional development, will likely improve services, allowing residents to be treated with the care and respect they deserve when lodging complaints. I also understand that in the Lords the Government tabled a new clause to the Bill on professional standards, and that they are considering further changes on Report.

If the Department is working on this, what specific steps is the Minister taking to improve the complaints mechanisms available to social housing tenants, either in further amendments to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill or otherwise? Likewise, what progress, if any, has the Minister made on reversing the 63% dissatisfaction rate with the complaints process identified in her own Department’s English housing survey? Will the Minister meet me to discuss the difficulties that my constituents are facing and to allow them to feed in their suggestions for how the process can be improved?

Randolph Turpin

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Western

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this significant debate. It may seem that to talk about Randolph Turpin is to talk about a parochial sporting hero, but I hope to demonstrate just how much he helped to transform British sport.

Seventy years ago this week, Randolph Turpin took the world of boxing by storm as more than 18,000 spectators packed into Earls Court in London to witness the great—the legendary—Sugar Ray Robinson end his European tour. The scene was set for Turpin to show the world what he was made of. After a pummelling 15 rounds, Turpin triumphed. He was the world middleweight champion—the first British fighter to hold the title since Bob Fitzsimmons some 60 years earlier in 1891, and the first ever black British boxer do so.

More colloquially known as the Leamington Licker—a title that many in the constituency are proud to recall—the local Leamington lad shot to international fame overnight. But Turpin’s 1951 victory was not just a flash-in-the-pan event; his entire career was based on breaking records. He was the first and only man ever to win both the junior and senior British amateur boxing titles in one year, and his record stretched to a stunning 66 wins out of 75 fights. For some of that time, he boxed while serving in the Royal Navy at the end of the second world war.

Our knowledge of his achievements and their recognition owes much to the work of the Randolph Turpin Trust. I pay special thanks to its chair, Adrian Bush, whose dedicated work helped to lead to the erection of the statue of Randy that stands proudly in Warwick town centre. It took five long years to raise the money for the statue, and I commend the trust members for their perseverance. It was they who organised for proper recognition by those who understood his true achievement.

The fact that the statue was unveiled by some of boxing’s greats—including Our ’Enry, the late, great Sir Henry Cooper—and attended by Earnie Shavers, Richie Woodhall, Alan Minter, Neil Simpson and Danny McAlinden, tells us everything we need to know about Randy Turpin, a sporting legend among sporting legends. It is the only statue that stands in the centre of Warwick, which is why I believe this Chamber is a fitting place to remind ourselves of and recognise and continue to remember Randy’s legacy on the 70th anniversary of that momentous fight. I do not believe this country has fully appreciated what he or his brother achieved.

Behind every great sportsman is, of course, a dedicated, loving and supportive family, and Randy’s was no exception. Born in Leamington Spa in 1928, Randy was the youngest of five siblings. He was the son of Lionel Turpin, who came to these shores from what was then British Guiana to fight in the first world war.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate to the House. Whenever anybody mentions the Somme, I am always reminded that it is a very special place for us in Northern Ireland. To know that Randy’s father fought at the Somme tells us a lot about the person he was and the person his father was as well. I want to say how pleased we are that the hon. Gentleman has brought this debate to the House to recognise not just Randy’s sporting heroics but the bravery of his dad at the Somme.

[Matt Western]

Lionel was indeed courageous fighting in the battle of the Somme, but sadly he died some years later having sustained permanent damage to his lungs. Together with hundreds of others, he had been the victim of a gas attack. As is so often the case, his sacrifice is barely recognised, together with those of so many other nationals who served the British empire.

It was left to Randy’s mother Beatrice to raise him and his four siblings, taking on part-time domestic work to provide for them. Beatrice was the daughter of a former bare- knuckle fighter and was by all accounts a feisty woman who would tell her children to stand up for themselves when they were subjected to racial abuse.

Sporting success in the Turpin family did not stop at Randy; indeed, his elder brother Dick Turpin, the first black British and Commonwealth middleweight champion in 1948, paved the way for black Britons throughout the country to compete on the same stage as white Britons for the first time. If we accept that Randy and Dick broke the colour bar in the boxing arena—as it was described at that time—the current success of British boxing owes a lot to their work.

When I talk of the successes of British boxing, I only need to mention Anthony Joshua, Chris Eubank, Lennox Lewis and others. None of those great athletes would have had the chance to reach the heights they did were it not for Dick and Randy Turpin breaking through the glass ceiling of race.

School Closures: Support for Pupils

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Western

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for pupils’ education during school closures.

May I congratulate you, Dame Angela, on your new status, which is well deserved? Thank you for chairing the debate this morning. Yesterday, it looked as though it might not proceed because of the uncertainty over Westminster Hall debates, so I thank the House authorities and all the staff for being present here today to enable this sitting to happen. I hope that good sense will prevail later today over future arrangements.

I start by paying tribute to the extraordinary professionalism and commitment of the teaching staff and senior leadership teams in all our local schools and colleges. Like our health professionals, they are very much frontline workers and have worked relentlessly during the past 10 months. In today’s debate, it is essential that we recognise the importance of schools in addressing the inequality gap.

It is estimated that in the first lockdown some 575 million learning days were lost; the average loss was 65 days per pupil. All of us, having been through the education system, can think back to those days and recall a particular piece of information being imparted by a teacher and how that registered with us. We can also think of the days that we missed when others attended school and what we subsequently learned from them. We felt a sense of loss that we were not there to participate, so the fact that children and young people could have lost 65 days is of course quite significant for their future development.

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, concluded in her report in December that just five days had been lost on average across schools in the autumn term, but in some places it may have been up to 10 days. Certainly in Warwickshire, primary schools on average saw 92% attendance, state secondary schools averaged 82% and special schools averaged 80%. But just looking at the autumn term, we see indications quite early on that the trends were concerning. By the week ending 16 October, some 400,000 children were off school, with 50,000 estimated to have covid and the remainder self-isolating, and by the last week of November, 1 million children were out of school. At one secondary school in my constituency, just 63% were physically present.

Of course that has a disproportionate impact, as the Children’s Commissioner said. It has considerable consequences for children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that is particularly concerning when the UK has one of the worst levels of inequality in the developed world, as highlighted by the United Nations interlocutor in his report back in 2019. We have 4.2 million children living in poverty, 600,000 more than in 2010, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, so even before the pandemic, UK schools faced considerable challenges.

With the introduction of the third lockdown, we are seeing more children being sent to school than attended during the first lockdown. The figures that we have show attendance of between a quarter and a third of pupils in school; that compares with 10% to 15% in the first lockdown. A main driver has been the change to the definition of what constitutes a critical worker, or what is necessary attendance, putting schools in the difficult position of having to assess this on a case-by-case basis. Parents are also having to make decisions based on financial demands rather than the guidance. A headteacher in my constituency believes it is an absolute scandal. They quoted the Department for Education, which states that

“we are reducing overall social contact across…the country rather than individually by each institution”,

which is leading to the overloading of our schools and their acting almost as care workers for younger people to support that.

The much higher attendance rates have resulted in staff being in school when they should be teaching from home. If teachers are delivering face-to-face learning to a blended age group of pupils and are expected to provide digital content, they are effectively doubling their workload. In turn, schools are having staffing issues due to illness and the need to self-isolate, and often the staff themselves face childcare issues. The other principal driver of the increased numbers in school is that those without laptops or space to study are now eligible to attend school. That has led to unions such as the National Association of Head Teachers highlighting how the high numbers will simply undermine the purpose and effectiveness of the shutdown itself. That is why online learning and the tools to enable it are so crucial.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I also add my congratulations to you, Dame Angela, on becoming a dame? I did not know until just now. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me a chance to intervene. Does he not agree that in rural constituencies such as mine in Strangford, where broadband connection is a massive issue, steps need to be taken to ensure that every child has access to stable connections to be able to learn remotely, and, if not, there must be a place for them in schools with functioning broadband? If we have to have an alternative, we need a system in place that enables that to happen.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who always makes such valid points. I will cover that issue in a moment, but he is absolutely right. Access to broadband internet is an essential provision and should be a part of our critical infrastructure so that every household has it. Whether someone is working or studying from home, it is as important as getting gas, electricity or water to the household.

It has been clear from the outset that with the majority of children removed from school and college settings, there is a huge challenge in delivering educational learning in terms of both channel and approach, both from the delivery and the receiving end. According to Ofcom, up to 1.78 million children in the UK—about 9%—do not have access to a laptop, desktop or tablet at home. Almost 900,000 of those live in a household with just a mobile internet connection.

According to the education charity Teach First, four in five schools with the poorest pupils are hit the hardest and do not have enough devices and internet access to ensure that those self-isolating can continue to learn. However, recent Government announcements have been more positive, including that on 560,000 laptops and tablets, and a further 300,000 were announced yesterday. That is welcome. Perhaps the Minister will confirm the Department’s total cumulative number since March and April against the objective of 1.78 million.

The move by Three UK, followed by British Telecom, Vodafone and many others, to provide free data and unlimited broadband in support of the hardware is also very welcome and should be applauded. But why did it take the Government so long? Why did they dither and delay when the need was there from March last year? The initial announcement in April, when the Government stated that they would seek to ensure that disadvantaged pupils would benefit from free laptops or tablets, was immediately challenged by the Good Law Project, a legal campaign group, which said that the numbers announced were a “drop in the ocean”. The group went on to say that it found the lack of details about the scheme troubling as only a small subset of pupils would benefit.

Back in June I raised the issue with the Minister’s Department in a written question and I followed it up in the Chamber. In reply to my written question I was told that 200,000 laptops and tablets had been ordered on 19 April. However, a Government document entitled “Devices and 4G wireless routers data: Ad-hoc Notice: Laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers for disadvantaged and vulnerable children: progress data”—Members may not have seen that report—stated:

“The first devices were ordered on 15th May, and the first devices were dispatched on 18th May.”

It is still not clear to me what happened, and which was true. Was it 19 April or 15 May? It certainly seems that the Government were slow to react to the challenge and to recognise the ongoing need.

At the same time, in Warwickshire, I was told that 1,463 laptops had been requested, but that by early July only 45 had been received. By 1 June the Government had certainly missed their target of delivering 230,000 laptops and tablets. On 21 October the Secretary of State said that he would deliver 500,000 laptops, noting that 200,000 had already been delivered, but by early November the Government had announced that they had slashed the allocation of Government-promised laptops for the poorest and most vulnerable children across the country by a staggering 80%. My question to the Minister is why the number was reduced. Why was that announcement made?

As I say, more recent announcements have been more positive, but for schools in my constituency there is clearly a long way to go. In Warwick and Leamington, on average, 17% of pupils do not have access to digital equipment or broadband for home working. In the absence of Government support, 83% of schools, according to my own survey, have provided laptops out of their own funds. Those are hard-pressed funds in schools. One primary school that will remain nameless confided that it has almost 50 children without devices, and has received just four in total.

Of course it is all too easy to think of the issue as about purely the supply of laptops, but even when a household has a device and internet access that does not mean that the pupil can make use of them, because of such factors as low parental computer literacy, parents who work from home needing to use the device, school- age siblings also needing to use it, or simply access to broadband capacity. Perhaps there may also be a lack of access to printers or other hardware in the household. That is all understandable. For many there is simply the problem of broadband or mobile internet access, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. In particular, there are certain buildings in remote rural areas where mobile signals are limited.

Finally there is the question of content support. It is worth highlighting this week’s positive move by the BBC to deliver an education offer to children, teachers and parents through CBBC and “BBC Bitesize Daily”, while BBC2 will provide programming aimed at supporting the GCSE curriculum. That is all immensely welcome and will complement greatly the online teaching that is being facilitated through Oak National Academy and other providers such as the website Hungry Little Minds. Naturally, there is also a need to deliver online teaching, which in turn leads to demand in relation to training needs for the delivery of the new channel for learning.

Many schools are also reporting significant financial pressures. In the survey that I conducted across Warwick and Leamington during the autumn term it was apparent that there were immediate and significant costs—operational costs, but also a need for capital support. As for operating costs, a couple of primary schools faced additional costs of £20,000, but the average figure across the board was something like £13,000, or £1,400 per month—the additional cost of sanitising, cleaning, and ensuring that the physical environment is safe and usable for pupils and teaching staff alike. However, all schools reported a significant unmet staffing need because of budget limitations, and 83% stated that they had faced staffing shortages.

Schools also said that there was a greater need for them with respect to their responsibility for protecting children and ensuring their general wellbeing, and while mental health is of course a particular and obvious concern, there is also the issue of the increased risk of harm to children. According to a report for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in the first lockdowns there was a 22% increase in the number of counselling sessions relating to physical abuse, and a threefold increase in the number of Childline counselling sessions per week about child sexual abuse within the family. Those are all areas where we need to provide greater support for pupils, young people and teaching staff.

There have been pressures on school leadership teams, who faced the responsibility of undertaking flow testing of pupils and additional tasks alongside the ongoing pressures they already have. I highlight the need for more support for special schools, which face huge pressures having to teach face-to-face in intense environments, and where there is a real need for more financial support, for additional staffing and, I would advocate, for the vaccination of teaching staff and pupils.

On the point about nurseries, the transmission data, from October 2020, is outdated. According to the Office for National Statistics, transmission among zero to five-year-olds is now the same as among five to nine-year-olds. Funding is needed to support our nurseries.

I will move on to the situation with free school meal vouchers. One of the implications of pupils not being in school is for their health and welfare while they are at home, possibly alone, where many will go without a decent hot meal that would have ordinarily been provided by the school. That is why the provision of free school meals has been so important, in particular via the vouchers during the first wave. It is surprising that the Government and, dare I say, their Back Benchers voted not to continue with that provision in subsequent holidays and into the future, until there was the Marcus Rashford-inspired U-turn.

With so many pupils out of school again, the need to provide the equivalent of free school meals is significant and many schools are urging that cash payments be made. The Child Poverty Action Group and Children North East echo that call for cash payments as a replacement for free school meals, as they know what children need and that allows choice, accessibility, discretion and safety, all of which are valued by families.

[Jim Shannon]

The news stories this morning were full of the value of the voucher scheme and of the food that has been delivered to children, saying that it does not have the necessary vitamins and nutrients. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that that should be looked at to ensure that the vouchers and the food stuffs that are going out satisfy the child and give them the nourishment that they need?

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am about to come on to that point. The figures quoted in the media in the last 24 hours, about the profiteering that is taking place by some of the companies that have moved into the sector, are obscene. The claim is that the food has a value of £30, when in fact people could pick it up for £5 to £10.

The Child Poverty Action Group and Children North East echoed the call for cash payments. In research conducted by the charities, 81% said that direct payments worked better than grab bags or vouchers. When it comes to grab bags, or “hampers”, as they are now euphemistically known, there has been yet another shocking revelation about the company Chartwells, which has been providing food bags for £30, when the content would barely register a fiver or a tenner at the till, and the association of some people with that business and BlackRock.

Speaking to local schools, families are desperate and the schools are angry that the Government have not acted faster. As one headteacher put it to me:

“The Government communications have been poor. They knew schools were shutting, so why have plans not been made for free school meals?”

He was on a call with 20 other headteachers across the region and they were all of the same view. Certainly, some believe that the Edenred scheme worked fairly satisfactorily by comparison.

I would love to spend more time on the exam situation, but the position in which colleges and schools found themselves at the beginning of this term, particularly in regard to vocational subjects and BTEC exams, challenged them. They felt let down by the Department for Education. There are real concerns among students, as well as schools and teaching staff across the board, about the plans for the summer exams and how they will be measured against their learning performance.

Finally, I want to look at protection for teaching staff. We talk about support for pupils, but we need support and protection for teaching staff. There is a need for vaccination and all staff in schools, including support staff, must be a much higher priority. I raised that on 3 December, and again on 30 December, with the Secretary of State.

In September, an GMB union internal survey of over 600 teaching assistants showed that 55% of them said they did not feel safe at work. Elsewhere, Unison has highlighted that the hardest hit are likely to be school support staff, as they are often agency workers, older, disproportionately black, Asian or of mixed ethnicity and come from more disadvantaged backgrounds. If there is the political will for schools to remain open—of course, we all want them to reopen as early as possible—school staff must be placed at a higher priority than they are presently.

The past year has been far from academic, Dame Angela. The support needed for pupils’ education is considerable and complex, but it is not mission impossible. I am afraid that the Government’s work through the course of the pandemic has, on occasion, been of little merit. Perhaps it could be described, in its own right, like coursework: late submission, no shows, confusion and, in the eyes of school staff and governors, a tragic failure of leadership from the Secretary of State. This generation of children must not lose out any longer. These are some of the most important days of their lives, which are precious to their development and the realisation of their potential. The Government must dig deep, and not short-change their long-term future.

Flood Prevention: Rainwater Attenuation and Reservoirs

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Western

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I rise to speak this evening on the topic of improving rainwater attenuation and storage, and preventing and mitigating flooding. For millennia, we have lived in this country in a temperate climate—a green and pleasant land, according to the immortal words of William Blake. We have enjoyed rain, but what we have seen in recent years and decades is freak weather, increasing rainfall and intense rainfall events. This February was the wettest month on record.

In my constituency, Welches Meadow—a field adjacent to the River Leam—has been under water for many weeks now. When I travel here by train, I pass through Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, and I see so many fields still inundated with water. Across the country, we have seen extraordinary weather events over many months, most recently with Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, which have brought about so much devastation and damage. There have been winds of up to 80 or 90 mph, and my feelings and thoughts go out to all the communities that have been so affected: the Calder valley, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, the south-west, the south-east, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales—right across the country. We saw the extreme impact of Storm Dennis on south Wales just a few days ago. Back in November, there was flooding across Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire. We were told that this was a one-in-60-years event, according to the experts. But as we saw in Doncaster with 3 inches of rain falling in 24 hours, these events are happening so much more frequently than they were a few decades ago. I think back to 2004 and the terrible flooding in Boscastle—that tragedy when the rivers overflowed and the little town was almost washed away.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this important issue. Does he agree that the recent floods have highlighted the fact that there must be a designated strategy—we look to the Minister for that—to deal with overflow? Does he agree that the harvesting of rainwater via attenuation ponds on farmland should be further investigated and initiatives introduced to make this attractive to farmers and landowners as a way forward in solving some of the flooding issues?

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman makes a terrific point, as always, and I welcome his contribution, as ever. I will come on to those points a little bit later.

In Warwick and Leamington, we have had, over the years, serious flooding events ourselves. Back in 1998 and 2007, we suffered too, so I have compassion—as do, I am sure, my communities—for those who have been affected in recent weeks and months. In the watershed that we sit in of the Leam—the Avon river that feeds into the Severn—we are quite a way upstream and so relatively less affected than places such as Tewkesbury and elsewhere further down in the Severn valley.

Key to all this is managing flooding and the attenuation of the rainwaters, slowing the flow so that rivers, drains and other natural drainage can manage. Most of the time, natural systems can cope well, but when we see these extreme peaks, we need better management. So the priority must be for natural solutions, but they are not enough. Evidently, as we have seen, there needs to be urgent intervention and investment, but also, I would argue, a change to the planning and building regulations and how we use reservoirs.

Let me first deal with planning. Planning is of course critical—what is built where, bearing in mind the topography and the relationship with the watershed. I think back to the national planning policy framework, where too much power was given to developers to use land as the location for housing built at the wrong densities for communities in, all too often, the wrong places. I look to the south of Warwick and Leamington, where I am sure that the new residents who have moved in would have preferred to live in much higher densities with greater services, greater transport infrastructure and so on. Building over so much farmland has reduced the availability of land to absorb these high-rainfall events. Homeowners across the country have had their homes built on floodplains in areas where they can no longer get insurance, or if they can get insurance, the cost is prohibitively high and they are suffering because they cannot afford it. They are almost excluded from having insurance because of its cost.

Let me turn to building regulations. I think back to the Climate Change Act 2008, when we were promised zero-carbon homes by 2016. That was followed by the tragic Budget from the incoming coalition Government that tore up all that vision—that ideal—to see those great new Passivhaus homes built that recognised the importance of the environment in the equation. I am afraid that the Cameron Government of that time presided over the greatest act of environmental vandalism. Millions of homes have been built since, and their owners have missed out on what could have been fabulous zero-carbon or very-low-carbon homes. There was also the failure to recognise the importance of water in our environment. In his April 2011 speech, David Cameron said: “I want to rip up red tape. I want to get rid of that green cack”—I think that was the word. He got rid of the code for sustainable homes and replaced it with building regulations that did not go far enough. He wanted to save his friends the builders more money. He stated that, by changing the regulations, the builders would save £500 a home, giving them £60 million more a year in revenues. We have only to look at companies such as Persimmon, which is the most high-profile example, and the sort of profit it has made since to realise that that was a short-term and disastrous policy.

The building regulations could have included more sustainable water attenuation. Things such as sustainable urban drainage systems have been introduced, but I believe that greywater harvesting could have been the critical difference. Systems for the use of rainwater collected at source and stored are as cheap as chips, and for new build homes, they could have made a massive difference. Built at scale across new communities, they would have provided a huge rainwater storage capacity upstream, controlling the release of water into drains. When I renovated my home 10 years ago, I managed to put in a 1,500-litre capacity. For the 20,000 homes being built around Warwick and Leamington, that would have equated to 25,000 tonnes of rainwater being captured.

When researching this subject, I looked at fabulous periodicals such as Water. An article in July 2019 says:

“Different studies showed that, in urban catchments, the extensive installation of rainwater harvesting tanks could be an efficient support for reducing frequency and peak of stormwater flood.”

It cites some research that was done in the UK, while researchers in China found that

“the system has a good performance in mitigating urban waterlogging problems,”

reducing flood volume of 14%, 30% and 58% in the cases of maximum daily rainfall, annual average maximum daily rainfall and critical rainfall respectively.

Those are impressive figures, but as technology moves on, we see the introduction of smart rainwater harvesting systems. Another paper by academics was produced in Water in November last year. The study concluded that:

“smart rain watertanks operated as a system in real-time during a storm event… can significantly reduce the downstream peak runoff flow rate for a wide range of storm durations”—

30 minutes to 24 hours—and frequencies of between 50% and 1% annual exceedance probability. It went on to say:

“this is the first study to demonstrate that household-scale rainwater tanks could potentially provide peak flow attenuation performance across a wide range of storm event durations for rare events”—

in other words, a 10% to 1% annual exceedance probability. I cite that research to show that these systems are out there; we just have to adopt them as policy. That is what needs to be done, because after energy, water is a massive issue for us.

Per person, we use 142 litres of water per day, and a household uses 350 litres. If we were to introduce rainwater harvesting tanks, we would be able to assist in the demand and consumption within a property, not just the storage, which would help to mitigate flooding. We use 840 billion litres of water a year just for showers, 740 billion litres for flushing our toilets and a further 360 billion for washing machines and dishwashers. Some 25% of total water consumption is used for showers, and 22% just goes straight down the toilet. I see this as a huge opportunity to reduce bills and aid flood management. If we combine the greywater supply for toilets, washing machines and use in the garden, it would account for a third of the total and could save each household up to £150.

The third change I propose is in regard to reservoirs and detention ponds. I urge the Government to provide the Environment Agency with greater powers, to enable it to work more closely with the water utility companies, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) in her Reservoirs (Flood Risk) Bill. Such an approach would allow the water companies to run at lower levels in reservoirs when high rainfall is anticipated, and the trials undertaken by Yorkshire Water at six reservoirs upstream in the Calder valley have shown that this could greatly mitigate flood events if run at levels below 100%. It has trialled it at 90%, and now it is going to trial it at 85%. As I understand it, similar trials and conversations have been happening at Thirlmere reservoir in Cumbria, and at the reservoirs in the upper Don valley and at Watergrove reservoir in Rochdale.

A change in the legislation is needed. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) so beautifully put it, we have huge opportunities, particularly with farmland. I speak to farmers in my local area, and I spoke to those at Canalside—a community supported agriculture project just outside my constituency, with which I used to have a considerable involvement—and they cannot sow or put in onions for the next harvest because the ground is so waterlogged. That is what we are seeing for farmers all over the UK.

To summarise: what we have witnessed—not in recent weeks or months, but actually years—is that we are having more frequent, more intense and more severe weather events than we were having 30 years ago. I lived in London 25 years ago and I now of course live here again, and when I compare and contrast the sort of weather we are having now, I see that the climate has really changed in that 25-year period. It is really quite remarkable.

My thoughts are with all the communities that have been affected by these terrible floods most recently, but we have the wit and the knowledge to bring about change. If we change the planning legislation, do not build on the floodplain, change the building regulations and reintroduce the code for sustainable homes, plus include the fitting of greywater or rainwater harvesting systems, it would be as cheap as chips, as I say, for any new build property. That is what we can do: we can build storage upstream in these communities for them to use the water, or for it to be released when it is the right time to do so, and ease the pressure on the precious infrastructure that we have in our drainage system. At the same time, we could turbo-boost the sustainable urban drainage schemes, and introduce more small reservoirs, detention ponds, swales and infiltration basins.

I also urge the Government to revisit the scheme for an Abingdon reservoir, and likewise in Maidenhead and elsewhere across the country. To my mind, if we are prepared to spend £1 billion a year on flood defence measures, surely a more sensible thought is to spend money further upstream, think about how we can detain the water, think about attenuation systems—I evidenced that through the two academic papers detailing what can be achieved—and, finally, give the Environment Agency greater powers over reservoir management, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, which I believe would be a very welcome amendment to the Environment Bill.

Local Housing Allowance and Homelessness

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Western

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for setting the scene so well, and all hon. Members for their substantial contributions. As always, I will give a Northern Ireland perspective on the matter and give an idea of what is happening there.

It is good to see the Minister in his place. He has not been in post long, but hopefully he will continue in it long after today. I know that he has a deep interest in this subject, and we look forward to hearing his response to the genuine questions that we have, because I know that he will do his best.

Despite targeted affordability funding, less than 10% of the local housing allowance rates now cover the rent of the cheapest 30% of private homes. That is a chasm of difference, which is very hard to equate, as other Members have said. Many people who cannot get on the social housing ladder and who have no family to take them in realistically have to resort to sleeping on the streets. It is not by choice; it is almost by design that they are unable to find accommodation.

I have had a number of such cases in my constituency. Entering the private housing system is not an option for many benefit claimants, given how high the cost of rental is in the private housing sector. People without a partner who are benefit claimants cannot realistically get a one-bedroom flat through social housing and cannot afford to get one through private rental under the current allowances, because the two figures just do not equate, as I have said.

The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) mentioned a mother with two children who are visually handicapped, who has to use the money that should be purposely set aside for their disability to pay the rent, so that they have accommodation and the children can get to school. That is a supreme example of the problems that people have, and I am sure that the Minister will respond to it specifically if he can.

Given the issues, why should we expect people to try and get suitable accommodation? I know the difficulties in my area. My staff and I were working with a young man who was literally sleeping in a garage. He was 40, so not entitled to homeless points, despite our efforts on his behalf. We all tried to get him into accommodation in the area, but he could not get a one-bedroom flat in his price range. His elderly mother—very often, family members step in—ended up paying the difference, but when she passes away, hopefully not for a long, long time, I do not know where this troubled young man will be. He will certainly not be in a private rental.

Nobody should have to sleep on the streets in this day and age, as I think all of us—the Minister, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), and all right hon. and hon. Members here today—realise. I believe that we must try to bring more people into employment, so that they do not have to rely on benefits to provide them with a stable home. I will make some comments and ask some questions about that shortly, because this issue is not just the Minister’s responsibility; other Departments have a role to play as well.

The local housing allowance should be a safety net for people, so that they can find a job to provide them with a bit more stability. Yes, some people may undoubtedly seek to take advantage of the benefits system as an excuse not to find a job, but I have to say that, from my evidential basis, I do not see that. I am not saying that it does not happen, but I do not see it in my constituency.

There is a genuine lack of housing at these prices, and private rental landlords are sometimes loth to take universal credit or housing benefit tenants, and especially not at a discounted rate. There is a very difficult balance to strike between a rental that is correct and a housing benefit or universal credit system that helps people to stay in the accommodation they are in.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely powerful and important speech. He seems to be making the case for much-needed and industrial-scale social rented housing, which would provide people with basic security of tenure for their home, so that they can then get a job and enter the workplace with that assuredness. I think he is also saying that there is such a big gap between housing costs and local housing allowance provision, particularly for one-bedroom accommodation.

[Jim Shannon]

I have been a great believer in social housing. I have supported it all my life, and I regularly have people coming to me trying to access it. It is incredibly important for those who cannot afford to buy their own home—even more so today. Alongside that, when it comes to social housing, we must provide a benefit system, and the LHA enables people to stay in their accommodation, so the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I totally agree with what he said.

I have sympathy for those experiencing difficulties and recognise that people may be experiencing difficult times that prevent them from finding a job. I believe that help should be available to them, but there is another aspect of this issue, and that is getting the right qualifications to find a stable job—a reality that some people fail to face up to in school. In 2017, 16.6% of Northern Ireland residents aged between 16 and 64 had no qualifications. I believe that these problems are intrinsically linked, which is the point I made earlier. It is not just the Minister’s Department; the Department for Education, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions and others all have a role to play. To tackle homelessness, we must tackle the problem of people having no qualifications, as low-skilled jobs are becoming harder and harder to come by nowadays.

Unfortunately, homelessness and deaths are linked, and I will give hon. Members some statistics—I cannot say that they are exactly linked together, but the stats may just tell us something. In Northern Ireland from October 2017 to the end of August 2018, an average of 13 homeless people per month had their housing applications closed due to death. Of the deceased, 63% were aged 60 or younger and the youngest was only 18. The majority, 93, were male. Their cause of death is unknown; I make that comment clearly. This is a problem, and I believe that these people should be helped. These figures are distressing, and it is horrendous that people cannot get a helping hand to lift them out of the difficult situation they are in.

A new strategy is required if we seek to solve the homelessness problem across the UK. Getting more people into work and getting people with the right qualifications would be steps in the right direction.

To conclude, support should be available to those in need, and certainly used as a springboard to get them into employment and keep this fine nation going forward, but in the short term we need affordable housing—the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) referred to social housing. That housing simply is not there at present. We need funding to build affordable housing, and for rent control as well. We simply should not have people on the streets in this nation, and we need to do all we can to ensure fit-for-purpose allowances in areas with a lack of one or two-bedroom accommodation, as compared with those on the housing stress list.

One Public Estate Programme

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Western

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point: this is an oligopoly, with just a few players controlling our land. I increasingly see local authorities coming to arrangements with the big players and developers, and that prevents land from being used wisely to deliver the sort of housing that we need.

With such a colossal social crisis before us, we should use all suitable public land to build high-quality social rented council housing, without exception—not 50% here or 40% there, but 100% of such land. I fear—with good reason, it seems—that the One Public Estate programme was designed more to incentivise the public sector to sell its precious land as part of a national asset-stripping programme than to use the opportunity so afforded to design in a more efficient delivery of public services or facilitate the building of social rented housing, which would be of most social benefit to most communities.

A relatively small number of homes have been delivered by the OPE so far: just 303, which is a failure in itself. Overall, the land released will enable the building of a further 2,550 homes, with an estimated 10,000 more homes over the next five years. It worries me that I cannot find the data on how many of those homes will be social rented, or even affordable—I suspect most are not—or how much of the land has been released to local authorities to build council housing; I suspect most has not. It would be helpful if the Minister provided the data today.

I do know, however, that the Government’s estate strategy revealed that around £2 billion has already been generated from selling more than 1,000 buildings in the last four years, with £164 million in capital receipts from land and property sales raised as part of the OPE. How much of that land could have been suitable for delivering the social rented council housing we desperately need? In truth, any such need, or means of facility to meet that need, has been fundamentally undermined by the prevailing attitude that public sector assets and land are best released to the private sector. I think it is fair to say that that was the view of what is now seen as a surprisingly neoliberal coalition Government. In the speech that I referred to earlier, Francis Maude went on to say that

“we want to release property back onto the market”,

and that the Government

“identified assets which could be released between now and 2020, generating £5 billion for the taxpayer.”

To be fair, it appears that this Government’s priorities have changed from those of the coalition Government. The Prime Minister has claimed that austerity is over, although the public are yet to see any evidence of that. She has also claimed that she wishes to solve the housing crisis, naming it the Government’s No. 1 domestic priority. Indeed, the borrowing cap has been reformed so that councils can begin building council housing at scale again, but a cap should never have been imposed in the first instance. I therefore urge the Minister to look again at how the One Public Estate programme operates, in terms of releasing public land, and to shift its priorities so that public land that is suitable for the development of social rented council housing is prioritised for that purpose, instead of being flogged off to the highest bidder.

The defence estate optimisation programme provides a very good example of the potential of OPE, but also its failings. The Ministry of Defence currently accounts for 2% of the UK’s land mass. The Government recognise that many of those sites could be better used, particularly for housing, and the Ministry of Defence therefore plans to release around 90 of its most expensive sites before 2040, potentially releasing land for 55,000 homes. That relies on linking up the Ministry with the relevant local authorities and providing them with the up-front cost and expertise needed to make the most of the release of those sites. The OPE is well placed to fulfil that role; indeed, it is already involved in discussions relating to 12 of the sites.

However, if we dig slightly deeper, we see that the opportunity for mass social rented housing programmes on that land is being totally missed. For example, St George’s barracks in Rutland is due to close in 2021, and the master plan that has been developed provides for 2,200 homes as part of a new garden village. The OPE programme was awarded £175,000 in December 2017 for project management, consultation, surveys and master planning of the barracks site—so far, so good. However, when we delve into the master plan, we see that only 30% of the homes will be affordable. Worse still, of those, 50% will be affordable rent, which we all know is not that affordable; 35% will be starter homes or other affordable home ownership products; and 15% will be rent to buy. It appears that none will be social-rented housing—a prime example of a fantastic opportunity missed for OPE and genuinely affordable housing.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the Minister this morning before the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman believe it is important that there is a purpose behind the sale of any land, such as saving money when Departments come together? Equally important, as he outlined, is the need to ensure that, whatever land becomes available, there is a social housing requirement to give those who do not have the same assets the opportunity to buy or rent houses. In Northern Ireland, we had a suggestion—not a rule—that developers should set aside 10% of land for social housing. Does he feel that the Government should look at something more objective for the mainland, with land set aside in law for social housing? Does he think that might be a way of retaining land for social housing? People cannot get housing if we do not give them the opportunity to do so.