Housing and Homes

Debate between John Healey and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I am surprised if the hon. Gentleman has not already done so, but he should read the housing manifesto that I launched with the Labour leader during the election campaign last year. It pledged longer tenancies, with a cap on the rent increases during that period. I shall come to the Labour plans for private renters in a minute. This debate is about differing views and very different visions of the housing problems that people face and the solutions that the country requires.

Our determination to get built the new genuinely affordable homes that are needed in this country was redoubled after the terrible Grenfell Tower fire. When the Grenfell survivors who contributed to our review say that

“tenants were victims before the fire”

and

“we’re treated as second class citizens in social housing”,

it is clear that radical, root-and-branch reform is required, so we will build more and we will build better, as the public sector has always done in housing. We will have leading-edge standards on energy efficiency and smart-tech design, so that Labour’s new affordable homes will be people’s best choice, not their last resort.

A huge majority of us in Britain aspire to buy our own home, yet the dream is currently denied to millions, especially young people facing a lifetime locked out of the housing market. We set out in our Green Paper a plan for Labour’s living rent homes, which would have rents set at no more than a third of average local household incomes and would be aimed at ordinary working families, young people and key workers—those who need to be able to save a bit for a deposit or who need a bit more to spend on the other things they need.

Labour’s low-cost home ownership home would be a new type of low-cost home, called first-buy homes. Again, they would be discounted, so that mortgage payments would be no more than a third of average local incomes. Crucially, the discount on those homes would be locked in so that it could potentially benefit not just the first first-time buyer, but future first-time buyers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

In the past, local authorities were able to handle housing crises, such as when way back in the ’60s they were building 300,000 homes a year. Having said that, local authorities also built houses for sale, helped first-time buyers and actually offered mortgages. It was the Thatcher Government who abolished that. Can we not do something about that?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend might be interested to read the fine detail of the Green Paper that we launched last month, because it makes the commitment to look into enabling local authorities once more to provide mortgages for local people who may find the mortgage market closed off to them.

Housing

Debate between John Healey and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman might like to reflect on the fact that, under 13 years of Labour, more than 2 million new homes were built in this country and the number of homeowners rose by more than 1 million, but in the five years under his Government that figure has fallen by more than 200,000. So much for the party of the so-called homeowners.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

We should remind the Government that it was the Conservatives, when they were last in power, who stopped local authorities building social housing. As a result, rents have gone through the roof and young people cannot get a house today.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right. He probably shares my view of our own Labour record. We are deeply proud of the billions of investment we made to make homes decent again, but we were perhaps too slow to start building new homes. When I was the Minister for Housing in the final year of the previous Labour Government, we got under way the largest council house building programme we had had for more than two decades. For the first time, councils were able to get the support on the same terms as housing associations to build the new affordable homes that were so badly needed in this country.

I want to return to the Chancellor’s boast about doubling the money for housing for 400,000 new affordable homes. It was not a doubling, but a halving of the investment under Labour. Most of those 400,000 homes had been announced before, so there is also double counting. Finally, many of the new homes will not be affordable for those on ordinary incomes either to rent or to buy. I would say to the Minister that we perhaps need a new hashtag. How about #fivemoreyearsoffailure?

Children and Families Bill

Debate between John Healey and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My right hon. Friend will recall that, in addition to educating teachers about children’s conditions, one of the things I proposed in my ten-minute rule Bill some years ago was the creation of school clusters, which would involve somebody with medical experience from the national health service as well as teachers. They would perhaps give talks or inspect the facilities every so often to ensure that teachers were adequately trained.

[John Healey]

I backed my hon. Friend’s Bill and I remember it. Essentially, it aimed to set standards of support that all schools should have in place and, as I recall, to require Ofsted to monitor and inspect whether they were being met.

Finally on the question of whether an amendment is necessary, the framework of legislation and guidance already in place—the “Managing medicines in school” guidance, the Equality Act 2010 or even the Children Act 1989—is often said to be sufficient, but these problems are so widespread for so many children that clearly the system as it stands is not working and something else is necessary.

That brings me to my second point: is the proposed change proportionate? It is simply indefensible to argue that parents should have recourse to invoke the 2010 Act or the 1989 Act to get support for their kids at school. That is disproportionate. New clause 8 does not propose a new policy obligation or new standards for national Government, nor would it require local authorities to act. It would not even require health bodies to act, other than to support schools. What new clause 8 proposes is that a school should have

“a duty to produce and implement a medical conditions policy that defines how it plans to support the needs of children with specified health conditions”—

no more, no less. In other words, schools should have well-judged, proportionate policies, pitched at where the challenge is greatest and the potential gain most important—that is, in the culture, understanding, practice and sympathy found in schools. We are talking about a policy developed in schools, for schools and by schools, with the support of health bodies and local authorities behind them.

I have addressed whether the proposed change is necessary and proportionate, but is it beneficial? It would be beneficial if children could go to school confident in the knowledge that those around them understood their conditions. It would be likely to make managing their conditions easier, allow them to play a much fuller part in the life of the school and fulfil more of their potential, reduce the requirement on parents to give up or reduce their work—and, arguably therefore, to step up their dependence on the state to support their kids in school—and reduce the demands on the NHS, so the proposal is beneficial as well.

Is this change necessary? Yes. Is it proportionate? Yes. Is it beneficial? Yes, and if the Minister continues to resist it, he will have to demonstrate that it is unnecessary, disproportionate and either detrimental or not beneficial. I want our children who have special health conditions to be able to enjoy school to the full, to fulfil their potential and to feel confident that those around them know what to do because they understand their conditions.

Finally, I want to leave the House with the words that I always remember Emma Smith saying to me: “I would feel a lot happier if people at school knew what to do if for any reason I was unable to treat myself.” That seems to be the very least that this House and this legislation should provide.