Private Rented Sector

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I almost apologise to the House for the fact that, in every housing debate, some of us who represent London constituencies seem to say the same thing. Like many London MPs and perhaps others, every week I have a family coming to see me, begging for a property. It is one of the most distressing experiences that we have in our role as Members, because all we can offer is sympathy. Lobbying and letters to the council elicit the standard response about the waiting times, the lack of housing supply and so on. As I mentioned, I find it really distressing and I do not know how the colleagues who run my constituency office cope with dealing with such families.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is very distressing—not only the supply, but cases where people in precarious private sector rented accommodation are threatened with almost immediate eviction or a rent hike, which frequently happens in my constituency. The council—with much pushing from me—has introduced a licensing scheme to try to overcome this. What does my hon. Friend think of that as a way of resolving some of the problems?

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on achieving that advance. It is difficult in many other areas, where we do not have the co-operation of the local authority. I have started turning up at evictions now, to negotiate with estate agents and others and the bailiffs. As many hon. Members will know, that can be quite confrontational.

I have lived and worked in my constituency and represented it in different forms for nearly 40 years. When I arrived there 40 years ago, if someone wanted a house, they would go to the council and there would be council housing. There was a council housing waiting list, but it was not that long. Most of those council houses were sold off. Ironically, a letter went out from Hillingdon council two weeks ago seeking to lease back the council properties that it sold 20 years ago, to rent those out to people. It is bizarre how the cycle turns.

The other form of housing in my area was owner-occupation. There was little private rented accommodation at the time, but the level of wages was such that mortgages were available. Mortgages were also available through local authorities. The Greater London council had a mortgage scheme with a relatively cheap rate. Now, unfortunately, even though my area has high levels of employment, the pay is such that people cannot afford owner-occupation. The average price of a property in my borough is £318,000, which is way out of the reach of people in my constituency on average pay—between £12,000 and £20,000. They are therefore forced into the private rented sector.

The private rented sector has expanded, but insufficiently. In my constituency, the cost of a family property in the private sector ranges from £1,200 to £1,600, and in some instances up to £2,000, a month. That is simply unaffordable. Even if people overcome the challenge of getting into the private rented sector, they are faced, as we heard earlier, with discrimination against anyone on benefits being able to rent a property. There is ghettoisation going on, organised by the landlords and the agents—“That area or that property isn’t suitable for you because you’re on benefits.”

People go through all the experiences about which I have expressed concern—having to find the money up front, the heavy charges imposed by the agents—and it forces some into penury. I have many constituents who go to payday loan agencies to borrow the money to try to get a roof over their heads.

[Ms Buck]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically passionate speech. Does he share my concern that at the very time when the impact is being felt, as he describes, we are seeing a collapse in the provision of advice services, particularly for housing? This morning’s statistics on legal aid provision show, for example, that the number of housing cases for which legal aid was provided has fallen from 126,000 to 55,000, so at the time of greatest need, people are finding less advice and assistance available to them.

[John McDonnell]

I was going to come on to that, but let us deal with it now. Tenants are defenceless at present. They may well know their rights, but they are not able to exercise them. Because the law centre in my area is on a contract, it is limited in the work that it can do, and it is swamped. The citizens advice bureau is swamped continuously. There are lines of people on a Tuesday morning queuing up to go to the CAB to book their appointment. In my constituency we have moved to an open door policy so that people can come to the office at any time. All the agencies that I am aware of are swamped.

Tenants cannot get into the system even to challenge what is going on. It is not just about getting access to a property; it is about defending themselves, once they are in that property, against abuse by landlords and threats of eviction. All this has resulted in the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation in my constituency going up. The figure was 30 in 2012; the latest figures I have from the beginning of 2014 show that there were well over 200 families in bed and breakfast. I thought that on a cross-party basis we had committed ourselves to ensuring that no family would be in bed and breakfast.

The bed-and-breakfast establishments that I have been visiting are squalid. They are appalling. Because families are stuck in bed and breakfast for a long time, children are being brought up in squalid and often unsafe conditions.

[Ms Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the spiralling cost of rentals in London creates a problem for people in public sector occupations, such as firemen and teachers, being able to afford to live in London?

[John McDonnell]

Suitable accommodation is non-existent. Firefighters in the Hayes station were commuting from Devon and Cornwall. It is very difficult to find anyone in public service locally who can afford a property in the area.

This means that the overcrowding in my constituency is appalling. In the 40 years that I have lived there, I have not seen it on such a scale before. People tell me it is as bad as it was after the second world war. We complain about kids being out on the streets and joining gangs, but overcrowding means that kids are forced out on to the streets, and they become incredibly vulnerable. Think about a child going home and having to do homework in the room where the other kids are having tea, or having their bedroom in the room where they have to do their homework either on their knees or on the bed. The social impact is horrendous.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[John McDonnell]

I cannot give way any more. I apologise.

There is also squalor in the private rented sector. In my constituency there are landlords, the majority of whom own one or two properties, who do not maintain them. This has been made worse by the economic recession. Walk down any street in my constituency and it will be clear from the standard of the properties and their maintenance which ones are the buy-to-lets. When the tenants complain, they are evicted. They have virtually no legal redress, because they cannot get into the courts; or they turn up at the citizens advice bureau or the law centre and it is difficult to get advice because they too are swamped. There is also an element of blacklisting of certain tenants who challenge particular landlords. The environmental health standards of some properties are appalling, yet obtaining enforcement by the council is difficult. I do not blame the local authority, because with staff cuts it is difficult to provide cover for the scale of the problem faced and the enforcement required.

Houses in multiple occupation in my constituency have experienced all the health and safety risks, including fires and, unfortunately, some fatalities as well. There is a continuous churning process, with families in short-life accommodation, perhaps for 18 months or two years, being moved out. That disrupts the family, breaking down family relationships and undermining communities, and the long-term impact on children’s education and social relationships is devastating.

The solution is a statement of the blindingly obvious: build more council houses. I was critical of the previous Government. We had debates such as this, but I think that the Labour party has learned the lesson that we now need to invest in social housing on a scale that we have not done in the last 20, 30 or 40 years. We need a massive council housing programme. Councils should be encouraged compulsorily to purchase empty land. We cannot wait around any longer while we negotiate with developers. The crisis is too large. In an area of desperate housing need, we still have empty properties. Homes are standing empty. There are 700,000 empty properties in this country, 300,000 of them long-term, beyond six months. We should be encouraging councils to use their compulsory purchase powers to take over those properties, and put homeless families in them.

I support everything in the motion, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) said, it will have limited effect, at least in my area. What we need are rent controls. We are accused of Chavezism, but I am quite proud of that. I am a Bolivarian. The only thing that would work in my area is control of rents, because at least in that way we would get back some form of affordable housing. If it is not the same in other areas, let us devolve the ability and the power to local authorities to determine in their area whether they want the power to control rents and at what level they should be set. That would at least give hope to families in my community that they might have a decent roof over their heads for their children.