Future of Social Housing

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Paisley. I congratulate my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing this important debate and his excellent introduction on a subject that he is passionate about, as is every hon. Member here.

If our debates were guided by issues that constituents come to see us about, housing would be very near the top of the list. Whether it is tenants facing eviction, tenants coming to see me for the fourth or fifth time because the damp has still not been fixed, or people who simply want a roof over their heads, it is clear that we do not have enough housing at the right price, of the right quality, in the right places or of the right tenure.

I look at what the young people of today are facing: student loan repayments, sky-high private rents, huge deposits for a home, and maybe even saving for retirement. With inflation continuing to outstrip wage increases for many, even renting privately is a challenge, never mind saving for the future or for a home of their own. A young person who lives with their parents and cannot afford to move out, as many cannot, will probably not even qualify to get on the housing register in the first place. They are essentially trapped.

To get on the housing list now, people have to be in a pretty serious situation. Simply being unable to afford a place of one’s own is no longer enough. Even with those restrictions, there are nearly 6,500 people on the housing register across my local authority area of Cheshire West, with more than 1,500 in the most urgent categories. For context, in the past year, only 922 vacant properties were advertised across the whole of Cheshire West. The average waiting time for an applicant in band A—which is for the most urgent cases, such as those involving domestic abuse or homelessness—is around 22 weeks, while the longest wait is just over three years. Those are just the most urgent cases—the so-called lucky few who can even get on the register in the first place.

The only answer is to massively increase the amount of council housing. As the LGA says, a generational step change in council house building is required to boost housing supply. What we have at the moment is a lottery. If there is a central Government grant going, or a new private development, where the developers might be required to build a few affordable homes, we might get a bit of new social housing, but it is piecemeal and nowhere near enough to meet demand.

The new builds we are seeing are not even enough to replace the homes lost to the right to buy, never mind to meet existing demand. I understand why, in the rush to reach the decent homes standard, many councils transferred their stock to housing associations at the start of this century, but that has led to council housing becoming detached from the communities it is supposed to serve. It is now all about asset management.

Although our council has built what it can, it is nowhere near what it needs to be, because of the straitjacket imposed by Government. Most of the new social housing built in my constituency in recent years has been built by housing associations, often based many miles away from the constituency, with no connection to the area, other than having a few dozen homes there. I doubt very much that the leaders of those organisations have spent much time in the constituency, if they have visited it all.

When councils had the capacity and resources to plan over the long term for housing need, it was about so much more than just putting a roof over people’s heads. It was about building communities, and successive generations living side by side in secure, well maintained, low-cost homes. We have lost all that. Decent and affordable housing, built in sustainable, joined-up communities, has the power to fundamentally improve people’s lives, and the life chances of children in my constituency and across the country. What we have now is a market-first, people-last approach, which ultimately makes us all the poorer. Build more council houses and build them now.