Lindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I feel that one story about social rented housing in this country is not being told, because for me social rented housing is a public asset that we should support for that reason.
My Gran and Papa moved into a house in Wishaw in 1963, and they lived there until recently. My Gran is going into a care home, and we are finishing the process of emptying that home. For 52 years that house was their home, but it is a social rented house that belongs to North Lanarkshire Council. It is nice to think that, having had a family through that house, other families will now get to enjoy it and make it their home until it passes to another generation.
My Papa did not believe in owning his own home—he must have been one of those rare people in this country that the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) would not recognise, given what he said about his home being his castle and the necessity of owning it. My mum described my Papa as a west of Scotland Presbyterian socialist, which may be why he took that view. Throughout their life in that house, he and my Gran had the opportunity to buy it had they chosen to, but they believed firmly that the house belonged to the greater good and the common good, and that there it should stay.
Many people whom I represent will not have the chance to own their own homes. Some people are very far from that point and might not even have bank accounts, never mind trying to get a mortgage. We need to provide choice for people in cities across our country—choice for people who want to live in a socially rented house. Many of my constituents want the option of a front and back door, rent set at a fair level, and the support that a housing association offers. Local authorities and housing associations provide social support to their tenants that the private sector will never provide, whether that is advice on debt and money, benefits, or just somebody who can be asked for help when a repair is required. We should bear in mind those important social functions.
When my Gran was living on her own she had somebody to call if there was an issue with the heating or electricity. Over the years that she lived there, the local authority invested in that house with heating, rewiring, cavity wall installation and new windows. Good social landlords will invest in property, but private landlords will not.
In Govanhill in my constituency, there is an ongoing project to bring housing from private ownership back into housing association ownership because the situation has deteriorated so badly. The houses are falling down because private landlords cannot—and will not—take on that responsibility. There is a social imperative to take back those houses and ensure that they are sustained for future generations. Glasgow tenements are symbolic, and everybody knows them when they think of Glasgow. Over the years, however, they have been lost to private landlords who are charging a fortune for them—money that is going on the housing benefit bill. Those tenements are being lost, and there is a real need for them to come back to the social rented sector.
Housing associations plan and make investments on the basis of the rents they receive. When houses are sold off under the right to buy, housing associations cannot plan for that investment or for things such as new kitchens or bathrooms for their tenants. They receive their tenants’ money as income, and it gets reinvested, but that does not happen in many cases in the private sector.
Housing associations invest because they know that it will be worth it and they have a certainty of income. The Bill includes a 1% reduction in rents, and the head of the National Housing Federation had strong feelings about that when he gave evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee. It may have been a personal view rather than that of his organisation, but he felt strongly that the Government should not be in the business of telling housing associations what their rents should be, as that should be for local housing associations to decide on the basis of what their tenants want and can afford.
There are many consequences to the right-to-buy policy. Longer waiting lists have been mentioned, and fewer large family homes will be available in local areas. That will force people out of those areas and reduce their diversity and social mix. It also has a knock-on effect on the sustainability of those communities. The pay-to-stay policy and the “high income” of £33,000 was mentioned, but that is not a high income by anyone’s standards, and £40,000 in London does not seem high either.
The explanatory notes state:
“The policy intent is to take ‘household’ income into account when determining whether the high incomes thresholds are met and…the definition of household can be set by the Secretary of State”.
I am worried that in larger family homes where teenagers or those in their early twenties cannot afford to move out, that measure will count against them and they will be forced out. Older and younger adults might be living in the same house and then be forced out of the area because young people cannot afford to rent anywhere. That is worrying and there should be more clarity about what “household” should mean when it comes to the detail of that provision. I also have a slight concern about housing associations in urban areas that perhaps are unable to get other land close by—
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who always looks to defend his constituents well. The points he made about stamp duty are thought-provoking and I appreciate his sharing them with the House.
The need to address the housing crisis in this country has never been greater. Rising demand, a chronic lack of supply and a woeful lack of long-term vision from the Government have ramped up the pressure in every region of the country. I am glad that the Government have brought this Bill to the House for us to examine and that they are finally showing effort to stem the crisis. It is a relief that they have woken up to the urgent need to build more homes, after five years of neglect, when house building fell to some of its lowest peacetime levels on record.
This Bill, however, does nothing to tackle some of the most profound problems the housing sector faces. For so many of my constituents, home ownership must become more affordable and more readily accessible, so that those looking to own a home can take their first step on the ladder. The Government’s attempt at solving that is their “starter homes programme”, which is at the forefront of this Bill. Anybody taking even a cursory look at the detail will reach a glaring conclusion: the homes are simply not affordable to those on ordinary incomes. Shelter has published information to suggest that families on the Government’s new national minimum wage—it is a minimum wage, not a national living wage—will be able to afford a starter home in only 2% of local authority areas. That raises the question: which bracket of the population is the scheme supposed to be assisting? We need genuinely affordable homes, not assistance packages which people who are currently frozen out of housing ownership are not going to be able to get anywhere near.
Although this Bill will do little to make the dream of home ownership a reality for those who want it, my biggest anxiety is that it will deal a fatal blow to social housing. The Bill aggressively promotes starter homes by forcing planning authorities to prioritise them over all other types of housing, such as affordable rented homes and social housing. That approach directly imperils the section 106 obligations of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, measures which in the past decade have secured more than 230,000 affordable homes. Any endangerment of those provisions would be nothing short of a tragic loss of what should be referred to as genuinely affordable homes. Coast & Country, a housing association in my constituency, has just signed a deal with Bellway Homes to provide 13 new affordable rented homes on a site in Redcar. Under the measures in this Bill, those homes risk being side-lined. Maintaining a mix where truly affordable homes are part of developments must be a priority in any solution to the housing crisis.
On right to buy, the implementation of the so-called “voluntary” scheme is at best a poorly thought out policy and at worst a direct block to securing social housing. Housing associations have complained that the concept is flawed. We know from the performance of the earlier model that more than 30% of all homes sold in this way are now controlled by private landlords. Like many of my colleagues, I do not have an ideological problem with right to buy, but I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who calls us “bourgeois lefties”. It is not bourgeois to object to the exploitation of a precious asset—a home—to push up rents and take the aspiration of home ownership further away by reducing supply. That provision will mean higher rents and higher spending on housing benefit, producing the worst outcome for tenants, housing associations and the Exchequer, as well as a catastrophic depletion of social housing stock, which will effectively be lost for ever.
Just as concerning is the costing. How is the voluntary right to buy scheme being funded? As the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, the scheme has serious up-front costs, because housing associations will have to be compensated for sales below market value. The National Housing Federation estimates that if all of the eligible households decide to take up the scheme, it could cost an astonishing £11.6 billion. Even a casual analysis reveals a serious imbalance between the money going out fully to compensate the housing associations and the money we have been told is going to fund it, which will come from councils selling their most expensive properties as they become available. That scheme is estimated to raise about £4.5 billion.
We are barely six months beyond the election, and already we on the Labour Benches have stopped expecting the Government’s maths to add up. Clearly, ideology trumps economics. Once again, that can be seen in the 1% cut to social rents, which will lead to a £16 million shortfall in the next four years for my housing association in Redcar, thus affecting its broader services, such as tackling antisocial behaviour, supporting financial inclusion, and helping people stay in their homes. All of those services will be cut, shunting more costs on to other aspects of public services. It will also result in considerable job losses to my local housing association, which is one of the best and most secure employers in my constituency, particularly in the current climate.
Finally, I wish to touch on the pay-to-stay mandatory rents for high-income social tenants. This proposal is the latest nonsensical assault on working families that proves just how out of touch this Government are with the reality that thousands of tenants face. If the collective income of a household is £30,000, rents will be increased to market level. For a couple on £15,000 each—not much more than the national minimum wage—the proposal could be a total disincentive to work additional hours or seek higher paying employment. I ask the Secretary of State to clarify that point and to avoid the Government yet again taking money out of the pockets of hard-working people.
The Secretary of State started his speech today with a noble description of new housing as more than “bricks and mortar”. He talked about how the homes we build shape the lives and prosperity of the people who live in them. But why should my constituents give him any credit for such a statement when his Government persist with the wretched bedroom tax? [Interruption.] It is all very well for Members on the Government Benches to titter, but thousands of my constituents have been forced out—
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Mr Deputy Speaker, may I thank you for your unprecedented ruling that those of us who are latecomers to this debate will get more time? That is very welcome.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. May I just say that I did not make any changes to the time limits? I inherited the time levels.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I should have perhaps said “the Chair”. Mr Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to catch your eye in this debate and I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley).
This is an innovative Bill. It is a big Bill that will bring about a great change. It builds on this party’s great tradition of supporting those who aspire to own their own home. A Bill that potentially allows more than 1 million people to buy their own home from housing associations must be a good thing. I have listened carefully to many speeches from Opposition Members who have said that they support the right to buy in principle, but then there is a “but”. I cannot understand that, because if they support the right to buy in principle—presumably when a house is owned by the local authority—why do they not support it when a house is owned by a housing association? What difference does it make to tenants? I think this is a good Bill.
I have a difficulty in my constituency in that it probably has the most difficult affordability ratio in the south-west. I sympathise with those areas in London that have an even worse affordability ratio, so I support this Bill’s bringing forward more people able to buy their own houses. Above all, though, I support the provision of more affordable houses. I commend to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning a scheme in my constituency where we use section 106 moneys to allow developers to put in trust to the local authorities part of the equity of the house, so that somebody, particularly a first-time buyer, can buy, say, a 60% ownership of the house and then staircase up to 100% ownership when they can afford it. That seems to be an excellent scheme.
Lots of Members have spoken in detail about the housing provisions in the Bill. As a chartered surveyor—I declare my interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I want to talk about parts 6 and 7 of the Bill, which relate to planning and compulsory purchase. Given that 80% of my constituency is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty, Members will understand that I have a very difficult planning situation. None the less, I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for introducing the national planning policy framework. It has simplified the planning system and it is beginning to work really well. The problem is that it is a plan-led system, and my local authority, the Cotswold District Council, does not have a plan, and it has been using every sort of excuse for why it does not have one. The neighbouring council, Stroud District Council, which I partly represent, is about to get its local plan adopted and I congratulate it. I therefore welcome clause 99, which enables the Secretary of State to address the issue that 36% of local authorities do not have a plan. The problem is if an authority does not have a plan, it is subject to speculative developers. I warmly welcome the provisions on neighbourhood plans and making it easier for local communities to produce a local plan saying what type of developments should occur where in their neighbourhood.
I note that clause 102 changes the conditional and full system of planning consents as regards the technical stage and in-principle planning permissions. In Committee, we will need to tease out what will be allowed for the in-principle development and at the technical stage. For example, will a significant increase in housing be allowed at that stage? Clause 105 allows the Secretary of State to take over the planning function from local authorities when too many appeals have been disallowed. That power is fairly draconian and should be used only in sparing circumstances.
Let me move on to the compulsory purchase provisions. All businesses or individuals should, in every respect, be put back through compensation into the position they would have been in had compulsory purchase powers not been used. I appreciate that that is far-reaching, because anyone who can prove blight should be compensated, but everybody who makes a valid claim should expect a high proportion of their money to be paid in advance—about 80%—so businesses that need to purchase other properties can go out and do so. The Bill addresses the issue of interest rates for late payments in compulsory purchase and specifies a margin over base rate of 2%. The standard national conditions of sale usually presume a margin of 4% over base, which is what I would suggest to the Minister.
I serve on the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill Committee and many of the petitioners have said a number of times that if the Government can afford these large infrastructure projects, they can afford to pay generous compensation for those that suffer. I welcome the fact that the Bill consolidates a number of old Acts providing for compulsory purchase powers and I ask the Government to make the provisions generous to those who have been affected by big infrastructure projects. If the Government do that, it will make it easier to build such projects as there will be less controversy.
I warmly welcome the Bill, which contains some very good provisions on housing as well as some good provisions to speed up the planning process. I urge the Minister to ensure that all authorities such as mine get a local plan as soon as possible so that they are not subject to builders submitting speculative applications where we do not want houses.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I have to reduce the time limit to five minutes, and I might have to reduce it further if we have more interventions.
James Berry
I am sorry but I will not.
I reject the amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats—I see that the eighth of the party that proposed it is no longer here—coming as it does from the party that talks a great game on housing and the vulnerable, but fails to deliver. Take the local authority in my constituency. The area was controlled by a Lib Dem council until 2013, yet it has one of the worst records for house building—including affordable house building—in London. What did the leader of Kingston Council until 2014 say about that: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing.” I think that is a shameful response to the 6,000 people on council house waiting lists in Kingston, and to young people who have grown up or come to my constituency to go to university but can no longer afford to live there. It is typical of a party that is quick to criticise yet slow to accept criticism.
Whatever the Government’s efforts to increase home ownership, it is inevitable that a large number of people will continue to rent. I support the Government’s intention to create a rogue landlord and letting agent database, and for London I encourage further devolution of that database to the Mayor, so that it works hand in glove with his efforts to accredit good landlords. I would like the Government to consider in detail the proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) to have a database for all landlords and letting agents—