Housing: Spending Review

Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, there is a story of a man being audited by a tax inspector. “How have you managed to buy such a luxurious villa when your declared income is so low?”, asks the inspector. “It’s like this”, replies the man, “While I was fishing last summer I caught a large golden fish. When I took it off the hook, the fish opened its mouth and said, ‘I am a magical fish. Throw me back into the sea and I’ll give you the most luxurious villa you have ever seen’. So I threw the fish back into the sea, and got the villa”. The tax inspector was not impressed. “How do you expect to prove such a ludicrous story?”, he asked. “Well”, the man replied, “you can see the villa, can’t you?”.

In the light of the comprehensive spending review and its implications for social and affordable housing in both urban and rural contexts, many would wish for a magical fish. Sadly, this is unlikely to be the case. The proposals before us will affect not just housing supply, but the whole culture of housing provision.

It is likely that cuts to the national affordable housing programme are likely to be more than 60 per cent, while new tenants will be paying higher rents. In addition, these cuts will be accompanied by changes to the social housing culture, as tenants will be assessed on need—no more “council houses for life”.

Having lived in London for more than 20 years, I am well aware of the fact that most people do not live in expensive properties or luxurious, five-star accommodation. It is easy to achieve a soundbite with exceptions—less so with the reality of the vast majority of people living in ordinary houses. Equally, many such people have lived in a locality all their lives. Besides such people upon whom the proposed cuts will fall are those suffering a temporary blip in their fortunes, others who have fled from violent partners, or refugees dealing with the trauma of war or real ethnic cleansing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said powerfully in her address. Above all, such cuts will come upon people with little or no savings—now one of the requirements of eligibility for benefits. Undoubtedly, this will affect tens of thousands of people in London and other major cities.

However, my diocese is rural and, as my good friend, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans commented in his address this week to the Faith in the Countryside conference, the 50 per cent cut in capital investment for affordable homes announced last week could leave nearly half a million rural households without housing in the next quarter century. It is with regret that I note in a report from Shelter that none of the councils in Somerset, where my diocese is located, has met any of the affordable housing targets. The highest in the Shelter ranking met 28 per cent of the target, while the lowest met a mere 9 per cent. Viewers of BBC television this morning will have seen the savage cuts made by Somerset County Council in so many areas of public and corporate life.

The decision to end the “council house for life” will be a real problem in rural areas, where there is simply not the flexibility and availability of housing for people to move on in a way that they can in urban areas. The continuing unregulated purchase of second homes in rural communities raises questions as to where the skilled trades people—plumbers, carpenters, builders and farm workers upon whom we rely—will buy or rent a house. All this leads to the ebbing away of community, with the closure of schools, village shops and pubs, and much else besides. Fishing for the magical golden fish is not a serious option. Families who may be key players in local communities will lose their long-term security, and individuals will lose their social networks and relationships of mutual support and care if they have to move. Where will they move to? It is these very communities and networks that provide the relationships for a civic society, whether “big” or not.

The New Homes Bonus scheme will not give any priority to affordable housing, or particular provision for encouraging affordable homes in rural areas. At best, some provision for the edges of towns and cities will be made. Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, has argued that rural housing development can go ahead, providing that in locally held mini-referendums, 75 per cent of those voting agree. Many believe, and I include myself among them, that this will be difficult to achieve. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said in his speech yesterday, this is not so much nimbyism as bananaism—“build absolutely nothing anywhere never again”.

Finally, much has been made of the role of churches and voluntary organisations in the big society. Readers of the Tablet, that notable Roman Catholic journal, were asked last week whether they had spare rooms that they could let to single homeless or young people. Is this really to be role of churches and other voluntary bodies?

In 2008, Iain Duncan Smith, attending a Salvation Army conference, observed a growing undercurrent of “chaotic and dysfunctional” people who are unable to play an active part in society, and he went on to attack social housing policy as “ghettoising dysfunction and poverty”. Is not the coalition’s policy on housing benefit and the insecurity of council house tenure likely to work against the idea of mixed living, and create exactly the kind of ghettoisation that he spoke of in opposition?

If ever we needed a big-society solution to affordable housing, given the unavailability of the golden magical fish, this is the time.