Housing (Amendment)

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to make provision for the system for social housing allocation to give priority of choice of social housing to those with an exemplary tenancy record; to place a duty on housing associations to inform potential tenants about conduct of existing tenants in neighbouring properties; and for connected purposes.

I seek leave to amend the Housing Acts with one simple objective in mind: to put the good citizen in pole position in the allocation of the most decent and best housing association homes. Hardly a statement from any of our senior politicians today does not mention that they are standing shoulder to shoulder with the hard-working families of this country. It is a sign of the times in which we live that senior politicians feel that they have to affirm what most people would consider an axiomatic position for all politicians to occupy.

The Bill would define what we mean by hard-working. It would obviously include people who work hard—those who gain work and pay their taxes—but it would also have a more generous definition. As we all know from our constituencies, hard-working families have an extraordinarily important roll-over effect as regards community benefits. For example, the hard work that families put into raising their children means that they are not only a credit to the families concerned but diligent in their concern for their neighbours. We are all aware of the importance of the hard work people put into building up strong neighbourhoods, so the Bill’s definition of hard-working is generous and not mean.

The Bill would, I hope, encourage the Government to be more radical and in a form that is more just. They recently put out a consultative paper on who should get the best housing and under what conditions. The paper keeps in key position the six most favoured groups, who have been there for a long time. Let me remind the House of them: the two homeless categories; those families who are threatened with homelessness; those families who live in overcrowded or insanitary conditions; those of our constituents who wish to move to better accommodation on medical grounds; and those who can make a case for a move for other reasons.

Those categories would remain, but those who were simply—I emphasise that word—good citizens would join them. The other six categories would also be judged in the first instance on whether they were also good citizens, so a premier league would be formed of those of our constituents who were in a position to have first choice of all the social housing—the best social housing—when it became available.

The Bill has a second objective, which is to protect those good citizens from neighbours from hell—those chaotic families who cause such misery. The aim of the Bill is to put decent tenants on a par with the position of owner-occupiers, which was changed by the previous Government. Owner-occupiers who wished to sell and who had been plagued by antisocial behaviour had to declare that that had occurred. If they did not do so and the sale went through, they could be open to legal challenge.

The Bill would deal with the two somewhat underhand moves made by many housing associations, in my constituency, and, I would guess, elsewhere. The first is dumping neighbours from hell next to good tenants without any warning whatever. The second is moving unsuspecting good tenants next door to neighbours from hell without any warning. The Bill would give all tenants the right to be consulted in such circumstances, the right to object and the right to legal redress. It is about trying to legislate to bring about what most of our constituents would regard as fair—to bring housing legislation on side with their gut feeling of what is fair.

Let me end with one last comment. My life is very different from those of my parents and grandparents because of the changes that the Attlee Government brought in and I think that we as a group of politicians are worryingly relaxed about rebuilding support for our welfare state. Many of our constituents do not believe that all the rules governing entitlement are fair. This year will be the first in which income transfers in the welfare state will burst through the £200 billion mark. If now is not the time for us to think carefully about all our reforms, particularly our housing reforms, and about putting on the statute book measures that most of our constituents would regard as fair and just, I cannot think of any other.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Mr Frank Field, John Mann, Siobhain McDonagh, Mr Roger Godsiff, Hazel Blears and Natascha Engel present the Bill.

Mr Frank Field accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 30 March, and to be printed (Bill 276).