Transport for London Bill [HL]

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dubs for enabling us to have this debate today in Grand Committee. We should all be grateful to him for enabling us to highlight the important issue of social housing in London.

As we have heard, we have a housing crisis in London, and in particular a social housing crisis, which the Government are doing nothing to help us with. Only 11,000 council homes were built last year compared to 33,000 across the country in Labour’s last year in office. It is so disappointing that we are seeing people on modest incomes being driven out of central London. London is a wonderful city—probably the best city in the world. That is why the Olympics and Paralympics were such a success—the languages spoken, the community ties from all over the world, the art scene, the sport, the history, and the spectacle of London. However, for that to continue to grow and to keep London at the top we have to make proper provision for people on all incomes doing every job you can imagine to be able to live in this great city, from emptying your bins to sweeping the street, to working as a classroom assistant through to social workers, lawyers and business men and women, to some of the highest earners on the planet, who run some of the biggest companies in the world. Social housing provision with proper social rents has to be part of the housing tenure throughout this capital city.

If the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, comes back and talks about all the affordable housing in London, it would be better if he called it “unaffordable housing” for large numbers of people living in the capital. Where I live in Lewisham, which is a lovely part of London with rows and rows of Victorian terraced housing, people in the private rented sector pay over £2,000 a month to live in an ordinary terraced property, which is £24,000 a year. The new national minimum wage, which will come into force in April, will mean that you will earn £14,000 a year. Even if two people earn £20,000 in London, paying rent of £24,000 a year does not give a huge amount to live on for all the other expenses.

I am very grateful for the briefing note and for the meeting I had with TfL last week. I can understand that TfL must be very frustrated at the time the Bill has taken and the fact that it is still making its way through Parliament. It was originally deposited in 2010, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said. It is in everyone’s interest that these private Bills from TfL and other public bodies make much speedier progress through Parliament. I am sure that TfL would have preferred that the Bill was decided on, either way, in a much more timely fashion. It is probably not in his remit but can the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, talk to whoever is responsible for managing the process of getting these Bills through Parliament? I suggest that the time for a review is well and truly upon us. Six years on an eight-clause Bill, even though it is opposed, is far too long.

The most controversial clause is Clause 5; it is connected with the Earl’s Court development we heard about before, which delivers such a poor rate of return on affordable homes. TfL will say that the development would have gone ahead anyway, as the land it controls is not crucial to the development. I also understand and accept that in order to deliver a transport system that can meet the ever-growing demands of London, options need to be looked at for maximising revenues and minimising costs. That is of course due to the budget cuts we heard about earlier in today’s debate. However, when it comes to the redevelopment, rezoning and using public land to build housing, TfL has a responsibility to London and Londoners not only to seek to maximise the money it receives for the assets but also to ensure that it understands its responsibility and demonstrates its commitment to using its assets in a way that delivers the housing schemes, big or small, which it is involved in. That will enable Londoners to live in their community in a property they can afford to live in and be a part of this great city—and the affordable rent model is only one part of that. As I said, charging 80% of market rent is not affordable for many people in parts of London; in fact, it is totally unaffordable. My plea to TfL would be to make proper provision for property at social rents in schemes that it is involved in.

I understand that we will shortly be advised by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, of some amendments to be made to the Bill later, and I am happy with what is proposed. I concur with the questions of my noble friend Lord Dubs. With that, I welcome the Bill back to your Lordships’ House and we will look with interest at its progress through this House and the other place with the amendments we will shortly be advised of.