Housing (CSR)

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Raynsford]

My right hon. Friend, who has great experience in both the financial field and housing, makes an extremely telling point. I have a huge amount of sympathy for what he is saying. From what I will say later, he will hear that I agree wholeheartedly that the impact of the measures announced by the new Government will disproportionately affect poorer people.

After Ministers have been confronted with such dire evidence of the negative impact that their policies have had over the past six months, one might expect that they would be reconsidering some of their impetuous early decisions and the harsh cuts package. One certainly might expect a Liberal Democrat Minister to wonder why he and his colleagues have lashed themselves to the mast of a Tory ship heading directly on to the rocks, steered by a demented helmsman, while the captain appears blithely unaware of the immediate perils, fixing his gaze instead on some distant coastline and imaginary sunlit uplands and—to use the words of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster—prattling on about growth tomorrow, unaware that the reality is one of cuts and unemployment coming today.

Instead of changing course, Ministers continue to press ahead on their doomed journey, ignoring all the evidence of impending disaster and pinning their hopes on the so-called housing bonus incentive, which is about as unconvincing as the imagined sunlit uplands. The scheme has been promised as the panacea for the housing market for the past six months. In the summer, the Minister for Housing and Local Government promised anxious house builders that it would be launched before the summer recess. We were then told that all would be revealed in the autumn. Now we are promised a consultation in November. All the while, confidence is draining away from the housing market.

Perhaps the Minister can reveal today how that supposed panacea will work. Will it, as the Housing Minister originally claimed, apply to all new homes? That was the prospectus. I now gather that it is more likely that it will apply only to net additions to the housing stock. If that is the case—I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that—what will that do to regeneration? What will it do to areas where there is a need to develop brownfield sites and clear properties or to improve older, substandard ones as part of that process? In such areas, it will probably be years before there is any net addition to the housing stock. What possible benefit will there be in such areas from a bonus scheme that is based solely on net additions to the stock?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

It might shorten the right hon. Gentleman’s speech a little if I say that it is a new homes bonus.

[Mr Raynsford]

That is as clear as mud. Is it additional new homes, or new homes? The original prospectus specified all new dwellings.

[Andrew Stunell]

The right hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening. I did not use the term, “additional new homes”; it is a new homes bonus. He should trust the words of the Housing Minister.

[Mr Raynsford]

If that is the case, I am pleased to hear it, but there has been much speculation in the housing press, based on the Housing Minister’s remarks at the Conservative party conference—not an occasion that I attended—indicating that it would apply to net additions to the housing stock. There is an obvious concern, and I hope that we will have greater clarity than we have so far received on the subject.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

A lovely bit of slapstick—I really enjoyed that—but we should start with a few facts. In 1997, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), looked on the outgoing Government’s record as a disaster, as I did. They had built 830,000 homes but sold 1.2 million, and 400,000 homes were lost to the social rented sector, which had a waiting list of just more than 1 million. The Labour party and the new Labour Government said that they would tackle the situation. They built 377,000 homes for rent and 182,000 homes for the low-cost home-ownership market—a total of 559,000 homes for the social sector built during Labour’s years in office. However, they sold 605,000 homes under the right to buy and other legislation. During Labour’s period in office, the number of homes in the social sector reduced by 45,530.

The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) said that the priority, as regards social housing, should be the very poorest, so we should judge Labour’s record on what it did to the social rented sector, and exclude low-cost home ownership. If we do that, we find that the number of homes in the social rented sector during Labour’s period in office fell by 227,000. Fewer homes were available for rent, so I will not take the characterisation offered by the right hon. Gentleman, who is an expert in many things, but who has forgotten how to count.

[Mr Raynsford]

Will the hon. Gentleman please tell us how many of the homes he mentioned were uninhabitable because of the appalling condition they were in, and how many homes were improved under the decent homes programme? Will he tell us about the millions of homes in decent condition that are now available for social rent because of investment by the previous Government?

[Andrew Stunell]

I welcome that, and I am happy to report that we are continuing the investment in the decent homes programme.

Let me get to the right hon. Gentleman’s central proposition, which is that there was somehow no evidence of a need to change housing policies. The previous Government’s housing policy depended on continuing with the claim that they had dealt with boom and bust. As it turned out, they had dealt only with the boom. There is no public money available—those were the words of the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne). Indeed, during this debate, the Government will have borrowed another £24 million to fund the services that we deliver, but for which we have no income. An extra £400 million will be borrowed today, and another £400 million extra will be borrowed tomorrow and every day this year. This year, £150 billion will be borrowed. The money is not there.

What about targets? We have heard some nonsense from the Labour Front Bencher about thousands of homes having been cancelled. What she actually means is that many of the homes in the Labour targets have not been built. Last year, when Labour was in power, 78,000 fewer homes were built than were in the Government’s target. Only 57% of the target was met. We know, therefore, that the Opposition’s figures depend on an economy that Labour bust, on public money that we do not have, and on public targets that did not work.

[Alison Seabeck]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Stunell]

I am happy to give way to the hon. Lady and I am listening out for her apology.

[Alison Seabeck]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that 70 local authorities have withdrawn planning applications on the basis of a letter sent to them by the Secretary of State?

[Andrew Stunell]

That, of course, is what was wrong with the targets: they built up resistance in local communities—although not in all of them, of course; colleagues in Yeovil and Chesterfield could not build the houses that they wanted because of the absurd national targets.

The hon. Lady quoted early-day motion 355. Outside Westminster tube station, the National Housing Federation has posted a plea to us all for more affordable and social homes. I want to say very clearly—I shall be saying this on many other occasions—that when it comes to producing more affordable and social homes, a party that finished up with 45,000 fewer such homes than it started out with 13 years before is not in a good position to criticise the coalition Government. When we go in five years’ time, we will leave more homes in the social sector than we started with.

The National Housing Federation briefing, which hon. Members have perhaps drawn on, says:

“Our modelling suggests that the Government’s claim that up to 150,000 homes will be delivered over the four year period is achievable”,

and it adds:

“If one in four new lettings across the sector…are made at 80% of market rent”.

The reference to “one in four” is interesting. Opposition Members imagine that the Government will impose a new model compulsorily on every housing authority. That is absolutely not the case. If the National Housing Federation, which is, let us face it, not a particularly good friend of the Government at the moment, says that we can get our 150,000 homes with a quarter of rents at an affordable level, it ill behoves Opposition Members to spread lies and deceit about the issue.

[Mr Betts]

Can we make sure that the Minister is telling the whole truth about this? The National Housing Federation said that the figures might be achievable if one in four new tenancies was let under the new rents, but it also said that all the new houses that were built—the whole 150,000—had to be let under the new rents. Effectively, on the Minister’s definition that we should treat as social houses only those houses that are let on existing tenures at existing rent levels, no new social houses will be built under the programme proposed by him and his colleagues. Is that not true?

[Andrew Stunell]

I do not really understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, because—[Laughter.] The reason I do not understand it is that it is complete nonsense. The homes that we are building will be available for affordable rent, and we have already set out some of what we want to do. However, I acknowledge straight away that hon. Members could have done with more detail, which is why we are producing a consultation document—hon. Members should note the word “consultation”—to set out many of our proposals and some options, and we are inviting opinions about how legislation should ultimately be shaped.

I was perhaps a little over-exuberant earlier when talking about how the new homes bonus will apply. It will apply to conversions, change of use and other net gains. I am quite content to confess that my adrenalin got the better of me earlier.

I need to deal with some of the other points made, so let me pick them up as best as I can. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made some important points about mortgage availability. The crucial task for the Government is to ensure that we have a sustainable and growing economy. That is absolutely at the heart of the comprehensive spending review.

Let me make it clear to colleagues that the total being invested in infrastructure is being maintained. We have reprioritised expenditure on measures that will support growth and investment in jobs—particularly green jobs—and in industry. That has come at the expense of the traditional amounts spent on housing investment. All Members probably wish that we had a larger housing programme, but our programme will deliver more homes in the social sector in the next five years than Labour did in its 13 years. That is bound to be true, given that the number under Labour fell by 45,000.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) made it clear that this country has created a housing tenure model that makes little sense. On the one hand, we have people who are excluded from any opportunity of getting social housing. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, correctly said that 9,000 people in Stockport are waiting for homes. She could have added that there are only 11,000 social homes to go into. People whose names are on the list have no realistic expectation of ever getting into council housing.

We must build more social homes, and we will be building more social homes. We must use the ones we have more efficiently, and we are providing local authorities and housing associations with a way to enable them slowly to do that when homes are re-let. We are, of course, also trying to ensure that the sign outside the House in Westminster tube station is responded to, not just through an early-day motion, but through a policy that delivers more social and affordable housing, exactly as requested.