Housing: Impact on Child Development

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend. He comes to this House with many years’ experience, but he can talk with passion, understanding and experience of being brought up in poverty, and that enriches our debate and helps us understand the difficulties that many families face.

This debate is of fundamental importance because of the poor standard of housing that thousands of children will return home to this evening, housing that will adversely affect them and society for years to come. The World Health Organisation notes that early childhood development is the most important factor in,

“the quality of health, well-being, learning and behaviour across the life span”.

The impact of low quality housing upon these youngsters in their early years is both severe and lasting. In the short term, it adversely affects their health and well-being and hinders their learning. In the long term, it diminishes their chances and opportunities, causing problems which society must later address. A clear example of this is the disruption that overcrowding causes to children’s education and learning.

The Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) recently highlighted cases not so very far from this Chamber, where a shortage of adequate social housing for families means that children simply do not have the space to sit and study at a table. In one household, typical of many, the two youngest children share a room with their parents, while the teenaged children have to lie on their beds and do homework in a cramped adjoining room. For any effective studying, they must find space at school early in the morning or before it is locked up in the evening. How can they realistically be expected to keep up with classmates who have the simple benefits of a desk, a work surface or some quiet space in their own home? How can they properly develop the skills and knowledge required to compete in a difficult job market when their physical surroundings obstruct their studies? Children in these circumstances are being dealt an unacceptable blow to their life chances from a young age. However, the true impact is likely to be even wider, as pressure on the education system increases and employment opportunities are hampered.

Overcrowded housing not only causes immediate harm to children but causes long-term societal problems, whether in our schools or, eventually, in our economy. A 2003 study considering the cumulative lost earnings of children growing up in poor quality housing compared to their peers projected that the figure would stand at £14 billion. This figure starkly illustrates how the childhood impacts of low-quality housing continue into adult life and the hard cost of needlessly diminished life chances and lost opportunities.

The correlation between substandard housing and poor health is indisputable, with the burden more often than not falling upon the National Health Service. I shall give just one example, that of a family in Liverpool who are helped by a charity, Nugent Care. Its report on them shows how problems of poor housing blight the health and well-being of entire families. Over the years this family had reported various problems to their housing officers, from damp and cracked walls to the front door not shutting properly and the windows being smashed by a local gang. The mother, Anne, informed her support worker that she had given up on painting and decorating as she simply could not see the point any more. She had come to despair of her own home, if it could be called a home. Every time she put up new wallpaper or freshly painted, it simply cracked or peeled off due to damp and poor construction. At the age of 17, her daughter Leanne developed severe clinical depression, which, according to the Nugent report, was,

“possibly brought on by her mum’s depression, possibly by her own experiences and certainly not helped by sitting in an unloved house in need of repair”.

Not only is this a tragedy for Leanne and her family, tarnishing what should have been happy and formative teenage years, but it also requires considerable public healthcare provision, otherwise unnecessary if she had simply been given the decent housing that every child deserves.

The impact of low quality housing on the mental health of children and young people is shocking and tragic. The impact on children’s physical health is, sadly, just as shocking. Multiple housing problems increase the risk of illness or disability by up to 25%. Children living in cold homes are more than twice as likely to suffer from a variety of respiratory diseases than those with adequate heating, and children living in damp and mouldy homes are up to three times more prone to coughing and wheezing.

Of course, no one is under any illusion about the scale of the challenge that we face when it comes to ensuring that children grow up in an environment that nurtures their health, education and overall well-being. It is imperative not to make the situation worse, particularly with regard to policies where all the indications point to significant long-term harm. An impact assessment carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2010 on the local housing allowance found that families,

“could be affected by overcrowding, particularly where they downsize to find affordable accommodation. This could have an adverse affect on health and mental well being … For children, particularly those of school age, overcrowded conditions could hamper their ability to do homework and affect educational attainment”.

It went on to warn of particular dangers for the children of younger mothers, stating that,

“Even if their re-housing is managed so they do not become homeless, teenage mothers affected are at risk of mental problems as a result of their isolation in their new location and poorer outcomes for their children”.

In spite of such warnings, the housing allowance changes were implemented and we are now witnessing the consequences, particularly in London, where instances of overcrowding are already worryingly high and the stock of decent, affordable homes is exceptionally low.

Based on a freedom of information request to local councils, the Caritas Social Action Network recently projected that in more than 20,000 households across London whole families are now sharing a single room, with potentially serious implications for their well-being. Beyond the immediate human impact of this, it is a concern that there has been little or no official analysis of the costs that will be incurred by the public services as a result of this. Factoring these in, it is likely that some of the cost-saving measures under way at present may in fact be having precisely the opposite effect.

It is therefore essential that as further changes to housing and welfare policy are considered and undertaken, the full range of short-term and long-term impacts on children are properly accounted for. The impact of low quality housing on the health, well-being and education of children across their entire lives, and for the whole of society, is stark. Proper accounting is morally and economically sound, and I hope that today’s debate will underscore the urgency of taking it into consideration. The Government must do more than take note. They must act.