Social Housing and Building Safety

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Speaker. I did apologise for being late for the beginning of the debate, for reasons that I explained.

Let me first welcome the Grenfell residents who are with us today. We must never forget those who died, those who were injured, and those who were bereaved by that tragedy. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has done a great deal of work and produced a great many reports about building safety since Grenfell, and indeed we carried out pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill, now the 2022 Act. That, I think, shows the strength of Parliament working together, with the Government presenting legislation and Select Committees scrutinising and trying to improve it. However, Grenfell did not just highlight problems relating to building safety; it highlighted fundamental attitudes towards social housing.

Essentially, social housing was believed, by some in positions of authority, to be poor housing for poor people, and that was an attitude that stuck. I remind the Secretary of State that there was a time when the Government’s approach was to sell off high-value council housing, because if it was high-value the presumption was that it was too good for council tenants to live in. I hope that we have moved on since then, but there are lessons to be learned. As the Grenfell residents have told us time and again, when they approached their landlords with problems and concerns, they were ignored—because they were just council tenants, and they would not know what they were talking about, would they? Unfortunately, that attitude is still present to some extent among social housing landlords, whether they be councils or housing associations: it is a case of “We will do things to you, as tenants; we will not do things for you and with you.” That attitude needs to change fundamentally.

We have made some progress. Hopefully some of the moves towards ensuring that tenants’ voices are heard, both locally and nationally, will bear fruit. This is not a new development. When I was chair of housing in Sheffield in the 1980s, there were a number of widespread tenants associations and a tenants federation. Sheffield still has the unique system whereby tenants pay a levy on their rents, voluntarily, towards the funding of their tenants associations. They are not reliant on the council’s benevolence: they are entitled to that money to run their own associations, and I think that that is a good approach that might be looked at more widely.

We have clearly made progress on making buildings safer throughout, and the Secretary of State has made further changes. However, when the Select Committee looks at the numbers, we will see gaps in the legislation whereby some properties are not covered by it. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) pointed out, lower-level properties are still not covered. There is also the question of the speed of our progress. Are we really achieving the speed that is necessary to make people safe in their homes? They have been under such pressure over the last few months. This is not just about the buildings; it is about the people who live in those buildings and the mental stress and strain that they are experiencing, not knowing whether their home is safe and whether they can afford to make it safe. Those matters ought to be of fundamental concern to us all.

Let me return to the point that I made earlier about social housing and the need to find the necessary resources. If we really believe that social housing tenants are as entitled to good homes as anyone else, we must recognise that they are entitled as anyone in the private sector to receive Government help, and help from those who were responsible for the problems in the first place, to make their homes safe; or else the landlords should pay for the work by diverting money from other sources. The tenants should not have to pay for it out of their rents.

If we want to ensure that social housing tenants have safe homes, we must also ensure that they have good-quality homes. We heard some appalling stories from my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) about her problems with housing associations in her constituency, and the Select Committee has heard from Dan Hewitt from ITV News and from tenants about the conditions in which people are having to live, which are completely unacceptable. We need to make buildings safe and more energy-efficient; we need housing associations and councils to ensure that they are fit in live in; and we will need to address the decent homes standard when it is introduced; but the money simply is not there to do enable all those things to be done, and it is certainly not there to pay for building safety work on top of that.

The Committee heard from Placeshapers, a group of middle-ranking housing associations that are more locally based in their communities, but none of them can afford to make their buildings into zero-carbon homes by 2050. They do not have the budgets; the money simply is not there. We have to listen and learn from that. We have heard from the National Housing Federation that it will cost at least £10 billion to deal with fire safety building work. That money will have to come from somewhere in the budgets unless the Government find it. All those challenges, which social housing providers will have to meet, will not be met by the current budgets. Once again, social housing tenants are being treated as second-class, second-rate citizens, which is simply not acceptable.

Then there is the issue of new housing. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden described the devastating position in which so many of her constituents find themselves, but we are all seeing those circumstances. People who are in desperate need of housing cannot get a home to live in from their councils or housing associations. It was interesting to hear the council house figures from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central. We are seeing exactly the same in Sheffield. When I was housing chair in the 1980s we had more than 90,000 council houses, but the number is now down to 45,000. By and large, it is the nice family homes in the suburbs that have been sold under the right to buy; not many inner-city flats have been sold. When I was housing chair, we would not let a flat to a family with children and ask parents to lug prams up the stairs to a second or third-floor flat or maisonette; they would be given a family home. That is not possible now. People come to me and say, “Mr Betts, we have a family and we need a house with a garden”, and the answer is “There are not any to let.”

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) made this point. In the London borough of Barnet and other London boroughs, there are no three-bedroom houses. So many people come to me, and to other Members of Parliament, seeking such houses, but, as the hon. Gentleman says, only flats are available. Sometimes councils, including the previous Conservative council in Barnet, were accused of social cleansing, but the reality is that people were encouraged to go to other parts of the country because there was no stock available in Barnet.

[Mr Betts]

It is a problem that is replicated nowadays. At one stage it was just a London problem, but it is now a problem in many other places as well.

Although Sheffield Council has an ambitious programme to build 3,000 council homes, which was pioneered, eventually, by my good friend and colleague Councillor Paul Wood, the cabinet member for housing, that will not address the problem quickly. More money needs to be provided, and more needs to be done.

We did another report in the Select Committee in which we said we needed to build at least 90,000 social houses a year in this country, but that to do that, the Government would need to put in funding of £10 billion a year, which is much more than they are currently putting in. That is the reality. Unless we build those 90,000 homes a year in the social sector, we are not going to hit the 300,000 target nationally, because the private sector is not going to build anything like 300,000; historically, it has not done so. So there is a challenge on these issues as well.

I want to say one or two words about the right to buy. I have mentioned the consequences of the right to buy in the past. If the Government want to go ahead, and if they genuinely feel that it provides the best value for the Government’s money to subsidise discounts for housing association tenants to buy their homes, I would like to see the impact statement that goes with that. I would like to see where that Government money is going to come from. Will it be diverted from existing housing budgets? If so, instead of the extra money for social housing that I am arguing for, are we going to get less money in those budgets? Will the Government provide a replacement for the discounts given to housing tenants when they buy their homes, and will they also make the money available for the full cost of replacing each home sold? Talking to many housing associations, I understand that the cost of replacing is greater than the market value of the homes when they are sold. That point is often lost. I am not sure where those assurances will come from, but hopefully we will get them.

Are housing associations going to be allowed to say no to this? They are private organisations—some of them are charities—and they have to meet particular requirements. In the past, there was a voluntary agreement with the National Housing Federation when the pilot scheme was introduced. Is it going to be a voluntary agreement again? I am not aware that NHF has been consulted about this scheme or its details. I assume that those conversations are going to happen, but it will be interesting to see what the approach actually is.

I would like to make one completely separate, important point. It goes back to Dame Judith Hackitt’s report on the Grenfell disaster. One of the things she said was absolutely fundamental: she talked about the golden thread running through all housing developments and construction and said that there had to be absolute transparency. The Select Committee has had a disagreement with the Government about building control. We believe that building control inspectors should be independently appointed and not appointed by the developer. The Government have conceded that point—or, I think, proposed it—in relation to the highest-rise, most vulnerable buildings, for which the new building safety regulator will be responsible for appointing building control officers, but not for the rest of the sites.

I have a problem in my constituency at a development called Owlthorpe Fields, about which I have challenged the Housing Minister before in relation to non-compliance with planning conditions. Some residents were concerned about the way the foundations were going in, so I asked the National House Building Council, the appointed building control organisation, whether it could give me some information about the number of visits it had made, the number of inspections it had carried out and the history of its work on the site. The answer I got from the NHBC stated:

“I am sorry to inform you that NHBC is not able to provide this information. The information we hold in respect of Owlthorpe Fields is not a matter of public record and cannot be released without prior approval from Avant Homes.”

Avant Homes is the developer. In other words, everything is secret unless the developer decides to make it transparent.

That is not acceptable. If we are in favour of transparency, as I believe the Secretary of State and the Housing Minister are, this issue needs addressing. If something goes wrong in the future, everyone will ask why, and the answer will be that no one was allowed to see what was happening in the process. I am just raising that as an issue. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker.

This has been a very thoughtful debate. I come back to the point that we need to start treating social housing and social housing tenants as a priority for investment in order to build more of the decent homes that they ought to be able to live in.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)]

We have heard many powerful, heartfelt and emotional contributions from hon. Members in today’s debate. There is an understanding that Governments of all persuasions have been at fault over the years, and that we should now work together, and I greatly welcome the comments to that end by Opposition Members and those on the Opposition Front Bench. The contributions reflect the seriousness and significance of this five-year anniversary—not least for the bereaved and the survivors whose courage and dignity continues to inspire us all. From my meetings with them and the wider Grenfell community, I have been humbled by their tireless patience and dedication in the pursuit of justice and truth. They have bravely given testimony at the Grenfell Tower inquiry and they have diligently listened to the testimony given by others—forced to relive their harrowing experiences each time. They have engaged with Government every day to challenge us and make sure that we reform the system that so badly failed them and the 72 people who sadly died in the tragedy.

We in this House can only hope that, as individuals, we would have acted with the same compassion and dignity as the Grenfell community has over the previous five years. There is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that much of the progress we have made on building safety, on fire safety and on strengthening tenants’ rights in the social housing sector is owed to their heroic efforts. We are forever in their debt.

Let there be no doubt: industry must pay to fix the building safety problems that they themselves create, and signatories to our building safety pledge have undertaken to give us, within a month of signing, their proposals for contacting the owners and leaseholders of buildings with a clear plan on next steps Where building owners are failing to make acceptable progress, we will not hesitate to take further action, including naming and shaming developers who are dragging their feet, along with tougher enforcement action by both councils and fire and rescue services.

Hon. Members may also be aware that we have also established a joint inspection team to help councils clamp down on building owners who hold up vital remedial works.

[Dr Offord]

On that point, I have many constituents in a newly constructed property at Mar House in Colindale who have not only paid for a very costly fire alarm system, but are now being subjected to demands for a waking watch because it is alleged by the managing agents that it is a requirement of the fire service. It is not appropriate for a Minister to intervene in what the fire service decides or not, but it appears to be a random request, and it is imposing a disproportionate charge on my constituents to address an issue that they did not create. Would the Government fund that waking watch for my constituents in Mar House?

[Eddie Hughes]

The Government have committed to £62 million of funding for the installation of fire alarms with regard to waking watch. I think it would be best if we exchange correspondence; would my hon. Friend be good enough to write to me? I fully accept that it is not the Government’s job to intervene, but it is certainly our job to consider and assist.

I can also reassure hon. Members and ministerial colleagues that we have not shied away from calling in developers, alongside local authorities, to discuss individual cases and ensure that remediation works begin without delay.

I just wanted to consider some of the points that have been raised today. The hon. member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) suggested that the voices of tenants had not been heard. This is one of the things that emerged most starkly out of the Grenfell inquiry for me—that a number of problems were raised time and again and yet seemed to be ignored. We have heard contributions from Members across the Chamber who have reflected similar circumstances. The expression I have been using is that we are turning up the volume on the tenants’ voice. We are making sure that they will be heard in a number of ways.

I fully appreciate the comments that have been made with regard to our putting our resident panel on a statutory footing. We can talk about that and see ways collectively, across the House, to improve the Government’s legislation in the future, but we have advertised that panel and over 1,000 people have applied. We are currently assessing them to make sure that the 250 people we identify give a broad demographic and geographical representation to make sure that they have a direct line to speak to Ministers. We have a commitment to reduce the number of non-decent properties by 50% by 2030, and we are working on that commitment across both the social and private rented sectors. Our private rented sector Bill will address that.

I am delighted that the hon. Member for Wigan welcomes the powers we are giving to the regulator to make sure it has the teeth to act. I commend the work of the housing ombudsman, whose paper on damp and mould is so important in ensuring that social housing providers do not start from the premise that problems with damp are caused by how the property is occupied. That is a dreadful position to take, and providers should consider each case on its merits.