Mike Gapes
Main Page: Mike Gapes (The Independent Group for Change - Ilford South)
Jeremy Corbyn
Absolutely. London is a rapidly changing city, and that is, in many ways, part of the joy and attraction of it, but it falls to local government—to boroughs, the Mayor, and the Greater London authority—and central Government to recognise that if we want London to remain a successful, cohesive, coherent city, we have to address the issue of the provision of social housing in London. Otherwise, we will be looking at a city moving into decline, with greater division. It is a very serious issue.
I think about exploitation, the apocryphal stories of what Rachman did in the 1950s and ’60s in Notting Hill, and what was done by various other appalling people who used the rapidly rising property prices to winkle out tenants so that they could resell the buildings. I am not saying that the problem has quite come back to those levels yet, but excessively expensive private rented accommodation that becomes unaffordable for poorer people leads to landlords not maintaining, supporting, improving or looking after properties, and virtually forcing people out of them so that they can rent them out at a much higher rent. Later, I shall make some points about the need for intervention in the private rented sector, because in many ways, in London there has always been a conflict between the social desires of many people to ensure good-quality, decent housing on the one hand, and the pernicious effect of the property market and rapidly rising property prices on many people across London on the other hand.
On inequality, my borough of Islington commendably established in May last year a fairness commission, which has been taking evidence at very well-attended public meetings in community centres, schools and so on across the borough over the past year. It had a very effective final meeting last week, in which a whole paper was put forward on how public policy issues can be addressed. I quote a short part of the section on housing:
“Ensuring that the allocation process for social housing is transparent and effective is essential for addressing fairness in housing. Islington has more than 12,000 people on the housing register but only 5,000 households whose level of need is sufficient for them to qualify for Choice Based Lettings.”
The paper goes on to make recommendations on improving efficiency, changing the allocation system and under-occupation. That underlines the point about the need for new house building.
There is also a problem about the number of people living in private rented accommodation who are in receipt of housing benefit in London. As I say, 30% of my constituents are in private rented accommodation, and the number is rising fast. The proportion of owner-occupiers is now below 30% and falling. Nationally, the figure is falling a bit; in London, it is falling faster, and in inner London it is falling very fast indeed. In the next five to 10 years, we will probably get to the point where 25% or even 20% of housing in inner-London constituencies will be owner-occupied. The majority of new tenancies are not social tenancies, but private rented tenancies.
People who receive or are entitled to housing benefit are suffering grievously because of the Government’s announcement on how they, in their infinite wisdom, will meet the problem of the increasing costs of housing benefit—and those costs are huge. I do not deny people’s right to apply for housing benefit, but there is a public duty to question the cost of that benefit. That duty should fall on the question of how much rent is paid to landlords, rather than result in the punishment of the tenants in the properties.
The London figures show that local housing allowance rates in my borough are £245 a week for one bedroom, £290 a week for two bedrooms, £340 a week for three bedrooms, and £400 a week for four bedrooms. To some people, that sounds an awful lot of money, and it is, but the reality is that many people in desperate housing need are living in private rented accommodation that is paid for by housing benefit. On the anniversary of their application, all those housing benefit payments will be reviewed and—there is not much discretion available to the local authority—housing benefit will be reduced, which causes a terrible problem for the people in receipt of it.
I shall give the example of a constituent whom I know well, but I will not give their name as that would be invidious and wrong. In November 2010, the local housing allowance for the four-bedroom property that they live in was £700 a week. That is to be reduced to £400 a week under the housing benefit changes. There is no way that that family can find the difference. They have lived in the property for a very long time. They have children in local schools, they are very much part of the local community and they have caring responsibilities and all the things that go with that. They will be forced to move, which is damaging to them, the children, and the local community.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend makes some very important points. The knock-on consequence of those people being forced to move is that they will look to relatively cheaper private rented accommodation in outer-London boroughs, including Redbridge, where we have thousands of people on the housing list and almost no social housing. We have a lot of private rented properties, but in some cases they have appalling landlords and terrible letting agencies. The local authority has stopped using them, but inner-London boroughs will have to use them. They will send people out, and those people will need school places. Hundreds of young children in my borough cannot get a school place at the moment. This is the wrong policy at the wrong time, and it will have terrible consequences.
Jeremy Corbyn
I can only agree. If the problem were limited to housing benefit in the private rented sector, that would be bad enough. However, in parallel with the cut in housing benefit payments, the Government have refused to introduce rent controls or even countenance the idea of controlling private sector rents. I hope that we will deal with that when we return to government in 2015 as a new Labour Government—not “new Labour”, but a newly elected Labour Government; I do not want anyone to think that I have changed my ways.