Housing: Rhondda

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey, although I have not had the pleasure of serving in the youth theatre either with you or with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). That is extremely disappointing, but I am not able to rectify that now. Nevertheless, I very much thank the hon. Member for his speech on behalf of his constituents and the way he has conveyed the sense of pride in place for his constituency, which I am sure we all recognise as Members of Parliament. He has done a great job. I have visited his constituency, and although I have not spent a lot of time there I recognise the picture he paints. I look forward to receiving his report and I will study it. On issues such as housing, which he cares so much about—as do we all—it is important that we work across our United Kingdom. I want to reassure him that we work closely with the Welsh Government through our Interministerial Standing Committee channels.

The hon. Member has raised a wide variety of issues relating to different policy areas and Government Departments. Some of them are the responsibility of the Westminster Government and some sit with the Welsh Government. I know that everyone will have heard his remarks and will have been reminded of the importance of working together. These might be separate policy areas, but ultimately, they come together in someone’s home, and that is how we have to think about it. In this area, we value the strength of our Union and see its importance. Devolution both reinforces and strengthens the powers of his local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf, supporting it with funding and enabling local authorities to make decisions close to the people they serve.

What are the Westminster Government doing to alleviate and respond to the concerns the hon. Member has raised? The most important thing is the way we support all the devolved nations via the block grant, which for the Welsh Government amounts to £19 billion just for this financial year. That grant is for them to spend on devolved matters such as housing, schools and transport. We also provide additional infrastructure investment, not only to deliver the homes we need but to nurture strong communities throughout the UK. It is important that we work closely to level up growth, opportunity and pride; that is at the heart of this Government’s vision and a central mission for all of us. The people of the United Kingdom expect us to come together. This is a great opportunity to see how we are doing that and to draw on the combined strengths of the United Kingdom.

Let me focus on the economic context, which is at the heart of what the hon. Gentleman spoke about. He talked about the financial pressures on all our citizens, as well as mortgages, rents and the cost of living; all of those interact. The UK Government are taking determined steps to beat inflation. Ultimately, inflation is the enemy we must all defeat because it has a direct impact on people’s ability to pay their mortgages. The hon. Gentleman highlighted the high rate of home ownership in his constituency, and of course the rate of home ownership is affected by people’s ability to meet their mortgage payments, or their rental costs if they are in the private rented sector. Help with mortgages is available for certain people via the support for mortgage interest scheme, and the Chancellor is taking significant action in that space by talking to mortgage lenders. I encourage people to talk to their mortgage lenders, which have been instructed to deal with their customers fairly, especially at this time of severe economic stress.

It is also important to recognise the support the Government have put into helping people across the UK, including those on low incomes or no income, whether or not they are homeowners. There is a high number of people on lower incomes in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and for those most in need we have put in place a generous UK-wide support package, which includes up to £900 in cost of living payments for households on eligible means-tested benefits this year, a disability cost of living payment of £150 in the summer, and an additional £300 cost of living payment to pensioners to help with the coming winter. To protect the most vulnerable, we have uprated working age and disability benefits by 10.1% from April. That equates to an additional £1 billion of funding, including the Barnett impact, to help households with the costs of their essentials. In England, that funding goes towards the household support fund. It will be up to the Welsh Government to decide how to use the extra Barnett funding.

Energy costs are an additional pressure on household budgets. The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the issue of some homes being more difficult to insulate, owing to the way in which they were constructed, and their not being up to certain current standards. We want his constituents to be warm and dry, regardless of the age of the property they live in, and the UK Government have taken significant steps to help people with their energy bills.

As the Chancellor announced in the spring statement, the Government are maintaining the energy price guarantee at £2,500 until the end of June. That will save households an additional £160 and bring Government support with energy bills since October 2022—so including the most extreme periods of the winter, when people will have needed to have their heating on—to £1,500 for a typical household. Those measures ensured that households across the UK were supported through the spring, and certainly while retail energy costs remained high. Hopefully, those costs are starting to turn downward, and we hope that continues.

The hon. Gentleman also raised a number of issues about the private rented sector—the commercial rented sector—notwithstanding the fact that his constituency contains a relatively high proportion of homeowners. The private rented sector plays a vital role in any housing market across the UK, and I recognise the fact that the Welsh Government have their own schemes. The hon. Gentleman touched on some of those, and they are obviously for the Welsh Government to administer. He talked about the impact of the empty homes grant. There is also Help to Buy in Wales, and the leasing scheme.

There are a number of ways in which any Government can help citizens, and we are always happy to talk to our counterparts in Wales. I believe I have a meeting quite soon with my counterpart in the Welsh Administration, and our officials meet regularly to discuss how the schemes work and what is the best way to get help to people who really need it.

The hon. Gentleman talked about section 21 no-fault evictions. He will be aware, as will the House, that we intend to fulfil our manifesto commitment to ban section 21 evictions. We have introduced the Renters (Reform) Bill to Parliament for its First Reading, and we are looking forward to the Bill progressing so we can begin the process of enacting those provisions. My understanding is that we are working closely with the Welsh Government so that they may align their measures, should they choose to do so, with the measures we are taking through English legislation. We want and expect the provisions in the Renters (Reform) Bill to cover Wales as well as England.

The hon. Gentleman highlighted the impact of section 21 evictions on his constituents, which he has seen through his casework and surgeries. That is why we want to bring the Bill forward. We know that one of the most significant anxieties that private renters have is the fear of a section 21 eviction—the retaliatory eviction that we hear about so often. When tenants have to report a significant problem or fault with their property, whether it is damp or mould, a broken boiler or something else that makes the property dangerous, they fear that instead of fixing it, the landlord will simply evict them and make them homeless. That adds to the pressure on homelessness services and temporary accommodation, which, as the hon. Gentleman brought to life, exists in Wales as well. That is why we are taking action to remove that section 21 power.

At the same time, we need to be completely fair to landlords who need to regain their property if tenants are abusing it. Just as there are good and bad landlords, there are good and bad tenants, if I can put it that way. If a landlord is renting their property in good faith to a tenant, and that tenant has damaged it in some way or is engaging in antisocial behaviour, it is absolutely right that the landlord can regain their property to restore that confidence that it will not be damaged. They should also be able to move back into their property or sell it on the open market if they wish to do so.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about social housing. We recognise that it is a vital addition to any housing market, which is why we in England are investing considerable sums of money to ensure that there is social housing across the nation for the people who need it. We have delivered our £11.5 billion affordable homes programme in England, and I encourage the Welsh Government to follow in our footsteps and deliver more social housing to meet the need of people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and across Wales. I thank the hon. Gentleman and I look forward to reading his report.

Question put and agreed to.