British House Building Industry

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the previous speakers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his excellent speech on leasehold issues. He is such an expert—as ever—because he has such a problem in his area, but that is not unique and we have some of the same issues in London with flatted developments.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for the excellent work that she has been doing on this important issue and for securing this debate. I am not sure whether it is a relief to discuss something other than Brexit, but this is as much, if not more, of a crisis, certainly for those who are affected.

In my maiden speech, I referred to my forebears, who recognised the importance of good-quality housing for people’s wellbeing, lives and, I have to say, their productivity in their factory. My forebears built good-quality, affordable housing until the state took on that responsibility. From the ’40s onwards, Governments of both persuasions built tens of thousands of council homes a year to ensure that the British people were adequately housed, but we have been walking away from that in the last 10 or more years.

For most of my political life, I was a councillor in Hounslow. Even in outer London until about 10 years ago, a family on an ordinary income could afford to buy their own home, so they did not need social rented housing. They did not put additional pressure on council housing. Since house prices have increased, however, people need a household income of £72,000 in Hounslow to buy even a two-bedroom flat, yet the average household income is £40,000.

We need 1.2 million new council and social rented homes in this country because that is the number of households on the housing needs register. That does not count people who are not disabled and working-age adults who have to rent. The number of people in that category has gone up 100% in just over 10 years. Under the right to buy, most councils, including even those that are building housing—Hounslow is building about 400 new council homes a year—are losing council homes faster than they are building them. Right to buy homes are often becoming private rented stock at three times the council rent levels.

Of course, we need house builders to be on our side. As others have mentioned so eloquently, they need to address the leasehold issue. They also need to take responsibility for the shocking faults in many new build properties. There is variation between developers, and they cannot hide behind the fact that there is a skills shortage. There is one and they need to take responsibility for it, but so do the Government, because much of the skills shortage in construction results from the fact that a large proportion of our construction workforce are EU nationals and many are leaving, or are no longer coming in the same numbers because of the uncertainty that has been mentioned many times in this Chamber. They do not feel welcome and do not have security as workers in this country.

I am sure that the Minister will respond with warm and hopeful words, as Ministers always do. The new Government may even intend to do something significant about the housing crisis, although I suspect that they will not be around for long enough to implement anything. I advise them, however, not to fall into having the problems that some previous Ministers have had. This includes the risk of unintended consequences of poorly thought-out policies. I will mention two of them.

Let us have no more schemes, such as Help to Buy, that just give discounts to those who can afford to buy anyway. Let us not rush through planning changes such as those to permitted development rights, which have allowed the appalling chicken coops in old factories and offices, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden.

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[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that that is exactly what we intend to do. How do we enable people to get on the housing ladder and to be homeowners in an array of homes they would like and need? How do we best use housing benefits to enable that to happen? As I have said, we have built more homes in this last year than in every one of the last 31 years. We are correcting a market that has been undeniably not supported for the last 31 years. We are getting it right. We have built more houses. Where we see the misuse of leaseholds, we will get rid of that. We will be supporting people with an array of opportunities.

[Ruth Cadbury]

With due respect to the Minister, I think that the hon. Member for South Norfolk was talking about the housing benefit bill, which is not relevant to people who can buy their own homes. He was saying that that money would be far better spent on building affordable social rent homes for people who will never be able to buy their own homes. Meanwhile, the Help to Buy programme has simply increased the price of flats in London.

[Ms McVey]

I did understand what my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk was talking about. He talked about the £24 billion that was going into housing benefit and asked how we could best use that to help to build more homes, which could include social and council homes. I understand that, but at the same time, we have to ensure that more people can get on the housing ladder.

We are at the start of building 300,000 homes a year. That is not just about the homes; it is about reshaping an industry. At the same time, we want to be a global visionary centre of expertise in building. Let us think about all the jobs that that will provide, if we have the commitment to do it together. That is why we will have a centre of excellence in the north of England to look at the best ways forward for construction and engineering. That is what a determined Conservative party is going to do. We are going to build the right houses, champion home ownership and make a centre of excellence for building.