Clyde House and A2Dominion

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Clyde House is a block of flats where residents have experienced problems pretty much from the word go after it opened several years ago. The issues came to a head several weeks ago when a huge water leak from the heating system rapidly spread through the electrics, causing huge concern for residents, who were worried about the inevitable health and safety issues. As the local MP, I did my best to see what I could do to get A2Dominion, the agent that manages the property, to respond more promptly to residents’ concerns, but residents have experienced major issues in trying to get urgent repairs done. I have encountered similar problems and was initially unable to find someone at A2Dominion who was prepared to take some responsibility to ensure that the necessary repairs were done.

I have held three meetings for residents of Clyde House and have had the chance to inspect some of the flats. I saw potential electrical faults, water damage close to electrical fittings, and severe condensation due to poor ventilation, which residents told me had been a problem right from the start. Those are just a few of several issues with the block. Another problem is that the lifts that serve the flats were extremely unreliable to the extent that, on several occasions, elderly and disabled people have been literally unable to get into their homes because the lifts were not working. They could not even be carried or get upstairs some other way, which is totally unacceptable. Other families have been worried about health and safety issues, and some with children who suffer asthma have suspicions that it had been brought on by the damp and mould.

After those three meetings, we did get a plan of work from A2Dominion, and it was vital that the organisation finally responded to the issues that Clyde House residents were experiencing. Since then, although some deadlines were initially missed, which only led to concerns being raised even further in the first week that we were trying to get some action, I can tell the House that more progress has been made. To be even about A2Dominion’s record, it has now done much more to address the urgent and broader issues affecting Clyde House.

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

I thank the right hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene and congratulate her on securing this debate. I have experienced similar issues with A2Dominion, and her sequence of events mirrors mine. I have had issues with blocks run by A2Dominion for eight or 10 years since I was councillor—three and a half years before I came here. I also recognise the long-standing lack of maintenance and communication with residents. However, like the right hon. Lady, I have also noticed a recent improvement in communication with my office, with residents and with the London Borough of Hounslow, which has also experienced issues, so I am hopeful that things are improving. However, does she agree that there is an issue of accountability when it comes to housing associations and their key stakeholders?

[Justine Greening]

Indeed, and I will come on to what I think could be some of the solutions. The hon. Lady highlights one of the other issues that came out of the experience of Clyde House residents, which is that nobody is willing to take responsibility. On the one hand, A2Dominion said initially that the responsibility for rectifying some of the major urgent issues was down to the developer, which was responsible because it had built the building. On the other hand, the developer was clear with me that it had handed over that responsibility and that the issues within the footprint of the building itself had been passed on to A2Dominion, which is responsible for maintenance. While that discussion was happening between those two organisations, my constituents were left with no action, from which there are lessons to be learned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

That is a very good question, to which I do not actually have the answer, but I will make inquires and write to the hon. Lady. In most cases, as I am sure she knows, it is at the judge’s discretion where costs fall, and often it is decided on the merits of the case.

The 2018 Act does not place any additional responsibilities on social landlords, as they are already required to maintain their homes to a decent standard; it will act only as a backstop. We expect any problems with properties to be resolved far before they reach that stage.

The first step for residents with a complaint is to report problems to their landlord. The regulator expects all social landlords to have in place a complaints process that deals with issues promptly, politely and fairly. The onus is on individual landlords, working with residents, to set their approach and timescales for handling their residents’ complaints. I want to stress that if any hon. Member, acting on a constituent’s behalf, is unhappy with the response provided by a registered provider once their internal complaints process has been exhausted, that hon. Member may take the matter further.

Social housing residents can also approach the Housing Ombudsman Service at any time to seek advice. However, in order to refer a complaint formally to the ombudsman, a resident’s complaint must pass through the democratic filter. That involves referring a complaint to a designated person—a local councillor, a Member of Parliament or a tenant panel—for them either to deal with the complaint or to refer it to the ombudsman, or waiting eight weeks after their landlord’s complaints process has been exhausted. If the ombudsman determines that a complaint falls within its jurisdiction, it will investigate the complaint to determine whether there has been maladministration by the landlord. It will then issue a determination letter, which may include orders and recommendations to resolve the dispute. The landlord is expected to follow any orders within a specific timeframe.

[Ruth Cadbury]

A2Dominion is one of a number of large housing associations that, by definition, are charities, and yes, it is a registered social landlord. Almost all of its residents, certainly in my constituency, are either social rent tenants or leaseholders under the shared ownership scheme, many of whom are on fixed incomes. I see again and again seriously poor management practices and lack of repairs, such as those the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) has described. These residents do not have the time or energy to go through the process that the Minister has just set out. What they want is a decent-quality housing service that is at least as good as the local authority, and it should be as good as anyone would expect.

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely agree. I have a large number of housing association properties in my constituency, too, and my postbag as a constituency MP is filled with similar complaints. When I first became a Member of Parliament, I was astonished and dismayed to find I was effectively the postbox for local housing association’s complaints service. Were I the chief executive of such an organisation, I would be mortified if local Members of Parliament were receiving the level of correspondence that some of us do, and I would be taking action.

We have recently seen some large housing associations acknowledge their failures: A2Dominion has acknowledged its particular failure in Clyde House, and L&Q, one of the G15, has come out very publicly and acknowledged its failure. Action has been taken—for example, in the past couple of years on Circle Property, which also failed on service—but there is more we can do, particularly on regulation, about which the Green Paper will say more. We can swing the pendulum of regulation toward a sense of customer service and away from purely financial regulation. As I say, there is more to come.

Sometimes things go wrong, and where that happens it is of the utmost importance that any safety concerns are resolved as soon as practicable. All registered providers of social housing must comply with the regulatory standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing. That includes ensuring that all their properties meet and are maintained at the decent homes standard, which means that homes should be free of any category 1 hazards, in a reasonable state of repair, have reasonably modern facilities, and provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort. The regulator’s standards also require landlords to provide a repairs and maintenance service that responds to the need of tenants and offers them choices. The objective is to get repairs and improvements right the first time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

I thank my hon. Friend for his tenacious work in looking after Scots wherever they might be, north or south. The withdrawal of that funding is, sadly, a matter for the Scottish Government, but we have allocated more than £220 million of funding to London, largely through the flexible homelessness support grant and the Move On fund. Our expert advisers are supporting local authorities to tailor their services according to local need, particularly for our Scottish friends.

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

The number of homeless households seeking help in Hounslow—including some from Scotland—has doubled in the past 10 months. Hounslow has an admirable record, including a five-year programme of delivering 3,000 new social rent homes, yet it is losing council stock faster through the right to buy. Will the Government recognise that they have to take responsibility for delivering adequate numbers of social rent housing in order to deal with the homelessness crisis?

[Mrs Wheeler]

The hon. Lady is quite right to say that ensuring that we have enough affordable homes in London and elsewhere is a high priority for this Government, which is why we changed the rules on housing revenue account funding, and I look forward to the authority building even more houses than it has already.

Rough Sleeping

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered rough sleeping.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.

I have just arrived in the Chamber from my first ever blood donation. I am a little giddy, so bear with me—I have the sugary biscuits just in case. If anyone has not given blood, please do so. A donor drive is on in London, #giveblood, because we need more regular donors.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time to have the debate. I thank the Minister for being present. It is good to see her here, and I know that she attaches a lot of importance to the subject. I also thank the shadow Minister—it is always a pleasure to serve alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn)—and everyone else who is present for making time for this debate.

I extend a bigger thank you to everyone who has contacted me about the issue in advance of the debate and since I was first elected in 2015. News UK is in my constituency, so it is rare for me to plug other papers—I do not usually do so anyway—but I will quickly plug the Daily Mirror for a fantastic campaign on tackling rough sleeping and homelessness. It deserves credit for humanising a debate that can be a bit statistical when, actually, it is about the lives of real people in devastating circumstances.

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

I am sure that I cannot be the only Member who has been surprised—or perhaps not—at the number of constituents who have never experienced homelessness writing to me about this problem. They feel, as I do, that it is a shocking indictment that a society such as ours has so much visible street homelessness. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Neil Coyle]

I agree 100%—there is nothing higher than 100%. There is a contrast here, because the public will and interest in solving rough sleeping and homelessness more widely have not, sadly, been matched by Government action to date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

My right hon. Friend is spot on. It is a sad truth that we know who these people are. We know which people are more likely to become homeless or sleep rough. They are an identifiable group. They are care leavers, women fleeing domestic violence, ex-forces people and people with mental health problems. We know who they are. We also know from experience—the scrapping of the Supporting People programme had direct consequences in this policy area—that there is no silver bullet. I do not think anyone suggests that there is, but we know who is more likely to become homeless, and we know how we can support them to avoid that.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous with interventions. We know what the causes are. We also have experience of the solutions. We had lots of rough sleeping in London in the mid-’90s. The Labour Government addressed the issue by identifying all the people who were vulnerable and putting in joined-up services. By 2010, there was virtually no rough sleeping in central London. Does he share my anger at Ministers who say that this is a complex problem and they do not know where to start?

[Neil Coyle]

My hon. Friend is right to be angry, and she is right to remember that this problem was being resolved. I remember cardboard city around Waterloo and Westminster in particular. The extent of the problem was reduced, and there was a good track record on it, but it is coming back.

The Government’s target is to halve rough sleeping by 2022. If the statistics are accurate and there was a 74 person reduction last year, there are another 2,376 people to go. At the current rate, it would take 32 years—three decades—to meet the Government’s target of halving the overall number. If anyone is struggling with the maths, that means it would take until 2051 to meet the Government’s 2022 target. That is not good enough, and I hope the Minister can tell us what she intends to do to boost action to prevent the problem.

If only as much effort went into tackling the problem as went into creating it, we would be in a better place. It did not come out of nowhere. Warnings were given by organisations such as St Mungo’s, but sadly they were not heeded. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) pointed out, lots of issues contribute to the problem, but the warnings were there.

Destabilising the NHS with a wasteful top-down disorganisation that divided primary care trusts from social services, splurging millions in the process, prevented joined-up work to support people to manage conditions that are more prevalent among rough sleepers and the broader homeless population. When mental health services lose their staff and ability to intervene up front, more service users and survivors are forced towards the streets. When drug and alcohol cessation services are decimated, no solutions to addiction are provided. The “fend for yourself” attitude, which was proven previously not to work, has failed again since 2010. When funding for affordable house building is undermined, and when councils have their resources attacked and their ability to manage local case loads undermined, the outcome can only be more gatekeeping to services and a reduced ability to support people with genuine needs.

The benefits system has already been touched on. Attacking people who rely on our threadbare social security system, calling people “scroungers” and making it harder to claim—we heard about digital access and processes that force people out of the system before they get any support—creates problems. This Government have extended sanctions to even those with significant mental health conditions and other impairments. That is unacceptable. Deliberate delays are built into benefits such as universal credit. People now face a minimum five-week wait to get universal credit—according to Department for Work and Pensions figures, that target will not be met for 300,000 people this year—but when it first began in Southwark, the average wait was 12 weeks. That is three months without a penny coming in. Sanctions are also imposed for longer and to a greater degree than ever before. I am a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions; I recommend our report on that subject, which calls for a dramatic change to the sanctioning system.

When the DWP, under the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), scrapped disability living allowance and brought in personal independence payments, its own impact assessment stated that 500,000 disabled people would not qualify for support. Making it that much harder for disabled people to obtain basic funding—the average DLA payment was £3,500 a year—of course pushes more people towards the street. I should plug the Trussell Trust’s campaign to scrap the waiting time for universal credit. I encourage Members to sign up and support it.

Most organisations that work in this area have a long-term focus, and the Government should too. There has been only a 2% drop in rough sleeping so far, but will the Minister say how even that low level will be sustained if the pilots are temporary? I hope she will also tell us whether the funding for the schemes that exist—there are not enough—will be extended. We need an answer, because local authorities and organisations such as Shelter, which works with Southwark Council on this issue, need to know that they have longer-term funding. Their own sustainability is at stake. Without longer-term planning, I am uncertain whether we will halve rough sleeping even by 2051. I hope the Minister tells us how the Government intend to build on success in some of the pilot areas.

Lots of local authorities got in touch with me in advance of the debate. Last year, the number of households accepted as homeless was almost 60,000 in England, 34,000 in Scotland and 9,000 in Wales. Southwark is doing a lot of work on this issue, and it deserves credit for that. Southwark spends all its discretionary housing payment. It receives £1.3 million, and it all goes out—there is not a penny left—to try to support people to stay in their homes. It needs more. Southwark has trained all 326 councils on the Homelessness Reduction Act, and 271 councils have visited to shadow its service and learn how to operate in the HRA environment. Southwark has established both a London training academy, which has trained 1,000 council officers, and a rough sleeping training academy, which has trained the 81 councils across England that have the highest levels of rough sleeping. I acknowledge that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government funded that.

The Local Government Association got in touch to say that homelessness

“is a tragedy for all those it affects,”

and that rough sleeping

“is one of the most visible signs of the nation’s housing crisis.”

It estimates that councils provide temporary housing for more than 82,000 households, including 123,000 children. “Temporary accommodation” does not begin to describe the circumstances of some of those households. Children will have woken up on Christmas day with a shared kitchen or even a shared bathroom. How can families celebrate Christmas day when they cannot even cook their own food? That is an appalling set of circumstances. The number of people living in temporary accommodation has increased by 65% since 2010. In Southwark alone, 2,400 families are supported in temporary accommodation.

The Local Government Association estimates that the funding gap will be £110 million this year, and £421 million in 2024-25.

I will touch on dehumanisation. Last year a man died at Westminster tube station, right on the doorstep of this building. It got a lot of attention because of where it happened, but sadly it is estimated that 600 homeless people—600 people—died on the streets last year. We should be more shocked by this, not just because somebody died at Westminster and that case got more attention than usual, but because of the level of the problem and the age at which homeless men and women die, which is around 40 years old.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady makes a good point about health funding. I have raised my own concerns about that privately with Ministers. There is a huge amount more work to do in that area. I specifically refer to outreach workers going out in our towns and cities across this country and providing support. It is often those outreach workers who are trusted to provide that support. However, I very much take her point.

Minister, we need specialist, well-funded interventions for those high-risk groups that I mentioned—particularly prison leavers, care leavers, survivors of domestic violence and the LGBTQ community. We have to give more support to those amazing charities and voluntary organisations that work so hard to tackle homelessness up and down our country. Many of those charities have been in existence for decades, but the pressures on them now are huge.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I apologise that I will not be able to stay to hear the Minister’s response. While I appreciate the hon. Gentlemen’s concern and care for what he thinks should be done, perhaps he could look at the record of the two years before and after the millennium. Those of us in local government then worked with and funded—or were supported by Government funding—via several different routes, the public sector and the third sector to provide the very services that he describes. Those services supported all sorts of vulnerable people before they became homeless. They were thought of not as homelessness services but as early intervention and prevention services, and they prevented a host of problems, not only rough sleeping.

[Will Quince]

As I mentioned, the last Labour Government made several helpful interventions, but I genuinely believe that throwing money at the issue, which the Labour Government did as much as any of their successors, is not wholly the answer. It worked like a painkiller, masking the pain, but did not address the underlying condition.

Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emma Dent Coad (Kensington) (Lab)]

Eighteen years ago in my Notting Hill Housing flat, after prolonged complaints had been ignored, my ceiling collapsed, narrowly missing my young daughter’s head. The five-year battle with my social landlord and the help that I received from my local councillors at the time propelled me into active politics, so I am devastated that social landlords have stepped even further away from their responsibilities over the years. I know from my casework that a collapsed ceiling narrowly missed a young child’s head just recently.

Some residents who attend my surgery have brought photos of the massive cracks across their ceilings—they fear a ceiling collapse—as well as of large gaps in stucco facades, which they fear could fall into the street. However, they have been told by their social landlord that they will not be helped unless they stop talking to me, so little or nothing has changed. That is shameful. I do not need to tell anyone in this House that disrepair followed—if people are lucky—by botched refurbishment can put people in mortal danger. Grenfell Tower residents who complained about their botched refurb were sent cease and desist letters, and had no legal recourse.

Since I became an MP last June, my office has dealt with nearly 1,500 cases of all kinds. Around half are housing cases, most involving disrepair. The majority of cases relate to social housing. Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation was among the worst performers, as it has been during my nearly 13 years on the council, but has now improved slightly, leaving Notting Hill Housing—Notting Hill Genesis, as it is now—as our worst performer.

One of my constituents lives in a flat suffering from subsidence, which their landlord has been ignoring. From time to time, due to that subsidence, her front door becomes stuck and she is trapped in her flat for hours. Shame on Notting Hill Genesis. I have told her to call the fire brigade the next time that happens. Another group of constituents who were fleeing domestic abuse with young children were found a place in a hostel where they felt safe, until the ceiling collapsed. They moved downstairs to be safe, but then two more ceilings collapsed. That happened just last year—Notting Hill Genesis again.

Another case involved an elderly and confused woman. Her heating and hot water broke down about a year ago and was not fixed for three months. Her doctor told her that she was close to hypothermia and she then told her neighbour, who luckily reported it to us. Her landlord ignored our pleas, so I put the details on Twitter and there was a response within hours—shame on London and Quadrant. Another constituent’s damp was so bad that he had severe respiratory problems. When I visited, the poor gentleman had to move his nebuliser out of the way to show me the toxic black mould—that was KCTMO.

In yet another case, a constituent who fled from Grenfell with his young child was placed in temporary accommodation in a council flat that was so damp that the toddler’s clothes were literally rotting. Another constituent had a manhole cover in their downstairs kitchen and sitting room that regularly overflowed with raw sewage, by up to a foot. That was Peabody housing. In the last case I shall report on, there were concerns about fire safety that had been reported to a landlord, but were completely ignored. The landlord was told that if they did not fix the problem that they were being emailed about, there could be another Grenfell. A month later, a massive explosion ripped through the flat. There was a huge fire and a constituent died instantly—that was Catalyst housing.

It is such a difficult and long-winded process to get an environmental health officer to visit a home and manage damp that I have my own damp meter. If we have another very cold wet winter, I will be using it extensively and reporting on social media if landlords do not respond, which they often do not, even to an MP. We ask every family that comes to us with problems of damp whether anyone in the family has asthma. So far, every single family reporting damp has at least one such family member. Poor housing is damaging health and sometimes killing my constituents, and until now they have had no legal redress. My office is working on a casework report that will include photos, anonymised examples and timelines of responses from landlords. We will expose the truth. The state of social housing in my constituency is, in many cases, Dickensian.

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

Many of the social landlords mentioned in my hon. Friend’s speech are also active in my constituency, where I have some similar examples to hers. Does she share my concern that many of them started as charities and, by behaving in the way that they are and not delivering quality housing, they are breaching their charitable objectives?

[Emma Dent Coad]

I agree. Many of them have become developers with social purpose, as they are called, and have lost their charitable status—and they have left it well behind. Many are focusing on building new and often poorly constructed developments, while letting their old stock decline, and they are then selling into the private market. This is deliberate. Tenants are ignored, derided and, on occasion, bullied, with their pleas ignored. They need this legal recourse, so I am delighted to support the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), a dedicated and hard-working heroine, and I ask the House to pass it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. I congratulate her on her work, with her colleagues, on an ongoing campaign in this area, not least via the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform. We will shortly announce our response to the Law Commission report on tackling event fees to help those in retirement housing. The Law Commission will also consult on how we can make it easier and cheaper for existing leaseholders to buy their freehold or extend their lease.

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

I, too, welcome the Law Commission report, because for too long leaseholders have been dealt a very, very poor hand. When looking at the report and developing a response, will the Government for once put leaseholders at the front of their mind, rather than the freeholders who only seem to rip off leaseholders?

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. We also welcome the Law Commission proposals, which include recommendations to ensure that we make leaseholds cheaper and fairer. The Government will continue to work with the Law Commission to ensure that this practice continues and we get a better outcome for leaseholders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Local authorities can submit their business cases from September and we expect to make the funding decisions later in the autumn. The £4 billion forward funding stream is an essential mechanism to unlock the delivery of 400,000 extra homes and make sure we carry communities with us.

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

I recently went out early one morning with the outreach workers of St Mungo’s, who help people newly sleeping rough to get into long-term support. Why is the Secretary of State pressing ahead with changes to funding for homeless hostels and other supported housing that charities such as St Mungo’s have said could threaten their hostels?

[James Brokenshire]

I, too, have visited St Mungo’s and seen the excellent work it does to provide first-night-out support to people on the streets. I will continue to work with it and other charities as we look towards our strategy for dealing with rough sleeping and at how that will need to reflect on all these important issues.

Tower Block Cladding

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

It is important that we see the public sector estate dealt with as quickly as possible. Obviously, the additional funding of £400 million that the Prime Minister announced last week will go towards supporting that activity. Equally, there is an important point about the other things that may not be being focused on at the moment. Indeed, there is the actual supply side of more affordable homes and other building costs that might not otherwise receive the same focus.

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

What are the Government doing to ensure that residents of these high-risk buildings are made aware of the new arrangements about leaving in the case of a fire? Eight months since the change of policy there, residents of the privately owned Blenheim block in Hounslow have still not been given evacuation instructions or had a fire drill, and the only people who left the building when several fire engines turned up at one of several recent fires were the paid fire marshals.

[James Brokenshire]

I would certainly be interested in receiving further details from the hon. Lady about the case she highlights, because it is important that advice is followed and that appropriate steps are taken. I will certainly look into the issues she raises.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

The situation differs slightly in different parts of the UK. There is Government funding for projects in England that look after people who have indeterminate national status. I honestly do not know whether the situation in Scotland is a UK matter or a Scottish matter. I will have to write to the hon. Lady on that issue.

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

10. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of central Government funding for affordable housing since 2010.

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

Over the past seven years, the Government have delivered 357,000 affordable homes, more than in the last seven years of the previous Government. Last year, the number of affordable homes delivered was up by 27%.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The new Secretary of State skirted the opportunity to address questions on social rented housing posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), so I will try again. In London in particular, for those on average incomes and below, affordable housing means only social rented housing—housing in which this Government are now investing virtually nothing for the first time since records began—so will the Secretary of State work with the Treasury to ensure that the Government go back to investing in social rented housing so that councils and housing associations provide truly affordable, good-quality homes and, by the way, cut the housing benefit bill that is currently going to rip-off private landlords?

[Dominic Raab]

I gently remind the hon. Lady that more than 10,000 local authority homes have been built since 2010, which is three times more than were built under the last Labour Government. We are investing a further £9 billion in affordable homes up to 2021; we have raised the borrowing caps on councils by £1 billion; and we are giving local authorities greater rental certainty from 2020.

Local Government Funding

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

Of course, the hon. Gentleman did not want to tell me where the £1.7 billion for the shortfall in children’s services was coming from. I know that in Cumbria there is a shortfall in funding for children’s services, as there is in every other county council in England. Every metropolitan district council in England and unitary councils across England are all saying the same thing. Perhaps he ought to speak up for Cumbria and get the extra money for Cumbria’s children’s services.

The result of the cuts has been appallingly clear. Cuts to early years intervention have meant a record number of children, some 72,000—let us stop and think about that—taken into care last year. The number of serious child protection cases has doubled in the last seven years, with 500 new cases launched every day. More than 170,000 children were subject to child protection plans last year—double the number seven years ago.

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

Like my hon. Friend, I too was a councillor—for 25 years. Does he agree that the removal and slow cutting of early intervention services, specialist family services and support and grants for charities that support people and families in the community over the past seven or eight years is part of the reason why too many children are coming into children’s services, too late and with too many serious problems?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We had numerous debates in the Parliament from 2010 to 2015 about children’s services and in particular the cuts to Sure Start. I think Sure Start had the basis for being one of the previous Labour Government’s greatest achievements, had it been allowed to remain in place, fully funded in the way that Labour intended. What used to gall me the most was Member upon Member on the Government Benches saying that Sure Start was a waste of money and did not work. Sure Start was never intended to be a quick fix. Government Members can tell me in 20 years’ time, when the children and parents who went through Sure Start are parents and grandparents themselves, whether Sure Start worked or not. I believe that one of the biggest tragedies of the David Cameron era of Government was the slash-and-burn approach to early years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that he is demonstrating his ignorance of how Government financing works. If he really thinks that that is issue, perhaps he can explain why that figure includes £65 million for affordable housing returned by the Mayor of London? Has he asked his colleague that question? Perhaps he can also explain why in Labour’s last full year in office, when the current shadow Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), was the Housing Minister, £240 million of housing and regeneration funding was returned?

[Ruth Cadbury]

The right hon. Gentleman lists several initiatives by several councils, but how many of those initiatives will make up the £6.8 billion by which the cross-party LGA estimates that councils will be in deficit? His Government have kindly offered £1.3 billion, so how will all those initiatives make up that enormous gap? I do not believe that it is possible. Finally, what has he done to ensure that his Department is no longer the worst funded of all Departments? It is facing the greatest cuts, and the greatest number of services across the pitch are being affected.

[Sajid Javid]

I will come on to the local government financial settlement shortly, but if the hon. Lady is so concerned about the resources that local government receives, why did she vote against a real-terms increase for the next two years for local authorities? She can perhaps reflect on that while she waits.

Returning to the reforms that councils are making, some authorities are opting for unitarisation. In Dorset, for example, the nine existing councils will be abolished to create two new unitary councils, generating annual savings of approximately £28 million. I have announced that I am minded to replace the existing five councils in Buckinghamshire with a single council for the area, which could generate savings of £18 million.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

My Department is very much involved in the preparations for Brexit. We have attended several recent EU exit committee meetings and we are involved. The hon. Lady should wait and see what happens. In due course, she will learn more about my Department’s approach.

In expanding the pilots, we have responded to what councils have told us, and we are doing the same in other areas. For example, the housing infrastructure fund recognises the crucial role that councils play in helping to deliver the homes that our country desperately needs, by providing billions in additional finance to support new development. We all know that we cannot achieve the new housing we need without having in place the right infrastructure, including schools, healthcare facilities, transport links and other essential types of infrastructure. We have received a staggering 430 bids, worth almost £14 billion, to deliver 1.5 million homes. That demonstrates the incredible ambition out there to tackle the housing crisis—an ambition that we are keen to get fully behind; hence our move to more than double the housing infrastructure fund at the autumn Budget, in which we dedicated an additional £2.7 billion, bringing the total to £5 billion. I was delighted recently to announce the first funding allocation of £866 million for 133 projects that will help to unlock some 200,000 additional homes. The work under way with a total of 45 local areas to deliver major infrastructure projects worth £4.1 billion could potentially deliver an additional 400,000 homes.

In his remarks earlier, the shadow Secretary of State talked about house building having fallen to its lowest levels since the 1920s—I think that is what he said. He is right about it having fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s, but he is wrong about when it happened. It happened in the last year of the previous Labour Government, when the current shadow housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), was the actual housing Minister. Since then, it is up by more than 50%.

I recently announced almost £300 million of funding for housing deals in Greater Manchester, the west of England and Oxfordshire, and a housing deal for the West Midlands. The West Midlands deal backs the mayor’s ambitions to build some 215,000 homes by 2030-31. Isn’t Andy Street doing a fantastic job, Madam Deputy Speaker? You do not have to answer that. Those deals represent another important step towards meeting one of the defining challenges of our time, as do the measures we are taking on social care.

[Ruth Cadbury]

In the last year of the Labour Government, there were 40,000 social housing starts. How many were there in the outgoing financial year?

[Sajid Javid]

Since 2010—since the change in Government—more than 300,000 affordable homes have been built. The hon. Lady mentioned the previous Labour Government and social housing. Interestingly, she did not point out that under the previous Labour Government, who were in power for 13 years, the number of social housing units for rent fell by 421,000. If she was really interested in this, she would stand up again and apologise—

[Ruth Cadbury]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

If the hon. Lady is going to apologise, I will take her intervention.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that the net loss of social rented housing was because of right to buy? I do not have a problem with the scheme in itself, but had the councils been able to replace the homes that had been sold under right to buy, there would have been no net loss of social rented housing in this country. Will he also answer the question that I just asked?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. May I say again that interventions need to be very short? I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to bring his remarks to a close soon without too many more interventions. If Members want to speak in this debate, they must bear in mind that we need to move on.

Department for Transport

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I shall raise two points that are close to my heart. I raise the first in my role as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary cycling group. Additional investment in cycling and walking can bring about a win-win: improved health, improved productivity and learning for people who take exercise at the beginning of the day, reduced congestion, reduced travel costs and better air quality. Segregated cycle paths will prevent cyclists from being “doored and floored” by inconsiderate car occupants who do not look before they open their doors. I urge the Department for Transport to encourage and incentivise investment in cycling, whether it is delivered by Highways England, by local authorities or by developers. There is a good opportunity to include cycling infrastructure in major projects. For instance, a cycle route could be constructed along the route of HS2, and making it part of the design stage would avoid much higher retrofitting costs down the line. Government figures show that investment in cycling infrastructure pays back £5.50 for every pound. I am sure Members will agree that that is money well spent.

Let me now move on to my other favourite subject, Heathrow airport and runway 3. I also co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on Heathrow expansion, to which we are generally opposed. I am grateful to my friends who represent northern constituencies, because they have made some powerful points with which I absolutely agree. They are severely disadvantaged by the regional disparity in respect of transport infrastructure, and they are right to ask for borrowing powers and increased investment and support from the Department.

Halting any further investment in runway 3 would be part of the solution. The Department itself estimates the likely net economic benefit to the UK to be almost nothing: £0.2 billion to £6.1 billion, over 60 years. That is less net benefit than would be produced by the expansion of Gatwick. There are no proposals to fund the essential road and rail infrastructure that is necessary. Heathrow airport will provide only just over £1 billion, but the Airports Commission says that between £5 billion and £6 billion is needed, and Transport for London has specified £15 billion to £18 billion. There would not be adequate world-class noise insulation for our residents, and there are no funds for the replacement of the fairly recently built waste transfer station. Airlines are unwilling to fund the runway because they are already paying the highest slot costs, I believe, in the world; they are certainly paying, by a long way, the highest airport charges in Britain. Without extensive subsidy, the number of domestic routes served by Heathrow will fall from seven to four. The project cannot be completed and also remain within air quality limits. There is unused capacity at several other London and regional airports. Those are many good reasons why the project should be halted now.