Affordable Homes Programme

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Afzal Khan

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Affordable Homes Programme.

It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am so glad to have secured this important debate on the affordable homes programme, and I am immensely grateful to the House authorities for granting it.

Affordable housing is one of the most depressing and urgent issues facing the good people of Slough and communities across our country. Rarely does an advice surgery go by without a constituent raising concerns about their dire housing situation. Although I commend the bold ambitions of the affordable homes programme, which aims to build 180,000 new homes outside London by March 2026, it is clear that when it comes to delivering on housing the Government continue to fall far short of the mark. The reality is that we face an affordable housing crisis. The basic promise made to each generation that if they work hard they can one day own their own home has been broken.

I speak to young people in their 20s and 30s, often with children, who tell me the same thing: they have as much chance of settling on the moon as they have of buying a home in Slough. This week the estate agent’s window shows a four-bedroom house in Slough for £750,000, a two-bedroom bungalow for £525,000 and a one-bedroom flat for £300,000. Even with an elusive 5% deposit mortgage, those prices are way beyond the reach of shopkeepers, teachers, nurses, home care assistants, police officers, firefighters and even junior doctors.

Since the Conservatives came to power about 13 years ago, 800,000 fewer households under 45 own their home, and 1 million more people are renting—so much for the “property-owning democracy”. The answer would be a renewed social rented sector, but the number of truly affordable homes being built has fallen by 80%. The system is broken and the Conservative Government are doing next to nothing to fix it.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

We are all aware of the housing crisis that Britain faces, but I am pleased we have a Labour-led council in Manchester that understands the problem and has set out a plan to build at least 10,000 affordable homes across our city in the next decade, with more than 1,000 affordable homes and 250 new council houses in the coming year. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Tory Government in Westminster are failing to match the vision of Labour councils to tackle the housing crisis?

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I commend Manchester City Council, the Mayor of Greater Manchester—my good friend Andy Burnham—and others who have made sure that councillors and Members of Parliament have come together to have that ambitious house building programme, but it seems the Government are asleep at the wheel. They have made bold statements, but are not following through. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that one in four Tory MPs are private landlords.

The much respected organisation Shelter reports that there are 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980. Combined with excessive house prices making homes unaffordable, demand has been shunted into the private rental sector, where supply has been too slow to meet need. That means above-inflation increases in rents, especially in the south of England and in places such as Slough.

On the affordable homes programme, the National Audit Office reports that there is a 32,000 shortfall in the Government’s original targets for building affordable homes. It goes on to say that there is a “high risk” of failing to meet targets on supported homes and homes in rural areas. Ministers’ targets will be confounded by double-digit inflation, soaring costs of materials and supply disruption, yet the Government seem to have no clue how to mitigate those factors. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us today. As the NAO report outlines, the issue is not just the number of homes, and I share the NAO’s concerns that there is also a lack of focus on the quality, size and environmental standards of the new homes. Perhaps the Minister will also be able to provide some reassurance on those important points.

The NAO is not the only one with concerns about the delivery of the programme. I am pleased that the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), is here for the debate, and I am sure she will attest to the fact that in December the Committee’s report outlined that the Minister’s Department

“does not seem to have a grasp on the considerable risks to achieving even this lower number of homes, including construction costs inflation running at 15-30% in and around London.”

Exactly when will the revisions to the 2021 plan be published, as recommended and agreed by the Minister’s Department?

The fact is that we need a renewed national effort to fix the housing market and fulfil the promise of owning one’s own home to the next generation. That national effort may well have to wait for the election of a Labour Government, which will have a target of 70% home ownership.

Refugee Family Reunion

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Afzal Khan

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) on securing the debate and on the work he has been doing in this area. Many Members have made contributions to the debate this afternoon, and they have been thought-provoking and positive.

This is Refugee Week and it is appropriate that we acknowledge the work done by many British charities both in this country and abroad. I have seen the work that goes on day in, day out in my own city of Manchester. Only a few weeks ago, I went to Bangladesh with the Rafay Mussarat Foundation. In two days during the month of Ramadan, it delivered over 300,000 meals. We should be proud of the work that charities do, and how the British people contribute and help refugees both here and in the rest of the world. In Refugee Week, it has been wonderful to celebrate all the ways that refugees have enriched our lives and our society. Yesterday, I too was at Speaker’s House with the UNHCR to hear inspiring stories of refugees.

The celebrations have been somewhat overshadowed, however, by the tragic and shocking images from the US of children being forcibly separated from their families and caged like animals. We have all been disturbed by the recordings of crying children and images from inside these centres. It is estimated that nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents since the zero-tolerance policy began in April. More than 100 were under the age of four.

The scenes from the US are a stark reminder of the consequences of the worst excesses of a hostile and criminalising approach to migrants and refugees. While the Prime Minister has correctly criticised Trump’s approach to family break-up, this Government’s policies have the same effect. Our immigration system breaks up families, too. Currently, adult refugees can apply only for their spouse and dependent children under 18 to join them in the UK. This leaves grandparents, siblings and children over 18 stranded in peril.

We also have the perverse situation where unaccompanied children are not allowed to sponsor family members to join them. Tesfa fled Eritrea when he was still a child. After a terrible year-long journey, when he was crammed on a boat crossing the Mediterranean with 400 other people, he arrived in the UK and claimed asylum. He is now living and studying here but finds it very hard to be without his family—the people he feels most safe and secure with. He has no right to sponsor them to join him in the UK.

When we grant refugee status to someone, we need to provide them with a realistic chance of integrating in the UK. That means English language training and not cutting off asylum support after 28 days, which is shorter than the minimum five weeks that it takes to apply for universal credit, and it means allowing them to reunite with their families.

The private Member’s Bill from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar will rectify some anomalies and allow refugee families to be reunited in the UK. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government will support the Bill at its next stage? If not, will she confirm that the Government will not block it in the way they are blocking my private Member’s Bill on boundaries? This is a matter of morality, and it is vital that the will of the House be heard and respected.

There has been some troubling rhetoric from the Government in our previous debates about family reunion. They have argued that we do not want to create pull factors to attract refugees to come to the UK, as if there were not enough push factors to force people to flee their homes. I assure the Minister that that is never done lightly. Donald Trump’s rhetoric over the past few days has shown the chilling extreme that this kind of thinking can lead to. I hope that the Minister will unequivocally condemn Trump’s remarks about allowing the US to be a “migrant camp” or “refugee holding facility”.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point—refugees are indeed to be valued. While they are fleeing injustices from other parts of the world, we should not be following the example of President Trump in the United States. If anything, we should be showing compassion in our policy towards refugees.

[Afzal Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution and wholeheartedly agree—[Interruption.]