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...Request free trial
(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.
(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 ), 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.
(Birmingham, Perry Barr)
(Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for this important debate. Under the
leadership of Ian Ward, Birmingham has committed to having 60,000
additional houses, but unfortunately, as my hon. Friend says,
cost rises mean that that will be difficult to achieve. Also,
housing associations create traps for people in my community, who
are unable to afford to buy their properties or to have their
children take them over. That is not the way forward; we need
councils to be properly resourced to build the houses.
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I commend the
work of Councillor Ian Ward, whom I met recently. During my
recent visit to Birmingham, I was able to meet council members,
who spoke about their hopes and aspirations, but also to the
constraints on them given limited resources from
Government—indeed, they alluded to the high inflation they now
have to contend with.
People sometimes say, “How can there be a housing crisis when
there are cranes on our skylines and new houses and flats going
up all over?” But those homes are rarely affordable and are often
snapped up by investors off plan. Many remain empty—an investment
by overseas property tycoons. That leaves hollowed-out
communities with flats but no residents. That is why I am so glad
that the Labour party has pledged to close the loopholes
developers exploit to avoid building more affordable housing and
give first-time buyers first dibs on new developments. I very
much hope to hear more about those exciting plans from the Labour
party spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and
Woolwich (), later in the
debate.
(Walsall South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. It is not just Labour
councils but Conservative-controlled councils that give land to
the developers. There is one development on Broadway where the
average house costs £800,000, which is way beyond the reach of
most of my constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well
as putting targets on developers, we must give housing
associations the freedom to build houses? We see people at our
surgeries crying out for homes. We must look at the need and then
give housing associations the freedom to build those houses.
Mr Dhesi
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. The
experiences she has at her advice surgeries talking to her
constituents chime neatly with what I am being told. Yes, we must
empower housing associations and others to build homes. The focus
especially on building council homes is incredibly important,
because that is where we as a nation are failing. There is huge
demand for council housing in particular, not just in Walsall but
in my constituency, but there is just not the supply to go
around. That must urgently be looked at. Those targets are being
missed.
I hope that Labour will end the scandalous practice of foreign
buyers purchasing swathes of new housing developments off plan
before local people can even see them. We will strengthen the
rights of tenants with a new private renters charter. Only a
generation ago a couple in work could aspire to get on the
property ladder, to eventually pay off their mortgage and to give
their children a helping hand. Today, that dream is out of reach
for millions thanks to the utter failure of this Government. The
Housing Minister, the hon. Member for Redditch (), is the 15th since the
Tories came to power and the sixth to hold the post in the past
12 months alone. What hope do ordinary people have with such
chaos at the very heart of Government?
Labour will build the homes that people need. We will take steps
to meet demand in the decades to come and we must also boost
social housing, as I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for
Walsall South (). That is how a Labour
Government will fix Britain’s broken housing market for people in
Slough and across our nation.
If the Government cannot, or will not, commit to matching
Labour’s focus on this vital issue, if they cannot deliver
genuinely affordable homes and if they continue to let this
programme fall even further behind, they should just admit that
they have given up trying to help the millions struggling with
housing across our country.
(Mitcham and Morden)
(Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend on his speech on this really important
issue. Does he agree that language is very important and that the
word “affordable” suggests something that people on a normal
income could afford? However, we all know that the word
“affordable” in housing circles actually means 80% of market
rent, which is unaffordable for most people. In some of the
constituencies represented by Members present, that is
unaffordable even for the Member themselves.
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend for that very valid point. It is one that
many of us have been making for years. Definitions are incredibly
important. What is affordable to one person is unaffordable to
another. That is why a laser-like focus, on social housing in
particular, is incredibly important; many people cannot afford to
get into the private rented sector, let alone buy their own home.
I fully agree with my hon. Friend.
The Government must act urgently. If they cannot, perhaps they
should step aside for those of us who want to, and can, deliver
the transformative changes needed to guarantee that home
ownership once again becomes a reality for all generations.
(in the Chair)
The debate can last until 4 pm. I am obliged to call the
Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 3.37 pm, and the
guidelines are that the Opposition spokesperson and the Minister
should have 10 minutes each. The mover of the motion will have
three minutes to sum up the debate at the end. Until 3.37 pm,
which is just under an hour away, we are in Back-Bench time. I am
confident that everyone will get in if no one speaks for too
long.
2.44pm
(Coventry North West)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr
Dhesi) for securing this debate.
Britain’s housing market is broken. Renters have been priced out
of the cities they have called home for their entire lives. Young
people cannot get a foot on the ladder, and most of the homes
that are built are unaffordable. Research by Crisis and the
National Housing Federation found that, over the next decade,
145,000 affordable homes must be built each year, with 90,000 of
those for social rent, if we are going to meet housing needs in
England alone. The truth is that we are nowhere near meeting the
overwhelming need that already exists. With only 13% of homes
built between 2021 and 2022 designated for social rent, it is
clear that the Government are not taking this crisis seriously.
The scale of the challenge ahead is monumental, and Ministers
have their heads in the sand, hoping it will all just go
away.
Let me demonstrate the problem to the Minister, using statistics
from my constituency, which has been badly affected. The
statistics clearly outline how the housing crisis in this country
has spiralled out of control over the past 13 years. In Coventry,
the number of new social housing lettings has fallen by more than
a third over the past decade. Looking at the most recent figures,
1,939 of the new social housing lettings were in the most
affordable category, down from over 4,000 10 years ago. We have
nearly 6,000 households stuck on the waiting list, chasing the
handful of homes that ever become available.
Behind those numbers are the lives of thousands of constituents
whose futures are being robbed from them by a lack of decent
housing. I want to give three examples of constituents who have
been affected. The first has four sons, who are cramped into one
bedroom, denied any privacy or space to revise for next month’s
exams. The lack of any ground-floor flats has left the second
constituent, crippled from a lifetime of hard physical labour,
sleeping on his sofa and doing his washing in the sink. My third
constituent is a cancer patient who needs round-the-clock care
but who is trapped in a tiny bedsit up a flight of stairs he can
barely climb, with no facilities for anyone to stay with him
overnight and nowhere to move.
What more evidence do the Government need to accept the scale of
the housing crisis that has grown and grown since they came into
power? Change is overdue. The inaction of Ministers has left us
gripped by a planning and development free-for-all where
developers hold all the power. They decide which type of homes
are built, where they are built and the prices they are sold for.
They are accountable to absolutely nobody—not residents, not
local councils and not even the Government in Westminster. Even
as we speak, thousands of Coventry families are being denied a
modest social home, while historic hedgerows and badger setts are
being torn out in Keresley by developers constructing
half-a-million-pound executive mansions, which are irrelevant to
local need and built solely for private profit.
The big picture is really bad. The specifics of the planning
system, however, are even worse. Take housing targets. Coventry
has long been singled out for unfair treatment by this
Government, who demand that more and more houses be built every
year but do nothing to ensure there is enough social housing for
those in need. For years, Whitehall ignored Coventry’s residents
and councillors, who said time and again that the projections
were wrong. Time and again our concerns were cast aside, with
Ministers simply too gutless to order an investigation that might
uncover an inconvenient truth. Tacked on to this is the 35%
uplift—a further inflation of figures that bear no relation to
the lack of brownfield sites in our city or the housing mix
Coventry residents need.
Thanks to the census, the facts are now clear. The Government’s
population estimates were wrong by a massive 30,000 people,
rendering the plans drawn up as a result of those figures
virtually worthless. Now our councillors are left having to
revise the local plan to make up for the unforgivable errors of
Ministers—errors that the council reported long ago and that were
ignored by those in Westminster, despite the fact I raised the
issue on several occasions with the Minister’s predecessor.
As it stands, the planning system is a shambles. A complete
overhaul is desperately needed, with local communities and local
government in the driving seat. That way, they can set the
direction of travel for new developments in their neighbourhood,
delivering affordable homes for families exactly where they are
needed. The housing crisis will only get worse unless the
Government reform planning and deliver for the needs of people up
and down the country. I hope the Minister will outline what steps
the Government are taking to achieve that reform.
2.49pm
(Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I thank my good and hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi)
for securing such a vital debate on affordable housing. I echo a
point made by Members across the Chamber. My definition of
affordable housing, and certainly that of my constituents, is
somewhat different from the Government’s definition of 80% of
market rents. That is certainly not affordable for people in many
cities, including those in the south-east, London, Birmingham and
Manchester, or for people in parts of my constituency. It is
beyond the reach of far too many people. All we have to do is
look at the evidence, with 1.2 million people and rising on the
housing need register and the 300,000 children referenced by the
National Housing Federation living in cramped accommodation,
sharing beds with siblings. It is simply not good enough. It
demonstrates that the housing crisis is one of affordability up
and down the country.
I could also refer to the pitiful number of homes—7,400—built for
social rent last year. When we take into account those lost
through right to buy and demolition, we see that the actual
figure for last year was minus 14,000. If we map every year over
the last 13 years, we see that the average net loss is about
12,000 homes, which is simply not good enough.
The evidence from the National Housing Federation and Shelter,
which was referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry
North West (), shows that about 90,000
homes for social rent should be built every year over a decade.
How could the Government fund that? They could reconfigure the
affordable homes programme of £11.4 billion and stop much of the
£23 billion of housing benefit going to substandard housing, as
evidenced in a City Hall report last year.
I want to focus on a particular development in the Weaver Vale
patch that could be completed if a Government Minister were to
intervene. Homes England is involved in the development. A number
of developments are taking place across Weaver Vale in Helsby,
Sandymoor and Hartford, which will result in more than 1,000
properties being built. A number of them will be built through
section 106 in terms of housing associations. The properties are
probably three-quarters completed, but they are now subject to
vandalism because Lane End Developments, which was based in
Warrington, has gone into administration. The same is true of
other market-led developers, given the downturn in the market and
the fact that planning applications are down by 16%.
My plea to the Minister, who is currently rather busy on his
mobile phone, is for him to intervene on the development.
[Interruption.] Yes, thank you for taking notes. I have written
to Homes England. The development would meet targets that the
Government no longer seem to have, but it would also,
importantly, ensure that constituents in my patch could fulfil
their dreams and hopes. It would enable some to get on to the
property ladder, some to go into shared ownership, and others to
get homes under the current definition of affordable rent. Of
course, what we need is 90,000 houses a year and a generation of
social housing. I look forward to the day when we have a Labour
Government who can realise that ambition.
2.54pm
Dame (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr
Dhesi) on securing this vital debate. He highlighted that the
Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have
looked into this issue. I refer to my entry in the Register of
Members’ Financial Interests and declare that I am the landlord
of a property in the private rented sector.
Affordable housing is critical for my constituency. Many of my
constituents live in very overcrowded conditions, as my hon.
Friend the Member for Coventry North West () highlighted. Every week I
am out on doorsteps, doing surgeries and visiting people where
they live. There are many examples of four children sharing a
bedroom, and of a family living in the living room and another in
the bedroom. Families are experiencing severe overcrowding
without any hope of moving out. I will touch on that in a moment.
Too many people just cannot afford to rent in the private sector
or to buy, given that rates are very high, and the Government
have changed the definition of “affordable” repeatedly, as my
hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden () highlighted. Crucially,
we are just not building enough housing.
The record of the affordable homes programme speaks for itself.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on
whose behalf the Minister is here to answer, set out to deliver
180,000 homes in 2021. It has already downgraded that forecast to
157,000 homes, but half of them will be for ownership, not rent.
I am not someone who wants to get in the way of home ownership,
but it is not even a distant dream for those of my constituents
for whom renting privately is not an option. They just need
somewhere to live, so we need social housing in London. Of
course, the impacts of inflation and construction challenges put
the figure of 157,000 at even more risk. The Government’s
original intention was to build 300,000 new homes a year by the
mid-2020s. Some of them were to be affordable homes, but we have
not been given a figure, so I want to delve into that.
Let us pick up on the issue of definitions. Perhaps the Minister
could take away the thought that we are conflating or confusing a
multiplicity of markets. We have the full ownership market, but
we also have affordable home ownership and shared ownership,
which poses challenges for many people because they are liable
for the whole property but own only part of the equity and pay
rent on the rest. The term “affordable” was defined by the
previous Mayor of London and former Prime Minister, the right
hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (), as 80% of private rents.
Well, good luck with that in Hackney, where it is simply
unaffordable for many people.
There are various definitions for key worker housing, depending
on where the development is—the term is very ill defined in law
and regulation. At least social rented housing has a rent
escalator model set out in law, so tenants have an idea of what
they will be paying. That has, of course, been capped because of
inflation rates. I welcome that for residents, but it does also
create a problem for properties in desperate need of investment.
There is also, of course, the private rented sector. Although it
has been subject to more regulation, there is nothing about the
level of rent and it does not have anything like a rent escalator
model. That means that tenants can find their rent going up
exponentially after spending only a year in their home. We are
increasingly seeing that across the piece in my constituency and
throughout London.
Social housing is critical. There are people in Hackney who work
hard in good jobs, such as the hospital porter I visited, who is
renting a room in a private home. He was living with his
daughter, and they rented a room each in a private home. When the
private landlady put up the rent from £400 to £550 a month for
each room, they could no longer afford to rent two rooms, so he
was living with his then 17-year-old daughter—she is now nearly
20—in one private room, because he could not qualify for social
housing. As he was not homeless, he would not even get into
temporary housing—not that that is a pathway people want to go
down.
Five years ago, if people had been in temporary housing for six
months I would encourage them to hang on in there because a
prized council or housing association property would eventually
become available. It is now increasingly the case that people
spend more than three years in temporary housing. Recently, a
family I was dealing with were rehoused from Hackney to
Wellingborough. There are other examples, with the excellent head
of homelessness at Hackney Council, Jennifer Wynter, saying that
this is the worst situation she has known in her long career, and
warning all of us not to raise people’s hopes that a home in
Hackney will be a real possibility.
The Department’s own figures show that homes built for social
rent provide higher value for money than those built for
ownership. This thoughtful Minister used to be a member of the
Public Accounts Committee. If he looked at the figures, I think
that he, along with the Secretary of State, could be an advocate
in his Department for social renting housing. The problem is that
the Government, who are not meeting their targets, are chasing
numbers, which means fewer social rented properties for the
money. We want to see more homes, but we need social rented
housing, and it is no good building homes that people just cannot
afford to live in. We have a sore need for such properties, yet
the Government rejected the Public Accounts Committee’s
recommendation to assess the demand for social rent.
Sometimes the Government also respond to reports in a confusing
way. A recommendation report notes:
“The government will work with delivery agencies to confirm the
2021 programme’s capacity to deliver homes for Social Rent as
part of the review”
of the delivery of housing, and that they
“will confirm the programme’s ability to deliver an increased
proportion of homes for social rent to Parliament at the same
time as confirming the programme’s overall delivery targets.”
I could read that in all sorts of ways. I like to read it
positively, as saying that the Department is determined to see an
increased proportion of social rented housing. I hope the
Minister can clarify exactly what the Government mean in that
response.
It is worth putting the challenge in Hackney in context. I make
no apology for repeating these figures. There are currently 3,100
households in temporary accommodation, 51% of which—more than
half—are housed outside the borough due to a lack of supply.
There are 3,528 children in temporary accommodation. That is
enough to fill eight primary schools and is equivalent to 1% of
Hackney’s population. We are having to close primary schools
because of falling numbers. Many of those families would love to
send their children to school in Hackney, but they cannot live
there because there are not enough permanent homes. I have had so
many tragic conversations with constituents in my surgeries or
the living rooms of their temporary accommodation. They think
that if they hang on, they will get a property in Hackney, where
their kids are still at school, but I have to say to them, “You
are not going to be in Hackney for some years. You have a
five-year tenancy somewhere else so you need to think about
moving your children.” They are aghast and upset, but that is the
reality. Children are being shuttled around to schools where
there are places; they are not going to schools their parents
choose.
Average waiting times for council and housing association housing
for homeless households is now nine years for a three-bedroom
property—of course, that is a notional figure—and 12 years for a
two-bedroom property. That is a lifetime for a child. Children
are growing up in massively overcrowded conditions. They often
live in a single room in accommodation or, if they are lucky, a
couple of rooms in a hotel. Sometimes, they are in temporary,
rented accommodation elsewhere, but with no certainty and, even
if their parents are bidding for properties, no real prospect of
getting a home anywhere near any time soon.
Homelessness in the borough is increasing rapidly. The number of
households seeking support increased by 44% between 2017-18 and
2021-22. Hackney Council anticipates that the number will
continue to increase by about 8% a year. That is just one London
borough, but I am sure my colleagues across London will say the
same. It was interesting to hear that in Coventry the experiences
are very similar. In Hackney, that would be considered cheap
housing, compared with what we have to deal with.
I pay tribute to the Mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, who is
doing his utmost to build council housing—affordable, secure
homes—but for pretty much every one he builds, he has to have one
for sale to cross-subsidise because there is not a Government
subsidy, despite the Government’s own figures showing that
investment in bricks-and-mortar subsidy is the most
cost-effective way of delivering these homes.
I am sure the Minister is thoughtful enough to take on board the
cost of poor housing to the Exchequer. The Public Accounts
Committee looked at the private rented sector. In my
constituency, ownership is out of reach for so many
people—average house prices are at ridiculous levels—so people
are living in the private rented sector. The National Audit
Office concluded that 13% of privately rented properties—589,000
of them—pose a serious threat to their tenants’ health and
safety. The Committee and the National Audit Office estimated the
cost of that to the health service to be £340 million per annum,
so it really is spend to save. I know it is difficult for any
Department to sell that to the Treasury, but I am sure that if
the Minister wanted to join forces with us on this issue, we
could all work together to persuade the Treasury that spending
money, investing in people’s homes and getting them on a stable
footing is better for everybody.
This is not rocket science. We need more homes to be built, and
we need to unblock the logjam that is stopping that. We do not
have the time to go into all the reasons for that, but we need
more social housing that is actually affordable for people on
average wages—people who work hard every day but have no prospect
of buying a home. Some even find it hard to afford council rent.
There are issues there, but we certainly need council rented
housing and housing association housing. We need pathways to home
ownership, but every time someone buys under right to buy, that
is another home lost to the local council or the housing
association, and that is not a path that many people can
pursue.
Many years ago, when I was a councillor in Islington, we would
pay people about £16,000 to move from their council property to
help them buy a property elsewhere, so they freed it up. That is
actually good value for money. Who would have thought that the
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee would be standing here
saying, “Give tenants who want to move the money to do so”? Sure,
home ownership is understandably a dream for many people, but it
should not be a dream that is out of reach. We could free up the
housing we have for those who have the wherewithal and ability to
move into other homes.
We need better rights and stability for private tenants. People
live in a home with a year’s tenancy, perhaps, but cannot be sure
from year to year whether their children can stay at the same
school. It is an upheaval in a family’s life. Now, increasingly,
as people are evicted, rents are going through the roof, as many
landlords exit the market. In summary, I believe firmly—I hope
that the Minister concurs and will tell us how he will help to
achieve this—that people need a safe, secure and long-term home
as the foundation for their life and, crucially, the springboard
for opportunity.
3.05pm
(Mitcham and Morden)
(Lab)
There is a consequence to not building homes other than the
numbers, and that is families living in temporary accommodation.
That currently costs the UK taxpayer £1.6 billion a year. I do
not know about other hon. Members in this Chamber, but I can
think of a lot better ways to spend £1.6 billion.
I stand to speak out of desperation from what I see every single
Friday at my advice surgery. I represent half of the London
borough of Merton, which is certainly not the London borough
under the greatest pressure for housing or temporary
accommodation, but since last April even Merton has seen a 41%
increase in the numbers of people in temporary accommodation. The
numbers are tiny in comparison with the 3,000 in Hackney, but our
numbers have increased from 243 to 343 units.
Also, when we use the word “temporary”—as I said earlier,
language is important—at the moment it means five years. By the
time we get to the end of five years, it will mean 10 years, or
maybe 15 or 20 years—we just do not know. There is simply no way
out of this appalling struggle.
Currently, in England, 99,000 families—including 125,000
children—live in temporary accommodation. That is an increase of
71% between 2012 and 2018, and a further 41% between 2018 and
2022. I give hon. Members those figures so that they have some
idea of the scale of the problem we are experiencing. In June
2022, 26,130 of those families were placed in a borough outside
their home, taking their kids out of school, their families away
from their support networks, and individuals from jobs and away
from NHS facilities that they might desperately need.
Once we remove a desperate, vulnerable family from their
environment, there are consequences for the children in school
attainment and attendance, and all sorts of other things. I say
without any pleasure at all that, in the statistics of child
mortality between 2019 and 2022, 34 children’s deaths were seen
as a direct consequence of their temporary accommodation. I am
happy to take the Minister to the temporary accommodation that
many of the families that I represent have to live in.
I will talk to the House about Mr and Mrs N. They live in a shed
in the garden of a house in multiple occupation. They have the
benefit of the fact that it is in Streatham, so only around the
corner from my constituency. They have two rooms and four
children. The smell in the bathroom is so appalling that, put
simply, no one would want to enter it. And the ants are obvious,
crawling across the floor. Last week, when we beseeched the
homeless department to move them somewhere else, the only place
that it had to offer was in Reading. That family chose their
ant-infested home over having to be moved many miles away from
where they had any support or help.
I give that example not because it is unique, but because it is
absolutely appalling. Unless we do something, we will have more
children die of damp and mould growth, and we will have more
desperate families. We will pay for that not just in human lives
but in taxpayers’ money well into the next century. It is time to
do something now.
3.09pm
(Caithness, Sutherland and
Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing
the debate. He made an excellent speech, as did all the other
speakers.
It might not be obvious why I am going to take my contribution in
this direction, but I am going to outline a situation that
developed recently in my constituency, which has a link to
housing and should be aired publicly. Today I spoke to Councillor
Michael Baird, who represents North, West and Central Sutherland,
one of the biggest wards in the United Kingdom. It is 1,800
square miles—the size of three Greater Londons and 18 Edinburghs.
It is vast.
Michael has outlined to me a harrowing situation. He and his
fellow councillors have one facility for the elderly in the
entire ward—in that vast area. It is called Caladh Sona and is in
the tiny village of Talmine on the north coast of Scotland. It
has six care beds and, at the moment, four residents. NHS
Highland has announced that it will close the facility in 12
weeks, and the residents will be moved to the two nearest homes,
one of which is in Thurso, 47 miles away, whereas the other—if
they can get beds—is in Golspie, 62 miles away. I think about
those old people being moved and about their families, their
loved ones, trying to see them. It is a lot harder with distances
such as that.
I think also about the remaining staff. They have been offered
jobs somewhere else, but will have to move from their community
or make long commutes, sometimes in pretty dreadful winter
weather. This is happening because the home cannot get the staff
needed to run it, and that is because—this is where I return to
the agenda—there is not the housing. If a house comes on the
market on the north coast of Sutherland, it is snapped up as a
holiday home or becomes an Airbnb. It is so like what everyone
else is saying. If we cannot get the carers, we are in real
trouble.
To echo what everyone has said this afternoon, if young people’s
families cannot get an affordable home, they will not live there,
and that means that school rolls drop and we have that old, dark
monster of depopulation, which we had for far too long—for
hundreds of years in the highlands. People up sticks and away.
They go to Canada, Australia and America and never come back.
That is one reason why we have a diaspora of Scots all over the
world.
What can we do about it? It is ironic that we have one of the
greatest sources of renewable energy, that is, land-based wind
farms, in my constituency. Some of the money that the wind farms
make could help the local authority—the Highland Council—a
housing association or whatever to buy properties when they come
on the market. An old expression we used to use has already been
referred to: key worker housing. That is the key. Even if they
come up for only five days a week, if we can offer a carer
somewhere to live that they can afford, we will go some way to
looking after the old people. As the oldest member of my party in
this place, I can remember when houses were being built in the
1960s in my hometown of Tain. They were going up and it was
great. There was hope that people would be housed, but the
situation is very different today.
I will conclude with what the hon. Member for Slough said: we
need a renewed national effort. By goodness, we certainly do. I
am aware that housing is devolved, but I am sure that Members who
belong to the Scottish Government’s party would admit that there
is a major problem, just as hon. Members have described this
afternoon. There has to be a renewed national effort. It has to
involve all the nations of the United Kingdom, and we have to get
it going, because if we do not, we are going back to the bad old
days of our past. That is something that we thought was dead,
buried and gone forever, but it seems to have come back. Action
has to be taken.
3.15pm
(Greenwich and Woolwich)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I
congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on
securing this important debate and on the compelling speech with
which he opened it. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for
Coventry North West (), for Weaver Vale (), for Hackney South and
Shoreditch (Dame ) and for Mitcham and Morden () and the hon. Member for
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross () for participating this
afternoon and for a series of powerful speeches.
The debate has covered a range of concerns, many relating to the
housing crisis more widely, but, on the specific matter of the
affordable homes programme, most fell within two broad
categories—namely, the performance of the programme over recent
years and the more fundamental issues of its design and purpose.
I want to address each of those in turn.
When it comes to the performance of the programme, there is
clearly significant room for improvement. The comprehensive
National Audit Office report on the operation of the AHP since
2015, which was published last year, details concerns on to a
wide range of issues—including governance, transparency and
oversight—many of which were echoed in a report published shortly
afterwards by the Public Accounts Committee. I would be grateful
if, as part of his response, the Minister could tell the House
whether the Department has acted on the eight specific
recommendations made by the NAO in its report, and could take the
opportunity to update hon. Members on the steps that his
Department committed to taking in its response to the PAC.
A particular criticism levelled at the programme by both the NAO
and the PAC and referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for
Slough in opening the debate was the fact that targets were
unlikely to be met. We know that, taken together, the 2016 and
2021 programmes are likely to miss their combined target by
approximately 32,000 homes, with a shortfall of 9,000 starts
under the 2016 programme compounded by a projected 23,000
shortfall in the current one. There is also a clear risk that the
programme will fail to meet its sub-targets on supported
accommodation and rural housing.
Opposition Members recognise that some of the factors undermining
delivery on the targets are entirely out of the Government’s
control, but there are others—such as local planning authority
capacity and the need for funding and financing mechanisms to
support providers in upgrading their stock—that the Government
could take more proactive steps to mitigate. Might the Minister
provide us with some assurance this afternoon that the Government
are at least actively looking at what more can be done in that
regard? Can he also explain whether and, if so, how rules about
grant funding under the current programme might be being made
more flexible—not least in terms of increased grant funding per
unit—with a view to sustaining the Department’s central forecast
of 157,000 completions in the face of inflationary pressure?
Lastly, when it comes to assessing the overall performance of the
programme, effective scrutiny is still very much hampered by the
absence of transparency and open reporting. The Department has
now committed to providing an annual report to Parliament on
programme delivery, but might the Minister go further today and
commit at least to having Homes England publish its annual AHP
targets, as the Greater London Authority has already done?
Let me turn to the design and purpose of the programme. One of
the more damning conclusions of the NAO report was that the AHP
lacks strong incentives for housing providers to deliver
affordable homes in areas of high housing need and high
affordability pressure. I would be grateful if the Minister could
therefore update the House on how the Department is improving the
way it works with local authorities to address local need, and
tell us whether any further measures are being explored to ensure
that more grant-funded affordable housing flows to areas of high
need.
Providing more homes in such areas is, of course, not the only
wider Government objective in respect of which the current
programme is falling short. To me at least, it simply beggars
belief that both the Department and Homes England did not include
any specific targets relating to emissions reductions in the 2021
programme, with the result that outside London the Government are
financing the construction of new affordable homes that in all
likelihood we will have to retrofit in years to come.
The Government have committed to exploring the cost and
deliverability of additional net zero requirements, but only in a
successor to the 2021 programme.
My hon. Friend is making an interesting speech. Does he agree
that every new home should have a solar panel fitted when it is
built?
There is a strong case for that. It is an issue—one of many—that
we are exploring in detail. The situation speaks to a wider
failure, which is the abolition of the zero homes standard by, I
think, the coalition Government. We built tens if not hundreds of
thousands of homes over recent years that we will have to
retrofit at great cost. The least we can do is change the
criteria the programme operates on, so that at least we build net
zero-ready homes for which we will not have to do that in years
to come. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain what
precisely is stopping changes being made to the programme to
ensure, as the Greater London Authority has done, that all new
grant-funded homes are net zero carbon and air quality
neutral.
Those issues aside, there is the more fundamental and important
question of whether the programme provides the right kind of
homes to meet affordable housing need in England. The answer of
Labour Members is a categorical no. We believe it is a problem
that the programme has constrained the overall amount of grant
funding available for sub-market rented homes while also failing
to deliver an increase in the supply of low-cost home ownership
properties. We believe it is a problem that the Government’s
decision to prioritise the so-called affordable rent tenure of up
to 80% of local market rents has squeezed the amount of programme
funding available for new homes for social rent and ballooned the
number of households in temporary accommodation and on local
housing waiting lists, as well as the housing benefit bill, as a
result. Those are not technical design flaws; they reflect
political choices about what a national affordable housing
programme should aim to achieve and whether its primary purpose
should be meeting the needs of people on the lowest incomes.
There is a clear difference of opinion between the Opposition and
the Government on this matter. We believe the overriding purpose
of a national affordable housing programme should be to provide
as many genuinely affordable homes as possible, as my hon. Friend
the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch rightly argued. The
Government believe, at least post-2018, that the purpose of such
a programme is to provide—reluctantly —a small number of
genuinely affordable social rented homes and a much larger number
of sub-market rented and home ownership units that are branded as
affordable, but, in practice, are anything but for many
low-income households in swathes of the country. That is why—with
the debasement of language we have seen in recent years in the
concept of affordable housing—the Housing and Planning Minister
could argue with a straight face in a debate that took place last
week on the future of social housing that Conservative-led
Governments since 2010 have outperformed the last Labour
Government on affordable housing, despite the fact that the last
Labour Government built over twice as many social homes as
Conservative-led Governments since 2010 have managed, and that at
no point over the past decade has annual social housing supply
ever matched the levels delivered by the last Labour
Government.
We want the performance of the affordable homes programme to
improve between now and the general election, and I look forward
to the Minister detailing the various ways in which the
Government are attempting to achieve that. But as laudable an aim
as fine-tuning the existing programme is, Labour is clear that a
very different programme will be required in the future to
markedly increase the supply of new net zero-ready, genuinely
affordable homes to rent and buy, as is our aim. It is an aim
based on a reassessment of the amount of grant funding directed
toward sub-market rent and the building of social rented homes in
particular; on a review of the scope of eligible sub-market
products, not least the so-called affordable rent tenure; and on
a reappraisal of whether there are better low-cost home ownership
products than shared ownership.
3.24pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities ()
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions
and thank the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for instigating
the debate. We may have disagreements about the methods by which
we ensure that people can enjoy the fruits of home ownership and
have a roof over their heads, but I think we would all,
collectively, irrespective of what side we are on in this
Chamber, agree that it is absolutely vital to have a housing
sector that supports those who need it and provides the platform
for people to be able to aspire to move into home ownership. That
has been the case for the past century, and it has been such a
success within this country.
I start by acknowledging the underlining point made by a number
of hon. and right hon. Members, which is that there are
challenges at the moment, including those that have grown in the
immediate term, such as inflation, the cost of construction and
materials and labour challenges, which all create issues in
ensuring that we can make progress on our shared objectives. If
we are truthful, that is also set within the context—I am not
seeking to make a particularly political point, as it has
developed under successive Governments of all colours over the
past 30 or 40 years—of the number of houses that are built in
this country and, flowing from that, the number of people who can
have access to them, and the number of people who can enjoy home
ownership in general. I think we have made progress on that as a
Government, but I know there is a keenness to go further in the
years ahead.
The Government support ensuring that people have a place to live,
a place to thrive, a place to grow and a place to bring up
families, which, in many instances, will be through affordable
housing and social rent, but we also inherently believe in the
importance of home ownership as a moral end in itself, providing
the ability for people to make choices, grow capital and pass
assets on to their family over their lives. The comments in
today’s debate have underscored the need for more homes of all
tenures, whether to rent, to buy or to part buy, on the way,
hopefully, to fully buying in time.
On the specifics of the affordable homes programme, the whole
point of the programme, which has nearly £12 billion of taxpayer
subsidy—we are taking money from people that they would otherwise
be able to spend themselves—is that we recognise the importance
of some of the points made in the debate. Launched in 2020, that
nearly £12 billion support—£11.5 billion—represents a significant
taxpayer subsidy for affordable housing and a clear commitment to
delivering tens of thousands of homes for sale and rent
throughout the country.
Social rent has been raised by a number of colleagues, and I will
come to their specific points in the moment. We brought social
rented homes into the scope of the affordable homes programme in
2018 and we affirmed our commitment to increasing the supply of
social rented homes in the levelling-up White Paper, which was
published last year, as well as to improving the quality of
housing across the board, in both the private and rental sector.
I will come on to that point in a moment, when I respond to the
hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (). We have changed the
parameters for the affordable homes programme to support that
commitment, which enables further increases in the share of
social rental homes that we plan to deliver.
Furthermore, the affordable homes programme is committed to
funding a mix of tenures, enabling developers to deliver mixed
communities that will ensure that people can buy, part buy and
rent where they need to. That is why we have kept a commitment to
delivering homes for affordable rent, where rent is typically
capped at 80% of the prevailing rate. Yet it is home ownership
that we want people truly to benefit from, and we want people to
benefit from it as much as is possible. We understand the
difference that an increased sense of security can make to all
aspects of someone’s life and the lives of their families. That
is why home ownership is a fundamental part of the affordable
homes programme and why there is a significant element of homes
for shared ownership, which can help people staircase up.
Dame
The Minister said some warm words there about the need for social
housing. In response to the Public Accounts Committee report, the
Government indicated that local authorities would have more say
over the mix of tenure in their area. In areas like mine, where
the real need is for social rented housing, that requires more
Government grant compared with areas where low-cost home
ownership is genuinely an option. In Hackney, with the price as
it is, home ownership will be very difficult to achieve. Can he
flesh out how local authorities can deliver what they know is
needed in their area and how Government grant will follow those
decisions?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. She is an
assiduous follower of this issue. I know of all the fantastic
work that she and her colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee
do on this area and elsewhere. I fear I might not be able to give
her an absolute answer, but I will try to provide as much
information as I can. There is obviously a challenge, broader
than the specifics of this debate, about the amount of money that
the Government have; that is not particularly newsworthy. If I
may make a tiny partisan point: the Labour party, if it ever gets
into Government, will have to make more choices than Opposition
spokesmen indicate when they respond to such debates. There will
always be a challenge around how we prioritise funding, and what
the trade-offs are to do that. The commitment from the Government
is here, with the £12 billion contribution that has already been
indicated for allocation.
When we come forward with further information about the
affordable homes programme 2021-26, I hope we will be able to
give greater clarity for those authorities that seek a particular
mix of housing and to expand the number of affordable homes of
whichever tenure. I also hope that some of the changes coming
through in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will take
effect, although that needs to complete its progress in the other
place. We will have to see what the other place does to that
Bill, which I hope will give local councils some ability to flex
their approach in the area of housing.
Will the Minister give way?
I want to make progress.
On that specific point?
Go on then—the hon. Gentleman has convinced me.
The Minister is right that, when it comes to designing an
affordable homes programme, choices have to be made and
trade-offs confronted, but does it not trouble him that, despite
the fact that 50% of AHP funding under the current programme is
allocated to low-cost home ownership, his own Department’s
figures make it clear that grant funding under the last year of
the previous Labour Government still delivered twice the number
of low-cost home ownership units than the Government managed last
year?
Before I answer that question, I hope the Chair will allow me a
minute or two more than 10 minutes, given that we have a little
bit of time, in order to answer these interventions.
(in the Chair)
Order. It is just a guideline, not a rule. The Minister can speak
all the way until 3.57 pm, if he wishes.
I will not detain colleagues to that extent, but I am grateful
for the confirmation that I can continue. The hon. Member for
Greenwich and Woolwich () is keen to make a
comparison. The fundamental thing that we are trying to do at the
moment is weigh up a series of very challenging economic
circumstances, recognising the context of housing supply, which
has been a challenge for the entirety of my life. We recognise
that we have to make progress for the very reasons that right
hon. and hon. Members have outlined over the course of the
debate. It is so important to do so, given that housing supply
affects and impacts the lives of real people.
Let me comment on individual contributions. The hon. Member for
Slough, opening the debate, emphasised the importance of the
property-owning democracy, which I wholeheartedly agree with. I
hope we can make progress on that and also address some points
made by other hon. Members. He also said that there should be
greater clarity on the affordable housing programme going
forward. Although I am not able to give that in today’s debate,
we have said that we will come back in the spring with further
clarity about what is happening; there is not a huge amount of
spring left, so I hope it will not be too much longer before my
housing colleagues in the Department will do so. I anticipate the
Department being able to provide further information to the hon.
Member and others in the coming weeks.
The hon. Member for Coventry North West () raised a number of points
about the inherent challenges in the housing market and of
trade-off. During my brief tenure as the Housing Minister back in
the autumn, we had a debate in this very place about some of the
issues, and she spoke then with regard to Coventry specifically.
I cannot talk about Coventry individually, but I will put on
record, if hon. Members allow me, the progress that has been made
in the past 13 years. I realise that many colleagues will not
necessarily want to point to that, but it is important for
balance that we do.
Two million homes have been built in this country since 2010, and
almost 1 million people—over 800,000—have been helped into
ownership through schemes such as help to buy. Some 630,000 new
affordable homes have been built. Last year, the registered
supply of new homes increased over the previous year by
approximately 10%, and I believe that the last five years have
seen some of the highest rates of property building for 30
years.
A number of colleagues raised home ownership. Crucially, after a
pretty linear fall from the mid-2000s under Governments of all
parties, home ownership has started to increase again for the
first time in a number of years. The increase is incremental—the
rate is up from 62.5% in 2016-17 to 64.3% in 2021-22—but it is a
movement back in the direction of empowering people to own their
own properties and obtain all the consequent benefits.
Dame
The Minister talks about home ownership increasing, but that
incremental increase can hardly be seen as a victory. His is the
party that introduced right to buy to increase home ownership. I
wonder what the percentage is for anyone under the age of 35.
Will he acknowledge that the Government have totally failed that
generation in this respect?
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that it is not enough, but the
whole point of trying to build more properties and of using
programmes such as the affordable housing programme to bridge,
where that is necessary, into home ownership through rent and
part ownership is to boost those numbers. My point is not that
there are no challenges—I acknowledged such challenges at the
very top of my speech. It is to try to insert balance, if only
into the record: some progress has been made over the last 13
years. A substantial number of properties have been built over
that time—for home ownership, for rent and in the affordable
sector—and most importantly, after a relatively clear-cut decline
under Governments of all parties, the decline seems to have been
arrested. There is a long way to go and there is absolutely the
need for growth. I want everybody who wants to own their own home
to have the opportunity to do so, but I hope that this is at
least an indicator that we are moving, to an extent, in the right
direction.
I have the greatest respect for the hon. Member for Weaver Vale
(), and would never dream of
reading my phone when he is speaking. I was specifically
texting—this is both the benefit and the tyranny of having mobile
devices in a debate—about the point he had raised. I regret to
tell him that I have been unable to get an answer in the 40
minutes since he spoke, but I will ask the Department to write to
him. I will be honest with him: I do not know whether the
Department has purview here, and I do not know any of the details
of the problem that he highlighted. It is always a challenge for
local communities when developers are unable to complete the
properties that they have indicated they will. I know that causes
issues. I have a similar one in the village of Tupton in North
East Derbyshire, where the developer unfortunately went out of
business and the site is now mothballed. North East Derbyshire
District Council is working hard to try to move that issue on. I
will endeavour to write to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale either
way, and will see whether the Department can provide any advice
or information about the point that he raised; I am grateful for
his doing so.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame ) raised a number of incredibly important and detailed
points, to which I will ask the Department and the Minister
responsible to respond in detail. Part of the answer to some of
her questions will, I hope, be answered by the further details
that come forward in the next stage of the affordable housing
programme, but I will ask for a letter to be provided to the hon.
Lady with more detail about the specific questions that she
highlighted.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden made an extremely powerful
intervention about the challenges of temporary accommodation—an
issue that we all are aware of. We all want standards, quality
and conditions to improve. As a former councillor in central
London, albeit a number of years ago, I am under no illusions
about some of the challenges of temporary accommodation. The
Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my
right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (), has been clear that
improvements are needed in this area and has indicated that
further legislation will be forthcoming. I am grateful to the
hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden for highlighting her concerns,
and I hope the Department can make progress in the coming months
and years.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross () made a very important point
about the challenges of access to labour, particularly in rural
areas due to geography and topography and the like. I am sorry to
hear about the issues his constituents are experiencing. While
housing is a devolved matter, it is important, and I am grateful
that he has put on record those issues and the work he is doing
to address them. He will be aware that, at least from an England
perspective, we are seeking to legislate as part of the
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in order to offer councils the
opportunity—which they do not have to take up; some will choose
to, some will not—to vary council tax for second homes. That will
hopefully put an additional tool in the arsenal of local
authorities to respond, in England, to the local challenges he
has raised.
The spokesperson for the Opposition, the hon. Member for
Greenwich and Woolwich, raised an important point about capacity
in local planning authorities, which is an issue that the Housing
Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (), and I are both involved
in. Within planning, nationally significant infrastructure
projects fall under my aegis. That is different from the debate
we are having today, but there are very live conversations within
the NSIPs and major infrastructure realms. I know from my
colleague the Housing Minister that it is the same with regard to
capacity in local planning authorities and within the appeals
process, where a number of applications end up in their final
stages.
The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich raised a number of
important points about green homes. We need to make progress on
multiple different imperatives and initiatives. The part L
uplift, which we brought in in the summer of 2021, constituted a
30% increase and improvement in standards. That is in place now
and has been for almost a year. The transition period for the
part L uplift ends shortly, meaning that all houses built from
now on will be 30% more efficient than previously. That is a
massive increase compared to a number of years ago. However,
there is a trade-off here, and we are trying to work through the
issues and make progress in all aspects.
The Labour party has spent much of this debate—reasonably, in my
view—saying that we need more houses, and that they need to be
affordable to own and rent. We agree, which is why we are trying
to make progress in this area. We also need to make progress on
the environmental agenda, but those things must be brought into
balance. Every single time an hon. Member stands up in this place
and says, “We just need this one thing added in”, we need to
understand that there is cost involved. That is where we have to
make considerations. The part L uplift is a great example: we are
trying to make progress environmentally, while also trying to
answer the question reasonably posed by hon. Members across this
place as to how we increase housing supply in general. We hope we
are striking the right balance.
The Minister is doing a great job of expanding his speech. There
is absolutely no cost to ensuring that there is an obligation for
every new home built to have solar panels. Why does the Minister
not look at that? My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and
Woolwich (), Labour’s Front-Bench
spokesperson, has said that all these new houses have to be
retrofitted. Surely the Minister can consider what can be done
with new houses in terms of the environmental factors?
I understand the point that the right hon. Lady is making, but
there is a cost to mandating solar panels on new properties: the
cost that will be paid for the initial transaction. If right hon.
and hon. Members want to see supply boosted, we have to accept
that we have to set a balance; we are trying to do that by saying
both that it is important to make progress with regard to the
environmental imperatives that have been rightly highlighted
and—to answer the exam question—to get the kind of supply that
everybody in this debate wants to see.
I gently caution hon. Members not to be too prescriptive
regarding the technology we use. Although solar panels will be
appropriate in many instances—I would guess the majority of
instances, as a non-expert and a non-surveyor—they will not be
the solution to reducing the carbon footprint of every single new
property built. We should all collectively accept that solar
panels will not be a useful or effective way to spend money in
that cohort—in situations where, for whatever reason, including
the wrong aspect, the wrong part of the country or the wrong
geography. We should seek not to impose a requirement in that
regard but instead to say, “If you have that amount of money
within the system to be able to spend on making that building
greener, the Government will not be prescriptive that you have to
do something that isn’t necessarily going to be effective, but we
will encourage you to use that money to make it effective, be it
in a different form of technology or doing it in a different
way.”
Mr Dhesi
I thank the Minister for giving way and I think he will have
heard the points about quality, size and environmental standards,
and why it is important for there to be a focus on them; I
appreciate his accepting that. Will he also confirm for us all,
and for the record, when the revisions to the 2021 plan will be
published?
We expect to be able to say more on the affordable housing point
in the coming weeks ahead—in spring. I hope that answers his
question. I will conclude—
rose—
I will first give way to the hon. Gentleman.
I will be brief. I recently addressed chief executives of housing
associations from across the north, and the one big concern was
around section 106 and the replacement—the infrastructure levy. I
think that about 47% of affordable homes are built that way at
the moment. What reassurances can the Minister give to the sector
that that will be the case, and even better? The associations’
final ask was around section 21. When can we see the announcement
on no-fault evictions—the pledge that has been made by the
Government over and over again?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. On the
final point, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been clear in the other
Chamber that we intend to bring forward more information about
the rental sector relatively soon. I hope that answers his that
question.
Obviously, the key underlying way in which we can answer the hon.
Gentleman’s question about the infrastructure levy is to get the
Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill through. It depends what the
other place does to that Bill. There are some quite substantial
provisions, which I believe the hon. Member for Greenwich and
Woolwich went through in Committee a number of months ago; I had
the opportunity to contribute to that process very briefly. We
will see what the other place does to that Bill. No doubt it will
come back here. Once we get the Levelling Up and Regeneration
Bill through, we will be able to make progress on moving away
from section 106 and towards an infrastructure levy, which I hope
will capture more of what we seek to do.
To close, I thank the hon. Member for Slough again for requesting
and instigating this debate. It is absolutely the case that
everybody here feels very strongly—rightly—about the need to make
further progress on housing in the years ahead, for precisely the
reasons that have been articulated in this debate today. It is so
important for our constituents, for transforming lives and for
supporting the most vulnerable. We have all heard today about
some of the challenges, but I hope that I have been able to
rebalance things, at least to some extent, by highlighting the
opportunities and some of the progress that has been made.
Housing, affordable housing and home ownership are vital to our
communities all across the country, from North East Derbyshire,
where I am from, to the constituencies of right hon. and hon.
Members who have contributed to this debate today. We must make
progress for precisely the reasons that have been articulated in
this debate. I hope we can continue to do that in the months and
years ahead.
3.50pm
Mr Dhesi
I am extremely grateful, Mr Hollobone, for your excellent
chairing of this passionate and powerful debate. The issue is
critical for many of our constituents.
As passionate and powerful as the debate has been, I fear that
the Minister must be feeling very lonely. Apart from his
Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Loughborough
(), not a single member of his
party has come to call for the urgent action that is required. I
hope that the Minister will take the need to implement the eight
NAO recommendations back to his Department. As the shadow
Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich
(), pointed out, they need
to be looked at seriously and actioned. The Homes England grants
for affordable homes are important and helpful, as we have found
in Slough, but they are not sufficient to meet the scale of the
problem.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (). She is a passionate
advocate for her constituents and gave powerful examples of the
planning problems for all in her constituency, and of the wider
planning shambles. I hope that the Minister and his Department
will look into that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale () was previously a shadow
Minister for local government and spoke with a great deal of
experience and authority. He highlighted heartbreaking cases of
children living in cramped accommodation and the problems of
overcrowding, which we also face in Slough. I am extremely
grateful to him for highlighting those issues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame
), who is Chair of the Public Accounts Committee,
spoke about the change in the definition of “affordability” and
the multiplicity of markets. She also spoke about waiting times,
which are so onerous for our constituents. She highlighted that,
in her constituency, there is a nine-year wait for a three-bed
property. Similarly, many of my constituents in Slough have to
wait more than eight years to get a council property. That has an
impact on children in particular.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden () shone a light on the
scale of the problem, the £1.6 billion cost to the taxpayer of
failure and the fact that “temporary” currently means at least
five years in her patch. It is a similar example to the ones
highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South
() and by Members from the west
midlands. People are being placed outside of their borough,
sometimes hundreds of miles away where they have no support
network, and problems were raised around damp and mould.
My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter
Ross ()—I think he is my hon. Friend
because we share a corridor and often have conversations on such
matters—spoke about the complexities of the use of Airbnb and why
we need a renewed national effort on housing. Otherwise, we all
fear that we will go back to the bad old days of the past.
Given where we are at the moment and that targets will be missed
by tens of thousands, I hope that the Minister will take back the
message that we need to focus on this issue because it has a
direct impact on the quality of life of our constituents, many of
whom are living in rodent-infested, damp or mouldy properties.
For them there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, and
that is why the Government must focus on affordable housing. I
thank you once again, Mr Hollobone. I hope that we will hear some
good news this spring, as the Minister has promised.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Affordable Homes Programme.
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