House of Commons Hansard Debates for 3 Jul 1990

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and to obtain a mortgage. What use are those advertisements to the people who simply cannot afford to pay £100, or in some cases more than £200, a week in rent?

Mr. Spicer : In a moment, we shall find that the hon. Gentleman has made my point for me. The collapse of the private rented market is especially tragic for single people who have traditionally depended on it for housing. There are signs that the Housing Act 1988 is bringing life back into private renting. I want to speed up that process considerably.

I want, therefore, to announce a six-point plan for reinstating the private rented sector and for giving self-confidence back to the private landlord. First, we shall give the widest possible publicity to the provisions of the Housing Act 1988. It was a well-balanced piece of legislation which introduced tough measures against unscrupulous landlords who bullied their tenants while giving new rights to landlords to set market rents and to repossess their properties. We shall, in the near future, be publishing a easy-to-read booklet on the new rights that have been given to landlords.

Secondly, as from next April, we shall be speeding up the legal procedures by which disputes about rent between landlords and tenants are settled. Thirdly, we shall be discussing with building societies and finance houses any remaining reservations that they may have about the letting of property in which they have an interest. Fourthly, we shall be discussing with housing associations how they can help on a fee-earning basis with the management problems associated with letting property. Those are sometimes perceived to be especially acute by elderly landlords. Fifthly, we shall maintain the pace of our new lodgers initiative, which is making it much easier for people to rent out rooms in their homes. Sixthly, in the context of our single homeless initiative, we shall focus attention--

Mr. Dennis Turner (Wolverhampton, South-East) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Spicer : No, I shall not give way.

In the context of our single homeless initiative, we shall focus attention especially on the better use of space above shops. That will be done with the assistance of the greater help provided by the new renovation grants regime as applied to landlords. As I said, there are signs of life already returning to the private rented sector and this plan will speed up the process.

However, one major problem remains--the blight placed on private rented housing by the Labour party. According to the published document, Labour would once again intervene in fixing rents.

Mr. John P. Smith (Vale of Glamorgan) : Read it out.

Mr. Spicer : I certainly will read it out. It is good stuff and it makes good reading. On page 26, under the heading "Tenants", the document says :

"Labour will ensure that rents are set at levels which people can afford."

Labour also intends to sequester properties. The document says : "We are also looking at ways of extending the right to buy to private tenants who have rented for many years from non-resident business landlords."

I shall not read the whole document as those sentences stand for themselves.

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The measures of sequestration and of the reintroduction of a form of rent control would probably be enough in themselves to kill off the private rented sector. However, in this matter as in others, it is the secret manifesto that worries one most. The hon. Member for Dagenham has sounded reasonable and balanced, and he has used words such as "flexible" and "pragmatic". However, that is one public face of the present Labour party. Another public face is revealed by a document that I have here, which has been circulated by the Labour research department at Labour headquarters. It contains several proposals. On tenure, the document says :

"All tenants and licensees of non-resident landlords will have the right to full security of tenure But Labour will go beyond simply restoring succession rights to the pre-1989 position ; we will extend them in both the public and private sectors. Any partner of a tenant should have the right to succeed to the tenancy on the tenant's death If the tenant has no partner, any person who has lived as part of the tenant's household for six months should have succession rights Labour believes a minimum of two successions should be offered. This would allow, for example, one partner to succeed the other, and, in turn, for one of their children to succeed them."

So much for tenure.

Mr. Rooker : What is wrong with that?

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order.

Mr. Spicer : On rent controls, the document says :

"The disastrous deregulation of housing association and private rents will be ended by Labour. Rents will, once again, be set independently of the landlord."

In other words, there will be fixed rents.

On the allocation of tenancies, the document says :

"all non-resident landlords should be obliged to observe the principle of equal opportunities in the allocation of housing on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, age and disability."

On the right to buy, the document says : "Labour's aim is to extend the principle of the Right to Buy to many private tenants currently denied that right."

There may be doubt about what the Labour party really believes. I suspect that there is considerable confusion and doubt in the mind of the hon. Member for Dagenham. In a recent interview in a magazine called "Roof", which is published by Shelter--not exactly a passionate supporter of the Government--the editor questioned him on some specific issues. The editor asked the hon. Gentleman what the Labour definition of affordable rent will be. The editor writes : "Gould is coy. I don't suppose we'll be putting figures on that, no. We are, I stress, committed to rents people can afford.' " The editor then asks :

" can we expect Labour to define an affordable rent in the manifesto itself?' Gould laughs : I think that's unlikely.' " The poor old editor tries again and asks :

" Does Labour have a housing goal?' Not in any very specific sense.' "

All that would be funny if it were not rather worrying. We have had a demonstration today of the way in which the hon. Member for Dagenham sounds plausible, flexible and pragmatic--whatever word he may want to use at present. A better example is the submerged part of the iceberg, which is extremely worrying. I do not know what Labour will publish in the near future, or what its official position will be at the next general election. I suspect that Labour will try to hide most of this stuff before the election. However, even its published pronouncements on the private rented sector are blighting the market. That restricts housing, especially for the single homeless. At the

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same time that the Labour party has the brass neck to table the motion tonight, it is preventing the development of the traditional form of housing for single people. That is outrageous.

Mr. Gould : I am sorry to interrupt the Minister's flow. Is he saying that private landlords are now convinced of the imminence of a Labour Government? Is that his view as well?

Mr. Spicer : Of course not. The consolation prize in all this is that Labour will never get into power. The Labour party is running around the country saying in public how pragmatic it is and how it wishes to match the private with the public sector. It is apologising to the Government for being wrong about the right to buy and saying that it is thinking again about the role of the housing associations. But in the bowels of its engine room, it is churning out consultation papers that represent traditional socialism of the very left kind. That is a strange proposition for the country to be faced with. On the one hand, the Labour party is covering the cracks and, on the other, a fully fledged socialist document is being prepared in its back room.

Mr. Soley : Speaking from the engine room, I should like to draw to the Minister's attention the fact that over the past six months--there has certainly been a dramatic increase in the past few months--I have had numerous interviews with consultants and private landlords. They agree with my analysis of the decline of the private sector, which they also say has hardly anything to do with the rent Acts and everything to do with the way in which we subsidise housing in Britain. More important, a group of major landlords has gone away to work on proposals that would give private tenants the right to buy. I am pleased about that, because we shall take the good landlords with us. The Tory party can keep the Rachmans.

Mr. Spicer : Methinks the hon. Gentleman protests too much. He is clearly on the defensive, and rightly so because the Labour party is in a very bad position. The Opposition are hitting hardest single people--in particular the single homeless--who have depended traditionally on the private rented sector to rent rooms. Yet, at the same time, the Labour party introduces motions such as the motion that we are debating tonight.

For our part, we accept that there are new housing pressures, which have been brought on in Britain and throughout the western world by rapidly changing social conditions--in particular, by the tragic breakdown of many family ties. But in so far as it is a housing problem, we are treating it with urgency. We are spending vast sums of public money as effectively as we can. We are further galvanising the private sector in respect of home ownership and renting. Most immediately, we are ensuring that we make better use of almost three quarters of a million empty houses. The radical and urgent manner in which we are addressing those matters makes nonsense of the Opposition's motion.

8.32 pm

Mr. Jeff Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr) : I found the Minister's speech profoundly depressing. That is especially sad as this is the first housing debate that I have attended since he has been in post. There were several crucial issues regarding the housing crisis on which he did not see fit to

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touch. I shall come to some of them in a moment. I do not want to speak for too long as this is a short debate, but I want to make a couple of constituency points and a couple of policy points. The housing crisis is not evenly spread throughout the country. Everyone realises that. In the north, the condition of the stock is the overwhelming contributor to the crisis, whereas in the south it is the sheer shortage of stock. In the midlands, we are piggy in the middle. We suffer from poor quality housing and a shortage of stock, but not to the extremes that are experienced in the north and south. That means that we are left out ; we do not make the headlines. Nevertheless, the extent and nature of the housing crisis in the midlands is such that, were we talking about London, it would merit headline space. That point is not made clear in our general housing policy. It is not made clear in the media and it is ignored by those with London-centred attitudes.

I shall refer in a moment to the Housing Corporation, but I want first to refer to Birmingham, part of which I represent. In recent years, we have lost out badly in the housing allocation. We have a massive amount of system-built housing to replace. That housing needs to be cleared ; it cannot be renovated. The Boswell houses and the 900 Boot houses in my constituency cannot be salvaged. They will have to be replaced with a variety of mixed tenure housing of varying density and with different financial arrangements. That was par for the course to the Labour party when I was on the Front Bench, and it remains par for the course now. We do not have the financial wherewithal to provide the public money to pull in the private capital that we need to make those changes. That is why I think that the Government have gone too far.

Let me give an example. In the housing needs index and stress area review undertaken by the Housing Corporation, Birmingham lost out more than any other city or district in England. By 1992-93, the Housing Corporation's programme will be worth £1.7 billion--double what it was two or three years ago. By then, Birmingham will be losing out to the tune of £20 million a year because of the changes in the housing needs index and the stress area factors : the city will have lost 1.3 percentage points in that index. The Minister frowns, but he can check those figures and he will find that they are accurate. We shall lose £20 million a year after taking the stress area factors into account.

We must bear in mind the fact that that loss is on top of Birmingham's ever -declining housing investment programme allocation. The Minister talks for all the world as though the housing investment allocations and the housing investment programme are public subsidy. They are not. They merely give the city permission to borrow money, on which the council will have to pay market interest rates. The housing investment allocation is not money doled out to Birmingham city council by the Department of the Environment.

Mr. Michael Spicer : It is money that the city council is permitted to borrow and on which the interest charged is fully subsidised.

Mr. Rooker : It may be fully subsidised over a 60-year period, but Birmingham is not getting the billions of

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pounds worth of handouts of which the Minister talks. He spoke of the capital allocation, not the interest subsidy, and one must consider the two things separately. The HIP allocation for Birmingham is not money given to Birmingham by the Government. The Government are merely giving Birmingham permission to borrow. As I said, that makes matters even worse because, over the years, our allocation has been cut and it is planned to cut it even further. We are supposed to be the country's second city, yet on the Z scores of the census index we have the largest single concentrated area of deprivation in the country. I am not talking down my city--we have to make a realistic case for the bids--but if similar circumstances applied in London, they would be headline news.

We do not have a cardboard city in Birmingham yet, but it is around the corner. Virtually every hostel in the city is almost full every night. It would take only a slight change now and we would have a cardboard city. A slight shift would also mean families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. To its credit, Birmingham city council has never yet placed a family in bed -and-breakfast accommodation. It ill behoves the Minister to castigate the council on the number of empty dwellings, which is less than the national average--less than 2 per cent. There will always be empty properties. Heaven knows, I have criticised Labour and Tory-controlled councils alike for having an excessive number of empty properties which could be available for letting. But in a country with about 20 million dwellings and with millions of people moving around, we shall always have empty dwellings. It stands to reason. Every dwelling cannot be full every night. I understand that, according to the professionals, we need about 4 per cent., and, by and large, that is the private sector figure. The local authority average is only 2.3 per cent. We need 4 per cent. to keep the system going so that people have the chance to move. As I said, Birmingham city council has never yet put a family in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, but we are close to it and to cardboard city.

Boosting the private landlord, as the Minister did in his speech, is not the answer. Being someone else's landlord is not an acceptable way to earn a living. That is a bald, stark statement, but it is not an attack on decent, caring private landlords. I probably should have said "being someone's exploitative landlord". That is the difference between the Opposition and the Tories. We genuinely want a partnership with the private sector--in tenure and money--but not an exploitative private sector. We genuinely want variety and change in finance and tenure, but we will not set up one section of society financially to exploit another.

The Minister talked about opening rooms above shops. The Tories have been talking about that for the past 11 years, but they have done nothing about it, save in one or two areas in which there was some heritage or historical aspect or some extra funny-money funding that they could find to assist. They have not seriously tackled the problem in 11 years. It is no good trotting out that policy now in the twilight of the Government, because it will not wash. Let me deal briefly with two other points. One relates to the Housing Corporation and the mess that it has got itself into.

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North) : The Government have got it into it.

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Mr. Rooker : The Government have got the Housing Corporation into a mess, with the result that people will be homeless for longer than they would otherwise have been. On 13 December last, the Public Accounts Committee took evidence from the chief executive of the Housing Corporation and the permanent secretary of the Department of the Environment. Question No. 584 on page 15, which was not asked by me, on the Housing Corporation's plans and the housing aspects of the Department of the Environment, states :

"Next year you are going to get even more money. Will you be able to cope physically with the expansion of monies that is involved? I am not talking about labour and materials ; I am talking about physically getting the money out to the housing associations who depend on you."

The chief executive of the Housing Corporation, David Edmonds, replied :

"I think so. I have great confidence that the work we have done over the last three or four years in putting into place some really quite sophisticated systems We are a very highly computerised organisation."

He said further :

"We have a record system and a recording system and an ability to turn round paper which is very much greatly enhanced We have new financial systems, internal controls and checks the volume of our work next year will be easily absorbable by the Housing Corporation."

Mr. George Howarth : What happened?

Mr. Rooker : My hon. Friend asks, "What happened?". Why have I and other hon. Members for some months been on the receiving end of the most desperate pleas from housing associations that did everything that they were asked to do to get ready for the new system? They would have been the first to be on the receiving end of complaints from Ministers if they had not been ready for the new regime, but they were ready. They told the Housing Corporation that they were ready. One assumes that the Housing Corporation told the Government that they were ready. The Public Accounts Committee has not yet reported on that matter. I must assume that the assurances that were given to the Public Accounts Committee last November about the strength and sophistication of financial forecasting have been totally shot to pieces and exposed as false in the past few months. The Housing Corporation--perhaps with the Government's hand on it--has failed to meet its duties and responsibilities of financial management and control.

The end result is that building firms will shed labour and homeless people will not get homes. I give one example, and I make no apology for choosing it, from the city of Birmingham. Birmingham Friendship housing association wants to build four five-person houses on a site in Sparkbrook. It has forged a package deal with a local builder who owns the site. The scheme, just under £300,000, is in the draft Housing Corporation 1990-91 programme, but, like many other housing associations, Birmingham Friendship does not know whether it will get an allocation for work this year. Meanwhile, the builder, who has held his price for the scheme since last year, is anxious to get on with the work. A small scheme, nevertheless, sums up the hardships and disappointments suffered on the ground because of the cash crisis. Homes for local Asian families will be lost. Work in an area of high unemployment will be lost to a firm of multi-ethnic builders which has held its costs for a year, waiting on the promise that it was in the draft Housing Corporation programme.

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That is just one example--four houses for five families--and it can be repeated in virtually every urban area in the country. It is all because of financial mismanagement on the part of the Housing Corporation because the Government either did not listen or took no account of the information that they received. I emphasise that that is happening in every urban area in the country.

One word that I did not hear fall from the Minister's lips was "rural". Not once did he refer to the problems of rural dwellers and the housing crisis. It is no good his pointing to the Secretary of State for the Environment, who must be one of the most disappointed Secretaries of State ever to see successive Ministers of State come and go in his own Department. If he is to refer to rural areas, that is fine. My remark was not meant personally. I have great respect for the Under-Secretary of State. He has been badly treated by the Prime Minister.

I now raise a couple of issues about rural problems. I make no apology for that. I am an urban dweller and an urban representative, but someone must make the case for rural dwellers--Tory Members do not do it. The problem is constantly left to Opposition Members. My record is quite good. I had an Adjournment debate on the problems of rural communities. If the Minister's minders want to look it up, it was on 5 April of this year and is reported at column 1394 of Hansard. I raised the whole gamut of the problems of rural dwellers. I referred to the difficulties of housing and gave some examples, but at column 1399 the Minister talked about increasing investment in rural areas through housing associations and referred to the programme, which had been announced, of schemes for communities with fewer than 1,000 people. He referred also to providing low-cost homes. He said that, when the scheme was in place, it would provide 1,500 homes for rent in small villages and 350 homes a year for local sales. He talked about a scheme of repurchasing former shared-ownership dwellings when the occupiers move on. What has happened to that scheme? I understand that it has not been possible to put the scheme together in a way in which, according to lawyers, it will work. I should like an update on what has happened to the scheme to provide more low-cost, low-rent and affordable homes in rural areas. The Government made great play of the scheme when it was announced. When will bricks be placed on the mortar and when will the houses come into being?

I referred also to the remarks of the chairman of the Rural Development Commission, Lord Vinson, who is certainly not a supporter of our party--he is not a member of it. He said, and I agreed, that, on average, we need only a handful of homes in every sizeable village, but they must be affordable homes.

When I was the Opposition spokesman on housing, I suggested geographically rounding off communities. Like most other people, I do not want urban sprawl, and I do not want to destroy the countryside. I do not regard the countryside as a jigsaw puzzle or the lid on a chocolate box, which classy marketeers tell us it is all about. That is not the reality of life in rural areas when youngsters are forced to move away from villages and small towns and away from their families and jobs because they cannot possibly afford the massive prices for very small dwellings because of the dislocation of prices in rural areas. That problem must be met. I do not see action on the ground.

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On 5 April, the Minister made it clear to me that work was in hand. I still do not see the difficulty, and if the Minister introduces a planning Bill he will get my support.

Smaller developments in smaller villages and towns can be achieved--there is much academic work to prove that. One would not face the problem of Foxley Wood and the like, although there may be occasions when new small towns should be developed.

I believe that the concept that I have outlined is sustainable politically and financially. Unless something like that is developed, the problems of rural dwellers will get even worse. Ministers must come to terms with that because they have ignored the problem of rural dwellers for too long.

Several Hon. Members rose --

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I let the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) get away with it, but I now appeal for brevity. As so many hon. Members wish to speak, voluntary restraint would be helpful.

8.50 pm

Mr. Robin Squire (Hornchurch) : It is unfortunate in a debate lasting just two and a half hours that some one and a half hours has been taken up by contributions by the Front Benches. My comment does not, however, reflect on the content of those speeches. Accordingly, I shall try to set an example by being brief.

I declare at the outset that, as all the House knows, I have been a board member of Shelter since 1983. That fact is occasionally used by each side of the House in support of their argument and I assume on that basis that they are fairly balanced. I should also declare, as recorded in the Register of Members' Interests, that I am director of a group of companies that rent out properties.

There is a seductive glamour about the use of capital receipts and it was especially prevalent when I was wearing my local government hat. The Government's stance has been attacked, but, in truth, the issue is simple. If one believes that housing needs broadly approximate to the arising of capital housing receipts, one has an argument. I believe that there is virtually no connection between housing needs and the arising of receipts. Therefore, some system akin to that used now by the Government for allocating permission to borrow to local authorities with lower receipts is essential. That practice would be followed by any Government--no post-war Government have introduced controls on capital borrowing.

There is understandable dismay on both sides of the Chamber at the sight of people living rough in our major cities. The Daily Telegraph was right when it said in June :

"In a civilised society it is unacceptable to have people sleeping on the streets because they have nowhere to go."

Similar scenes are repeated in other western countries, but that does not reduce our concern, although it may temper the more extreme political comments made. The Minister and the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) set out some of the circumstances and social background to the problem. I judge that it is the responsibility of Government, local authorities and the various agencies connected with them to deal with this problem. Other than personal choice, there should be no reason for people to live rough in the streets or under cardboard.

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The Government have launched a sustained and welcome series of initiatives. Tonight my hon. Friend outlined another six, but time does not allow me to comment on them in detail. One initiative relates to people with surplus property or rooms who do not want to be involved in what they see as the palaver of renting and engaging tenants. The initiative will enable those people to engage housing associations to do it for them. Those associations will guarantee them a rate of return. Anything that encourages such people is welcome. All the initiatives are welcome, though overdue, and form part of the solution for which we seek.

I also welcome--I would, wouldn't I?--the £2 million initiative announced a few months ago by my hon. Friend the Minister. That initiative will enable the development of a nationwide framework of advice centres, essentially run by Shelter and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux--NACAB. That initiative wisely draws on Shelter's knowledge and expertise and it is designed to encourage young people, where possible, to remain in their local area rather than to drift into the big cities, with all the attendant difficulties that that causes.

Tonight little mention has been made of the problem of the mentally handicapped. Many have now been released into the community, but in some instances they are inadequate, unable to house themselves and perhaps institutionalised. I am aware that the Department of Health will launch an initiative on that in the near future. However, the problems of the mentally ill are extremely pressing as they form a significant part of those who are currently homeless. We owe it to them to announce that initiative as soon as possible.

The hon. Member for Dagenham is one of the acceptable faces of the Labour party. His acceptance of guilt and past ideological sins was touching, but had he studied the faces behind him, let alone left the Chamber and spoken to many Labour party councillors, he would have discovered a less than equivalent atonement.

The Labour party and those who run the large council housing empires have welcomed the advent of housing associations in their much enhanced role with all the enthusiasm of people eating sheep's eyes for the first time. When the Labour party considers the rest of the private-rented sector, it does not like or understand it. The Labour party has forgotten that every extra right for a tenant is an extra responsibility or loss to a putative landlord.

I agree with the Minister that the Labour party wants to turn the clock back because it is wedded to the public sector and the belief that it knows better. I do not know why, as the housing record of far too many Labour authorities is too depressing whether judged on the number of properties empty, the size of rent arrears or their practice of opposing by every reasonable legal way people wanting to exercise their right to buy. I cannot believe that that record can act as an example to the Labour party as, whichever way one looks at it, the picture is grim.

Last week there was a fascinating editorial in The Sunday Times on a wide range of issues of which housing was but a part. That editorial was not uncritical of the Government and the gist of it was that more public spending was not the solution to most of our problems. It noted :

"Overall spending on public services was 15 per cent. higher in 1989-90 than it was during the last year of the last

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Labour government. So much for the vicious cuts of the brutal Thatcher regime' The idea that Britain can be cleansed of public squalor by spending more money on public services is a widely believed nonsense. What nearly every public service needs is not more money, but more competition."

Nothing would increase the standard of rented property more than to have several would-be landlords clamouring for one tenant--that has been demonstrated in other areas of necessity such as food and clothing. Instead the landlord has been frightened away by the fear of a possible future Labour Government--not lessened by tonight's contributions. All housing reforms should be judged on the acid test : will they increase the supply of rented property efficiently? The article concluded :

"At least the government realises what needs to be done. Labour prefers the soft option of simply promising to spend much more on monopoly public services, which on present evidence most often makes them worse."

For those and other reasons, I oppose the Labour motion. 8.58 pm

Mr. Ronnie Fearn (Southport) : The Government may well claim that never have so many people owned their own houses, and that that is, of course, because of Government policies. But they must also claim that never have so many people been homeless, sleeping rough on the streets, in derelict buildings, in substandard lodgings, hostels or bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That is also a direct result of Government policy. There is no doubt that in the past 10 years there has been a sharp increase in the number of homeless, well above any expected trend. A report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree memorial trust, "Homeless in Britain", shows that every day an average 1,000 households apply to local councils for help and that during the past 10 years, more than 1 million households have been registered as homeless by local authorities.

The problem is no longer a phenomenon of our largest cities. People are sleeping on our streets, in unused buildings, temporary accommodation and other unsuitable places right across this land of ours. My own area of Southport, in Sefton, north-west England, has a homeless problem, which has been growing for the past few years as the local authority finds its hands tied with restrictions on housing finance, and social services departments find it increasingly difficult, because of their restricted resources, to assist people who are homeless through no fault of their own. Such people have been turned out of hospitals and other institutions as a result of the Government's policy of closing down such homes without providing an alternative means of care or an alternative place to live. Such short-term measures as that announced by the Minister for Housing and Planning on 22 June to provide £15 million for additional subsidies and subsidised accommodation for the single homeless, may give some small relief. However, I fear that it may create more problems than it will solve. Until we recognise the underlying causes of homelessness and instigate a programme to combat them, the long-term prospects for Britain's homeless are bleak.

Another problem that I fear such short-term measures may create is to put pressure on the police force to use the Vagrancy Act 1824 and other laws to move people off the streets. To give people who are already down and out a criminal record as well will do little to enhance their prospects of finding permanent housing. If there is any

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form of compulsion attached to the programme, it is likely to be defeated before it gets off the ground. Young people may rebel against it, particularly if they can be compelled to enter an institutionalised system, of which many of them have had experience and are trying to avoid.

There will also be a problem finding buildings with long-term leases at a reasonable cost. That will not be an easy task in the south-east. There will be problems in finding the staff and volunteers to run such centres. Many of the young people on our streets are vulnerable. What safeguards will there be to ensure that someone placed in a position of trust can be trusted? I fear that short-term measures will serve only to paper over the cracks in time for the general election. Once the young people who sleep on our streets are safely hidden in hostels and dormatories, the issue of Britain's homeless will be put on the back burner.

Those are the problems that arise from short-term measures, but I must not spend any more time on that subject because it will deter from the main argument, which is to identify solutions for the causes of homelessness. There is no dispute--or should not be--that the single, most important cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing units. The blame for that can be laid directly at the feet of the Government. Due to the Government's policy to reduce public spending, their dislike of local government and their utter contempt for anything that might be seen as public service, the provision of social services and social housing by local government has been virtually destroyed.

The right-to-buy policy is not, in itself, a mistake, and the principle behind it is to be welcomed. Encouragement should be given to the voluntary and, in some cases, private sector to increase their contribution to the provision of housing, particularly affordable housing units. What is wrong is the way in which the Government have approached and administered that policy. The Government have failed to recognise--or perhaps chosen to ignore--the fact that in any society there will always be a need for social housing and housing at affordable rents and prices.

The right-to-buy programme, when coupled with restrictions on the use of capital receipts, has resulted in a critical shortage of such housing. In 1979, the number of new council houses built was 79,009. In 1989, that figure dropped to a mere 14,925. At the same time, the numbers on waiting lists requiring accommodation had increased from 741,000 in 1983 to 1,268,000 in 1988. That is the scale of the problem. The Government's attempts to move the emphasis of the provision of social housing to the voluntary and private sectors have failed, because they do not understand the nature of the matter with which they are dealing, and because they have not enabled the individual to acquire the means to obtain access to affordable housing.

The pressure on housing associations to take up the slack, accompanied by a reduction in central Government funds, has meant that they have had to bridge the gap between public and private sector funding through the raising of rents. In effect, they have had to move up market. The purpose of housing associations was originally to provide for the more vulnerable groups--those on low incomes, and the elderly. However, Government pressure has forced them into the business of catering for the conventional household and those more able to pay, rather than those in need. Consequently,

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access to permanent affordable housing for the traditional clients of housing associations has been further reduced. The sorry saga surrounding the administration and funding of the Housing Corporation is now undermining confidence in housing associations in general, and provision of all types of homes by that process is consequently under threat.

Women have possibly been the hardest hit by current housing policy. I recommend to the Government--and to all parties--the excellent Shelter publication, "Women Losing Out", which points out that housing policies are based on assumptions about the family, and about women's role within families. The policy is designed on the assumption that the nuclear family is the norm, whereas it accounts for only 28 per cent. of households. One- parent families with one young child represent 40 per cent. of the homeless. More than 50,000 one-parent households in Britain become homeless in a year, according to the Joseph Rowntree report. In an era that promotes home ownership at the expense of public housing, women's housing options have been drastically reduced. Their traditionally low incomes and employment prospects create vast inequalities in access to housing between men and women.

The Government's housing policy is now based on the ability to pay rather than on need. The housing Acts of 1988 and 1989 have increased the difficulties of those who are unable to buy. They have reduced security of tenure, introduced higher rents and reduced benefits, owing to the system of assessment of what it is reasonable to pay rather than what the tenant is paying for. Despite all their efforts, the Government have failed to attract the private sector back to rented accommodation. The measures about which we have heard tonight will not affect that either. The private sector still accounts for only 10 per cent. of rented provision, and much of that is to students and single professionals rather than to families. I was interested to read in the Observer last Sunday that, owing to the high cost of living in the south and south-east, northern universities are expecting 50,000 extra students in September and landlords are already preparing their welcome with plans to increase rents by 15 to 20 per cent. and an insistence on 12-month contracts, although the academic year is only 32 weeks long. Students and some other young people increasingly find that they are in a no-win situation, with rents payable in advance. For students whose grants are payable term by term and for young people on social security which is paid in arrears, the chance of finding a permanent roof over their head is slim.

The housing crisis in Britain will get worse as high mortgage rates and ever-increasing rents push people into arrears. In 1979 there were 2,530 repossessions ; in 1989, there were 13,780. That figure is bound to climb, as will the number of evictions from rented property.

I am intrigued to know how the Government intend to square the conflict in their advice. Perhaps the Minister will answer that question. As inflation bites and unemployment rises, their philosophy demands that they encourage young and old alike to get on their bike and look for a job. As the housing crisis deepens and homelessness is rampant, the Government's advice appears to be to stay put, as the pavements of London and other large cities are not paved with gold. Indeed, they are

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more likely to be paved with Britain's homeless. Because of the housing crisis in rural and urban areas alike, such advice is useless.

What can we do about the problem? We must start from the premise that the country believes that the Government have a duty to ensure that everyone has access to affordable housing. I urge the Government to start towards achieving that aim by removing many of the restrictions that they have placed on local authorities. The top priority must be the release of capital receipts to enable local authorities to replenish stock, by providing houses themselves, by allowing housing associations to cater for the more traditional client, or through partnership with the private sector.

Another priority is to bring existing stock up to standard. Where necessary, there should be powers to purchase homes or to carry out repairs to empty private sector homes whose owners have refused to bring them up to a habitable standard. It is a tragedy and a sin that so many properties are empty. In May 1988 there were 23,000 such homes in the public sector, of which only 4,100 were available for rent. According to the Minister for Housing and Planning in an article in the Municipal Journal on 15 June, there were 600,000 vacant properties in the private sector.

I should like to see the Housing Corporation retained, at least in principle, and it should be given more funds. I should welcome changes to the way in which we define "homeless" and changes to the social security system to prevent the policy working against the young and the single homeless and especially against women who, because of our present system, remain trapped in unbearable situations that are often dangerous.

We need to change the housing benefit system so that it reflects the true cost of rents. That could be combined with the introduction of housing cost relief, a policy advocated by my party in our policy document "Housing, a time for Action", and it would apply to home buyers and people who rent. Affordable housing for all is more than the provision of bricks and mortar. Among other things, it is about the economy, our tax system, our communities, planning and the environment. Our policy document contains innovative ideas for the provision of decent housing. I commend it to the Minister and to Conservative Members.

9.11 pm

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