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It is high time that the Government started talking sensibly with the London associations and revising arrangements for the winter shelter programme by allowing shelters in outer London boroughs such as Croydon and Newham, where there was clearly a need in the past year but no funding. They should change the private sector leasing scheme to allow councils to take up to 20-year leases instead of phasing out the grant that meets a portion of the cost of those leases. They should work jointly with councils and lenders to plan a range of initiatives to support home owners. There must be a specific grant to assist in rehousing refugees.I said that it was rather tragic that we should have to have a debate on housing in a society where having a roof over one's head is something that we all take for granted. I repeat my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston on raising the subject, and I am only sorry that such a tale of neglect and dereliction of duty must be laid squarely at the Government's door. 6.1 pm
Mr. Hartley Booth (Finchley) : My name appears on the Order Paper under a different topic--victims support. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on being lucky enough to win the draw, in which I came second.
We are debating an issue of multiple sadness and deprivation. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) spoke of the problems of splitting relationships and how marriages break down so often. We are talking about the victims of crime and the victims of housing. I shall talk about the problems experienced by victims of crime because they relate directly to the issue of housing. Hon. Members will be glad to hear that I have torn up my speech on the victims of crime. It should be the first duty of every criminal court to consider victims before passing sentence. At present, it is the last duty of a criminal court to consider victims, who are very much an afterthought. I want offenders to be brought directly into the system to pay for--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying very hard to steer a thin line, but he is straying from the subject of housing. If he can keep his remarks to that he will be in order.
Mr. Booth : I am grateful for your correction, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Reference has been made to the 80,000 void properties under local authority control and the 400,000 private sector void properties, rather than the 600,000 quoted by Opposition Members. Those properties offer scope to deal with housing and social problems. Crime and housing need are linked evils of society. It is one of life's ironies that the criminal often targets the weakest members of society, and often those who already have housing problems. Under an advanced criminal justice system, and in a civilised nation, with the right housing priorities, we must put the interests of the victim first. That is why I rise to add my contribution, and I am grateful for being allowed to make this intervention on behalf of such sufferers.
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6.4 pmMr. Nigel Jones (Cheltenham) : I shall be brief because other hon. Members wish to speak.
I welcome the opportunity to debate the housing crisis and congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on securing the debate. I am in two minds about whether I should have preferred a debate on victims of crime as my constituency office was broken into over the weekend.
Hon. Members will remember that our last opportunity to debate the housing crisis was on a Liberal Democrat Opposition day on 16 November.
Mr. Hendry : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that since that date the Committee considering the Housing and Urban Development Bill has sat for many weeks? Will he explain why he, as his party's spokesman, has not bothered to turn up?
Mr. Jones : Yes, I am happy to explain my actions to the hon. Member. He will remember that on Second Reading my party voted for the Bill because of a conversation that I had with a Minister, whom I shall not name as he is not present. He asked for our support to send a strong message to the Dukes, who opposed leasehold reform. I told the Minister that I was not in favour of the Bill and that most of it was bad, with one or two good bits. The Minister told me that he would be prepared to consider amendments in Committee. I put that to my colleagues, and my Scottish colleagues in particular were dead against believing anything that Ministers said. I, being a new Member, told them that as it was only Second Reading I was prepared to recommend that they vote for the Bill in the hope that some amendments would be passed. In the first five sittings of the Committee, I attempted to pass some amendments, including some to make the Scottish aspects of the Bill separate from its other provisions. I also attempted to amend its leasehold provisions. The Minister declined to accept those amendments.
Mr. Banks (Newham, North-West) : He stitched you up.
Mr. Jones : I felt stitched up--
Mr. Banks : Never trust a Tory.
Mr. Jones : --and decided to concentrate on other duties. In future, I shall never trust a Tory.
Mr. Tony Banks : That's the stuff. It was a good lesson.
Mr. Jones : Our housing problems are entirely of the Government's own making. Their obsession with home ownership, their neglect of other tenures and their assault on local authorities have compounded the problems caused by the recession, which the Government created through their economic incompetence. They have caused a dangerous imbalance of tenure in the housing market. In 1992, repossessions fell from 75,000 to 68,000. That was a welcome improvement, but it was still 68,000 human disasters. However, mortgage arrears increased and, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, 205,000 households were six to 12 months behind in their mortgages in the second part of 1992 and 147,000 were over one year in arrears.
Negative equity, when houses are worth less than the mortgage on them, is also spiralling, with an estimated 1.5 million households stuck in that trap. Hon. Members will
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have seen the report in last Friday's issue of "Mortgage Weekly", of the paper that Daniel Dorling of the housing and society research group at Newcastle university presented to the European housing finance seminar at Bristol university on 4 February. Mr. Dorling said :"The rise of negative equity is now preventing individuals from spending, and reducing the mobility of skilled labour. It has halted the widespread use of homes as assets upon which capital can be raised for investment. It is preventing people from moving house when they need to. Freedom of movement--freedom to choose where to live--is being eroded by the inefficient operation of the supposedly free market."
He also said about the way people look at housing :
"Many now see it neither as a worthwhile gamble nor a secure investment, despite most houses being much less expensive now than a few years ago and the overall cost of home buying being at its lowest level in real terms since 1971."
Public housing has been hit by the Government's inept housing policy. Public spending on housing has been cut by 62 per cent. since 1979 from £11.5 billion to under £6 billion. It is no wonder that fewer than 170,000 new homes are being completed a year--an all-time low. With massive repossessions and a huge homelessness problem, local authorities have to pick up the pieces, but they no longer have the ability to do so. Some 150,000 people were accepted as homeless in 1991 and 8,000 people sleep rough every night. The Government's response is to encourage further reductions in public housing stock. The Government must allow local authorities to spend their accrued capital receipts, so that they can start building homes for the homeless. In the autumn statement, the Government tried to boost the housing market by giving money to housing associations to buy repossessed properties. This has not happened. Out of 13,169 properties purchased up to 29 January, only 5,000 have been repossessed properties. The rest have been new build. In my constituency, only three properties have been purchased. I spoke to a senior estate agent this weekend and asked him what he thought about that. He said, "Three hundred might put a bottom in the market, but three is useless."
What is needed is not piecemeal panic projects but a coherent housing strategy. We need a sector--in between renting and owner-occupation--of shared ownership, to encourage flexibility in the market. We need new co- operation between local authorities, Government and housing associations to tackle the appalling problem of homelessness. Capital receipts must be released. Most of all, we need a Government with a coherent economic policy to encourage recovery and invest in infrastructure and housing projects. Until that happens, we shall still have a massive housing problem, and an economy in slump with hundreds of thousands of building workers on the dole --
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones : No. I am just about to finish my speech.
Building homes is the key to recovery and it is about time that the Government got on with that job.
6.13 pm
Mr. Gary Streeter (Plymouth, Sutton) : I had hoped to come to the debate to make common cause with the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller)
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because I appreciate that there are Opposition Members, as there are Government Members, who are genuinely concerned about housing issues. I was looking forward to hearing some suggestions as to what we can do, in addition to the many things that the Government are already doing, to meet those needs ; I was looking forward to hearing new ideas that would help to solve the problems. Having listened intently to two hours of the debate, I remain disappointed in what I have heard from the Opposition.We never hear any solutions from the Opposition. All that we get are moans, gripes and complaints. There is never a single costing to be had. They talk about policies and the need for more public housing and more council houses, but they do not speak of the cost of such housing. The only constructive suggestion from the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Prentice) was that we should set up a talking shop to allow various bodies to discuss what should be done. The Government are already seeking and finding solutions to meeting housing needs in 1993.
The Labour party does not know what it wants. All that it knows is that it is in favour of more but it has no idea how much more will cost. That can be demonstrated better than in any other way by taking the example of the endless calls for the release of the £5 billion worth of capital receipts. Has the Labour party explained to community charge payers the extra cost that they will have to bear when the interest on capital receipts that rolls into local authorities year after year is no longer there? There is never a word about that.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston dismissed quickly, in half a sentence, the massive contribution made to social housing problems by Labour-controlled local authorities. Everything is the Government's fault, he said. I am afraid that it is not as simple as that. We cannot write off millions of pounds of rent arrears that Labour-controlled authorities have clocked up. We cannot disregard the countless thousands of void properties, even those in London about which the hon. Member for Lewisham, East was concerned. Many of those empty properties are controlled by Labour local authorities. What solutions do Labour Members have? What pressure are they bringing to bear on those authorities to cause them to get their act together?
Mrs. Bridget Prentice : While the hon. Gentleman is having a go at Labour local authorities in London, will he remind himself of Government Departments that have massive numbers of empty properties in London, particularly in areas such as Hammersmith and Fulham, where both Defence and Home Office properties are lying empty, and have been for as many years as I can remember?
Mr. Streeter : Once again, the Labour party will not accept responsibility. It will not go to Labour-controlled local authorities with solutions to the problems of the homeless. They always want to throw mud at the Government when they must accept responsibility for their part in housing problems.
The truth is that 4.2 million properties are still in local authority ownership and until Labour-controlled authorities get their act together, many of the problems suffered by homeless people will continue to be the result of the actions of Labour-controlled authorities. They do not come to the debate with clean hands.
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Mr. Nigel Evans : Does my hon. Friend agree, given all that is said by Opposition Members about homelessness, that if they were to come to the north-west, which the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) knows well, and to once-proud cities such as Liverpool and Manchester, they would see that we are talking not merely about hundreds of houses but about thousands of houses boarded up? Does he also agree that those houses could be used for the homeless if only the uncollected rents in those cities, together with the revenue from the sale of council properties this year, were diverted into improving them?
Mr. Streeter : My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Furthermore, if Labour authorities collected their rents and used that money to do their repairs, the lot of many council tenants would be far better. We recognise that we are talking not just about statistics. We do not want merely to rattle off the number of empty properties and the millions of pounds worth of rent arrears. We know that behind each of those situations is a human tragedy. It is a pity that Opposition Members do not also recognise that.
We have heard no solution, no new ideas and no new thoughts. No questions have been answered. It is clear that the intellectual agenda on housing is still being set by the Conservative party. After 14 years of head scratching. the Labour party has failed to produce a new agenda. It has produced no exciting new ideas. Instead, we have been told this afternoon that it wants to return to local authority domination. In other words, Labour Members want to return power to Labour-controlled authorities. It is no solution to throw more money at the problem.
Those of us who have some local authority experience know that local authority housing has inherent weaknesses and few incentives for excellence. Traditionally, there has been no competition in that sector. Similarly, there has been virtually no accountability and regulation. Those are features that the Conservative party is seeking to build into the system. It is these principles that will cause standards to rise. That is what my right hon. and hon. Friends want. It is only a pity that Opposition Members cannot agree.
Mr. Raynsford : It is fascinating to hear the hon. Gentleman talking about competition, regulation and other such factors. The Opposition believe that there is a simpler solution to the problem, and that is to build more houses. When will the hon. Gentleman talk about providing enough houses to meet the present need? My right hon. and hon. Friends know that that is what is required if the homeless are to be put into homes.
Mr. Streeter : It is disappointing to hear the hon. Gentleman banging the same drum day after day. Has not he yet heard that through public sector investment this year the Government have ensured that more than 55,000 new homes will be provided for people to rent? That is a colossal achievement. Why do not Labour Members congratulate the Government on that achievement? Instead, they continue to gripe and ask for more.
Interest rates now stand at 6 per cent. For many mortgage holders the benefit of that low rate is yet to come through the system. In my discussions with estate agents in Plymouth--
Mr. Streeter : I wonder why the hon. Member, who seems to be responsible for causing trouble, scoffs. It is important to understand that estate agents in Plymouth
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have a vital voice and one that should be echoed in the debate. They have told me that since Christmas there has been much activity in the housing market. It appears that first-time buyers are viewing properties and making offers. Contracts are being exchanged and the housing market is beginning to recover. It is fair to say that the recovery began before the full benefit of recent interest rate cuts started to manifest itself to many mortgage holders. We can look forward with confidence to the market recovering in the spring. We all agree that the housing market is an essential ingredient in the economy. It is a pity that the only contribution that Labour Members can make is to talk the market down. They spend day after day and week after week talking it down. Instead, let us talk up the market. As I have said, it is recovering. There is every reason why it should be because mortgage rates are at an all-time low. Since October 1990, the repayments of the average mortgage holder have been reduced by more than £150 a month. That is a success story. People have been enabled to put money in their pockets and to go out and spend.What about the autumn statement, which contained an extra package for social housing? That was designed to get the market moving again. It was a package of £750 million, and 20,000 properties were purchased by housing associations throughout the country to rent. Have we heard Labour Members welcome that? Have they offered the Government any congratulations? We have heard not a word. They are always sneering and never congratulating.
The Conservative party has been setting the housing agenda for the past 14 years. We have seen the right to buy, right to manage, right to repair, compulsory competitive tendering, rents to mortgages and the boost that was given to housing associations by the autumn statement. All of those initiatives have been taken at the behest of the Conservative Government. In contrast, the Labour party looks barren and sterile as it presents its old ideas.
I rarely agree with the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) but on one point--it is a serious one--I must do so. In a recent article that was written for the Fabian Society, the hon. Gentleman stated that the Labour party was "sleep-walking into oblivion." On that note of agreement, I resume my place.
6.24 pm
Mr. John Battle (Leeds, West) : Many outside the House will not know or understand the internal lottery system which enables Back-Bench Members to win space in the parliamentary timetable to debate a topic of their choice on the Floor of the House. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on choosing to debate the housing crisis. In so doing, he has ensured that housing and homelessness in his constituency and throughout the country are firmly on our agenda. In his thorough approach he underlined the need to consider need, health and disability under the heading of housing. He stressed that such issues should be taken seriously and echoed on the floor of the House more regularly. I am sure that he will continue ensuring that that happens on the basis of his contribution today. We are indebted to him for the debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mrs. Prentice) expressed passionate concern and a deep knowledge of housing in London. She spelled out the
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bleak prospects which face her constituents and many thousands of others in London unless the Government are jolted out of their rather complacent approach to the housing crisis.It is almost a year since we were presented with the Tories' election promises. We heard tear-jerking threats as soundbites were issued. On 23 March, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine)--he is now the President of the Board of Trade--said : "House sales under the Conservatives are picking up. All this would change on 10th April if there were a Labour Government. The recovery in the housing market would be devastated just as it gets under way."
Of course, that was not true. The market was not picking up, and the recovery is still not under way a year later. On 31 March, the Prime Minister echoed the right hon. Gentleman when he said : "We're going to make life easier for people buying their home and our policies will mean a stronger housing market."
We all know something of the Prime Minister's ability to turn language inside out and to turn meanings on their head. Government policies in the past 12 months have resulted in a weaker housing market.
It seems that the stark reality is obvious to everyone except Conservative Members. Only this month, the former head of Wimpeys commented :
"It is the worst recession I have experienced in my 42 years in the construction industry."
There is a crisis in the housing market, and it has been manufactured by escalating unemployment. Last year, 68,000 families had their homes repossessed., According to the latest figures presented by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, 147,000 families are more than 12 months in mortgage arrears and are staring eviction in the face. We are already hearing of people losing their homes because of secondary mortgages. Double glazing companies are causing people to lose their homes by calling in debts of as little as £500. Over 1 million people cannot afford to move because their homes are worth less than the prices that they paid for them. They are caught in the negative equity trap described by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. In response, the Prime Minister talks about cash incentives in the Budget for first-time buyers to revive the housing market. Even today, however, there are printed leaks from the Treasury informing us that there may be a 5 per cent. increase in VAT on new home sales in next month's Budget. It seems that everyone except the Government acknowledges that escalating unemployment is undermining the housing market. The fear of redundancy holds families back from extending mortgage commitments. Millions are terrified that they may be just one payslip from redundancy. Faced with that economic insecurity, they dare not risk extending their long-term financial commitments.
Escalating unemployment--the figures this week will show another rise--is the primary cause of the crisis in the housing market and the homelessness in our society. What do we need? Although the Government's position is not clear, it is evident to everyone that there is a desperate shortage of rented housing, so the response to the crisis must be the right to rent. However, under Conservative Governments the only policy offered by one Housing Minister after another--there have been many in the past 14 years-- has been the discounted right to buy.
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That single policy instrument has dismantled any post-war consensus on housing. That deep-seated Tory obsession with tenure has led to almost 2 million rented homes disappearing since 1987. Over the same period, there has been a fall in the number of houses built by local authorities and housing associations. The result is a massive imbalance in tenure. At 69 per cent. of the stock, home ownership is proving difficult to sustain. In other words, there is a desperate shortage of decent, affordable and secure housing to rent. There are 1.5 million families stuck on local authority housing waiting lists. We must not forget the hidden homeless who share sofas and floors while they wait for their own space. The Institute of Housing, Shelter and the Audit Commission have spelt out the fact that each year there is a shortfall of 100,000 homes to rent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) said, on the best estimates, the Government are providing only slightly more than half that number this year. Local councils have been sidelined, undermined and prevented from providing homes.In the latest Department of the Environment annual report, published only last week, the projections for housing under the housing investment programme capital provisions show a decline of £325 million between 1992-93 and 1995-96. That is an actual cut in housing budgets, taken out of housing programmes, of £100 million a year.
Housing associations still have only 3 per cent. of Britain's housing stock, yet they have been given the task, practically on their own, of filling the enormous gap of need. Despite that, day by day they are being undermined by Government changes in the rate of grant. This year it is down from 73 per cent. to 67 per cent. and it appears that next year it will go down further to 60 per cent. and the year after to 55 per cent. What will be the result of that cut in grants? Housing associations will have to borrow more money from the private finance sector, so rents will have to rise beyond the incomes of those not receiving full housing benefit.
By those reductions in the rate of grant, the Government are ensuring that housing associations will be turned into providers of welfare housing with a vengeance. They will soon be putting signs in windows saying, "Rooms to let : DSS only--apply within." Some 70 per cent. of housing association tenants are on housing benefit, yet rents are still rising. It is tragic. The Government are also building in a work disincentive. They are saying to those on housing benefit, "You can afford to rent a housing association property, but don't get a job because that will take you out of full housing benefit, you will not be able to afford the rent and you will lose your flat."
The Government must deal with the problem of housing benefit. The latest Department of Social Security report, also published last week, shows that the amount spent on rent in the housing association and private rented sector has doubled. A real poverty trap is built into the system for those who are not on housing benefit. Their homes are at risk because they have to spend more than their incomes to meet the rent demanded. I hope that the Government will begin to deal with the problem of affordability. A report from the Housing Corporation was discreetly placed in the Library. I hope that the Government will provide a full debate on affordability because under their policies housing association houses are becoming beyond most people's means.
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Homelessness has more than doubled since 1979. A record number of 65,000 families are now in temporary accommodation. They are wondering whether "temporary" actually means for the rest of their lives. I recently met a young woman called Michelle who had been moved across London, away from her family and friends, when she was taken out of bed and breakfast. She lost her daughter's creche place and she lost access to her training course. She said that she felt like an exile from her community. She wants to get out of temporary and into permanent accommodation among her family and friends so that she can rebuild her life and find a job.The crisis in temporary accommodation is tragic. I accept that the number of people in bed and breakfast is falling, which is welcome, but the problem cannot be solved simply by putting people into temporary accommodation. They need permanent secure housing where they can build basic communities with their friends and their families.
I remind the Minister for Housing and Planning that at the launch of the rough sleepers initiative he said that people sleeping on the streets of London would disappear by February 1992. It is now February 1993. If, when we leave the House tonight, we walked the streets of London, we would still meet many homeless people. Just before Christmas, late one night, I left the House and I spoke to some homeless youngsters. I was shocked because when I asked them how old they were, those who were confident enough to answer did not say that they were in their 20s or 30s--certainly they were not, as in the past, older people broken by war or alcohol--they said that they were 16. That suggests that many of them were not 16, but younger. I was shocked that youngsters of 16 were on the streets of London. Another factor was important. When I asked them where they last lived, most of them said that they had been in local authority care. That care runs out at 16 and those youngsters have to fend for themselves. The Government have a responsibility to deal with the problems of youngsters of 16 who come out of local authority care but are then left to fend for themselves and so end up on the streets. I shall return to that point later.
Mr. Hendry : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when children come out of care at the age of 16, local authorities have an obligation to keep any eye on them until they are 21? In addition, 16 and 17-year-olds coming out of care are entitled to income support.
Mr. Battle : I accept and welcome the fact that the Government included that provision in the Children Act 1989. However, we raised a problem in Committee on that Bill which was not resolved by the Government and which is now manifesting itself on the streets. How does a local authority keep track of those youngsters if they move to another borough, town or city? That is causing a real problem with the operation of the Act. Local authorities cannot comb other boroughs looking for homeless youngsters.
There have been changes in the benefit rules which I believe have been the cause of some of the homelessness among young people.
Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield) : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are 100,000 local authority
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dwellings empty, of which 18,000 are in London? Is it not political dogma which keeps those dwellings empty deliberately to cause hardship to the homeless?Mr. Battle : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking such an interest in that matter. I urge him to investigate it in more detail and to check the facts and figures. More than half the empty properties in London have been listed as defective by the Government and are therefore included in demolition programmes. Nevertheless, those properties appear in the figures for empty properties. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that we put homeless families into properties which are unfit to live in and due for demolition.
Several hon. Members rose--
Mr. Battle : No, I must move on. I want to give the Minister time to reply.
In our society there are 80,000 single homeless people. We now face the introduction of care in the community, without the proper backing. The Minister should remember the line in the White Paper : "Housing is the key to independent living."
Unless the resources to provide such housing are passed on to local authorities, we shall face increasing homelessness among the most marginalised members of our society--those who may be discharged from hospitals. It will stare us in the face from 1 April this year. I could echo some of the local comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. In Yorkshire, homelessness has risen by 60 per cent. in the past six years ; in Leeds, there has been a 34 per cent. increase in homelessness inquiries between 1988-89 and 1991-92. Last year, there were 10,000 inquiries ; 10,000 people applied for housing, and were registered as homeless. A total of 24,000 households are on waiting lists ; the figure is up 30 per cent. since 1983-84.
In 1980-81, Leeds city council built 1,200 homes ; in 1991-92, it could build only 18. That is a telling figure. There is not enough housing to rent. The council was not even able to replace the housing that it had lost through sales, including housing association accommodation. Although homes are now coming from housing associations in partnership with the local authority, the authority is not being allowed to use capital receipts to replace the rented housing that has been lost. It is no wonder that people are homeless. One third of the homeless people in Leeds have been in care, and those people are vulnerable.
The Government should examine, across Departments, the desperate need for supported accommodation for young people. The private market is not providing it, and housing associations have been priced out of special needs. Who will provide those homes? The Government's cool complacency reflects a chillingly barren policy, and an absence of real, co-ordinated housing action. The housing crisis is frozen in the permafrost of the economic recession which is gripping the country.
The real dereliction, as will be revealed when the English house conditions survey is published later this year, is the dereliction of duty by a Government and a Minister attempting to sustain an image of competence from day to day, floated on daily departmental press releases as one phoney piecemeal initiative after another is launched, sinks and is launched again. Two weeks ago, for instance, we received a press release telling us of the virtues
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of the "flats over shops" initiative. Last week, the annual report of the Department of the Environment told us that there would be nothing in the 1995-96 budget programme. We are told that the capital partnership initiative has a future, but the annual report provides nothing in the 1994-95 budget.Action could be taken, however. I will put a five-point action plan to the Minister. First, more rented housing should be provided. On every working day since June 1979, 600 building workers have lost their jobs ; they have continued to do so, yet there are fields full of bricks in Bedfordshire. The need is there, the skills are there, the materials are there and the resources are there ; yet £5.7 billion is locked up in capital receipts. That money could be used to provide housing. The Government refuse to link jobs and housing, which flies in the face of ordinary common sense. The Government can and must provide more rented housing. What is needed is a housing need package, not a housing market package.
Secondly, I ask the Minister to extend the rough sleepers initiative beyond London. Sixty per cent. of those sleeping rough are on the streets of Brighton, Bristol and other towns and cities throughout the land. Thirdly, the Government should immediately restore income support for 16 and 17-year -olds, which was removed by the present Prime Minister in 1988. The removal of that benefit is increasingly seen as a cause of homelessness among young people. Fourthly, the Government should publish and use the English house conditions survey, which will show that nearly 1.5 million properties are now in serious disrepair. They should use it as a renovation and renewal charter, change the failed means-tested improvement grant system and ensure that the construction industry is free of the increases in value-added tax on building repairs that we are told the Budget may contain. Such increases would drive the construction industry even further back.
Fifthly, the Government could support and publicise a real mortgage rescue scheme. I suggest that the Minister take a look at the Bradford and Bingley building society, and support fully mutual housing associations which allow families to remain in their own homes and be charged rent. The Government should support mortgage-to-rent schemes rather than rent-to-mortgage schemes. To sum up my five points for action, I suggest more rented housing, an extension of the rough sleepers scheme, the restoration of income support for youngsters, the use of the English house conditions survey for renewal and improvement, and support for real mortgage rescue schemes. Too many people are being denied the basic right to a decent, affordable and secure home.
The current housing crisis is the most vivid symbol of the failure of the free market myth. What is needed is real choice, not just abuse of the word. Without real choice between tenures, which must include the right to rent, millions will remain locked out of decent housing that they can call a home of their own.
6.46 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry) : The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) has done his party
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a favour. He has done something that his Front Bench has not seemed willing to do since the general election : he has initiated a debate on housing.The hon. Gentleman's initiative stands in stark contrast to the utterances of hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench, who seem more concerned with attacking the royal family than with debating housing. I am not surprised about that, because Opposition Front-Bench Members never seem to mention housing. A recent speech by the Leader of the Opposition, supposedly outlining Labour's agenda for the next decade, completely failed to mention housing. As for the recent interview in Tribune with the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who graced us with a fleeting appearance a moment ago, he told us last week that the entire interview was tape recorded by the author. He then told the House that the direct quotation of any words was correct ; the only problem was that the article made no mention of housing.
Why, then, is housing off Labour's agenda? Simply because Labour has no policy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) made clear in his excellent speech, little by little over the past decade Labour has come to accept, and then to endorse, our policies. That applies to the right to buy, housing action trusts and the ability of councils to transfer their stock to housing associations. All those policies were once bitterly opposed by Labour authorities ; all are now embraced by them. Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets, Hull, Birmingham and Liverpool--all those councils, Labour and Liberal, are now promoting housing action trusts in their areas. The Opposition would have denied those opportunities to thousands of tenants.
The hon. Member for Blackburn boasted to Tribune, "We run urban Britain." Perhaps that is another reason why Labour says nothing about housing : the nation will look at Labour's housing record, which is lousy, as tellingly illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess). He described how ill served Basildon's housing interests were under a Labour council.
We, by contrast, have much to offer when it comes to housing. Therefore, I welcome the debate. It enables the Government to reinforce their determination that a decent home should be within the reach of every family and our determination to promote
owner-occupation, to widen choice for tenants, to encourage further private investment in the rented sector and to increase the supply of decent homes for rent.
Mr. Miller : The Minister keeps criticising Labour authorities. I gave him a specific example and was very careful about the language that I used. Can the Minister spell out precisely, here and now, what my local authority of Ellesmere Port and Neston should do and where it has gone wrong?
Mr. Baldry : The hon. Gentleman might reflect upon the fact that, at the end of 1990-91, Ellesmere Port's accumulated debt in rent arrears amounted to nearly £500,000--£474,000, to be precise. I suspect that if the local authority had been more effective in collecting its rents, it would have been able to invest that money in local authority stock.
The opportunity to own a home and to pass it on is one of the most important rights that an individual has in a free society. We have extended that right. Home ownership lies at the heart of our philosophy. We want to see wealth and
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security being passed down from generation to generation. Surveys show that owner-occupation is the preferred tenure of every age group from every background in every part of the country. Some 4 million more householders now own their own home compared with 1979. The number of former council tenants who have bought their homes has risen to nearly 1.5 million.Recent house price reports show that encouraging signs of stability may now be returning to the housing market. At 6 per cent., interest rates are at their lowest for 15 years. Average mortgage rates are now 7 percentage points below their peak. Indeed, average mortgage rates are now at their lowest level since March 1969. With the latest cut in mortgage rates, reductions over the past two years have saved a family with a typical mortgage £160 a month. Home purchase is now more affordable and more attractive. The ratio of mortgage payments to income is at its most advantageous level for a quarter of a century. That must be good news for buyers and builders alike. We are committed to making the aspiration of home ownership a reality for as many households as possible. The right to buy for council tenants has become a resounding success. We are determined to continue to respond to people's aspiration to own their own home. Thousands of tenants have been able to take advantage of cash incentive payments that enable housing associations and local councils to help existing tenants to move into home ownership and free their current home for new tenants. All around the country, successful shared ownership schemes, supported by the Government, have enabled many more people to become home owners. We are determined to make it easier for those council tenants living in high cost areas or on low incomes to move gradually into home ownership without taking on too heavy a financial burden at any one time. Our rent-to-mortgage scheme will give tenants a further route to home ownership. We care about council tenants who want to buy but who cannot afford to do so outright. We shall continue to drive for home ownership and make sure that tenants are aware of their new rights. Many tenants will consider that now is the time to take advantage of low prices, low interest rates and substantial discounts. Of course we recognise that not everybody can or will want to buy their own home. Our aim is to ensure that a decent home is available to every family, whether it be owned, rented from a private landlord, or rented in the public sector. That means that encouraging and supporting home ownership is complemented by measures to increase availability and choice in rented housing, to target investment and support to those areas and to those people most in need and to ensure that the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money that we are investing and continue to invest in housing is put to the best possible use by improving the performance and value for money achieved by those who spend it.
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