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Mr. Bennett: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that much of the evidence vigorously denied that proposition?
Mr. Thomason: I agree that the point was subject to much dispute, but it is worth drawing it out in the debate.
It was an interesting and fairly innovative point that, rather like building roads, the more that is done the more demand is created. I have some doubt about the validity of that evidence and of the argument put to us, but more thought needs to be given to the point and I hope that the Government will research it in the future.
It is important in planning terms to differentiate between affordable--and therefore social--housing, and that built for the private sector. Density requirements imposed by planning authorities will tend to encourage the development of low-cost homes, but planning knows no distinction between social and other housing. I am sure that that is right. I would be concerned that the creation of a special planning use categorised as for social housing purposes would lead to the construction of ghettos, rather in the manner of the huge council estates that were developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Much more should we see a mixture of housing in low-cost developments, with planning authorities using their powers to impose conditions to direct that a proportion of new developments should contain social housing.
We cannot reasonably differentiate between local authority, housing association and private sector accommodation. What really makes a property a social one is whether it is affordable. We still have no clear definition of what affordable means. Indeed, the whole of this debate is surrounded by terms that are extremely difficult to define. Clearly, however, affordable tends to suggest that it is within the reach of the vast majority of the population.
I hope that the private sector will be increasingly able to respond to the need for affordable rented accommodation so that the trend may be away from bricks and mortar subsidy and towards subsidy of the individual through the housing benefit system. The cost of housing benefit will be a constraint on that policy, but I am sure that ultimately it is the right objective; in that respect, I disagree with the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish.
I welcome the Government's initiative to create housing investment trusts, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration will say something about those in his closing remarks.
Mrs. Diana Maddock (Christchurch):
Like other hon. Members, I am pleased that we are holding this debate. Seven days ago, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) described this time of the week--7 o'clock to 10 o'clock on a Thursday--as "the black hole" of the parliamentary week, but we have attracted a number of right hon. and hon. Members to the Chamber today because this is an important issue.
I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason) that housing is at the front of political debate. Part of our problem is that it is not far enough toward the front of political debate. That is why I warmly welcome the work done by the Environment Select Committee and the opportunity that it has given us to debate housing need today.
Like many hon. Members in the Chamber tonight, I served on the Standing Committee that considered the Housing Bill earlier this year, and I know too well how knowledgeable the Chairman of the Environment Select Committee, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), is, and how passionate he is about housing--something that I believe goes for quite a few of us present tonight.
In such a debate, it is easy to get bogged down in figures as we discuss whether we need 60,000, 90,000 or 150,000 more social homes a year. I share the view expressed by many organisations working in housing--such as Shelter, the National Federation of Housing Associations and the Chartered Institute of Housing--that the bottom line is that the Government's estimate is inadequate. Even if the figure of 60,000 to 100,000 a year proposed by the Government were correct, it would be sensible to aim for the upper end of that scale, or at least the middle, rather than the bottom end. After all, even members of the Government admit that estimation is an imprecise art.
As has been said, not only people without homes have need. I am pleased that the Select Committee paid close attention to hidden housing need, and I am pleased that it paid special attention to the work of Alan Holmans, a former chief housing economist at the Department of the Environment.
A huge number of people live in homes that are unfit to be lived in. The most recent housing condition surveys show that 2.5 million homes are unfit or in need of substantial repair, and 5 million people live in them. Those figures are frightening, but hon. Members and the Government should study another figure--that of the country's bill for treating medical conditions caused by sub-standard housing. In a recent Committee, medical experts estimated that it might be as much as £2.4 billion a year. That figure represents only health spending. It does not take account of how illness caused by bad housing affects attendance at work or school, or increases the uptake of social security benefits. I fear that, in years to come, we may look back on the abolition of mandatory renovation grants and realise how much damage we have done and how much it will cost us in future, especially in health spending.
So many of our problems stem from the fact that, in many ways, we have not engaged in sufficient long-term thinking when considering how to provide housing. Investment has been cut year on year. There has been a lack of long-term thinking, not only at a macro level, but at a micro level. That was emphasised to some of us this year during the passage of the Housing Bill, when we realised that, as a result of the Bill, homeless people would be unable to find stability.
It is traumatic to lose one's home. It may be an eviction or a repossession, and it may have resulted from the loss of a job. Whatever the circumstances, the last thing that people need then is insecurity and short-termism, with short-term contracts, often in the private rented sector, making it impossible for them to be certain where they will be a couple of years later.
Many of those people are unable to afford even the top end of the middle of the private rented market, especially following recent housing benefit changes. They therefore end up in badly kept, often ramshackle, properties, and often they find it difficult to cope with the situation. The
history of the experiences that brought them there often makes them feel unable to challenge their landlord about some of the factors that affect the condition of the property.
Mr. Thomason:
I listened to the hon. Lady's remarks about housing benefit. Is she saying that more housing benefit should be made available to tenants?
Mrs. Maddock:
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I put it as one of the problems of the rented sector. There is a problem with housing benefit. Many of us believed that it would be useful to subsidise the individual when it came to housing, but that has not worked. We have an enormous housing benefit bill, and many of us are considering ways in which to cut the benefit bill while ensuring that people have security in their homes. The issue is security rather than the level of benefit. Perhaps we should be considering more investment in bricks and mortar, because obviously we have a problem.
I want housing benefit to be a safety net that enables people to stay in their homes. If we were to drop housing benefit suddenly, as some proposals emanating from the Government suggest, it would not help. People would end up in housing need because they had been turned out of their property. Our challenge is to get the equation right. How do we set a benefit level that promotes better conditions in the private sector, gives people a decent safety net and encourages investment in properties? I did not intend to have a long discussion about housing benefit, but it is a key factor.
The private rented sector has an important part to play. It has grown in recent years, but not as much as the Government would have us believe. Our housing market is far more polarised than that of any other country. We have an enormous number of people in home ownership--nearly 70 per cent. of the population--and a much lower percentage living in the private rented sector. In France, 20 per cent. of the population live in the private rented sector, in Germany, 43 per cent. and in Switzerland no less than 66 per cent. Part of the reason is that private rented accommodation is subsidised differently in those countries. All political parties have been studying the way in which other countries deal with those matters.
Other hon. Members have spoken of the way in which people regard the property that they live in--whether it is important that they own rather than rent it, to make them feel that they want to look after it, that it is important and that they have a stake in it, to use that popular phrase. The experience of other countries shows that people do not need to own their property to feel that they have a stake in it. They do, however, need to feel that they have some control over their immediate environment and what goes on in their house. It has been shown in many authorities throughout the country that that can happen whether people own or rent their property. The idea is clearly possible, given the experience of other countries.
To meet housing need, we must be more flexible not only on tenures but on providing different types of housing. The Environment Select Committee discussed demographic changes. My constituency has the fifth highest proportion of pensioners in the country, so I shall dwell for a moment on how we should deal with housing for an aging population. In 15 years' time, a further
300,000 home owners will be over the age of 80. Where will they be housed and what type of homes will they need? Will they be able to stay in their present homes? Those questions will be among the most important housing questions over the next two or three decades.
We need to know how many elderly people will wish to live independently and how many will need sheltered housing or residential care. We must ensure that we meet the needs of the elderly across the range of accommodation. I am pleased that the Government have withdrawn their proposal to cut eligibility of service charges in housing benefit and have decided to set up a full review of the matter. Without such benefit, many vulnerable people could not afford to stay in their homes because they could not pay the charges to wardens or others who help them. Many people may have needed to go into institutions rather than stay in their homes. We must have a middle option and I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to my representations and those from relevant organisations.
The majority of people want to stay in their homes when they get old. A recent MORI poll for Anchor Housing showed that two thirds of home owners wished to stay where they were rather than move. The majority of those who wanted to move said that it was because their accommodation was too big for them and that they would prefer something smaller because, for example, it would be easier to heat. That shows that we need more homes that can be adapted. Creating so-called "lifetime homes" will be an important part of meeting need in that sector in the future.
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