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12.2 pm
Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda): I wish to introduce a Welsh dimension into the debate, although the Minister is not responsible for housing in Wales, to emphasise that this is a countrywide problem. Fortunately, I live in what might well be the oldest mining community in Great Britain. As a result, there is an enormously high level of owner-occupancy. People bought their houses from the Coal Board many years ago. The houses are terraced and 78 or 80 per cent. are owner-occupied, so the problem of large, rundown housing estates with communal poverty is not quite as acute as elsewhere. There are, however, ex-Coal Board estates throughout the south Wales valleys that are suffering such problems.
In the owner-occupied areas, there is a lack of grants for repair, and some of the housing stock dates back well over 100 years. The houses are little palaces. People have taken enormous pride in building up their homes over many years.
On the newer Coal Board and municipal housing estates, we have the problem that has been so graphically outlined by hon. Members from Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire--the fabric of individual houses is deteriorating. As a result of that and the lack of occupancy, there is general deterioration on the estates. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), that breeds criminality. The kids have nothing to do and are exploited by the drug pushers, who use the empty and vandalised houses almost as resting places in between the times when they peddle their obnoxious trade. It is not just a housing problem, but an enormous social problem. It is not merely neglect of houses, but neglect of people and communities.
Hon. Members representing mining communities throughout Great Britain have seen the great rundown in our communities in the past 10 years as a result of the previous Government's vindictive actions against the coal industry. We represent areas of enormous pride. We do not come to this place with begging bowls, asking for action to be taken. With the present Labour Government, we are certainly not begging but demanding that action be taken. That is why our communities have stayed faithful to the Labour party for so many years. It is not as though we are on the edge and might be able to sway the balance--not that this Government need that in electoral terms. We have a right to a return from this Government for our communities and the Government will neglect our communities at their peril.
Our communities are proud, and they are not, in general, poverty-stricken. They have produced many leaders. The south Wales valley communities have probably turned out more musicians, poets and writers--I apologise to my English friends for being arrogant. In the Rhondda valley alone, we have six or seven brass bands, four or five of which are of championship standard. Some have won the European championship. We have musicians who are renowned all over the world. Leaders and conductors of symphony orchestras have come from the Rhondda valley and its schools, as have poets and actors.
Throughout south Wales, great names in British cultural life have contributed, through either the Welsh medium or the English language. We are proud communities. All we are asking is that some effort be focused back on to the problems that have been created, particularly in the past 10 years.
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) on raising this important subject. This debate is a supreme example of how difficult it can be to translate the good intentions of politicians into practical solutions. Indeed, it is almost a case study on the diminishing returns of good intentions.
This is indeed a debate about rural communities and the quality of life of those who live in villages built around coal mines that have closed down. When I was a Housing Minister, in the late 1980s, I had the privilege of visiting Mansfield and Bolsover. I still have on my wall a presentation that I received from Bolsover district council showing the Creswell crags.
I am reminded of that visit because I had high hopes following it. I had seen the extent of the dereliction and disrepair that were the inheritance of the nationalised Coal Board. I saw the high hopes of people in those rural communities, who were exercising their right to buy and hoping that housing associations and new landlords would reinvigorate the housing in those areas. It is therefore distressing to hear about the sheer magnitude of the waste of valuable housing resources that the debate has highlighted and of the human misery generated among responsible householders who are locked into a deteriorating environment.
The debate takes me back about 19 years when I was the chairman of a housing committee in a borough that inherited 1,066 empty, vandalised and squatted houses from an old Labour council, which had believed in public housing and despised private investment in housing. That council wanted more and more control and regulation. Those public sector solutions were manifestly unsuccessful in the London borough of Wandsworth in the 1970s. My experience makes me extremely sceptical about some of the solutions that are being canvassed by Labour Members. We hear about more compulsory
purchase powers, more penalties for private landlords and more local authority ownership. Such policies are no more likely to be successful in future than in the past.
It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) praising the idea of vetting procedures. There was cross-party political consensus for many decades that we should move away from such procedures. I have in mind the old housing associations that used to have vetting procedures. Council tenants in Wandsworth and Southampton used to tell me that, when they first became tenants, they had been vetted and approved. They had demonstrated how responsible they were, only to find that people moving into the house next door were quite the reverse. I am delighted to hear that there is a move back to vetting procedures. They are, of course, entirely at odds with much that is contained in the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977.
I was interested also in the comments about housing benefit. If the benefit were paid at a higher level, it is clear from what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said that at least houses would be occupied--perhaps they would not be occupied by ideal tenants, but they would be in use. As soon as housing benefit was reduced, landlords said, "It is not worth our while bringing these houses into use." Houses have become empty and derelict as a consequence of vandalism. The message is that, if we try to buck the market, we end up in the counter-productive situation of housing stock not being used when we know that there is a crying need among many people for housing.
The Minister for London and Construction (Mr. Nick Raynsford):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) on securing the debate, thereby giving us the opportunity to debate a subject of real concern to many people living in former mining areas and in some continuing mining areas. The economic and social problems of such areas are of great concern to the Government. We recognise especially the specific problems that are associated with some of the housing that was previously owned by the National Coal Board.
We have heard a series of disturbing stories setting out a catalogue of neglect and mismanagement. Examples have been presented of communities exploited by unprincipled absentee landlords. That is serious cause for concern, and we are determined to ensure that more effective action is taken to tackle and resolve these problems.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw explained, in the 1980s the Coal Board, under pressure from the former Conservative Government, began a programme of disposal of its homes, which at the time consisted of about 80,000 units. Within the North Nottinghamshire coalfield, about 1,800 were purchased by a consortium of housing associations; others were purchased by local authorities. Mansfield district council holds about 490 former NCB properties. Other properties were purchased by their former tenants, while some were purchased by private landlords, often buying in job lots at auction.
Warsop Vale, the area about which my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw spoke at some length, was built at the turn of the century for workers at the nearby Warsop pit. Of the 200-plus houses in the village, 88 were purchased by Ashfield Nominees Ltd., a company under the Dennis Rye organisation. About 30 others are in the ownership of smaller private landlords. More than half the houses in the village are owned by private landlords. The remainder were purchased by former NCB tenants, who purchased their own homes.
The Government are extremely concerned about the problems of disrepair in the nation's housing stock. In the wider context, we are encouraging local authorities to make every effort to ensure that owners of unfit properties take remedial action without resorting to enforcement powers. Renovation grants and home repair assistance are available at the discretion of local authorities to help home owners on low incomes to improve their properties. However, owners have a responsibility to maintain their own properties, and local authorities are under a statutory duty to enforce the housing fitness standard. We are reviewing the housing fitness standard and enforcement procedures and we shall publish a consultation paper in the autumn.
Authorities have a range of enforcement options at their disposal. Where a local authorities identifies a property as unfit against the requirements of the standard, it must come to a decision and take one of the enforcement options as the
These options are, first, to serve a repair notice specifying the repairs required to make the property fit; secondly, to make a closing order prohibiting residential use of the property; thirdly, to make a demolition order or to declare the area in which premises are situated to be a clearance area; and, finally, to serve or renew a deferred action notice. Such a notice specifies the repairs that are required to make the property fit, but shows that no immediate enforcement action will be taken. In reaching a decision about which of these options is the most satisfactory course of action, a local authority is required to have regard to the statutory code of guidance for dealing with unfit premises set out in circular 17/96.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw raised several important technical issues suggested by Mansfield district council that affect its ability to operate the procedures that I have been describing. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that, on technical issues of this nature--I received notice only today--it is not possible for me to give him an immediate response. I shall carefully consider all the points that he raised, and I shall write to him.
Some of the properties in the area of which my hon. Friend spoke are now owned by housing associations. About 10 years ago, a consortium of associations bought about 1,700 tenanted properties from British Coal with a mixture of housing association grant and private finance. In the late 1980s, a policy was drawn up to the effect that housing association grant should not be made available for the acquisition, improvement or repair of tenanted stock transferred from public sector landlords to housing associations. The previous Administration refused to review that policy, which therefore made it impossible
for social housing grant to be made available to housing associations to carry out works to former Coal Board property passed to them.
I have asked officials in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to conduct a review of the application of social housing grant for the improvement of such properties owned by housing associations. We need to consider the extent to which acquisition costs could reasonably have been expected to reflect the need for future work to the stock. That is why we need some consideration of these issues before reaching a decision. We are reviewing the application of policy and I expect to be able to make some announcement before too long on whether there will be a variation of the previous policy.
I recognise that the problems that concern my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw are predominantly those that relate to properties that are owned by private landlords. In principle, we value a revived private rented sector. It has important and positive role to play in meeting part of the country's housing needs. All too often, it is the sector with the greatest problems of disrepair.
I welcome the fact that many local authorities have established regular liaison forums with the private landlords in their area. These are proving valuable both to landlords and to the local housing authorities, whose job it is to ensure that local housing needs as a whole are met. That sort of co-operative arrangement with decent landlords is to be applauded. It will not work, however, where landlords are unwilling positively to participate in tackling the problems of their area. The Government will have no truck with any exploitative slum landlord who is not interested in providing reasonable quality housing at a reasonable rent.
To deal with these problems, we are committed to introducing a compulsory licensing system for houses in multiple occupation, as the worst conditions in the private rented sector are generally found in such properties. We are drawing up a framework for a licensing scheme so that we can be ready at the earliest legislative opportunity. We expect to issue a consultation paper later this year.
My hon. Friend suggested that the consultation paper should be extended to cover empty properties, such as the derelict homes in Warsop Vale that he described. The Government are not convinced that that would be the most appropriate response, because the licensing of houses in multiple occupation is designed to cope with a situation where a significant number of tenants share the same property and where, as a result, there are particular problems of squalor, and, sometimes, danger because of fire and other hazards.
The issues are very different for empty properties. The licensing framework which we are approaching would not be appropriate for those different circumstances. That does not mean that we are indifferent to the issue of empty properties; indeed, we are extremely concerned about it. I shall say a little more later about our response to empty properties.
I am sympathetic towards the particular problems faced by tenants in Warsop Vale and many other areas. During 1996, Warsop Vale residents association commissioned a survey of properties in the area that were owned by private landlords. The survey, entitled "Stop the Rot", revealed that the wall, floor and roof structures were in generally good condition, but that 36 of the 39 properties
surveyed were unfit for human habitation. Of the 23 full internal surveys carried out, 22 of the properties were found to have conditions prejudicial to health and a cause of public nuisance. That was due to a wide range of design issues, disrepair and dampness, creating hazards or conditions prejudicial to health. However, the surveyors noted that, with moderate investment, the properties could provide good-quality housing for many years to come.
I am pleased to know that Mansfield district council has responded robustly to the report. Between January 1994 and June 1997, the council served 30 notices requiring specific repairs to be carried out to make properties fit. Of those notices, 29 were related to properties owned by one landlord.
However, since the publication of the "Stop the Rot" report, Mansfield district council has stepped up its activity and introduced a policy of inspecting six properties each week at Warsop Vale alone. In the past month, it has inspected 19 properties and served eight "minded to" notices, showing its intention to pursue enforcement action. The council is prepared to fund the costs of the repairs and reclaim them from the landlord through the legal system, and informs my officials that it is confident that it can complete the works within the next two financial years. We are keen that it should continue to pursue this vigorous action to tackle the problems.
The problem of empty properties was also raised. I should say straight away that the Government are determined to bring empty properties that are needlessly neglected back into use by promoting good practice by local authorities and tackling underfunding through the phased release of local authority capital receipts. Local authorities have a key role to play in bringing privately owned empty properties back into effective use in their areas. They are best placed to know where those properties are and who owns them.
Local authorities can deploy a wide range of approaches to get empty properties back into use--from advice to landlords who are simply unaware of procedures and the terms under which they might let, to grants or fitness enforcement procedures, to which I have referred. Solutions may require a corporate approach by local authorities, working in partnership with housing associations, private owners, property professionals and other public and voluntary bodies.
I welcome the fact that local authorities in the east midlands region, with the encouragement of the government office, recently set up an empty homes forum to tackle vacancy rates in the region. I hope that it will provide a sharper focus for tackling the particular problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw referred.
Another approach to the problems of the properties in Warsop Vale might be for a housing association to buy them from the landlord by agreement, provided that the landlord is prepared to sell at a reasonable price. My hon. Friend suggested that the Housing Corporation has a surplus--I think £3 million was quoted--which could be used for that purpose. That is not correct. The east midlands and eastern regions of the Housing Corporation have between them a reserve, not a surplus, of £3.5 million, but it has been allocated for needs-related expenditure and will be allocated during the year to a number of projects for housing investment. In any event, my understanding is that the landlord is unlikely to be willing to sell on reasonable terms.
That brings us to the issue of compulsory purchase. Local authorities have powers to acquire houses and land, either by agreement or by compulsion, for a variety of reasons. Those include the subsequent transfer of the property to a third party, such as a housing association that intends to provide housing accommodation on that land. In theory, that would enable the council to acquire the buildings and set in motion procedures for their improvement.
Let us not forget in this consideration of a particularly hard case that compulsory purchase is a draconian power, and should be used only as a last resort. Moreover, it is not always the most cost-effective means of solving a problem. It must be for the local authority to decide the most appropriate way of tackling the problem. We do not propose to dictate to local authorities; it is for them to decide the most appropriate solution. However, where other options fail, where properties are left needlessly empty and local authorities believe that compulsory purchase is appropriate, the Government will not stand in the way.
My hon. Friend discussed the issue of valuation and suggested that site value might be a more appropriate basis on which to base compensation. I should explain that the Land Compensation Act 1961 provides that owners of land expropriated by compulsion should receive its open-market value--the amount that the owner would have received had the transaction occurred between a willing seller and a willing buyer in an open market. That is a fair basis for compensation, and it is used worldwide.
It would be wrong to expropriate property without any compensation--compulsory purchase order procedures do not provide for that--but we should bear it in mind that, in the instances that we have been considering, open-market values could be very low indeed, possibly even lower than the site value, where the property is derelict and where costs are associated with clearing the property if it cannot be used. It is not necessarily an advantage to value properties for compulsory purchase on a site valuation basis. The open-market valuation for derelict properties may be very low indeed.
The problem with many of the options that I have described is the resources available to local authorities to be able to carry out necessary works. We recognise that, under the previous Government, resources provided for housing were cut savagely year on year. The Government
are committed to redressing the chronic under-investment in housing. That is why, immediately after the election, we made a capital receipts initiative one of our priority actions. Under the initiative, we are providing local authorities in England with an extra £174 million this year and an extra £610 million next year.
These resources will be directed at housing and associated regeneration needs, and will be available for both public and private sector housing. I should stress, however, that in the first instance it will be for individual authorities to determine where the local needs and priorities lie and to direct resources accordingly. We do not propose to impose a rigid central diktat on the application of the resources, but we expect authorities to apply them efficiently, economically and effectively. We have consulted on this matter.
A consultation paper has been issued. We will listen to the responses. If local authorities in the areas that we have considered this morning believe that it would be appropriate for those resources to be used to help to bring back into use properties that are neglected and to raise the standards of derelict and sub-standard properties, it is my view that that would be an appropriate use of the capital receipts released.
A number of my hon. Friends spoke in the debate. I do not have time to refer in detail to all the comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) highlighted problems relating to Pleasley and Creswell, in his area. Those are similar to the problems of which we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw.
"most satisfactory course of action"
for dealing with the property.
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