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Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): Oh, a hotline!
Mr. Prescott: The right hon. Gentleman appears to be not too concerned about fraud.
In the longer term, we want to examine the case for reforming housing benefit to give tenants greater choice over where they live, but that will require reform of rent structures. There is a consensus that council and housing association rents are a mess. We want to build a new consensus on the way forward.
Mr. Forth:
What does that mean?
Mr. Prescott:
It means reaching agreement about commonsense proposals.
The Green Paper offers a range of options for restructuring rents. We believe that the key principles should be comparable rents for comparable properties and rents that take account of the size and quality of the homes on offer. I can give a clear commitment that, whatever changes we introduce, we shall maintain rents in the social sector at an affordable level--below market rents. I also make it absolutely clear that pensioners on housing benefit will not be affected by any proposals to reform housing benefit.
Home ownership has increased dramatically over the past few decades, owing partly to the right-to-buy programme introduced by the previous Administration, under which 1.3 million people bought their own homes. I have already referred to our initiative to make the home buying and selling process easier. We are also taking action to help first-time buyers.
We are announcing a new starter home initiative to help key workers, such as nurses and teachers and first-time buyers on modest incomes. The initiative will help them
to buy their own homes in areas where housing is costly, in the town or in the country. We will invite proposals from housing associations and others. Ideas could involve interest-free loans, development grants or other innovative approaches.
We are also giving new help to unemployed home owners who are moving back into work. We are helping them to pay mortgage interest for the first four weeks after they start a new job. Some home owners, especially the elderly, are unable to maintain and modernise their property. We propose a range of new options to help more people to make essential repairs.
The private rented sector provides homes for more than 2 million households. Most private landlords are professional and responsible, but a minority of bad landlords gives the whole sector a bad name. Our proposals include helping landlords to improve their expertise and standards. We intend to make sure that unscrupulous landlords who neglect their responsibilities do not profit from housing benefit. We also intend to give local authorities a selective power to license private landlords where bad landlords and bad tenants--sometimes in collusion--are destabilising the local community.
Social housing has been at the foundation of millions of people's lives for decades. The previous Government viewed council housing as little more than an embarrassment. Their neglect of investment in social housing created misery for millions of people and deprivation for whole communities. In the Tory vision, there were two nations--home owners and those who were left behind in areas of deprivation.
We must ask why 25 per cent. of crime is concentrated in 10 per cent. of communities. The Government believe that we should have a greater mix of social housing and owner-occupied housing. People should have a real choice between buying a home and renting without a sense of stigma or snobbery. In the Green Paper, we propose to improve the quality of social housing, housing management, and lettings.
Too often in the past, social landlords have offered people a home on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. That system has failed: it often concentrates the poorest people in the poorest properties. We must design a lettings system for the 21st century if we are to support sustainable communities. We propose to give new applicants and existing tenants more say in choosing where they live. In the Green Paper, we propose pilot schemes across the country to test new approaches that put the tenant first.
The growth of homelessness over the past two decades is completely unacceptable. The previous Government took away rights from homeless people and made it harder for local councils to help them. In our election manifesto we promised to improve the safety net for those who are homeless through no fault of their own. Our proposals will ensure that homeless people are given the support that they need while they seek more permanent housing along with others in housing need on the waiting list.
In addition, we propose to extend the safety net to a wider group of homeless people, such as young people aged 16 and 17--that measure is not before time--and those who are vulnerable because they are leaving care and other institutions. Those are the people most at risk
of ending up on the streets without a home and without hope. Our commitment is to end the scourge of people sleeping rough. We shall also ensure that local authorities work with other agencies to prevent people from becoming homeless in the future.
The House should recognise the crucial role played by local authorities in the past in providing good homes. Over the past 100 years councils have met the housing needs of millions of people who otherwise would have been left in private sector slums. The private sector would not have met that need. Local authorities tackled the slums and the squalor and rebuilt our communities.
Local authorities are still well placed to play a dynamic role. In our Green Paper we are proposing a stronger, more forward-looking and strategic role for local authorities, in which they will identify and address housing needs across all housing in their area, in the public and private sectors.
The past 20 years have seen massive disinvestment in council housing. In our Green Paper, we set out a range of approaches to investment. We aim for a step change to ensure that all social housing is of a decent standard within 10 years. That will give us a decade to overcome the mountainous £19 billion backlog of repairs and modernisation left by the previous Government.
Stock transfer began in 1988, under the previous Administration. Since then, more than 400,000 homes have been transferred to registered social landlords, mainly housing associations. Stock transfer will continue to be the preferred approach for many authorities and their tenants, provided of course that they vote for it. We shall support the transfer of up to 200,000 homes each year from local authorities to registered social landlords. That is a matter of choice; it is not a target. We will make provision for that, but only where local authorities propose it and tenants vote for it.
A number of local authorities have asked to use the private finance initiative to increase private sector investment while maintaining ownership of their stock. We are piloting eight pathfinder schemes to find out how that approach can work best.
Some have suggested that stock transfer means the end of the local authority as landlord, and the end of the council house. We believe that there is a continuing role for council housing. Indeed, today I am announcing a new option for investment in local authority stock. Local authorities will be given new borrowing powers to invest in their housing and retain full ownership where they put their housing management in arms-length companies and demonstrate an excellent record of management through best-value inspection. There is therefore a good future for the council house.
The housing system that we inherited from the previous Government was fraught with difficulties: stigmatised social housing; a £19 billion backlog of repairs and improvements; a housing benefit system spiralling out of control; record repossessions; and a lack of choice and flexibility.
The proposals in our Green Paper can set about repairing Britain's poorest quality homes, helping first-time buyers and key workers, moving towards a fairer balance in rents and improving services. We are working hard for Britain's hard-working families. We propose help for home owners and the private sector, and we are not ashamed of that. We propose investment and
modernisation in social housing. A decent home is a measure of a civilised society. All in all, our proposals mean better quality, more choice and more opportunity. The system will be based not on stigma and snobbery, but on social justice, ensuring that everyone in Britain has the chance of a decent home.
Mr. Archie Norman (Tunbridge Wells):
Once again, we have the familiar pattern of events surrounding one of the Deputy Prime Minister's announcements of policy failure. First, we read about it in the newspapers over the weekend and on Monday; then one of his Ministers appears on the "Today" programme, and then the Deputy Prime Minister appears in the House, claiming that the leaks are unauthorised and nothing to do with him.
Does the Deputy Prime Minister recall what he said after his statement on rail safety on 22 February? He said:
There are aspects of the Green Paper that we welcome: for example, the proposals for shared ownership--a Conservative proposal--and the aspirations to which the Deputy Prime Minister referred to improve social housing in Britain. I remind the House, however, that the Deputy Prime Minister came to power promising to reduce homelessness, to improve the quality of public housing stock, to cut benefit fraud and to provide more social housing. Can there be a more explicit or embarrassing example of all mouth and no delivery?
Under the Government, homelessness has risen, not fallen, by 3,000. Both capital and revenue spending on public housing has fallen. Spending on urban regeneration is lower than under the last Conservative Government. Fewer social houses, not more, are being built. There is an estimated £20 billion backlog of housing repairs. Housing benefit fraud is estimated to be at £2 billion and rising, with only a pathetic 700 successful prosecutions last year.
The Deputy Prime Minister has now confirmed in his statement that council and housing association rents are a mess after three years. Is he not embarrassed? [Interruption.] Is he not embarrassed that, after three years in government and one year before he retires to his RMT-owned flat in Clapham, all he can produce is a Green Paper for consultation? Is it not a splendid irony that it is the Deputy Prime Minister, the self-appointed guardian of the old left, who should end up starved of Treasury funding and presiding over plans finally to abolish council housing in Britain?
I ask the hon. Gentleman to believe that I did not brief on that report. I should make it clear that that is not my style; I do not play that way.--[Official Report, 22 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 1378.]
Does the Deputy Prime Minister recall what he said before his statement on housing in the south-east? He said:
I regret and denounce the leaks, as I have said before in the House, and I am doing all I can to prevent them.--[Official Report, 7 March 2000; Vol. 345, c. 863.]
Can he confirm that he did all he could on this occasion, or is it that, as usual, circumstances are beyond his control?
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