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8.44 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Cummings) on securing the debate and using it to raise a series of extremely important issues relating to housing in his constituency. I know that he is passionate and extremely knowledgeable about that. He is right that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning saw at first hand several of the problems that face Easington during his visit there last week.
Easington is fourth in the index of multiple deprivation rankings, so in addition to the housing challenges that it faces, there are considerable economic challenges to tackle as well. As a consequence, Easington has benefited from a range of targeted regeneration and neighbourhood renewal programmes. The mainstream housing funding allocations to Easington have increased to reflect its position in the index. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend is right. Like other coalfield areas, Easington faces a series of problems, including low demand. Estates were often built within a walking distance of pits so that the community could walk to work. The infrastructure was frequently of a low quality. When the pits closed, the populations slowly and gradually moved away. Estates in my constituency also reflect those problems. It, too, is a coalfield area, with a high level of voids and a low level of local jobs, as my hon. Friend described. There is also the problem of antisocial behaviour.
The stable communities plan is not simply about tackling areas of high housing demand, but about tackling areas with low housing demand; it is also about the necessary link between economic regeneration and housing renewal. Too often programmes have concentrated on housing renewal and not on getting jobs to the area. Alternatively, they have concentrated on getting jobs to the area and encouraging economic regeneration, but not on housing renewal. As a consequence, local people who got a job moved out, contributing to the further decline of those estates and communities. We need to approach that problem by
taking a full strategic look at the entire local housing market, both public and private sector, as my hon. Friend said.My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) was right to describe the need for a partnership between the Housing Corporation and the private sector. I was interested to hear of the partnership in his constituency and I would be happy to visit it to see the work that is taking place. Many hon. Members have raised that issue, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) listened to much of the debate.
The problems facing communities such as Easington are deep seated and will take time to turn around. We need to deal with the legacy of the past, but also build communities that will thrive in the future. We need to link housing and economic regeneration while also considering the other factors that are important for sustainable communities. As well as needing decent homes, people need jobs, good schools, shops, excellent health services and co-ordinated transport. The Durham beaches are returning to their former beauty, so the quality of the environment is also a factor. The Government office for the north-east is working with partners, including the regional development agency, to ensure that all those factors are taken into account.
My hon. Friend the Member for Easington raised some particular issues that I shall try to address in turn. He pleaded for us to consider how the market renewal pathfinder programme could support areas such as Easington. The nine market renewal pathfinders were chosen in areas where the problems of low demand are most acute. We do not have plans for further pathfinders. The intention is to share with non-pathfinder local authorities the lessons learned from the pathfinder programme so that they, too, can tackle problems of low demand.
Today I spoke at the annual conference of the coalfield communities campaign in Wales. Many delegates raised the problem of low demand outside the pathfinder areas but within coalfield communities. The campaign and English Partnerships are working together to assess the problem of low demand in coalfield areas and to determine where the hot spots are located. They have contacted local authorities across the country. My hon. Friend might want to ensure that Easington has contributed to the survey and their work.
Officials from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will be discussing the position with English Partnerships and the coalfield communities campaign, and they will be considering what approach to take to many of those areas, which, as my hon. Friend rightly says, are outside the current pathfinder areas but nevertheless face many similar problems and could benefit from the same approach. We need to look, too, at the role that regional housing boards can play in that regard and at the relationship with local strategic partnerships and neighbourhood renewal programmes.
My hon. Friend raised the issue of the number of homes in Easington that are below the decent homes standard and will continue to be for the next few years. The decent homes standard is particularly important because it is simply unfair in the modern world that some families should be living in houses that are damp, cold or inadequate in some way or another.
Considerable progress is already being made towards the decent homes standard, but we all have to recognise that considerable extra investment is needed. We have set out a series of ways in which local authorities and social housing providers can benefit from extra investment.My hon. Friend is right to say that Easington was one of the successful candidates for the third round of the ALMO programme, which is welcome news for the area. That should allow the authority to bring the 8,000 properties that do not meet the decent homes standard up to that standard by 2010. It is one of 13 authorities allocated a share of £1.5 billion of funding, announced in July, which should mean that more than 185,000 homes benefit from increased investment over the next seven years. Easington needs to do more work with the Government office and the community housing taskforce to proceed with its plans, but if it is successful, there will be an immediate allocation of £23.6 million, and potentially up to £117 million for the whole of the programme.
My hon. Friend also mentioned some of the difficulties that can arise with private landlords. That is an extremely serious problem, and local councils can find that their hands are tied in tackling antisocial behaviour or poor housing in an area where a minority of private landlords simply do not recognise their responsibilities to maintain their properties at a decent standard and tackle such behaviour.
The problems that my hon. Friend described often arise in areas where there is low demand for housing, but we have to take action to prevent the damage and disruption that can be caused by unscrupulous and sometimes even criminal landlords. They not only harm their tenants but can undermine the whole community. It is totally unacceptable for private landlords to opt out of their responsibilities and to benefit from the problems of already disadvantaged communities such as Easington. There are landlords who acquire properties at very low prices and show scant regard for their responsibilities or the behaviour of tenants. There are even some who seek to hide their identity behind anonymous holding companies.
The Housing Bill is particularly important because it will introduce discretionary powers for local authorities to license all private landlords in parts of their area with low housing demand and problems in the private rented sector. Those powers will be available elsewhere to tackle serious antisocial behaviour in that sector. We hope that those powers will allow local authorities to control rogue landlords, who are a minority but can, nevertheless, cause problems that affect an entire community.
Where landlords fail to meet the requirements of a licensing scheme, local authorities will have the power to issue management orders against the landlords and assume control of the properties and the rental income. We cannot allow such antisocial behaviour to continue. We recognise of course that not all private landlords operate irresponsibly. There are significant opportunities for them to contribute to the objectives of the sustainable communities plan, and the private housing sector has a critical role in partnerships to address housing market problems in coalfield communities and low income areas. Local authorities will now have extra powers to do more to support improving homes in the private sector for vulnerable households who currently live in non-decent homes. They will also have wider powers to provide assistance to help owners and tenants to repair and improve their homes.
I agree with my hon. Friend about the need to support moves to make regeneration easier and quicker. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill contains measures to help in that respect. A considerable programme of action and investment is underway to provide social housing and to tackle problems with private housing and the housing market in general. In the end, we all recognise that the coalfield communities in areas that have suffered from a legacy of under-investment and a failure to address economic—
The motion having been made after Seven o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Madam Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
- Adjourned at four minutes to Nine o' clock.
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