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Mrs. Spelman: I wish to intervene because I am concerned that the right hon. Gentleman might not be minded to give way to other colleagues. I want to make the point that it depends what he means by the word "decent". Perhaps he will be aware while trumpeting today's announcement that the Construction Products Association has voiced its scepticism about the Government's self-defined targets for decency in housing standards being ambitious enough.
Keith Hill: I am trying to maintain my calm, but I really do think that that is downright cheek from a party that was so concerned about the conditions in which council house tenants lived that, at the end of its period of government in the 1990s and after seven Housing Ministers, it left them with a £19 billion backlog of repairs.
Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con) rose—
Keith Hill: Oh, gosh! How can I resist the hon. Gentleman?
Mr. Turner: Why were so many of those houses under the control of Labour councils? Some Labour-controlled councils, such as that on which I served, successfully introduced exactly that sort of renovation programmes in the 1980s. Why were some Labour authorities so bad, when others were so good?
Keith Hill: Because those councils were suffering, year on year, from cuts in housing investment under the previous Administration.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The Minister is trying to make a good case out of something that is pretty poor. Will he explain why the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—an all-party Committee—said:
"more and more people cannot afford to buy or rent a home . . . more families than ever are in temporary housing . . . The number of homeless households in temporary accommodation is now the highest ever"?
If that is not a damning indictment of the Government's housing programme, I do not know what is. Will he also explain why the Government are building only half the number of affordable houses today as when we left office in 1997?
Keith Hill: At least we are building houses where they are needed. Of course, under the hon. Gentleman's Administration, large numbers of houses were built at the bottom of the recession, but they were built in places where they were not needed. I suggest that he visit some of our northern cities, where he will observe houses built in the 1990s that are now standing idle because there was never a demand for them in the first place. We are building where the demand is. Admittedly, construction and labour costs are high in those places. I fully confess that it is difficult to acquire the kind of output that we would desire from the new, high levels of investment that we are putting into social housing, but I am delighted to report that we expect the Housing Corporation to produce a 50 per cent. increase in the number of social and affordable homes in the next two years.
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab): Further to what my right hon. Friend says, is he not astonished that many of the houses built by the Conservative party were demolished without ever having been let? Moreover, the Conservatives' solution to the homelessness problem was to take away homeless families' rights to seek temporary accommodation—surely one of the most shameful things that any British Government have ever done?
Keith Hill: My hon. Friend, who is a great expert in such matters, is absolutely right. In fact, the Government's more liberal interpretation of the homelessness rules has led to an increase in the number of households counted as homeless. Nevertheless, there is good news to report in that direction, too.
Keith Hill: If colleagues will forgive me, I hope to make some progress towards providing further good news. However, as we have not heard an intervention from the minor parties, I will allow the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) to intervene.
Matthew Green (Ludlow) (LD): A couple of minutes ago, the Minister said—I wrote it down exactly—"We are building where the demand is." If that is true, when a local authority requests extra housing allocation, why does he fail to give it?
Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman alludes to a semi-public exchange that we have had on such matters. I am aware of the pressures in his local authority. As he knows, there have been trade-offs in the regional distribution of social housing, but I am alert to the pressures and, as he also knows, I am not entirely unsympathetic to the case that he is making.
I draw the attention of the House to the enormous progress that has been made in social housing as a result of the decent homes programme. Let us look at the difference we have made: 650,000 homes with new
5 May 2004 : Column 1355
central heating; 240,000 with new kitchens; and 180,000 with new bathrooms. And today, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has announced a package of £3 billion to tackle problems in even more homes. A possible 170,000 homes could benefit from that package. That is more than the total number of dwellings in Bristol, which gives an indication of the scale of that commitment.
That £3 billion package covers 58 new housing improvement schemes, including £1.8 billion for 12 new arm's-length housing management organisations—ALMOs—£1 billion in public-private funding for 37 new housing stock transfer schemes, and £370 million for nine new housing private finance initiative schemes. All those are schemes that local people have chosen for themselves and that have a proven record in delivering decent homes.
In the three years to 2005–06, the Government will invest a massive £8 billion to improve council housing. That is three times more than the sum that we inherited in 1997. Since 1997, average investment in each council home has increased by 55 per cent. in real terms. Not only have we improved homes for more than 1 million people, but we have given tenants more control over the way that their homes are managed. So the Government need no lessons about housing from the Conservative party.
Under the last Tory Government, homelessness became a way of life for too many people. Bed-and-breakfast hotels were no longer just holiday venues at the seaside—people began to think that such hotels were an acceptable way of dealing with homelessness. That was particularly shocking, as often families with children were living in inappropriate bed-and-breakfast accommodation for long periods. This week, in addition to today's announcement on decent homes, we have already announced that we have ended the scandal of families having to bring up their children in bed-and-breakfast hotels. I am pleased to say that we have met the target to ensure that no family with children has to live in a bed-and-breakfast hotel for longer than six weeks—down from 11,000 in 2001.
Mr. Pike: I welcome the good news from the Government. Although it was not mentioned in the Conservative motion or by the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman)—it is, however, included in our amendment—is it not a fact that the Labour Government are committed to housing renewal projects in areas of low demand such as Burnley and other parts of the country that are experiencing major problems?
Keith Hill: My hon. Friend is quite right, and I hope to allude to the programme of housing market renewal later. A sum of £500 million has been made available for the regeneration of areas of low housing demand in cities in the north and the north midlands. Earlier, my hon. Friend made an eloquent intervention on the subject, to which he is extremely committed.
Dr. Iddon:
In contrast to the news that my right hon. Friend has just given us, when I was housing chairman in the metropolitan borough of Bolton the Conservatives cut housing resources by a massive 70 per
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cent. Would my right hon. Friend be surprised if I said that I do not believe what the Opposition spokesmen are saying today?
Keith Hill: My hon. Friend is quite right, and I am not in the least surprised that he does not believe a word of what the Opposition have said. I have visited Bolton in his company and seen the excellent new investment in the town that has been made as a result of the Labour Government's commitment to housing improvement.
Mrs. Spelman: I thank the Minister for giving way to me a second time, but how does he answer Shelter's appraisal of his announcement on homelessness? Of course it is good that 4,000 families have been moved out of temporary accommodation, but Shelter argues that the Government have not included in their calculation asylum seekers or families placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation by social services departments. The Government have also ignored council and housing association-run hostel accommodation, which is equally unsuitable for families with children.
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