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20 Feb 2007 : Column 26WH—continued
Someone wanting to get on the first rung of ownership on the housing ladder will find it impossible to do so, given the average cost and the average wage of people in Yorkshire and the Humber. There has been an increase in the relevant figure of income to mortgage from 2.8 when we came to power to more than four now, and we know that it is not prudent to borrow more than three and a half times one’s salary and that many people are in danger of getting into extended debt. Clearly, it is important that the Government keep a steady hand on the economy so that interest rates do not rise any more. The current situation requires payments of 111 per cent. of average earnings, and the frightening prospect is that first time buyers will find it almost impossible to get on to the housing market at all.
There is a rung missing at the bottom of the ladder for those who want to become home owners. More rungs are missing in my constituency, which is now part of a fancy new notion called the Leeds city region. I come from Leeds and most of my family still live there. I was the leader of Leeds city council and I have nothing bad to say about what is a great European city. However, Wakefield and my constituency are gradually becoming the repository for much of the new house building that is being generated by the Leeds economy because of the additional demand for labour and households’ changing size and character. We are happy about that. People in my constituency showed generosity to outsiders who came into the area during the last century and before as the mining industry grew and subsequently collapsed.
However, the new housing tends to be executive homes, which are priced substantially higher than the terraced houses in the mining villages that I represent. It is almost impossible for a householder in my constituency to sell a house the value of which has increased over the past few years, thanks to the Labour Government, and to borrow enough money to move up to the next step on the ladder and the new housing in the area.
I represent 22—it will shortly be 23—former mining villages. Much of the new executive housing is bog standard in character. It is a visual intrusion into the framework of the villages and does not reflect their architectural character. There is a big step between one and the other. If we are not careful, that will reinforce the feeling that people—former miners—have of exclusion from and inaccessibility to the new economy that Labour is building in the area. It is important to get the architecture and design right, as well as the various rungs on the ladder so that those houses are not inaccessible.
I am worried about a proposed large housing developing in South Elmshall in my constituency because the infrastructure—housing, sewerage, schools and so on—is hardly adequate. We welcome new housing, but the infrastructure, architecture and design must be right, with accessibility to the local market for local people.
Another housing market dysfunction is specific to mining communities, of which there are many in Yorkshire, as you know, Lady Winterton. At the end of the miners’ strike, the Government decided to dispose of all the
housing stock. Not everyone here will know that the National Coal Board provided housing for its work force and owned well over 100,000 houses. A precipitous and eventually calamitous decision was made to dispose of all that housing stock with almost immediate effect. After a year on strike, many miners found it impossible to raise the money for a deposit to buy the house that they had rented from the National Coal Board for donkey’s years. Some people managed to buy, but many did not because of the disastrous effect of the strike on household economies, so landlords moved into National Coal Board communities. Many were probably responsible, but some were extremely irresponsible. It was possible to buy a street for a few thousand pounds and houses were sold for very small sums, but the money was not available to the people who lived in those houses and, through no fault of their own, they had a change of landlord. There was pepper-potting in whole communities and some people who had bought their own house were surrounded by private landlords and, occasionally, social landlords.
The landlords bought the houses for next to nothing and were often able to obtain money from the Government’s housing benefit support. They cared little for the communities and knew little about them. I once had a letter from a large landlord in my patch who lived in Hong Kong. He had never been to Yorkshire and had no idea of what was happening in the area. Landlords did not pay much attention to the quality and standards of tenants, nor of the properties that they owned because they had been acquired for next to nothing.
What happened was the most disastrous experience that can be imagined. Over the years I took three Ministers to five estates in my constituency that were being dismantled brick by brick. Local residents simply took flight and houses were left empty. Vandals gradually moved in and began to demolish them by hand from the roof down. That demolition surrounded the houses of people who had bought they own property. They were then unable to sell their homes because the market had collapsed, and a landscape developed that looked like Kosovo in Yorkshire. Ministers were visibly shaken by what they saw, and I am pleased that the Government made money available through the housing market renewal fund to try to help. One estate collapsed almost completely, leaving only the house where Geoff Boycott had been born, and even that was eventually torn down. It is arguable that that saved money for the public purse because the cost of demolition was not high due to the local youth taking care of the demolition. That was a city estate in Fitzwilliam.
In some parts of my constituency, there was wholesale demolition, but in other parts community activists—mainly brave women—refused to admit that their communities were to be destroyed in that way. In Moorthorpe, for example, the women got together and insisted that their Member of Parliament and councillors join them. Together, we worked with Housing Ministers to try to prevent further decay in Moorthorpe. I am proud to say that I think we have succeeded.
Girnhill lane in Featherstone had belonged to the National Coal Board. Other areas had been terraced housing, but Girnhill lane consisted of post-war, system-built housing and could not be remedied.
People there today—in Yorkshire, England, in this century and this year—are living in intolerable conditions because they bought their own houses but cannot sell them because there are no buyers. The situation is intolerable.
The Government have made money available—I am grateful to them for that—and they are about to announce more. They have played their part, and the council is doing its part, but a single landlord, who owns probably one third of the properties, has found it difficult to accept the market price for the land value. I am hopeful that a decision will be made shortly to allow us to make progress in Girnhill lane. It is unimaginable that people, and particularly children, should left in such conditions in the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world.
Mrs. Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op): I am sure that my hon. Friend shares my astonishment that there are still 115,000 unfit dwellings in Yorkshire and Humberside. As he said, the Government are doing their bit, and it is usually private landlords who allow properties to fall into disrepair. It must be one of our top priorities to make such dwellings fit for purpose for families and young people.
Jon Trickett: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who has been a sterling fighter and campaigner for the people of her constituency for a long time. No doubt there is a great problem and much housing need in Halifax, too.
I want to make one final point about Girnhill lane in Featherstone before moving on to the rented sector. The three local councillors in the area have attended regular private meetings at which they have been fully briefed on the way in which the council is proceeding and on the difficult and complex issue of land ownership in Girnhill lane. However, as one housing officer explained to me the other day, those three councillors—we can all relax because they are not members of any of our parties—appear to have developed a form of political schizophrenia. They happily indulge in private meetings and make private decisions in a most rational and mature way with officers about the future of Girnhill lane. Then, however, they go to the TV and radio stations and the newspapers to explain that they have no knowledge whatever of what is going on. That is not the right way to proceed. Nor should we run scare stories about people living in the conditions that I have described, but that is what has been happening. That contrasts unfavourably with the quiet, but firm and dignified way in which Featherstone town council, led by Maureen Tenant-King, has operated. It has pressed the Government and the local authority to make money available.
I have spoken about home ownership, which was the aspiration side of the Prime Minister’s comments, but the rented housing situation that the Government inherited was most calamitous. In 1997, 2 million houses did not meet decent standards, and the Government rightly decided to tackle the £19 billion backlog of work first. They established decent standards, and more than 1 million houses have been brought up to decent standards since we were elected. Every hon. Member should be proud of that.
In Wakefield, 20,000 houses that had belonged to the council were below the decent standard—that is the disgraceful legacy that the Labour party inherited. Over the past year or two, Wakefield and District Housing has secured £750 million of funding to bring its housing stock in the Wakefield area alone up to standard. In the past year and a bit, it has managed to raise 6,500 houses to the Wakefield standard, which is actually higher than the national standard. In the current year alone, it is projected to spend £71 million on houses that are below decent standards. That is a great achievement.
However, the rented sector is not large enough to cope with demand. As we have seen, not enough people can move into home ownership, for the reasons that I described, and the waiting lists for rented housing are growing exponentially. Some 250,000 people in Yorkshire and the Humber alone are waiting to get a rented house—a 42 per cent. increase since 1997. Some 18,000 households in Yorkshire and the Humber are homeless, and only 1,000 of them are deliberately or voluntarily so. In 2006, 12,000 people in Wakefield—in fact, it is 12,000 households, so we are talking about even more people—were waiting for a rented house, but only 243 were available. The rented stock in Wakefield had also diminished by 1,000. Throughout the whole of Yorkshire, however, there were only 270 new builds last year, despite the fact that 250,000 people were waiting for a rented property. Fifteen per cent. of the people in the country who are waiting for a rented house live in Yorkshire and the Humber, but only 3.5 per cent. of housing allocation has gone to the area. I wonder whether we have got the proportions right.
I need only quote those figures, which are matters of fact—I got them from the Library and the Wakefield local authority. They suggest that we are not building enough council housing to relieve the pressure on us, and social cohesion is threatened as a consequence. Every day, people come to my constituency office looking for houses, and I guess that that is true for every other hon. Member. Yesterday, a single mother came to my office. She was going blind and was unable to read words on a computer or, indeed, very much at all. We now have the lettings-based system, and she was desperate for a house. Such people come to see us every day. Distress is being caused.
There is a widespread perception—it is no doubt untrue, but it needs to be set out—that the decision to open our doors to migrant labour as a result of developments in the European Union has led significant numbers of people from eastern Europe to come to our country. My constituents have always welcomed such people. When the Kosovans came to some of our poorest areas, they were made to feel welcome by constituents and contributed massively to civic society—the football clubs, youth clubs, churches and the rest. However, there is now a perception that people cannot get houses in local villages for their families because of migrant labour. The truth, however, is that it is because of the inadequate way in which the housing market is working. It is important that we say that migrants are not responsible, but the fact is that people look for simple explanations.
I conclude by pressing the Minister on three matters, on which she may be able to respond now. First, will she ensure that the Department takes a careful look at the
problem of former National Coal Board housing and pepper-potting, because what used to be vibrant communities, which were loyal to this country and created its wealth, are being destroyed? In particular, will she look at the issue of Girnhill lane in Featherstone and ensure that the Government have done all that they can? I believe that they have, but if there is more that can be done, will she please do it? Secondly, will the Department join the current spending review to see whether more money can be made available for more social housing? Shelter says that we need 20,000 homes a year, although I do not know whether that is just for Yorkshire—I think that Shelter means the nation, but we could do with those homes in Yorkshire. Finally, I press the Minister to look carefully to see whether Yorkshire and Humberside are getting their fair share of the housing cake.
11.29 am
Mr. Fabian Hamilton (Leeds, North-East) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on securing the debate. This is an important time to have such a debate because, as all Members will know, housing is one of the mainstays of an MP’s casework. As former members of city councils or local authorities, many of us will know that the issue of housing—often, its inadequacies—was raised in every advice surgery and almost every letter that we received.
We have now had 10 years of a Labour Government who have tried to redress the balance in public housing in relation to what my hon. Friend called the bottom rung of the ladder, if that is the appropriate metaphor. As he clearly pointed out, people still suffer every day because they have either inadequate housing or no housing at all. The severe shortage of public housing available for rent at reasonable cost causes tremendous suffering to the people whom we represent. It is clear from what he said that Yorkshire and the Humber, and especially many of the former mining communities, suffer more than most. Housing was a major issue with which he had to contend when he led Leeds city council 11 years ago.
I want to draw attention this morning to issues in my constituency of Leeds, North-East that are also relevant to the situation in Leeds city council and the local authority area. I understand that there are now more than 30,000 names on the Leeds city council waiting list, and 2,500 of those, under the current bidding system, have what is called priority extra. That is for people who, whether medically or socially or because they have no housing at all, are at the top of the list; they get priority in any bidding process. Yet the number remains constant.
After the Conservative Governments of 1979 to 1997 introduced the right to buy, many homes that were formerly for rent in the social housing sector were bought. Many people have made them into very nice homes, which will be homes for life. However, as we know, during the 1990s the money that was generated by those sales was not made available to local authorities for the building of new homes. I fear that, in spite of the Labour Government’s commitment in the past 10 years, the extra investment and the fact that
much of that cash has been made available to replace some of the homes, we are now reaping the effect of selling off houses at that time without building new ones.
In some estates in my constituency, such as the Queenshill estate near my constituency office in the Moortown area of Leeds, up to 80 per cent. of the properties that were formerly in the social sector—corporation houses to rent at a reasonable rate—are now privately owned. Those houses have not yet been replaced. In fact, in parts of the constituency, such as the Queenshill and King Alfred’s estates, it is necessary to wait for someone to die before a house becomes available to rent. They are very desirable homes, so there is still a huge problem with the people who have been given priority extra but cannot be housed.
On the rare occasion, for example, that a three-bedroomed property on the Queenshill estate becomes available, 300 people will bid for it. That leaves 299 of them very disappointed. It is essential that the local authority should be able to build more affordable housing for rent, because we must solve that increasing problem. I am afraid that there has been no progress in the past nearly three years of control by a coalition of Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and the Green party on Leeds city council.
Jon Trickett: I do not want to stray on to my former territory, but when I examined the reasons for Wakefield’s not getting more money for housing expenditure, I was told that, over the past two years at least, Leeds city council, led by the Tories, Liberals and Greens, underspent its housing allocation but failed to pass that money across to neighbouring areas. What does my hon. Friend make of that?
Mr. Hamilton: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that, for nearly three years, Leeds has been under the political leadership of that strange rainbow coalition, which has not used even the allocations that have been given to it to try to resolve the problem of homelessness and inadequate housing. That is reprehensible.
I want to draw hon. Members’ attention to specific cases. The individuals concerned have agreed to their situation being used to illustrate a wider problem. Carmel Flynn is living in a camper van with her 16-year-old daughter. I cannot imagine a mother and daughter, especially a teenager of 16, living so closely in a camper van. Every time she bids for a property, she is refused because someone else has a higher priority. She has priority extra, but it is clearly not extra enough. She has bid, I believe, for 36 houses in the past 12 months, and she has been turned down each time. She is on medication for stress, and her daughter has gone to live with another member of the family; she cannot stand being in a camper van with her mother.
The front-page headline of the Yorkshire Evening Post a few weeks ago was about Daniella Prestwich and Duncan Haigh, a couple with a 12-year-old daughter, Hayley. They have been homeless since May 2006 and have been sleeping in a car. Leeds is one of the leading cities in Europe, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Yet a couple and their 12-year-old are sleeping in a car.
When the executive member of Leeds city council with responsibility for the matter, Councillor Les Carter, found out about it, he was furious—not because of the appalling situation of the family, but because they had, after all, been offered a home. What he did not know, or what he was not told—I am being charitable—was that the house was so inadequate and needed so much work, for which the council had the money, although it had not spent it on the property, that the family quite naturally refused to take up the tenancy. Besides that, the property was in an area of the city that they did not know, far from their relatives and other family members. They were right to refuse it. It happened on two occasions.
Councillor Carter was quoted in the press as saying that they were offered adequate accommodation and that they chose to live in a car. Madam Deputy Speaker, no one chooses to live in a car unless the option of living in a car is better than some of the unsavoury homes being offered.
Ann Winterton (in the Chair): Order. May I just mention that the title of Deputy Speaker in Westminster Hall was done away with some time ago? We are bog standard members of the Chairmen’s Panel, so the hon. Gentleman should call me by my name.
Mr. Hamilton: There is nothing bog standard about you, Lady Winterton, but thank you for putting me right.
The appalling case that I just outlined was one in which the need, sadly, to use the local press and media to draw attention to the plight of a family resulted in their eventually being adequately housed; it had a nice ending. However, it also drew attention to the plight of many other families who are inadequately housed and sleeping in camper vans or vehicles. That is unacceptable in this day and age and in a city such as Leeds.
There are other examples. Daniella Bastow lives with her mother but sleeps on the sofa. Of course that causes her mother a lot of stress; her mother suffers from kidney disease. Daniella is now suffering from depression, and despite letters from her GP, again, more than 30 bids for one of the houses were turned down within 12 months, even under priority extra. There are many similar cases, such as that of Mrs. Deborah Maskill, who is currently residing with her grandmother, having been violently abused by her husband. She desperately needs rehousing. She has been attacked by her husband since she has been at her grandmother’s house. The police have been involved and an injunction has been served, but still she is unsuccessful because, clearly, her priority is not high enough and there is a terrible shortage of appropriate housing.
The figure of 20,000 houses that my hon. Friend mentioned would barely be adequate for Yorkshire and the Humber. In fact, it would be barely adequate for the city of Leeds. We need more housing at an affordable rent, and more social housing. Yes, of course, it is good if, after people are established, they want to move on to the first rung of the ladder of housing that they will buy with a mortgage. However, they must have a roof over their heads before that happens.
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