Housing

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate on housing; it is the single biggest area of concern to my constituents. Whatever measure we take, this Government have failed to deliver the homes we need in the areas where they are needed and at the pace which is required to address a housing crisis unprecedented since the second world war. If their own measure of success is home ownership, the Government have presided over a decline in the number of homeowners of 205,000 since 2010. If their measure of success is the housing benefit bill, the current Chancellor has seen an increase of £4.3 million in that bill over the past five years, including a doubling of the number of in-work households in receipt of housing benefit.

If the measure of success is, as it should be, the level of homelessness, there has been an increase of more than 50% in the number of people sleeping rough since 2010, and an increase in homelessness as a whole of more than a third. If the measure of success is the delivery of affordable homes, we see perhaps the Government’s most catastrophic failure: a decline of almost 75% in the delivery of new homes at genuinely affordable social rents since 2010, and a new definition of affordable rents, which makes a mockery of the term “affordable”.

In response to that failure, the Government appear to be constructing a new set of policies around an entirely arbitrary dividing line. Let us call it the aspiration threshold. Above that line, which quantifies at a house price of £450,000 in London, or an income of £90,000 with savings of close to £100,000, the Government recognise the aspiration of us all to have a stable home for the long term, to put down roots in our community, and to know that our children can attend the same schools for as long as they need to do so. Below that line, the Government do not recognise the legitimacy of people’s aspirations. They seem to believe that the most that council tenants deserve is five years’ stability at a time. In the private rented sector, it is viewed as entirely acceptable to live with the threat of a no-fault section 21 eviction. For those people, moving their children out of a school where they are settled and away from their friends in search of an affordable home is perceived as an acceptable way to live. For those people who are paying rent so high that they cannot afford to save for a home of their own, the aspiration of home ownership becomes increasingly hard to realise.

I do not understand why the Government are so focused on that arbitrary line. Most people in my constituency want the same thing: an affordable place of their own that is secure, safe, warm and suited to their needs. Most people do not want their aspirations to be achieved at the expense of others. Housing association tenants who would like to buy a home of their own do not want that to be at the expense of a family with two children in a one-bedroom home, whose aspiration to move to a council home big enough for their needs will not be realised if the Government force the council to sell off its larger family homes because they are the homes of highest value. We need to build more homes across all tenures, not one type of home at the expense of another.

The Minister for Housing and Planning came to the Communities and Local Government Committee this morning, and could not give any assurances that the numbers underpinning his proposed radical reform of housing policy add up. Next month, hon. Members will be asked to vote on a set of ideologically driven, uncosted and unproven proposals in the Housing and Planning Bill, which is a pitifully poor response to the biggest housing crisis that this country has faced since the second world war. The Government have a shameful record and are making an inadequate response. I hope that they will listen and introduce a more convincing plan to tackle the crisis.