Housing

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend speaks with passion about her constituency and the problems she faces. All over the country, it is typical for there to be enterprising Labour local authorities. Would that we had an enterprising central Government who really believed in local government and its capacity to help build Britain out of recession.

I return to where I was. Perhaps I am being unfair on yesterday’s Minister for Housing. It turns out that he took it on himself to build, and with a dedication and passion that many would find hard to understand; he hid it, but he was beavering away, busy building—building up his following on Twitter. I hope that the new Minister for Housing will spend his time dedicating his full attention to the job. I advise him not to be obsessed with sending out press statements, as his predecessor was. If there were a new home for every press release from the last Minister for Housing, there would be no housing crisis. Perhaps he was trying to prove his prophecy, made from opposition:

“it’s easy for a housing minister to catch your eye with a headline, but much harder to deliver more homes.”

For once, he was absolutely right.

The new Minister for Housing is taking on a position of huge responsibility and national importance. Every Member knows the scale of the housing crisis and will have stories from their own constituency. I have never-ending queues of heart-breaking cases—young couples paying a fortune in the private rented sector, often in sub-standard accommodation, desperate to get a mortgage, which, if they could get it, would mean that they would pay less to buy a home. But they cannot get a mortgage.

Those on ever-lengthening council waiting lists are desperate to get decent accommodation. A couple with two young children came to see me; both burst into tears because of the impact that where they were living was having on their children. There are also the local small businesses. In my constituency, a man from the local construction company—a decent man, who had been in business for 25 years—came to me and said, “We just can’t get work any longer.” One in four young people in Castle Vale, an admirable community, is out of work. They are good young people, desperate for an apprenticeship in the building industry, but all their hopes are being dashed. They will find that this is a Government in complete denial as they spin a line that things are getting better; a Government who promised to get Britain building but are in denial about falling housing starts; a Government who promised to unlock the mortgage market but are in denial about the millions locked out of home ownership; a Government who promised that rents would come down but are in denial as they hit record highs; a Government who promised an “affordable housing revolution” but are in denial, with the previous Housing Minister hailing a 68% fall in affordable home starts and a 97% collapse in social housing starts as “rapid and dramatic increases”; a Government who once promised not to

“produce endless policies and initiatives that…lead to inaction”

or to

“repeat these mistakes of the past.”

The time for half measures and half-baked schemes is over. The CBI was absolutely right when it said that we face a national economic emergency. Rising to that challenge starts with the political will to put housing centre stage, both to meet growing need and to get a sluggish economy moving. The Government must put jobs, homes and growth at the heart of everything they do, not least because history tells us that economic recovery requires us to build our way out of recession, whether it was the eventual revival from the long depression of the 1930s or Britain’s post-war recovery when we built homes for our heroes on a massive scale. I know that on this, at least, the Business Secretary, the new Minister’s former departmental colleague, will agree with me, because he has said:

“Recovery requires a big expansion in social and private house building.”

He is in government, so the question is why are they not getting on with it?

The Government need to show the same determination that a Labour Government showed in 2008. When faced with a global crash as a consequence of the bankers crisis, we acted to keep people in their homes, unlike in the 1980s when the Tories presided over the heartbreak of mass repossessions, and we acted to build new homes.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

When the Labour Government came to the rescue, what measures did they insist were put in place to help first-time buyers with the nationalised banks?

[Jack Dromey]

Our record contrasts very favourably with what happened in the 1980s. We helped first-time buyers. I have been told time and again by building companies and developers that had we not acted in the way that we did, the industry would have fallen flat on its face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I welcome the new Ministers to the Front Bench. There have been some excellent contributions to this debate, but I would like to set out some alternative issues that are having an impact on new build sales. I do so on the basis of my time as a councillor from 2000 to 2010—a time of the last Government’s house building at any cost, which hit residents’ quality of life. My speech will be a whistle-stop summary of some of my concerns.

First, the last Government were hell-bent on high density rules, which saw houses packed in at the cost of parking spaces, creating dangerous problems. They also built on valuable open spaces. Following the successful Olympics we rightly hear concerns about school playing fields, yet the last Government were all too happy to build on those useable open spaces, leading to long-term problems of childhood obesity.

As councillors, we were also forced to deal with the problems caused by imposed housing targets. My local area of Swindon had already built 20,000 houses over the previous 20 years, making us one of the fastest-growing towns in the country, if not the fastest-growing, but we were told that we would have to find another 36,000 houses over the following 20 years. Such targets create confrontation and delays as angry local residents fight the unapproachable planning system.

We had problems that I set out in a ten-minute rule Bill. In new build areas that remained unadopted, residents were paying council tax or street maintenance, yet the developers remained responsible. The developers were often very good when they were selling the houses, but when they had sold the last house, and until the area became adopted, they were all too often poor at maintaining an area. I had estates that had not been maintained for more than 17 years, with work waiting to be done before that area could be adopted, yet residents still had to pay, and that did not encourage people to buy houses in those areas.

We have had a growing problem with the service and management charges in new blocks of flats. The rules are that, when the final development of that flat area has been completed, the residents have an opportunity to choose or even set up their own management company. However, many developers in management companies have found a way to delay that point, and residents who were told when buying the house that the service charge would be, for example, £1,000 a year, suddenly find the management company making pathetic excuses to hike up the prices, taking valuable money from hard-pressed residents who have no choice but to pay or be taken to court. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and I urgently request a meeting with the Minister to discuss how we can help such residents, who are increasingly targeted by cowboys who parade themselves as management companies.

We have heard much about the banks. Earlier, I challenged the shadow Housing Minister because the previous Government had an ideal opportunity to deal with the banks. They were at the Government’s mercy when the Government rightly came to their rescue, and they could have imposed some incentives and direct instructions, particularly to help first-time buyers, who are now finding it difficult to access mortgages.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my hon. Friend agree that most of the rhetoric in the Opposition’s motion suggests that we need to borrow a lot more money? What does he think the effect on the housing market would be if interest rates rose on the back of that?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That would have been my next point, but I am conscious of time, so I will be supremely efficient and simply pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), who covered that point. It is clear that, if the Labour party found itself in Government again and wrecked our triple A credit rating, interest rates would rocket, and we would have a real housing crisis on our hands.

Many important issues have been raised today, but I urge Ministers not to forget the importance of addressing quality of life. If we are to restore the long-term appetite for new build housing and new build housing estates, we must improve their reputation. The fear factor is a bit like that experienced when buying a new car in the knowledge that as soon as it is driven off the forecourt, 30% of the value is lost. So many issues put people off going to those new build areas, which have already got planning permission. They should be addressed, because that will help the housing market and, crucially, the long-term quality of life of residents of all ages.