Budget Statement

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity of speaking in this debate. Having asked the Minister to note that I intend to speak on my pet subject of mobile homes and the attention paid to it by the Government, I confess to him that I will not be able to stay here until the end of the debate because I am not well. But I am obligated to make one or two points.

I thought that there would be a fair bit in the Budget Statement on housing. Although the Government have lots of plans for housing, there is very little direct reference to it in the Statement. When I asked for the Treasury background papers, I found that a great deal has been put in train on housing by the Government, and that relaxed me a little bit.

In an earlier debate on mobile homes, I relied on information received that Mr Henry Morrison Junior had practised what was called “sales blocking” on his park at Welford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. This practice has disappeared, largely as a result of the 2013 Act. Mr Morrison wrote to me saying that he had never taken part in such actions. I immediately wrote to him, apologised and promised to express my withdrawal of any allegation of such a policy. He has my full approval to use this apology, and I reiterate my regrets and apologise unreservedly. I want to put that on the record.

Very often, parliamentarians are written to by interest groups with their point of view. There are one or two who do so in respect of park homes: Sonia McColl, who is very active in the JUSTICE campaign; Mr Tony Turner, who represents a group in Cornwall; and others. I rely completely on them. In the main, what they send to me has already been sent to the Minister. Therefore, all I want the Minister to do is give me an assurance that he will draw the attention of his parliamentary colleagues to what I have got to say.

The matter deserves attention. There was a phrase that was used by the Government some time ago: “We’re all in this together”. Well, some of us are more in it than others. I think that people who live in mobile homes are getting the short end of the stick. Most of them are aged; most of them are infirm; most of them rely on the good will of the site owner—and many of the site owners can be castigated. The mobile homes population is well looked after not only by the organisations that I have mentioned but by other people, too.

What strikes me is the gap between what the establishment says and what those representing residents experience. Let me illustrate that in the following way. From a small sample, the JUSTICE Campaign, so ably led by Sonia McColl, tells me that police were “wonderful” in Cornwall but that in Arun District Council they were not. The police were helpful in Bracknell, but action was not taken on complaints to the police in east Hertfordshire. No police action was taken in north Somerset, but it was taken in Maidstone. Police were helpful in Test Valley, but in Sevenoaks they said that it was a civil matter and not a criminal one.

That reminds me of a case that was investigated. Inspector Colquhoun of the West Mercia Police was instrumental in making inquiries. One night, a group of men deliberately set fire to two mobile homes on a site. They were caught and they were sentenced, eight of them, to 64 years in prison—so you can see the seriousness of the matter.

Sonia McColl provided a document known as the “name and shame” list—the Minister already has this information. Twenty site owners are on the list. One owner had 13 parks with 120 homes; another had three sites with 118 homes; another had four sites with 234 homes; another had eight sites with 417 homes; yet another had two sites with 67 homes; another had 17 sites with 1,000 homes; and yet another had 43 sites.

I have with me a newspaper cutting which draws attention to the fact that, in the matter of council house sales, a man and his wife in the Ashford area own 1,000 homes. They have bought them and are renting them out. They are thinking in terms of selling their portfolio, which is estimated to be worth millions of pounds. There is something wrong in the field of housing when that sort of situation can take place.

In the time that I have left, I will simply refer to what other councils are doing. In Cornwall, they issue a document to every resident of a park home. The Minister will know that there is a gap between the activities of the ministry concerned and the effective dissemination of the information to the residents. It is not easy, but it needs to be improved.

Last week, Sarah Wollaston, who is chair of the Health Committee in the other place, asked the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many local authorities had,

“revoked the licences of park home site owners who have breached their site licences more than three times in the last two years”.

The Minister had to say that the Government had no information about this activity. My point is that direct action needs to be taken against site owners who have been taken to court and dealt with, yet who refuse to comply. The written statement which governs these things lays down obligations and responsibilities for the site owner and the applicant. I see that the Whip on duty is smiling at me and he does not do that very often. I know what the smile means, so I will sit down.