Tim Farron
Main Page: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)(8 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House believes everyone deserves a decent, affordable home to live in; regrets that many people are priced out of the communities in which they grew up due to rising house prices and rents; acknowledges the achievements of the Coalition Government in implementing Help to Buy, bringing empty homes back into use and increasing support for self-build; condemns the present Government’s housing reforms which will lead to fewer new affordable homes for rent and breakdown in communities by selling off affordable homes with no guarantee of replacement; further notes their devastating impact on supported housing of the most vulnerable including those with learning disabilities; recognises the need for a huge increase in the supply of homes due to decades of under-delivery by successive governments; notes that an increase in apprenticeships and other skills training within the construction industry is required to meet that need; further notes the particular challenges of affordable housing in rural areas; regrets that the average cost of a home in London is now over £500,000; endorses the proposal of London Mayoral candidate, Caroline Pidgeon, to convert the Olympic precept into a funding stream that would enable 200,000 new homes to be built in London; acknowledges the benefits of building sustainable homes; and calls on the Government to set out a long-term housing plan to meet the housing needs of future generations which includes lifting the borrowing cap for councils and at least ten new garden cities.
Nothing robs people of their freedom more than poor housing, unaffordable housing or insecure housing. Housing is fundamental to our liberty and it is the entry point to a civilised society, yet despite being one of the world’s richest countries, we have a housing crisis in Britain that stunts freedom and crushes aspiration for many millions of people who want nothing more than to have a decent, secure and affordable place to live.
House prices are now almost seven times average incomes. In my constituency in Cumbria, house prices are 10 times average local incomes. Home ownership is falling, especially among those below the age of 40, and a majority of those who manage to get on the housing ladder have had to rely on the bank of mum and dad. Britain needs an approach to housing that provides people with a genuine opportunity to access the housing they need at an affordable cost, but this is not happening for too many people. That is why I have made housing a key priority for the Liberal Democrats and why we have chosen to talk about housing in our first Opposition day debate of this Parliament.
For decades successive Governments have not built enough homes, leaving the UK with a crippling undersupply and an industry producing only around half the houses that we need. This desperate lack of supply has fuelled rising house prices, with millions now priced out of the communities in which they grew up or the places in which they work. At the same time the lack of affordable housing to rent is at crisis point, with 1.6 million households on the social housing waiting lists and 100,000 homeless children, the most vulnerable people in our society, being let down. I wonder whether it is a coincidence that those sections of society most in housing need are those sections of society least likely to cast a vote.
None of this will be fixed by accident or by blinkered ideology. Put simply, we need house building on a scale not seen since the post-war housing crisis was alleviated by Harold Macmillan, whose wise, effective and dogma-free pragmatism saw the building of 300,000 homes a year—the same number, incidentally, as Liberal Democrats have been calling for and continue to call for to tackle our present housing crisis. However, the Government have not yet demonstrated a Macmillan-style commitment to solving this crisis. They have introduced a short-term target of building 1 million homes by 2020, but even that falls well short of need. Of course, setting even an inadequate target is no guarantee that that target will be met.
As a matter of urgency, the Government must give us a long-term plan for fixing the problem of housing supply. We need to know how many homes their current strategy is set to deliver in 20 or 30 years’ time and how those homes will be delivered. Unless we build enough homes to meet demand year after year, housing costs will spiral further out of reach. For those with aspirations of getting on to the housing ladder, their dream will become less and less likely to become a reality.
The coalition Government made a good start on tackling the housing crisis. They inherited a situation in which house building across the UK had dropped to its lowest level since the 1920s, and a waiting list that had increased to 1.7 million in England alone—even higher than it is today. We brought 70,000 empty homes back into use, released enough public sector land for more than 100,000 homes and oversaw the building of 700,000 more homes. We made a start on Ebbsfleet garden city and got rid of 1,000 pages of planning guidance. There was a sincere commitment on the part of the coalition to bring housing back from the brink and to provide homes to buy and to rent. Before anyone jumps in, let me add that that record was far from perfect, but it stands out as a rare example of where a Government took real action to tackle housing need.
Since May 2015, however, without the influence of the Liberal Democrats, the Government have moved in the wrong direction. They have brought forward a Housing and Planning Bill that will all but destroy social housing, that will prevent the building of affordable homes for rent and that merely tinkers around the edges in an attempt to increase supply, rather than pushing forward the ambitious, radical plan for housing that Britain desperately needs.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Before the hon. Gentleman gets carried away with this Manichean view of how wonderful things were then and how terrible they are now, let me point out that he is right in the sense that the income needed to buy shared ownership housing in London in April this year will be £90,000. However, under the coalition Government, it was £85,000 for three bedrooms or more, which is not really affordable either, is it?
Tim Farron
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that I made a moment or two ago, which is that the coalition’s record was far from perfect. What I would say, however, is that those years were the only time since the 1970s that a Government saw a net increase in the social housing available. It was a matter of a few thousand houses, which is small beer, but that is significantly better than the record of the previous Administration. Perhaps one of the greatest shames that hangs over the 13 years of the Labour Government is that Labour somehow managed to build fewer council houses than Margaret Thatcher, which is quite an achievement.
The reality is that the Housing and Planning Bill will tinker around the edges. It will not bring forward the ambitious, radical plan that Britain desperately needs. Indeed, it has redefined what an affordable home happens to be—apparently, it would include houses of £450,000 in London under its starter homes initiative. There is nothing wrong, by the way, with the idea, at least, of starter homes, but they are for better-off renters. Shelter has calculated that someone would need a £40,000 deposit and a £50,000 salary, and much more in London, to afford one.
There is a place in the market for starter homes, but the way they are being introduced has three fundamental flaws. First, they will not be kept affordable in perpetuity so that future generations can benefit, and the lucky few who get one will make a huge profit. Secondly, they will be instead of, not as well as, other forms of affordable homes. Thirdly, they will be exempt from the community infrastructure levy and section 106 requirements.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that although a discount in perpetuity is very attractive in theory, the problem has been that mortgage lenders have not been so keen and have, historically, insisted on quite large deposits for those rare schemes where such a discount applies? That would be a barrier.
Tim Farron
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. In my part of the world, many of our homes are local-occupancy and have covenants that affect their long-term value.
If this is the Government’s only way of trying to tackle this problem, they will not succeed. Their flagship policy on providing affordable homes is narrowly based on a group of homes that are really affordable only for people at the higher end of the private rented sector. That would be fine if it were part of a panoply of offers, but it is not. Those houses are provided at the expense of more affordable homes that would have been provided through section 106 instead. That is why my criticism is fair, and it stands. The houses that are built under this scheme will be exempt from the community infrastructure levy and from section 106 requirements. That means that the families who live in them will, quite rightly, make use of the schools, the roads and the infrastructure in those communities, yet the developers will not have paid a penny to contribute to the upkeep of any of those parts of the vital local infrastructure.
The Bill fails to guarantee that homes sold off under the right-to-buy extension to housing associations will be replaced, and we know from experience that that is unlikely to happen. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who is now leaving the Chamber, criticised the coalition. He could have criticised the fact that so far only one in nine of the homes sold off since 2012 have managed to be replaced. Even a Government who were keen to replace homes that are sold off find it hard to do so.
Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling argument. Does he agree that there is an ideological irony in the right-to-buy scheme in that what are, in effect, charitable organisations are being, in some sense of the word, renationalised by this Government?
Tim Farron
That is a very interesting observation. Given that this will be counterproductive in trying to tackle the housing crisis, it can only be ideological. It is massively ironic, as well as totally and utterly counterproductive, that outfits such as Lakeland Housing Trust, which looks after 100 or so affordable homes, many of which are gathered through bequests from very well-meaning, decent people who want affordable homes in their communities, will be put under Government diktat that means that, in future, we will be unable to recruit the benefactors who will enable us to provide affordable homes in places such as the Lake District.
The right-to-buy extension is being funded through the sale of high-value council houses. That is an outrage. It will again reduce the homes available for social need without a guarantee of replacement. If this is to happen, councils should be allowed to retain 100% of the sales of those homes to reinvest in housing in their communities —but they will not be permitted to do so.
The Government have stopped councils and housing associations from building thousands of homes that they were planning to build. A 1% cut in social rents is a good thing if it is done fairly, but the Government did not do it fairly; they chose instead to be generous with other people’s money. A rent cut is right, but to make housing associations and the often vulnerable users of their services pay for it is pretty mean and massively counterproductive. In Hampshire, for example, 400 fewer new homes will be built than planned, as a direct result of this policy. At a time when councils should be expanding their building projects, they are being forced to cut back. Consequently, the housing crisis is set to get even worse. At a time when new homes should be encouraged from every direction, the Government are relying on a broken market to deliver, skewing the building of new homes away from being affordable. While we should make home ownership an option for as many as possible, we also need to ensure that there are homes available for those for whom that is not within reach.
Rural areas such as mine in Cumbria face particular challenges in housing. Land for building is hard to find.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has been talking about fewer homes being built as a result of the change to the relationship with the housing associations. When four leaders of housing associations were before us in the Communities and Local Government Committee, I asked them whether more or fewer homes would be built as a result of these changes. Three out of four said that more would be built. Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on that?
Tim Farron
The idea that the income and borrowing of a housing association is reduced and it can then therefore build more utterly beggars belief. That is not the experience of housing associations in Cumbria or those anywhere else that I have spoken to. I would be very keen to look at the Select Committee report and see the angle that those folks come from.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I have had conversations with housing associations in my constituency, two of which are merging. Housing associations now face a challenge and an opportunity to scale up, make back room efficiencies and continue to drive delivery. That is what is going to happen. We are not going to see the terrible scenes that the hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting. The housing associations are going to rise to the challenge, as evidenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight).
Tim Farron
The hon. Gentleman is basically saying, eloquently, that, despite the Government’s attack on housing associations, they will somehow muddle through. Many of them will, indeed, have to increase their efficiency; otherwise, people will be hit, including those in supported accommodation, young people who are attempting to get back on the straight and narrow after a difficult start in life, and people living in sheltered accommodation. Others will also be affected by the lack of investment resulting from the reduced income. Good, decent, responsible housing associations will not just sit and grump and sulk; they will make the best of things, but they will do that despite the Government, not because of them.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
May I update my hon. Friend on the conversation I had with a local housing association? It had put in place investment plans to build new homes, but all of a sudden those plans have been blown apart because their income is going to fall as a result of the rent cut. It therefore has to readjust its investment plans downwards.
Tim Farron
My right hon. Friend makes a perfect point that is relevant to my experience in Cumbria. None of this is to say that a reduction in social rents is a bad thing—it is a good thing—but, as I have said, there is something utterly mean-spirited and counterproductive about being very generous with other people’s money.
Rural areas such as mine in Cumbria face particular challenges in tackling the issue of affordable housing. If we consider the fact that some 8% of homes in rural areas are affordable, compared with 20% across the country, we will realise how difficult it is for children who grow up in rural communities to cling on, make a living there and raise their own families when they get older, and, indeed, for key workers to live in the areas in which they work.
On the positive side, when councils have been empowered and supported to deliver homes, they have proven that they can do so. South Lakeland District Council has delivered hundreds of new affordable homes, bringing the waiting list down by 18% in a single year. It is a fantastic example of a council with the right priorities delivering to meet the needs of its community. So many communities are under threat. The growth in second home ownership means that communities can be hollowed out as the result of a diminished resident population and the subsequent loss of schools, post offices, shops and public transport links.
The increase in stamp duty on the purchase of second homes is good news, but mostly for the Treasury. When communities such as Hawkshead have roughly 50% second home ownership, why cannot those funds be redirected to those communities, to support local services and to help provide new affordable homes? Why will the Government not support Liberal Democrat plans to allow second homes to be charged double council tax, to tackle the immense damage that excessive second home ownership does to towns and villages in places such as the west country, Northumberland and Cumbria?
Councils have a valuable part to play in providing the homes we need to tackle the crisis of supply. They could play an even greater role in providing homes of all tenures, by which I mean not just social homes, but homes for sale and private rent, improving the quality of homes in that sector. Yet councils are being hit with cuts and extra taxes from every side by this Government in what appears to be a war of attrition aimed at putting councils out of the business of providing homes.
Councils are not the whole answer to the housing crisis, but they are part of the solution, as are starter homes. We must trust our democratically elected councils, which know and understand local needs, to deliver for their communities. That is why we are calling on the Government to lift the borrowing cap to enable councils to borrow to build. That could lead to an extra 80,000 homes over four years, each providing a secure home for a family to bring up their children. That has been called for by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Local Government Association and others. Most solutions to the housing crisis are long term, but where immediate action can be taken, the Government surely must take it. Ideology must not be allowed to get in the way of supplying the homes that are needed. It is time to trust councils again.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I am sure the hon. Gentleman remembers as well as I do the days when parties stood for election with housing targets for the number of council houses that they would build each year in government. More importantly, I agree that allowing councils to borrow to build council houses would take the pressure off prices for young people who want to buy homes and get a start in life. There is an imbalance in relation to housing.
Tim Farron
The hon. Gentleman makes a great point. Demand and supply are at the heart of our housing crisis. All the evidence suggests that it just makes sense to provide more social housing—people who believe in the free market should understand this—because it will take the heat out of the bottom end of the bought market and make houses more affordable.
Mr Clegg
On my hon. Friend’s point about giving councils greater borrowing powers—this also relates to his earlier point about borrowing powers for housing associations—does he agree that any entity, whether it is a housing association or a council, can be given the right to borrow money only if it has a reliable income stream? That is why when the previous coalition Government cut social rents, they gave a guarantee to housing associations that their revenues would remain stable for a decade and a half. That reliable revenue stream has been torn apart by the new Government.
Tim Farron
It rather plays into the pattern over the last nine months—since the coalition Government ended and the Conservatives came into power alone—of short-termism and a lack of a long-term thinking. The long-term plan appeared to leave office with my right hon. Friend. Instead, we see short-termism over green energy cuts, for example, and over providing the certainty that businesses of any kind need to plan. That includes housing associations, which are charities but which have, in many ways, the acumen and the outlook of the private sector. If we reduce their income, their certainty and their confidence in their balance sheets, they will build less and provide fewer services. Society as a whole will end up picking up the cost for vulnerable people whom we cannot support, who become more costly to society in later life.
Other reforms are needed to boost supply on the scale that is required. That cannot be left to the social housing market or to the starter homes initiative. That is why we are calling for at least 10 new garden cities in areas where there is local support to create thousands of new homes in thriving and sustainable communities with effective transport links and schools, providing hundreds of jobs in the process. In addition, we are calling for many more garden villages—not building in people’s backyards, but building beyond people’s horizons, with consent, and giving a sense that there is a long-term answer to the crisis. The Government must create the conditions for those garden cities to work, by empowering councils to buy land more cheaply and providing incentives to make the plan a success.
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Given that in my area of south Somerset the council’s local plan has failed to deliver a five-year housing land supply, would the hon. Gentleman ally with me in searching out a site for a suitable garden town in south Somerset to provide the infrastructure and homes that he is talking about?
Tim Farron
The hon. Gentleman is talking about creating more garden towns, and it is important that we take a cross-party approach to creating more garden villages, garden towns and garden cities. The danger is that if somebody comes up with bold ideas, others will knock them down. I will not play party politics, but towers and towers of Conservative leaflets have been delivered across south Cumbria over the past 10 years, all aimed at stopping the building of affordable homes. It took bravery from my Liberal Democrat colleagues on the council to stand up against that and build affordable homes. As a result, hundreds and hundreds of families have a place to call their home. Sometimes it is right for local and national Governments to do the right thing, even when it is difficult.
Julian Knight
The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. He mentions how parties are opposing the local council in his own constituency. As soon as we try to build anything in my constituency of Solihull, we have the same from the Liberal Democrats, who always try to oppose on almost every issue. Will he communicate with his grassroots—what remains of them—and let them know that they should in future get on board to produce more homes?
Tim Farron
I would be very interested to look at the detail of that. I am also keen to recognise that we have to take the community with us, which takes bravery at every level. It sometimes seems that we have to tackle this issue, as Harold Macmillan bravely did in the 1950s, by not looking at it from an ideological point of view and by not scoring points. I would be pretty surprised if anybody on the Labour or Liberal Benches did that back in the 1950s. There are more people on the Liberal Democrat Benches today than there were on the Liberal Benches in the 1950s, which is progress. [Interruption.] There may have been three Members, depending on whether or not Megan Lloyd George had left by then.
The point is simply that if we are brave and do not look at this issue through an ideological prism—such as by saying that we can move forward only by having all social rented housing or by flogging off social rented housing—we can take people with us and minimise the number who will oppose us in the planning process. However, if we have a Government, as sadly we do, who look at this issue purely through an ideological prism, rather than by asking how we can solve the crisis, we will always land ourselves with opponents.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
I note the hon. Gentleman’s point about the long term. The lack of a local plan is a long-term issue in Eastleigh. The council, which is led by the Liberal Democrats, has not taken people with them and we have been without a plan for five, or nearly six, years. Lots of people are unhappy. On a party political point, for the council to allow the first options paper to come out on 23 December, when people were doing their Christmas shopping—he says that councils must take people with them on this important issue—was disingenuous at a local level.
Tim Farron
That is a staggering intervention from an hon. Lady who represents a constituency with one of the best housing records in the country. I remember taking part in the by-election in 2013—talk about bravery. It was brave of the council, led by a party that was defending a seat, to pass, weeks before polling day, exactly the sort of long-term local plan that she mentions because that was the right thing to do. For the next few days, Tory leaflets were full of criticisms of the Liberal Democrat administration for having the decency to build homes. She needs to look at her party’s previous election literature in the constituency that she temporarily represents.
It is time for the Government to take action. We cannot simply rely on the dysfunctional market to deliver the homes we need. Even in the boom years of 1997 to 2007, the market delivered at best only 148,000 new homes each year, which is far lower than the Macmillan—or the Liberal Democrat—standard. The problem we face is not a result of the recession; it is a structural problem that will be solved only by intervention. The current system works for those who have, but not for those who have not. Britain should be a place where affordable housing is available for all, to rent or to buy, no matter the circumstances of their birth, but Britain is not such a place. It is time to put ideology and party politics aside and to build the homes that Britain needs.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, particularly on the excellent Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015. He put a great deal of passion and determination into that. He is delivering something that the Housing and Planning Bill builds on and underpins to ensure a real step-change. It will help not just by providing people with more opportunities to own their own home, but by providing an opportunity for the reinvigoration of small and medium-size local builders that we all want to see. A few weeks’ ago, we announced an expansion of direct commissioning, which will go even further to deliver that.
It would be simply old-fashioned political dogma to insist that Governments should intervene in the market only to support renters, when most people want to buy. To persist with an outdated mind-set risks creating a generation of young people exiled from home ownership; young people worse off than their parents, compelled to leave communities they love and grew up in, and forced to decline good job opportunities all because local housing is too expensive. That is bad for our economy and bad for society. Starter homes have the potential to transform the lives of young people. Just think about it: a first–time buyer able to get at least a 20% discount from a new home with just a 5% deposit. That really does change the accessibility to affordable housing for thousands more people. Starter homes will help young people and ensure that more homes are built.
We must not fall for the lazy assumption that there is a contradiction between supporting the dreams of homebuyers and ensuring that more affordable homes are built. Nowhere is this lazy thinking clearer than in the opposition to our extension of right to buy for housing association tenants. In the previous Parliament, we improved dramatically the right to buy for council tenants. Some 47,000 tenants seized the opportunity, with more than 80% of those sales under the reinvigorated scheme, and yet 1.3 million social tenants in housing association properties continued to receive little or no assistance and continued to be trapped out of ownership. That cannot be right. We promised the electorate that we would end this unfairness and we have. Housing associations have also recognised this inequity. They have signed an historic agreement to end it, and I congratulate them on coming forward with that offer. They are giving tenants what they want: an option to buy their home and a ladder to real opportunity. I am delighted that we have five pilots already under way across the country. Every property sold will lead to at least one extra property being built.
Tim Farron
The Minister refers to housing associations and the National Housing Federation’s involvement in discussions in putting together the Housing and Planning Bill. Will he confirm that this agreement with housing associations is voluntary? Will he confirm that housing associations that look at the needs of their community and decide, on balance, that the right to buy would be a negative for that community, will be allowed to maintain that position?
Brandon Lewis
It is a voluntary agreement. The Housing and Planning Bill does not legislate for that. It underpins the agreement by providing the legal ability to pay the housing associations for discounts. Exemptions are outlined in the voluntary agreement, so I suggest the hon. Gentleman reads it. In rural areas, for example, housing associations will be able to use the exemptions. After we reinvigorated the scheme in 2012 for council tenants in London, 536 additional homes were sold in the first year, and 1,139 were built. For clarity, that is two-for-one replacement. That success has the potential to be repeated on a much grander scale. Where buyers can buy, builders will build, and we can support the aspiration of hard-working people. That will be true for right to buy, starter homes and Help to Buy. Those plans are at the heart of our ambition to build 1 million more new homes, but we have made it clear that we must do more in all areas of housing supply.
Tim Farron
After this, I promise to leave the Minister alone for a while. Is he aware that one in three homes that have been bought under right to buy are now privately rented, so they do not help people to get on the housing ladder? They help other people to make a living from renting out property. What will he do to ensure that any homes that are sold under right to buy belong to people who need an affordable home, and do not end up slipping into the private sector, becoming less affordable and more insecure?
Brandon Lewis
With those kind words, I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to intervene, as it gives me an opportunity to highlight another good scheme that the Government have introduced. With the voluntary right to buy, and with right to buy more generally, I defend the homeowner’s right to do with their home what any other homeowner can do. I do not know why he thinks that a particular part of society that owns their own home should have fewer rights than he or any other hon. Member has in a house that they own. After that short period of five years, when that home is protected and has to be that person’s home, it is absolutely right that they should have the same rights as any other homeowner. It is disgraceful that he wants to stop that.
Teresa Pearce
The Bill contains clauses on banning orders and rogue landlords, but they relate to taking action after the fact. I would prefer to see people entering into tenancies for private rented properties that are already fit to live in, rather than having to wait until they become unfit before the landlord can be put on a register, banned or fined.
In the motion, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) refers to the Lib Dems’ candidate for London Mayor. Indeed, it is rare to have a debate on housing in the Chamber without the mayoral candidates from both sides—all sides—being mentioned. I should therefore like to point out that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has described this election in London as a referendum on housing. I agree with him. The housing sector in London is in crisis and all the mayoral candidates need to pay great attention to that fact and to make this a top priority. My right hon. Friend has outlined a wide range of policies that will put Londoners first, secure more investment in house building across the capital and deliver more affordable housing for Londoners. He will do this by setting up a new team at City Hall dedicated to fast-tracking the building of genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy, and by establishing a London-wide not-for-profit lettings agency to promote longer-term stable tenancies for responsible tenants and good landlords across London.
Tim Farron
It is very decent of the hon. Lady to give way. I do not want to disappoint her and, in this debate on housing, we must of course talk about the London mayoral election, given that housing is comfortably the biggest issue on Londoners’ agenda. Does she agree with Caroline Pidgeon’s idea that we should maintain the Olympic precept beyond its expiry date this year in order to create a fund to build affordable housing across London? Does the hon. Lady agree that this would be an innovative way of tackling the housing crisis across the city?
Teresa Pearce
I am always in favour of innovation and new ways of looking at things, but I looked at that proposal only yesterday and I do not think it will raise enough money to do what the hon. Gentleman intends. However, innovation is always a good idea and I am glad that housing has now gone to the top of the agenda, particularly in London.
A lot has been written about the housing crisis, and we often trade statistics on the subject, but this is a crisis not only for the homeless or for those living in overcrowded slums; it is a crisis for all of us and for all our constituents. Decent homes make a decent society, and without a stable home people’s education and health are affected and family cohesion is shattered. The housing crisis is not just about numbers or about bricks and mortar; it is about people and their life chances. It is about the children who have been in three primary schools before they are even 10 years old, and about the teachers who are struggling to deal with the effects of classroom churn every month. It is about the children who grow up unable to put down roots and build the childhood friendships that are so vital to their self-esteem. It is about the local GPs who cannot build patient relationships because, in their thousands, patients move on and off the register each year, as they get shifted from one private rented flat to another. It is about the isolation of elderly couples who bought a house when they first got married and have lived there all their lives, but now no longer know any of their neighbours because 25% of the properties in that street are houses in multiple occupation, where there is a churn of tenants every six months. It is also about the millions of adults under 34 who are still living with their parents and about the parents of those adults, who worry that their children will never have a home of their own.
The life of the private renter is typically unstable, insecure and blighted by anxiety. The rogue landlords register has been mentioned and although it is welcome, it is action after the fact. Given that the private rented sector is likely to keep expanding, we need to create a reputable industry that protects the vulnerable and ensures that renters are not at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords. For too long, some private landlords have been able to take the money without the responsibility, while the rest of us pick up the costs of unstable communities, marriage breakdowns and children with no secure home life.
I opened by saying that the housing crisis is one of the greatest challenges to face our country, but we have seen house prices and rents far out of sync with earnings; a failure to tackle poor standards in the private rental sector; ever-increasing homelessness across the country. a Government who appear committed to seeing the end of the social housing sector as we know it; fewer homes built than at any time since the 1920s; and a generation of young people priced out of the property market. That is this Government’s record and they will be judged on it.