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Extract from House of Commons Hansard, Debates for
6th February 2002
Westminster Hall
Housing (London)
Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow):
I shall try to be brief because other hon. Members
wish to speak. I agree with an enormous amount of what has been said.
The first political job that I did that carried any
responsibility was that of chairing the housing committee in the London borough
of Waltham Forest in 1973. I may have thought that things were difficult in
housing then, but they did not compare with today's problems—we have waiting
lists so long that the computers might as well be turned off. The number of
homeless exceeds the number of lettings available to local authorities and
social landlords. The single homeless are, for the most part, not even covered
by homelessness legislation. The Homelessness Bill will make some changes and
provide that local authorities should give advice, but I despair to think what
that could be in the current circumstances.
I echo the comments made about the need for
investment. It is crystal clear that, unless we significantly improve
investment, we shall not begin to tackle the problems. I have never understood
why local authorities are not allowed to borrow against their assets, or why, in
cases involving housing associations, the right-to-acquire receipts are
ring-fenced for new provision, but councils' right-to-buy receipts are not. The
removal of that inconsistency could make a difference straight away.
It is clear in boroughs such as Waltham Forest that,
whatever is done in terms of new build—I agree with making available 50 per
cent. affordable housing in new developments—it will be no quick fix and will
not provide the whole solution. As long as London housing is organised on a
borough basis, individual boroughs will have difficulty in managing.
I recall a time in my borough when the council
bought properties—there were programmes in which 200 to 300 properties a year
were bought. It seemed a simple and straightforward way to increase the supply
of rented social housing.
Mr. Love : There are significant numbers of
empty properties in London—perhaps we could start with those.
Mr. Gerrard : Absolutely; that would be a
good place to start. We should also remove some of the barriers encountered when
local authorities try to lease in the private rented sector—such as the housing
benefit threshold—which make it more difficult for them to run leasing schemes.
I want to comment on some of the points that my hon.
Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) made about the
private rented sector. Although I do not pretend that the whole of that sector
is wonderful or that some people are not living in horrible conditions within
it, I despair when people come to my surgery who are being evicted from decent
private rented sector homes, usually because of housing benefit problems. We had
an experience in Waltham Forest of the privatisation of housing benefit.
Fortunately, the council decided to terminate that contract. In doing so, it did
not face making payments to the contractor but received money from the
contractor because of the contract's failure. Surely part of the strategy must
be to deal with such problems in order to prevent people from becoming homeless
in the first place.
We should reconsider the system of local reference
rents. Gaps between the housing benefit that people receive and the rent that
they are required to pay can eventually make them homeless. It is argued that if
we did not have local reference rents and keep the lid on, market rents would
spiral out of control, but they are doing so anyway. That argument would work
only if there was a genuine market in which people had some choice and could
tell their landlord, "I'm not paying that money. I'm going elsewhere." The
London housing market does not offer the sort of choice that allows people to
operate in that way.
Linda Perham (Ilford, North): My hon. Friend
mentioned homelessness prevention. Is he aware that the neighbouring borough,
Redbridge, has a homelessness prevention team that is doing very good work and,
indeed, saving money? There is also a scheme that gives boroughs choice in
housing allocation.
Mr. Gerrard : I am certainly aware of the
choice-in-allocation scheme, and it will be interesting to find out how it
operates. I was not aware of the specific work being done in Redbridge on
homelessness prevention, but I should like more local authorities to put more
effort into that. It is difficult for them when people have such problems in the
private rented sector.
We could also make some other small changes to
housing benefit—changes to disregards, tapers and thresholds—which would make a
significant difference to some people. We should stop tinkering with the system.
Local authorities receive a new circular every week on another change to be made
to the system. It is no wonder that the administration starts to falter.
The long-term solutions must involve investment.
There is no answer in the medium to long term but greater investment. However,
we should also consider shorter-term measures such as letting local authorities
buy and considering what we can do to improve the housing benefit system so that
at least we prevent some people from becoming homeless and putting extra
pressure on the social sector.
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