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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I was going to come on to housing associations in a moment, but I accept my right hon. Friend's point. Although the Bill does not go far in the direction of regulating rents in the private sector—if it does so at all—we have to consider that issue. The private sector rented market in many parts of this country is in effect a housing benefit rented market because such benefit is paid into it more than anything else. We have to consider such issues seriously. In London, where the shortage of all forms of housing is most acute, we have problems with people buying to rent. That money ought to be better invested in social housing rather than just being poured into the pockets of private landlords. I know that the Minister is aware of that, and is concerned about it. It is something we can and should do a great deal more about. As I have pointed out, because of existing housing legislation there is a growing tendency for tenants to be forced into a choice of going into an ALMO or staying with the local authority. Hitherto, unfortunately, opting for an ALMO attracted subsidy, debt write-off and investment, while staying with the council did not. ALMOs exist in most parts of the country. In some cases, they work all right, and in some, they work very well indeed. However, I hope the Minister will be able to help me with a governance issue when he responds. At the end of the day, councillors in elected local authorities are responsible for what their authorities do. If something goes dramatically badly wrong in housing and the service is run directly by the local housing authority, a councillor has to answer for that. It is not the same under an ALMO. People might well be elected to the board of it, but they assume a corporate identity and corporate responsibility on election. It is not a responsive election process designed for the tenants or leaseholders who have elected the board, but for the perceived needs of that board. I would prefer a more robust democratic process. The Bill deals with registered social landlords—housing associations. Although I acknowledge that they are now the major providers of new homes for social and secure rent throughout the country, they have had, increasingly, to borrow large sums of money. Under the Tories, the proportion that they borrowed increased a great deal and, because they borrowed so much, they have to balance their books and far too many RSLs now finance improvements to their properties to fulfil the decent homes standards by selling existing properties. In an area of high housing stress, such as my constituency and those of many of my hon. Friends, it makes no sense to sell housing association properties to do up the remaining such stock. I am sure that everybody recognises that every house sold means that somebody else is staying longer in private or hostel accommodation and not having their housing needs met. Surely we can do better than that. I should like us, first, to stop RSLs developing into property companies that buy and sell land and deal increasingly in selling existing properties and, secondly, to examine seriously the governance issue that affects housing associations and introduce much more tenant participation and democracy into their running, instead of the direction in which they have unfortunately been going in the past few years. I want to speak briefly about planning in London. London is growing fast and the Mayor has done his best to try to ensure that 50 per cent. of all major new developments provide what he calls affordable homes. I asked the Department for a definition of affordability and I got one, which I think I understand, but it was not the answer that I wanted. Affordability means that a person on an ordinary living wage in a community can afford a property. Eighty per cent. of my constituents—I suspect that those of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) are in the same boat—have no chance of buying on the open market in our constituencies. Even those on professional salaries have no chance. Many properties that are on sale for key workers or for part rent-part purchase are also way beyond the reach of anyone locally. We are not providing affordable homes, but simply calling something affordable. Developers are good at describing something as affordable to get planning permission but simultaneously claiming that they cannot meet communities' social housing needs. I want us to be tougher on planning law and tougher with the developers. We should tell them, ““If you want to develop in inner London or any other part of the country with high housing stress, we want at least half the housing to be affordable rented accommodation.”” That means controlled, fixed-rent accommodation. Far too much development is unaffordable and not proper social housing. Although few social homes—for want of a better term—have been built in my borough in the past few years, far too many of those that have been built are one or two-bedroom flats when family housing is desperately needed. There is nothing more depressing than a large family in a small flat or house, who know that there is no chance for several years, until the kids have grown up, of getting anywhere decent to live. Imagine how miserable that is for the kids and imagine the tension that that creates. We all pay the price through failure in education and many other areas of society because we do not house people properly. We are beginning to turn the corner on housing policy. I wish that we did not have such an obsession with owner-occupation when we should be obsessed with decent homes for all. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) asked the Minister many questions. I hope that, in answer to some of them, social renting and people in housing need are not defined in such a way that someone who is unemployed or on benefits and is allocated a council or housing association flat has it taken away from them because they get on fairly well and find a reasonable job in a profession. Surely, as the Government often tell us, strength lies in mixed communities. A council estate or a housing association block is a mixed community— long may it stay that way. I want a clear answer from the Minister at the end of this debate saying that that can be achieved. My absolutely final point is about family policy and housing policy. Our society is changing and will continue to do so. The Minister for Housing acknowledged that in her opening remarks and others have said it too. We have far more single households and far more people living in extended families, and all kinds of other complicated relationships. It is time that housing allocation policy caught up with that. If a divorce happens and a family breaks up, that is obviously sad, but these things happen and we have to try to provide the children with the best opportunity that we can to have good contact with the parents. If the parent who does not have full residence with the children is offered no social housing whatever and ends up in a bedsit, that is damaging to that parent's relationship with the children—it is usually the father—and to the children themselves. I know that it is expensive, complicated and difficult, but surely we are here as a Parliament to try to do something about those with desperate housing needs. That includes children and everybody else. The Bill will give us an opportunity, I hope, to invest in housing need and start to transform the lives that have been blighted by the free market, private landlord system, which too many people have to live under at the present time.