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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I hope that no one with any experience and knowledge of the conditions in their constituencies would wish to oppose the promise of 3 million new dwellings. I hope that that goes without saying. I shall support the Second Reading, but I hope that a number of amendments will be made in Committee to improve its narrative. As I see it at the moment, its narrative is ““Private good, public bad””, and that needs to be challenged and dealt with properly in detail in Committee. It is right to remind ourselves that, immediately before the Conservative Government of 1979, about a quarter of families lived in local authority housing. About 5 million local authority dwellings formed part of the general housing stock of 20 million homes. The figure has now shrunk to about one seventh. That has coincided with the present crisis—I have to use that word—in housing. People might say that that is a spurious statistic, but I do not believe that it is. We can all find examples in our constituencies to support the idea that there is a strong, direct correlation between the loss of publicly rented housing that was subsidised for the public good—I shall mention the S-word again later—and our present problems. I regret to say that, in my constituency, under a Labour Government, the waiting list for local authority—now ALMO—dwellings is longer than it was at any time under the Thatcher Government. I am almost ashamed to stand here and say that. I cannot help but draw the conclusion that that is directly related to the disastrous policy not of selling council houses but of giving them away. A situation was allowed to develop in which people bought their houses at rock-bottom prices, found that they could then move into the proper private ownership sector, and left their houses to be let by an agent. I shall come back to that issue in a moment as well; it is a very serious matter in my constituency. I welcome the building of 3 million additional dwellings, but I say to the Government that it is important to know how we are going to do it, and what proportion will stay where. At the risk of being described as a militant I suggest that at least one third of those houses should be built, controlled and managed by our local authorities. That is essential. I also think that perhaps 1 or 2 per cent. should be developed and managed by housing associations, and I will tell the House why. The great Anthony Crosland, who knew about these things, recognised that local authorities had to have policies that could be seen to be consistent, fair and even-handed between one applicant and another. They therefore devised points schemes that recognised the different factors that affected someone's need—or not, as the case may be—for a local authority dwelling. Housing associations have had no such problem. They are usually organised by voluntary groups, often involving people known as do-gooders. Do-gooders are always better than do-badders, as far as I am concerned. The associations were able to meet the needs of those who fell outside the points scheme, however broadly defined it might have been. They have therefore played a vital role in allowing people that little bit of flexibility that the local authority, with the best will in the world, could not provide. Two thirds of the rest of the homes were owned by the people who lived in them, and I would also advocate that strongly. The Labour party was never opposed to people owning their own homes; we just objected to the ownership of homes by private landlords. We had learned the lessons from 1903 or 1904, when more than 90 per cent. of all houses in this country were owned by private landlords. We all saw, read about, knew of and understood the conditions that prevailed for the vast majority of families and people throughout those years. Then, however, came the giants. In 1945, we had a Government who understood that the very best contribution to improvement in public health was publicly owned, built and managed housing—better even than the national health service itself. On the shoulders of giants such as Bevan—and, indeed, Attlee for facilitating it—Stafford Cripps, Dalton and others and more recently the great Anthony Crosland, who preceded my hon. Friend the Minister who is in his place, we understood not only that people had a desire to own their houses but that a capitalist society, sub-divided and stratified as it is, needed a facility to look after its own and to be able to say with pride, ““We have a stock of housing that is fit for purpose and occupation and shall be occupied by people who at any time require and need it.”” Yet, since those days, particularly under the Conservative Government, we have seen that very practical scheme taken apart. We saw the sale—not really a sale, but a giveaway—of council houses. What happened was based on the ideas of a person who used to represent one of the constituencies in my city of Wolverhampton—Enoch Powell, who said, ““All these council estates should be broken up into small parts and sold off to private landlords.”” Well, we have come close to that with the new industry of mortgages for buying to let. We are returning to the days at the turn of the 20th century when 90 per cent. of homes were owned by private landlords. How far down the road do we have to go before we understand the lessons that we should have learned? What we hear is the great mantra—I am afraid it is new Labour's, too—of diversification, choice, choice and more choice. Let me tell the House that this choice does not come free of charge. To misquote my great hero, Harold Wilson, one man's choice is another man's redundancy, another man's difficulty, another man's inability to get a decent house. We need to understand that these diversities should remain on a very small scale in local communities where willing people come together to do something helpful. Our great thrust should be to recognise that the two thirds-one third split served us extremely well—notwithstanding the fact that some homes were poorly managed; the local electorate had an opportunity to do something about that. We must recognise that there are straight lines which people will understand, are explicable and will meet our needs. No gimmicks. Let me deal with suggestions about regulation and Oftenant. I have already heard one or two tenants' leaders describe it as ““Bugger Off Tenant””. I think that there is a real danger of that becoming the case. Let me tell Members what it can do—