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Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 116AA: 116AA: After Clause 317, insert the following new Clause— ““Amendment to Housing Act 1985: section 324 For section 324 of the Housing Act 1985 (c. 68) (definition of overcrowding) substitute— ““324 Definition of overcrowding (1) A dwelling is overcrowded for the purposes of this Part when the number of persons sleeping in the dwelling is such as to contravene— (a) the standard specified in section 325 (““the bedroom standard””), or (b) the standard specified in section 326 (““the space standard””). (2) The Secretary of State shall, not later than five years from the date of commencement of this Act and not later than every five years thereafter, carry out a review of the standards specified in sections 325 and 326 and shall, following every such review, publish a report on their operation.”””” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 116AB and 116AC. The amendments are all about overcrowding and would provide that the Secretary of State should instigate a review within five years and every five years thereafter and include a new formula for the number of bedrooms, with particular reference to the way in which children are counted for the purposes of assessing overcrowding. It is extraordinary that, in 2001, a child could still be reckoned not to exist for this purpose and to account only for a bit when a little older. I know that noble Lords are very aware of the huge impact of overcrowding on health and education. The other day, I was listening to some comments on the radio about quality of sleep. The comment was made that, many years ago, a bed would have accommodated as many people as could get into it and that people then must have had a terrible quality of sleep. That rang true with me. We have largely got away from that, but we are not there yet. The amendments are designed to probe the Minister on the extent to which she anticipates raising standards on overcrowding. It is not necessary to have primary legislation for this but the opportunity is irresistible, with 500,000 households estimated to be overcrowded and almost 1 million children living in overcrowded conditions. I can understand that local authorities might be concerned about the extra pressure on housing caused by raising standards, but overcrowded households, even those that are statutorily overcrowded, are entitled only to a reasonable preference on the waiting list, not to extra priority; nor will statutory overcrowding be anything more than a relevant consideration in dealing with an application. When the matter was raised in the Commons, an explanation was given about the pathfinders exercise, which was starting in April just gone. As the pathfinders exercise was essentially being piloted, the Minister there said that he did not want to commit himself too much but thought that he saw something coming on board by around 2009. It is pretty much six months since those comments were made, and I hope that the Minister can update the Committee on the efforts to bring us up to the modern standards that, I am sure, we would all like to see. I beg to move.