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Housing and Regeneration Bill

The noble Baroness said that the urge to raise this issue was irresistible, and she is right. In Part 2 we were concerned with the fine detail and with looking at technical issues, whereas in Part 3 we come to broader matters. Our debates today have ranged far and wide over issues that are work-in-progress for my department and others. I am grateful for the opportunity to address this matter, which is why I keep returning so often to what is happening in terms of building the evidence base, policy developments and so forth, rather than outlining immediate reactions in legislation in areas where we want to see improvements. We are perhaps a little inhibited by the state of our own policy developments and knowledge base, and that is true for local authorities as well. This issue is a classic example of it. The noble Baroness is right: the current definition of overcrowding has remained unchanged for far too long but, rather than tackle the definition, we are committed to tackling overcrowding itself. My fundamental point here is that, however much comfort it might give us and those who campaign for better housing, if we were simply to change the definition of the term, that would not bring with it the agency or resources that are needed to make a real difference on the ground. At a time when there is so much cynicism about whether as politicians we can deliver on what we say, this sort of challenge has to be taken seriously. We have to be able to do the things we say we can do, so that people can see and feel a difference, rather than express an aspiration which lends itself to being exposed as not being able to realise what lies behind it. The noble Baroness and I both want to ensure that local authorities have the right tools in place to tackle the issue. We are already committed to an updated standard. In January, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State confirmed the commitment to amend the 1985 Act during consideration of this Bill in Committee in another place, and indeed we have debated many times in this House the impact of overcrowding on the health and well-being of children, not least on their educational prospects and personal health, as well as the risk of dysfunction in family life that goes along with overcrowded conditions. There is no doubt that we are committed to addressing the issue of children in bad housing. However, the real challenge is to ensure that local authorities have the tangible means to do something about it and that they have real solutions to offer. As a first step, we addressed this issue earlier in considering the provision of new supply in the form of affordable housing. Some £8 billion is going into building more homes. The first part of our debates was very much about that and about the contribution that the Homes and Communities Agency can make. We are increasing outputs of new affordable housing to 70,000 by 2010-11, 45,000 of which will be for new social rented homes. We have done what Shelter has urged us to do in this respect: the figures represent an increase of 50 per cent over last year. We also need different sorts of homes, and larger units are needed. When I travel around the country to look at what we are doing in housing market renewal areas, one of the problems is that the housing stock built in the 19th century was for small families. Those terraced houses are totally inadequate for large families that can no longer access large homes. We have to build different sorts of homes. We are increasing the national percentage of social rented homes delivered through the Affordable Housing Programme from 25 to 30 per cent in 2008-09, rising to 33 per cent in 2010-11. That will mean more family-sized homes of three or more bedrooms, which will help. New supply is only one side of the coin: we have to look at making better use of the available stock. We estimate that there are currently about 228,000 overcrowded households in social housing, but also some 445,000 social homes are under-occupied—that is, households with two or more bedrooms than are needed. Local authorities have discretion to give reasonable preference to those households that want to downsize. We are encouraging, not least through example and support, housing authorities to make better use of those flexibilities. That is good customer service because it addresses part of the housing and ageing strategies: we need homes to be appropriate in size for the people who live in them—what they can manage, whatever age they are and whatever they need, whatever age they are and whatever their family conditions. For example, tenants may wish to move closer to family for support, to reduce their rent, and so on. That is good housing management in making best use of stock. We also need to be smarter; local authorities need to be smarter; and we need to find new ways to solve the problem. Therefore, we are helping local authorities to find new ways to solve the problem. That is where the pilot schemes come in. We have put £35 million into pilot schemes in London that are considering underoccupation using the private sector, developing adaptions more effectively. In particular, in the capital, to take the use of the private rented sector, some pilots have been successful in securing accommodation in the private sector for overcrowded households. Since April, the introduction of the local housing allowance has given private renters on lower incomes a greater degree of choice and flexibility in accessing more suitably sized homes in the private sector. Another pilot has been able to increase the quality of life of overcrowded households by making simple adaptions to their existing property if they want to stay where they are. Sometimes what you really need is a bit of help from someone coming from outside who says, ““If you take a wall down there, we can make a bit of space here””. It needs some help and intelligence with the pressure points where space becomes a real issue—for example, if children cannot do their homework. That may mean anything from more storage space to additional hand basins, or whatever. We can make a difference even within unpromising circumstances. All that fed into our action plan in CLG, which we published last December. That sets out a number of ways in which social housing providers—both local authorities and RSLs—can manage their existing staff in innovative and proactive ways. That action plan sits alongside the evidence from the pathfinder project, to which the noble Baroness referred. We are investing a further £15m over the next three years, starting with the 38 pathfinder chains, who between them account for more than half of overcrowded social tenants, so they are really important. Each pathfinder has had £110,000 this year to develop their own action plans based on good advice, good practice and innovative approaches developed by pilots. We have published an advice note setting out the lessons learnt. We are asking the pathfinders to improve the data that they hold on overcrowded households and improve their mapping of underoccupation. On the next steps, wider implementation through the 38 pathfinders of schemes such as those piloted in London will have an immediate effect on securing better accommodation. During the course of the next year we will be seeking data that will enable us to look at the impact these schemes have on providing better housing solutions for overcrowded households. This will also provide the crucial evidence we need on the cost and impact of updating the overcrowding standard. Once we have that evidence, we will be able to devise a phased and manageable move to a new national standard, with authorities well positioned to manage a new definition positively. I hope that the Committee will be reassured that we are committed to ensuring that families who are living in overcrowded conditions have the right advice and support from their local housing providers to enable them to secure more suitably sized accommodation. Local housing authorities need to be able to act to be prepared for a change in the overcrowding standard. I am not complacent; I accept and agree with so much of what the noble Lady said and her entire sentiment. I confirm that the Government are committed to changing the statutory overcrowding standard. I cannot accept the amendment because, as I said, we already have powers to amend the definition of overcrowding by regulation; we have already given a clear commitment to modernising the standard; we have already published an action plan that will go a long way to tackling the problem; and it would be untimely to introduce a new standard without evidence on the cost or impact. Much the same argument applies to her amendments about the bedroom standard and her final amendment. With that response, which I hope is sufficiently full, I hope that she can reassure the people whom she knows who are really concerned about this.