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Rented Housing

I have given my hon. Friend the opportunity to emphasise his earlier point. Through the policies of the previous Government, and those of the present one, we have put all our eggs in one basket. We have not allowed a broad spectrum of ways in which to tackle this issue, such as allowing local authorities to become more directly engaged. My hon. Friend spoke about the right to buy, and the potential benefits of giving people who wish to have it access to home ownership. My parents had a council house when I was born; they went on to buy a first small property and later to buy plots of land and build. Historically, there was more movement in and out of council houses. As the Hills report states, council tenants used to include a broader spectrum of different incomes and levels of engagement with the community. It has always struck me that as a country, we got out of the housing market just before a huge increase in property. As an investment, that was a bad decision, and perhaps we are now perhaps suffering from that. The Government's decisions in other Departments have created problems. In my constituency, there is housing that was owned by the Ministry of Defence. Under the previous Conservative Government, it was passed over to Annington Homes. I have corresponded with Annington Homes. It is acting to deliver on what it has been asked to do, but there are now empty homes because the MOD has not released them for disposal. That is in the context of huge housing need in towns such as Newquay. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) talked about the stark divide in wealth and the overcrowding in her constituency. She also referred to choice-based letting, which is crucial. It would be wonderful for choice-based letting to become the reality, because people would be empowered to choose between properties. The reality is that people are allocated a property through the system. There is very little choice because of banding systems and people can apply only for certain properties. In my constituency, a council has just taken someone off the list—it has a policy of doing that if someone has not applied for all the properties for which they could have applied. That is a move away from choice-based letting. I understand why the council might choose to do that if the allocated temporary housing is in a particular location and is very high cost, but that system is a problem. It means that choice-based letting does not function in the way in which it was intended to do. The hon. Lady also made a good point about the need to prioritise family housing. In this period, there has been a big move towards single-person households. However, the fact that more single-person households are being created—people are living longer and so on—does not mean that all single people will go and live in the one-bedroomed flats that are being built. In many such cases, people are in the private sector and stay in larger accommodation. There are families with nowhere to go. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) talked about the right to buy and size and location. He also mentioned section 106 agreements and the interaction with the community infrastructure levy. He and I both served in Committee on the Planning Bill as it went through the Commons, and it still remains to be seen what that interaction will be. He is right to say that that could become an issue, especially if we have a slow down in private development. There are scarce resources that people are fighting over for investment. The hon. Gentleman talked about local decision making on policy, which the Liberal Democrats support. Under the previous and current Governments, there has been a centralising tendency. We must restore the capacity and ability for local authorities to take more strategic decisions in their own areas. The hon. Member for Islington, North talked about the push to get people into home ownership that, rather perversely, has taken place in this country. The last housing Minister but one still argued strongly that we should take that approach, that people aspired to own their own home and that public policy should be about helping them to achieve that. I think that a lot of people have been pushed into that route as it was the only one available for them get anywhere near the sort of housing that is appropriate to their needs. We have 100 per cent. mortgages, and I am sure that all hon. Members—as well as the citizens advice bureau—are getting calls from people who now have negative equity and cannot afford to pay those mortgages. A huge crisis is just around the corner, and we need to deal with it. The hon. Gentleman pointed to the issue of leaseholders who, following the right to buy now have problems due to the investment that is necessary on their properties. I remember that being a problem when I was a councillor for an area that had a lot of social and ex-social housing. We must be honest about the fact that we, as a country, and the Government are providing a subsidy. We must choose whether to continue to do that, largely through housing benefit which, as the hon. Member for Islington, North has said, effectively goes into the pockets of private landlords, or whether we should return to the provision of social housing in a far bigger way. We should look at making social housing available to a range of people, not necessarily those who have, in the words of the letting service in my area, ““emergency status.”” We have had bronze, silver and gold bands for people to move through on a points system. Even those on the gold band who are greatly in need of housing might have to wait up to 18 months for a property to become available. There are people with medical emergencies who come in above them. The tenants services authority has a great deal of work to do, and I look forward to seeing how its role will develop. I have been able to meet a representative to talk about what it plans to do. That is important, as is how the authority will interact with local authorities. There are options for it to take an enhanced role. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West referred to ““residualisation.”” That returns to the point about who social housing is available for and whether it should be available for a broader cross-section of people. Recommendation 31 in the report focuses on that and the fact that we should be having a broader discussion on how social housing can be used. I have already referred to family housing, but we need to revisit that. Of course, that debate interacts with the planning system, the regional spatial strategy process and interactive local development frameworks. Arguably, sometimes, in areas where there are higher housing targets, those things empower developers more than local authorities in the negotiations to come up with the right solutions. The report also talks about the private rented sector. Some very complicated housing benefit issues need to be resolved, as many hon. Members have been keen to point out, but most people agree that we are not really achieving the best value for money in using the private rented sector as a tool to deliver for our constituents. Tenure is a key issue, especially in relation to families, as my hon. Friend has said. Recommendation 36 relates to what the Law Commission had to say. Some valuable work needs to be done on that, and hope that the Minister has the opportunity to do it. The Rugg and Rhodes report asks why tenancies fail, as the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West has said. It is not necessarily that they fail, but smaller investors in buy-to-let do not take the long-term point of view; because they want a shorter-term profit. Recommendations 65 and 66 address real estate investment trusts. There could be many benefits from making a residential REIT work, in that it could provide a more structured way for people to invest, which would hopefully encourage a longer-term investment and allow better-quality private rented accommodation, and accommodation that could be targeted at more specific groups. Some hon. Members have discussed studentification in their constituencies, meaning when terraced housing or whatever has largely gone over to students, and the effect that that has had. Quite often, it is not appropriate accommodation for students and their interests are not best looked after. There is a lot to be won from investigating the possibility of private tenancies targeted at particular groups. I welcome the Minister to her position—I apologise for not doing so at the beginning of my remarks. She has a huge amount to do and, given the economic circumstances that we face, she has only a short period in which to get to grips with it and to have a real effect. My party wants an attractive rented sector to get over the problem of people being pushed into home ownership, when that is not appropriate. We want the sector to be responsive to the different needs of different regions, people and families, and we want it to provide people with decent, affordable places to live with a sufficient length of tenure.