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Housing (Greater London)

I recall that during the days of rent control, the rate was often so low that there simply was not enough money to pay for building repairs and maintenance. We must take account of the need to retain sufficient quality of housing and, of course, I understand that point. However, I think that during this crisis, we, the public, are being ripped off big time by the private landlords across London. We must consider what action we should now take. When local authorities carried out large volumes of building work in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, most of it was a result of direct Government grants to local authorities—in some cases, through 60-year borrowing arrangements. Indeed, many hon. Members in the Chamber today are former councillors and will be well aware of that situation. The housing association movement grew, and 70 per cent. of its capital expenditure was initially borne by central Government grant. Successively, local authorities have almost ceased building altogether. One or two of them are doing small amounts of building at present, and I hope that that is a good sign of a return to building. Housing associations increasingly have to borrow a higher proportion of their capital expenditure on the money markets and have increasingly stopped looking like social landlords or social associations. Increasingly, they look like property companies with a social conscience that have to borrow large sums to build. They build almost speculatively, and they expect to sell a proportion of whatever development they are doing. With what is left over, they are able to build for rent, which is the very purpose that they were set up for in the first place. Increasingly, the social housing that we get in London is a result of planning agreements under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, whereby there is a requirement that a proportion of the construction be left over for affordable housing, which means a combination of part-rent, part-purchase properties and direct social renting to people in desperate housing need. With the slow-down in the construction industry, there is an increasing number of mothballed or incomplete property developments across London. There are large numbers of unsold properties. There are also large numbers of stalled schemes, and it is unclear what will happen to them. In this crisis—it is a crisis—I appeal to the Government to do a number of things. I appeal to them to change the regulations on the construction of private developments throughout the country, so that they meet the same standards as those that are required in the building of housing association properties. It is bizarre that, even if housing associations or councils have the money to buy up many of the unsold private places, they do not have the necessary room sizes and do not meet the energy standards—they are just not good enough. That is not right, and we need to do something about it. Surely, it is within the purview of the Government to do that. I appeal to the Government to recognise that the social housing crisis can be dealt with only by accepting that the building of council housing or housing association property is an end in itself. It is not an add-on to what the private sector does. After the war, in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, there was consensus between the two major parties that we had to build far more housing for people in desperate need. There was not a huge debate about that. The debate was more about numbers than about whether to build. Now, we are simply not building anything like enough properties. I ask the Government to consider seriously the issue of repossessions. As I said at the beginning of my contribution, they should ensure that the banks operate a reasonable policy and do not repossess homes willy-nilly. They should take people into their confidence and go through the best way of keeping them in the property. When all else fails and a family are threatened with repossession, it makes a lot of sense if the local authority has the power and the resources to buy the property, so that it becomes part of the local authority’s estate and the residents become the local authority’s tenants. In that way, we avoid the trauma and cost of homelessness and increase the housing stock all at the same time. It makes a lot of sense to use the public sector as a way to protect people from what could be a disaster for them and to increase the potential for housing throughout London. I hope that the Minister will talk to me about the stuff that I and, I am sure, many of my colleagues read in the papers yesterday. The suggestion was that some blue-skies thinking is going on in his Department and that we are about to end the idea of council tenancies for life. The suggestion was that some policy wonk is working away on the idea of an annual or five-yearly review of the means of council tenants and that, if they are thought to be doing okay, they can be moved out of council tenancy and told to go and fend for themselves. That would be complete anathema to many people, particularly in the Labour party, who believe in housing as a right. I hope that the Minister will assure me that some crazy policy wonk has just gone off message. Perhaps whoever that person is could go off job as well and find something else to do, rather than fiddling about like this. They should use their undoubted imaginative talents on increasing the size of the social rented sector, rather than reducing it, as they seem to be doing. My last point concerns what we do in London as a whole. Every local authority faces a huge housing problem. There is now some degree of centralised government across London through the Greater London authority and the mayoralty. The previous Mayor, Ken Livingstone, ordered that 50 per cent. of all major developments should be affordable properties, of which, roughly speaking, one third should be socially rented, the difference being those properties that are part-rent, part-purchase. He had a target right across London. Unfortunately, the new Mayor, Boris Johnson, has abandoned the London-wide target and is telling everyone that he will deal with the matter by negotiating with each borough. It is an interesting idea that the Mayor will turn up and negotiate with each borough. I look forward to the video of the meeting between the Mayor and, for example, the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the city of Westminster, Barnet, Bromley or Richmond. I can just see him turning up and, in his hugely charismatic way, saying, ““I think you should build a few more social houses.”” They will say no, and he will say, ““Well, look, we’d like you to.”” ““No.”” ““Would you think about it?”” ““No.”” ““Oh, okay then, shall we have some more coffee?”” I just do not envisage a tough defence of the needs of the public sector and the poor coming from the current Mayor of London.