Housing and Planning Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-12
Topic: Housing
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): I will not take a further intervention from the hon. Gentleman for the time being, if that is okay Each week, people ask me why they should have to live in damp, overcrowded and extortionately priced private flats, why their children should be subject to the insecurities that come with short-term tenancy after short-term tenancy, and who is going to help them in their housing need. Many more people will find their situations made much worse as a consequence of the Bill than will be helped by it A family who came to my surgery late last year is typical of many who contact me. The mother is a part-time teaching assistant who is studying to become a teacher, while the father is a pharmacy technician. They live in a two-bedroom housing association property with their four children. The two older girls, who are both at secondary school, share a top bunk, while their two younger siblings share the bottom bunk. The parents described the toll that the situation is taking on their relationship. Their older daughters, who are model students, are often tired and stressed at school. The family works hard and could not have more aspiration for a better life, but their situation will be made worse by the Bill. They will not be able to afford to exercise the right to buy their housing association home, and even if they could, that would be a pretty big gamble, since it is not suitable for their needs. The family home that they desperately need is likely to be exactly the type of home that will either be sold under right to buy, or that councils will be forced to sell to fund the right to buy for other housing association tenants. The Bill delivers nothing for this family, nor for many other residents like them who cannot raise a mortgage but nevertheless have significant housing need that should not and must not be ignored. I sat and wept with this family as they described the sheer unfairness and impossibility of their situation During yesterday’s sitting of the Communities and Local Government Committee, I was dismayed to hear senior CLG officials confirm that they have not yet completed any analysis of the likely sums that will be raised from right-to-buy sales and the forced sale of council homes. The Government therefore simply do not know whether the funds will be available to replace housing association homes that are sold under right to buy, and still less at a rate of two for one. The Select Committee heard evidence from an officer at a Conservative-led local authority in Cambridgeshire who said that the council was up to the limit of the borrowing cap against its housing revenue account. When its high-value homes are sold, the first call on the receipt will be HRA debt repayment. Once the subsidy for right to buy has been deducted, there will be almost nothing left to deliver new homes. Members are being asked to vote on a major housing reform without any evidence that it can or will deliver what the Government promise that it will There are further attacks on affordable housing in the Bill. The pay-to-stay clause, which is introduced with no taper and no lead-in time, is simply a Conservative tax on hard work and aspiration. There is a deep inconsistency within pay to stay. On the one hand, the Government have decided that a household comprising two people earning the new minimum wage outside London or the London living wage—by definition the minimum required to live on—is "high earning" yet, on the other hand, the Government take a different view of the high-earning threshold for tax purposes. The two are not the same figure.