Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab): Housing is of such fundamental importance to my constituents that I am absolutely delighted to be speaking here today. I should like to make three main points. First, I want to welcome the Bill and to illustrate the desperate need for appropriate affordable housing in West Ham. Secondly, I want to outline how the buy-to-let market has caused difficulties for my constituents and to seek some comfort from the Minister. Finally, I want to offer some thoughts on the proposed merger of English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation.

Newham has almost 6,000 families in temporary accommodation, often on short-term leases. Families in those circumstances have to move regularly and are unable to settle or to put down roots. They are often not on doctors’ waiting lists or accessing preventive health care. They do not know where the library is, or the youth clubs or leisure centres. Children have to change schools several times or face long journeys to school each time they move during the 12-year-plus wait for local authority housing. That is very disruptive to a child’s education and development.

Emily Thornberry: Is the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituents similar to that of people in Islington, whereby those who go into temporary accommodation do not even remain in the borough but are sent many miles away?

Lyn Brown: It is not similar, in the main. However, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her speech, because it put a human face on many of the difficulties that my constituents experience.

In Newham, 30,000 people are on the housing waiting list. To give some perspective, that number is roughly equivalent to the population of Pontefract, which is of course represented by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing. Tenants living in the private rented sector, waiting for a council home, pay in excess of £1,000 per calendar month for often cramped two-bedroomed flats sitting over parades of shops. Even after the introduction of the minimum wage and support to families through tax credits, the vast majority of Members will recognise just how difficult it must be for families with high rents of that nature who wish to keep a roof over their heads and to work. My constituents also have to contend with the evils bedevilling overcrowded households. According to the 2001 census, more than a quarter of households in Newham were classified as overcrowded under the current definition, which, as we have heard, is not generous. Newham also has the highest proportion in the UK of households with five or more residents. This intense pressure on housing in Newham is exacerbated by the fact that the supply of new properties is not meeting local demand. During the summer of 2006, only 6 per cent. of the homes being developed in the borough were three-bedroom properties, whereas 65 per cent. were two-bedroom. Smaller properties are clearly a much more attractive option for investors, but they will not ease the immense pressure upon homes appropriate for families. The draft London housing strategy proposes that 42 per cent. of new social rented homes entering the programme should have three or more bedrooms. Does the Bill give the Minister the power to intervene if, once these targets are set, they are not being met?

As part of the developments planned for my area, including the Olympics and Stratford city, thousands of new homes are being developed; obviously, I welcome that. The intention is to ensure that all developments are mixed communities, with properties built for the social and private housing sectors. I genuinely believe that mixed communities are absolutely the right policy. However, building for the private sector is not a guarantee of mixed communities or a guarantee that it will provide for owner-occupation.

That is the crux of the problem. Forty-five per cent. of new homes in London are bought to let. A far greater proportion are bought to let in areas where property is cheaper; and, in comparison with many parts of London, Newham is cheaper. Official London borough of Newham statistics state that of the 950 new homes completed in 2005-06, only 132 were for social rented accommodation. Because of difficulties in data collection, Newham was unable to say how many of the private homes were for buy-to-let and how many for owner-occupation. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that much of this new private accommodation will have been bought for the letting market, bringing even more accommodation into the unaffordable private lettings sector in my borough. Given that we have nearly 6,000 families in temporary accommodation and 30,000 families on the waiting list, I wonder whether it is possible to consider how we might regulate the housing market to limit the numbers of buy-to-lets in any given locality, according to circumstance.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): In the light of the circumstances that my hon. Friend describes, is she concerned or alarmed that the Bill envisages social housing grant, which is after all public money, being given to profit-making companies with almost no protection for tenants or taxpayers, when the same resources are being denied to good local authorities and their existing stock is being coerced away from them through pressured tenants’ ballots? That is rather an odd mix, is it not?

Lyn Brown: I agree with my hon. Friend. I want more affordable housing in the public sector that owner-occupiers in Newham can afford to access.

Without regulation of the private letting market, I fear that new build in the private sector will only exacerbate an already difficult situation, resulting in the continued accumulation of unaffordable homes. Such regulation is not completely unprecedented. Planning permission in the Lake District national park determines the number and growth of holiday-let businesses in the area, with certain homes being designated for local occupancy only. I do not wish to draw an exact parallel, or say that this legislation can be easily brought to bear elsewhere in the country, but I ask the Secretary of State to give some thought to how homes built under our house-building programme can be targeted at those whom the scheme is meant to target and benefit—those with an aspiration to own and live in their own home, and those with public sector housing needs.

I do not ask that for social or ideological reasons alone, but for sound financial reasons, too. Housing benefit spending in my borough is £245 million per year. A third of that—£67 million—is spent on paying private landlords. The average amount of housing benefit paid to council tenants in Newham is £70 a week. The average payment for housing benefit in temporary accommodation is £350 a week—five times the housing benefit paid to council tenants. I seek additional regulation of the private rented sector, and I wonder whether the miscellaneous provisions of the Bill could be amended to accommodate that.

I am situated in the borough with the largest building site in Europe. If it is not, I cannot imagine anywhere else with more building going on. We have a population of migrant workers who almost uniformly find accommodation in the private rented sector, which in Newham consists largely of small terraced properties. Overcrowding in those homes is almost de rigueur. Landlords can and do make a killing, packing those homes with temporary residents. As the homes are too small to accommodate the number of people, many facets of living often overflow into the street and garden, which can lead to significant health problems. Such exceptionally high levels of occupancy are causing real stress in local communities and the local council does not have the powers to do anything about it.

I have discussed that issue with many of my constituents, who tell me that they will sell and move if the situation does not improve. That would be bad enough, but their homes are more likely than not to be bought to let, thus exacerbating an already difficult situation. That owner-occupier flight, if it continues at the present rate, could seriously jeopardise our efforts to create and sustain mixed, sustainable and cohesive communities in Newham. There are currently no real powers to deal with this problem. Under the Housing Act 2004, there is a mandatory licensing scheme for larger houses in multiple occupation.

Currently, the mandatory licensing scheme covers only homes with three or more storeys. The regime does not cover 80 per cent. of houses in multiple occupation, including the vast majority of those in my constituency. Having discussed that, albeit briefly, with the mayor of my borough, I understand that he would not welcome additional powers unless they were
accompanied by severe penalties. The financial reward for cramming small houses with large numbers of people is so great that paltry fines do nothing to deter the practice; rather, they reinforce contempt for the law and those who seek to enforce it. I hope that the Minister will consider extending the threshold to all houses of five or more occupants, and ensure that penalties are severe enough to act as a real deterrent.

I welcome measures to increase the regulation of social housing landlords, adding vital additional protections for tenants of housing associations. As I know from listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), I am not the only MP who gets frustrated by the lack of responsiveness to constituents’ needs on the part of some housing associations. I am sure that the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords will allow tenants far greater opportunities to hold their landlords to account and encourage them to up their game. I hope that the Minister ensures that the new office has real teeth and the ability to penalise or break up associations if they are considered to be completely unresponsive to the needs of their tenants, or to be too large and unwieldy.

Finally, English Partnerships has been a key player in the regeneration of east London. It has demonstrated the capacity to turn unloved wastelands into attractive developments for people who wish to buy on the riverside. However, it has not always developed the social rented homes that my constituents desperately need. The Housing Corporation used to be criticised for what was seen as a rather cold and unsympathetic attitude—an assessment that was always a little unfair. However, in recent years we have seen a new mentality take hold within the corporation that is focused more on the homeless people and overcrowded families who desperately need the homes that it funds. Bringing the two agencies together is a logical move, but my final plea to the Minister is that when the time comes for the merger, the ethos of the Housing Corporation should prevail.

In conclusion, I believe that the Bill can significantly improve the circumstances of many in my constituency. However, the Government’s efforts must surely focus on providing the homes that are needed most, to those that need them most. In West Ham, that means providing affordable family homes, for rent and owner-occupation.