| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
4.33 pm
Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale): I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for her excellent introduction to this much-needed Bill.
I enjoyed the speech by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) and I hope that it is not his last from the Opposition Front Bench, given that he has backed the potential loser in today's Conservative leadership election. The right hon. Member actually analysed the failure of the previous Government's attempts to deal with the housing crisis and acknowledged that there was a crisis. However, there is a gap in his thinking about how to tackle that crisis. To their credit, the Government recognise that there is a housing crisis, and we have introduced this measure to go some way to dealing with it. Now the Conservatives have said that they will vote against it. That leads me to conclude that the Conservative party is no further forward in its thinking than it was on 1 May, and is totally out of step with thinking in the country at large.
I speak for the first time from the Government Benches and also for the first time as the Member for Weaver Vale. The boundary commissioner cut my constituency in half, so I took the Runcorn part of my previous constituency into a new one that stretches all the way down to Northwich. I will explain how the Bill will help the two borough councils that cover my constituency, Halton and Vale Royal.
I also speak as a former leader of a local authority. I know that all shades of political opinion in local government support the Government's moves to allow capital receipts held by local authorities to be taken into account in considering supplementary credit approvals in coming months. It is a shame that they are not welcomed by the small number of Conservative Members in the House today. That is not surprising. Over the past 18 years, the politically motivated approach to housing has turned the rather successful housing for rent situation of 18 years ago into the current crisis.
The crisis is manifested in several ways, such as growing waiting lists. New Members who have held surgeries will have had families come to ask what can be done to help with the provision of family accommodation. They may have been contacted by people with negative equity whose properties face repossession by building societies. They may even have been approached by
homeless people looking for somewhere to live. They know the nature of the problem. Hon. Members have experienced those problems for many years. I hope that the Bill will go some way to tackling them.
The Government's chosen path for providing social housing was through the Housing Corporation and the housing associations.
Mr. Keith Hill (Streatham):
Which Government?
Mr. Hall:
My hon. Friend rightly reminds me that I am talking about the previous Government. In 1992, they promised to increase the resources available to housing associations, yet between 1992 and when they left office on 1 May, they cut the allocation to the Housing Corporation by £1.3 billion. It is no wonder that there is a crisis in housing.
On Saturday, my constituent Mr. Moss came to see me. He had to apologise for not having got his arguments together, because his wife had died two days before. His housing association had put up his rent by £9, from £35 to £44 a week--a 25 per cent. increase. He wanted to know what I as a Member of Parliament could do to help. I had to refer him to a fair rent tribunal, and tell him that he would have to appeal quickly if anything was to be done. That emphasises the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). The housing benefit bill has escalated from £3 billion to £13 billion. That is another reason why we need to tackle the crisis.
Part of Halton borough council was in my previous constituency of Warrington, South, and has come with me into Weaver Vale. There are 2,500 families on its waiting list. The situation in the Runcorn part of my constituency is peculiar because it is predominantly a new town development. My second and third generation constituents there find it almost impossible to get family accommodation. My constituents in Runcorn confront daily the problem of overcrowding. Demand for social and rented housing is high. Housing in Runcorn new town suffers from poor design, construction and layout. Again, the local authority faces escalating waiting lists, and the housing associations have to deal with severe problems.
Two hundred houses in Halton lack basic amenities--they are private houses--and 800 dwellings are unfit for habitation. If the local authority wanted to upgrade and modernise its 8,000 dwellings, it would need to spend £36 million on repairs alone. With the notional allocation of housing capital receipts, £12.4 million is available to it.
The Bill is intended to allow supplementary credit approvals to go to authorities such as Halton borough council so that they can plan their future and deal with their current crisis, and that will be very helpful. Halton has already begun to plan. It would like, for instance, to complete what it calls its "affordable warmth" scheme to improve heating and insulation, and, under the Bill, it could apply that scheme to 1,300 houses. That would mean a major improvement in the quality of a number of my constituents' houses.
Three hundred houses in Halton were built before 1939. The council wants to complete its investment programme to renovate those houses and bring them up to modern standards. Only 90 of its dwellings are maisonettes,
which, as hon. Members will know, are very unpopular with families. With the supplementary credit approval that may result from the Bill, my local authority will be able to convert those maisonettes into the modern houses for which there is such a demand. It will also be able to build 100 new houses for rent, which will improve care in the community. All that will be possible when the Bill reaches the statute book, as it is bound to do. It contrasts starkly with the £1.6 million that the last Government allocated to housing investment. I look forward to working with Halton borough council in the years to come, so that it can begin to deal with its housing crisis in partnership with the Government.
Vale Royal borough council is new to my constituency. I am very impressed by the quality of its officers and members, and its modern, forward-looking approach to tackling the problems of its community. It has two housing lists: 1,641 families are deemed to be in housing need, with a similar number on the general local authority housing waiting list. It has 3,500 houses without central heating and 3,200 post-war houses that remain unmodernised. Given the current rate of investment permitted by the last Government, it will take the authority until the year 2010 to provide central heating in all its houses and until 2050 to modernise its existing stock. Its ability to improve its unsatisfactory housing and environmental conditions has been severely constrained by the last Government's reduction in capital spending.
The last Government's single regeneration budget failed to target scarce resources on housing projects in Vale Royal. Non-traditionally designed housing has been a particular problem: hon. Members with such houses in their constituencies will know of the difficulties associated with them. The Over estate is not in my constituency, but in that of the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad); however, I know it well. With the £9 million invested in the estate action programme, it was renovated and transformed. The programme was started on the Greenfields Park estate in 1994, but has not been completed, again because of Government cuts: £750,000 is still needed to turn its housing into modern, decent accommodation. Glebe Green is another non-traditionally designed estate, and £4.5 million is needed to make its housing fit for habitation.
Vale Royal borough council looks forward to being able to deal with its problems with the supplementary credit approval that the Bill will provide. It has £10 million in capital receipts: it is another authority that has money to invest in meeting the dire housing needs in my constituency.
Vale Royal and Halton have adopted the partnership idea, working with the private and voluntary sectors to secure the very best for their areas. They are keen to ensure that they obtain the best value for whatever money is available, working in partnership with anyone who is prepared to work with them. They are also keen to ensure that their capital receipts, or the credit approvals that will result from them, are put to the best use. Most important of all, they are determined to spend their money on improving homes for rent.
Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge):
I am delighted to make my maiden speech in the debate on this short but important Bill, which will have a significant effect on many of my constituents.
A number of my hon. Friends who are new Members have already made their maiden speeches. My tardiness owes something to Disraeli's advice to a new Member: "It is better they wonder why you do not speak than that they wonder why you do." It must be said that if I were looking for support from my colleagues, my timing has not been perfect; but Conservative Members are not so numerous that we can afford to carry passengers indefinitely and, for better or worse, the time has now come.
I have the privilege to represent the new constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge, which was formed largely from the former Chertsey and Walton constituency, with a piece of North-West Surrey attached to it. The boundary commission seldom wins friends when naming new constituencies, but that much-maligned body has surely got it right this time in including the historic name of Runnymede in the title of a constituency for the first time.
I am sure that many hon. Members envy me a constituency which stretches from the Wentworth golf course in the west to the St. George's hill course in the east, by way of another five first-class courses. It is, perhaps, in the interest of diligent pursuit of parliamentary duties that such a constituency should return a non-golfing Member.
I follow in the footsteps of a number of eminent Members who have represented areas that are now part of my constituency, but it is my immediate predecessors in Chertsey and Walton and North-West Surrey to whom I now pay tribute. Both Sir Geoffrey Pattie and Sir Michael Grylls did excellent work on behalf of their constituents over the years, in their different ways. My special thanks are due to Sir Geoffrey Pattie for the superb apprenticeship that he bestowed on me during the 18 months before my election. He served Chertsey and Walton for 23 years, becoming a Minister and a vice-chairman of the Conservative party. I can honestly say that, if at the end of my parliamentary career I have made half as many friends and admirers in my constituency as Sir Geoffrey has, I shall regard that career as having been a great success.
Runnymede and Weybridge comprises two local authority areas, the borough of Runnymede itself and part of the borough of Elmbridge. The constituency straddles the M25 and the M3; indeed, in those road atlases that tend to exaggerate the width of roads my constituency appears to contain little other than the intersection of those two motorways. It also comprises the ancient town of Chertsey, where the Romans first crossed the River Thames, Egham, Addlestone and Weybridge, as well as the historic site of Runnymede and that of the Tudor royal palace of Oatlands. Those historic locations, together with a selection of smaller towns and villages and the garden estates of Wentworth and St. George's Hill, are set in the beautiful Surrey countryside, which many people are surprised to find so close to London.
Most, if not all, hon. Members will recognise the name of my constituency and may even be able to locate it geographically through their knowledge of the events in 1215. The basis of constitutional government in England began to emerge when Magna Carta was signed in the meadows by the Thames, between Staines and Windsor, near the town of Egham. We can trace the origins of our modern freedoms to that event which took place in my constituency. It was on 15 June that year when the King and the barons first met at Runnymede. During the next few days, they negotiated the charter. I am delighted to be able to commemorate this week, the 782nd anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, by making my maiden contribution in the House in the name of Runnymede and Weybridge.
Rather more recently, Brooklands, in Weybridge, has been renowned as the home of British motor sport and the birthplace of the British aviation industry. It spawned an engineering industry in the area, which provided an important part of the country's aviation resource during the second world war. It has also created a surprisingly diverse economy in our constituency.
The Brooklands museum is an extraordinary tribute to the men of vision and spirit who built those twin industries on Hugh Locke-King's race-track during the 1920s and 1930s. I strongly recommend hon. Members to take the time to visit that museum when passing through my constituency.
Like people in many similar areas of the home counties, my constituents enjoy the benefits of material prosperity, which are due primarily to our proximity to London and the excellent communications that we enjoy because of the motorway network and Heathrow airport. We also suffer because of that proximity from traffic, noise, pollution and the inexorable pressure for further development. The challenge for my constituency as we move into the new millennium will be to get the balance right. We must achieve the correct balance between continuing prosperity and maintaining the quality of life in the area. That will not be an easy task, but I look forward to playing my part, together with the elected local authorities in the constituency, in achieving it over the years to come.
It will be a pleasure to work with those local authorities, especially Surrey county council, now returned to Conservative control by a substantial majority, and Runnymede borough council, which is also Conservative controlled. Whatever other messages the electors of Surrey may have sent out on 1 May, they clearly voted yes to sound Conservative principles and good management in local government.
Runnymede has the lowest council tax in Surrey while, by general consensus, delivering a high standard of services. It has no statutory obligation to do so, but it is the highest spending authority on services for the elderly in Surrey. Its programme of upgrading and improving council-owned housing stock has the widespread support of tenants. Its private sector partnerships have attracted interest across the country. A key factor in achieving that enviable combination of low council tax and high service provision has been the careful management of its capital receipts. Runnymede is debt-free and it has chosen to invest its capital receipts to produce a substantial income to supplement the council tax for the benefit of all the people of Runnymede.
When the Labour party first promoted the idea of the release of capital receipts, it was presented as some kind of cost-free option. The idea was to take out from under the bed the pot of gold that the wicked Tories had squirrelled away and to spend it to good effect. It is now generally understood that there is no pot of gold. To the extent that set-aside capital receipts are cash-backed, the cash is largely in the wrong places. In public sector borrowing terms, the receipts have already been taken into account. Any increase in the aggregate supplementary credit approvals issued will result in an increase in the public sector borrowing requirement. There is no offsetting effect on the PSBR from any notional release of set-aside capital receipts. There was no mention earlier of the Revenue effects of the increased housing provision that the Government are seeking. If the Government achieve anything by the Bill it will be only by robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The reference in the Bill to capital receipts is a smoke-screen. It does not detail the methodology that will apply in determining the supplementary credit applications. If it is to increase the amount of investment in social housing, it must envisage an increase in the aggregate amount of borrowing by local authorities for that purpose.
The Bill provides a thin cover, through the mechanism of taking total capital receipts into account when determining the supplementary credit approvals, for a transfer of borrowing power from authorities with capital receipts to those without. In many cases, that will mean a transfer of borrowing power from authorities that have managed their housing stock well; taken a forward-looking, innovative approach to housing; and undertaken large-scale voluntary transfers to those that have succeeded in frustrating their tenants' right to buy and which have eschewed the opportunities of the large-scale voluntary transfers that have brought such a welcome diversity to the social housing sector. Incidentally, such transfers have also attracted £4 billion of private sector money, which otherwise would not have been available. The Bill represents the worst kind of subsidy--a subsidy from the efficient to the inefficient.
The implementation of the Bill represents an unjustifiable penalisation of thrifty, well-managed councils such as Runnymede and an erosion of the principle of local autonomy and accountability, which the Government purport to favour. It will also lead directly to the imposition of higher council taxes and higher rents as receipt-rich authorities are forced to run down their balances and forgo the considerable income that those balances currently generate. No less an organisation than Shelter, hardly a well-known supporter of the Conservative view of the world, has calculated that council house rents will rise by £6 a week if all the receipts are released. It is clear that council taxes will rise or services will be cut as prudent councils find that the dice are loaded against them and are forced to liquidate investments.
The Bill is an attack on thrift and good management. It represents a thinly veiled transfer of borrowing power to Labour's friends in local government. I fear that my constituents may expect more of the same when the local government settlement is announced.
The Bill attacks the capital balances of prudent authorities and an attack on their revenue support will not be far behind. It is the new Government's double whammy for the council tax payers of Surrey.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |