Clause
28
The
London housing
strategy
Michael
Gove:
I beg to move amendment No. 19, in
clause 28, page 29, leave out lines 17 to
44.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following
amendments:
No. 20, in
clause 28, page 30, line 24, leave
out from beginning to end of line 22 on page
31.
No. 22, in
clause 28, page 31, line 31, leave
out ‘be in general conformity with’ and insert
‘have regard
to’.
No. 21, in
clause 28, page 31, leave out lines 41 to
45.
Michael
Gove:
The amendments relate to the provisions on the
Mayor’s housing strategy. Inevitably, disentangling housing
policy from planning policy is impossible. That is why they are grouped
together in the ministerial portfolio. Inevitably, some of the points
made in this debate may stray into territory also to be covered by the
debate that I anticipate we will be having immediately afterwards. I
hope, Mr. O’Hara, that you will forgive me if there
is any straying from housing territory into
planning.
It is
striking that both we and the Liberal Democrats are anxious to remove
the extension of the Mayor’s planning powers, because they will
be extended at the boroughs’ expense. It is our united view on
this side of the Committee that any growth in the Mayor’s powers
should not take place at the boroughs’
expense.
The
provisions are more complex in that respect and more open to debate,
and we acknowledge that. They imply a devolution of power downwards to
the Mayor. We accept that that could be a good thing in many respects,
but we have certain concerns, which are embodied in the amendments. We
hope that they precipitate a useful discussion and some clarification
from the Minister. I hope that they also provide an opportunity for my
hon. Friends and other hon. Members to raise their concerns about what
is envisaged.
Our
amendments would ensure that London’s housing policy was as
devolutionary as possible and that that power was exercised at the
lowest possible level. The amendments serve two functions: they welcome
the idea that the Mayor should develop his own housing strategy and
liberate him in one regard more than would the Government. The Bill
places a series of constraints on the Mayor in the development
of his housing strategy that will allow his hands to be tied by the
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. One principle
that we believe is important in devolution is that policy innovation
should be allowed in different areas of the United Kingdom. We also
believe that those responsible for shaping strategies or delivering
policy should have the opportunity to do so in a way that conforms with
the priorities of those they
represent. One of our
concerns about housing policy—not just in London, but
nationally—is that national targets and criteria, however
well-intentioned their conception, have been applied in blanket
fashion, causing housing policy that may have been conceived in a part
of the United Kingdom for which it is appropriate to be applied in
another part for which it is wholly inappropriate. For that reason, we
want to allow the Mayor to become more of a pioneer and less of an
agent of central Government in developing his strategy. I hope that
those Labour Back Benchers who welcome the idea of giving the Mayor
more powers, such as the hon. Members for Ealing, North, for
Regent’s Park and Kensington, North and for Battersea, will look
warmly on the liberating potential of our
amendments.
Martin
Linton:
I hope that we can include the hon. Gentleman in
that category. Does he agree with the right hon. Member for Witney, who
said:
“We
are...committed not only to keeping the Mayoralty, but to
enhancing the powers of the
office.”?
Michael
Gove:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for once again
reminding us of the words of the leader of the Conservative party. I
find paying close attention to my right hon. Friend’s speeches
both spiritually improving and intellectually refreshing, and I suggest
that, as well as repeating that line, the hon. Gentleman pay closer
attention to all the speeches made by the leader of the Conservative
party.
We agree that
the Mayor’s powers should be enhanced, and we have tabled
amendments that would enhance them, but as I pointed out on Second
Reading, our definition of enhancing the Mayor’s powers does not
involve enhancing them at the boroughs’ expense. We always wish
to enhance the Mayor’s powers, wherever appropriate, in a way
that leaves power to flow from central Government to the Mayor,
although in specific exceptions—I might be straying into the
debate on waste—some might advocate a devolution of powers from
central Government to the Mayor that we consider
inappropriate.
Enhancing
the Mayor’s powers does not mean granting every one of the
Mayor’s wishes; it just means an overall consolidation of
greater powers in the Mayor’s hands, particularly when those
powers come from central Government. It does not and should not mean
acceding to all the Mayor’s wishes, and it certainly should not
mean allowing a power grab at the boroughs’
expense.
Martin
Linton:
Would the hon. Gentleman consider me overly
cynical if I suggested that he is in favour of increasing all the
powers that the Government do not propose to increase and reducing all
the powers that they do?
Michael
Gove:
Far be it from me to accuse anyone of cynicism, and
I say to the hon. Gentleman that there are a number of areas where we
are happy for that to happen—many more clauses have been allowed
to stand part than have been subject to our challenge. I hope that
there will continue to be a measure of consensus about some of the
proposals, but our concerns are sharpest in respect of the intimate
areas where housing and planning mesh. I want to outline a case for
ensuring that power remains at the lowest possible
level.
I recognise
that the hon. Gentleman, who represents part of Wandsworth as Labour
Member, might occasionally feel frustrated when he sees what
Conservative housing policy has done, how successful it has been in
respect of individuals moving from renting to ownership and how
successfully Wandsworth has reclaimed property through its hidden homes
initiative to provide homes for those who were homeless. He may
occasionally bristle at Wandsworth’s success and think,
“If only a Labour Mayor were implementing those policies and
taking the credit, I could feel happier.” I empathise with him
as he looks on enviously at Wandsworth’s success, but I am
afraid that the success of Wandsworth and other Conservative boroughs
only emphasises the thrust of what I am
saying.
Martin
Linton:
In referring to “success”, does the
hon. Gentleman mean the three or four years when Wandsworth
council’s planning committee asked for no affordable housing
whatever from any of the developments along the riverside and left it
to the local Member of Parliament to ask the Minister for Housing and
Planning to intervene, because that was the only way to get any
affordable housing through planning gain? Does he support that? Or is
he talking about the council’s current policy, under which it
has eventually come round to agreeing that some affordable housing
would be
desirable?
Michael
Gove:
I support Wandsworth for being hugely successful and
exceeding Government targets for housing completions by reaching 168
per cent. of the figure it was asked to achieve. Having visited some of
Wandsworth’s social housing, in the hon. Gentleman’s
constituency, I can say how satisfied the tenants were with the quality
of service that they received. I am sure he is aware that social
housing in Wandsworth is in many, although not all, respects run by the
council. It would be interesting for Labour Members to consider that
some of the most effective housing still in council hands is in the
hands of Conservative councils. Once again, that underlines the point
that we are trying to make with our amendments, which is that boroughs
that successfully deliver on housing should be given a better chance to
do
so.
Martin
Linton:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to
talk about Wandsworth’s housing policies in a relevant way. One
of my many concerns about its policies is that only 7 per cent. of its
completions are affordable housing, which is by far the lowest figure
for any London borough.
Michael
Gove:
Wandsworth’s improvement of the social
housing stock in its area, through its hidden homes initiative and
through investment and renovation, underlines its commitment not just
to its existing social tenants, but to other tenants who have been on
its housing list and have been housed successfully. The hon. Gentleman
should bear it in mind that the social mix in Wandsworth is such that
it has been uniquely successful in combining the building of mixed
communities and support for vulnerable people who may
need—through social housing or private rented
accommodation—an alternative to the competitive
market.
Wandsworth is
a success, and at every election its Tory administration has seen its
majority increase, whichever way the wind is blowing nationally. The
evidence of my own eyes and that of the ballot box suggests that it is
delivering in tune with what its voters want, whether they are social
tenants or
not.
Martin
Linton:
I do not think that many of the people waiting for
a chance to get affordable housing will agree when they see that houses
that currently qualify to be described by Wandsworth council as
affordable homes are offered at 90 per cent. equity at a cost of
between £300,000 and £400,000. Does the hon. Gentleman
consider that
affordable?
Michael
Gove:
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, which
refers to one of the Government’s semantic problems in defining
“affordable housing”. The Government have chosen to use
the term “affordable housing” to refer not just to
housing for social rent, but to low-cost home ownership schemes, which
has meant that any shared-equity or shared-ownership scheme qualifies
as affordable housing. I suspect that we both support more low-cost
home ownership schemes, as well as improved and enhanced housing for
social rent. However, we must recognise that, in London, the cost of
some of those schemes can be
prohibitive.
3.30
pm
The hon.
Gentleman mentioned some schemes in Wandsworth where the cost has been
significant. I remind him that low-cost home ownership schemes and
affordable homes were allegedly built in Hammersmith and Fulham when
the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush was leader of
that council that were selling for £750,000. The attempt to make
a partisan point against Wandsworth council backfires because
Hammersmith and Fulham, like Wandsworth, was caught by the wide
semantic net for affordable housing that the Government have
created.
Siobhain
McDonagh:
My constituency of Mitcham and Morden is in the
London borough of Merton. We benefit from the fact that property in our
area is cheaper—relatively, not absolutely—than in the
rest of London, and shared ownership schemes work incredibly well. The
problem that I would like the hon. Gentleman to comment on is the fact
that my borough, which is a no-overall-control Conservative borough, is
taking increasingly oppositional stances towards the introduction of
shared ownership schemes, particularly those for new home owners. Is
that the right direction to take?
Michael
Gove:
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing such
matters to my attention. I shall pay closer attention than hitherto to
the new housing policy for which Merton council is
responsible.
In
response to the hon. Lady, I wish first to set out an overall point of
principle. We are arguing that local councils should set housing
policies and that they should be accountable to their electorate for
those policies through the ballot box. If the new Conservative-led
council is pursuing a housing policy that is out of sympathy or keeping
with the needs of the community, it will pay a price at the ballot box
in much the same way as the Labour party in Hammersmith and Fulham paid
such a heavy price last time
round.
As for shared
ownership schemes, let us consider the Government’s social
homebuy scheme. Conservative Councillor Kim Humphreys in Southwark has
been one of the most enthusiastic champions of social homebuy. We know
from written answers that the Minister has had painfully to acknowledge
in the House that the number of homes sold under social homebuy has
increased from one in the summer to a massive five. The homes under
social homebuy have often been made available as a direct result of the
championing of Conservatives, rather than Labour councillors. The
Government’s record in respect of low-cost home ownership is
“could do better”, while the Conservative record is
“wherever possible, champion
it”.
We may
hear more about such matters in the debate, but with the Conservative
takeover in Hammersmith and Fulham, the emphasis on making low-cost
home ownership schemes work better will receive significant impetus. I
am sure that members of the Committee would want to note it in their
diaries that in February Hammersmith and Fulham will reveal more about
its plans to help low-cost home ownership schemes take off in that part
of west
London.
Mr.
Andrew Slaughter (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush)
(Lab): It will be better if I comment in some detail, because
the hon. Gentleman mentioned me in respect of low-cost home ownership
under the previous Labour council. I had to ask two colleagues to
repeat what he had said because I did not believe it the first time I
was told. The Labour administration in Hammersmith and Fulham built a
high percentage of affordable rented housing and some shared-ownership
housing. That is different from what the current Conservative
administration is doing, which is minimising the housing for those in
the most severe need and cynically building only shared-ownership
housing that it knows is out reach of most people in housing
need.
Michael
Gove:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for attempting
to justify his record, but for his benefit in particular, and for that
of the Committee, I shall repeat what I said. The hon. Member for
Battersea said that shared ownership homes in Wandsworth were being
marketed at a price that suggested that they were beyond the reach of
many of those Londoners whom we would think were the targets for
affordable housing. My argument was that Imperial wharf—one of
the developments undertaken when Labour ran
Hammersmith and Fulham—had flats that were marketed at an even
more exorbitant price, yet they still qualified as affordable housing
because they were shared-ownership
properties.
The point
that I was making is that the definition of affordable housing is
semantically elastic, which is a consequence of how the Government
defined affordable housing in the first place. [Interruption.]
The Minister for Housing and Planning says from a sedentary position
that that is up to the council, which only reinforces my point that if
the hon. Member for Battersea wishes to criticise Wandsworth—he
may or he may not—then in the same light, Hammersmith and
Fulham, under Labour, is open to the same criticism. However, at this
point, I have no desire to revisit the whole question of Imperial
wharf, which has been laboured. I suspect that Hammersmith and Fulham
residents took a view on Imperial wharf, and indeed on the housing
policy pursued by the Labour authority, at the last borough
election.
The
boroughs—as we know and has been acknowledged in the
debate—play a key role in housing delivery. They have a
statutory obligation to meet homelessness requirements and to meet
decent homes standards, and for that reason they are the principal
engines of delivery in housing. Of course, we have moved from a
municipal model of delivering social housing to a more plural one
through the changes that we have seen—not just council houses
moving into private hands, but stock transfer and the growth in the
number of socially rented homes that are managed by registered social
landlords and housing
associations.
Nevertheless,
when it comes, for example, to negotiating with the DCLG for money for
arm’s length management organisations, deciding how allocation
policies are to work within constraints set down by central Government
or meeting the decent homes standards, it is the boroughs that deliver.
Strikingly, as I said earlier, it is Conservative boroughs that deliver
better.
When it comes
to housing completions—this is a point that I made on Second
Reading—Conservative boroughs perform consistently better. There
are exceptions to the rule, such as Greenwich, for unique reasons.
However, the Conservative record in delivering high-quality housing, on
time and completed in a way that not just satisfies but exceeds
Government targets, is pretty
impressive.
One other
thing that I would say about Conservative boroughs in
London—indeed, about all London boroughs—is that there is
a broad consensus on the need for more housing overall and for more
affordable housing. There is a legitimate argument, and one that I will
return to in greater detail, about how the proportion should be
managed. However, there is, as well as a consensus between Front
Benchers on the importance of increasing housing supply overall, a
broad consensus within London.
Looking at the dynamic way that
a Conservative borough such as Barnet is attempting to address housing
need, one can see some of the most innovative pioneers considering new
methods of financing—for example, investigating how a bond might
work. It is Conservative councils that are looking at new ways to get
the private sector to collaborate with them to provide that
housing.
Our specific
concerns about the Government’s amendment relate to how the
success of the boroughs, to which I briefly alluded, and their direct
responsibility, which everyone acknowledges, could be affected by the
Mayor having, in effect, the power of direction over how the London
housing pot is spent. We want to know how we can ensure that this or a
future Mayor adequately takes account of the diverse needs of all
London boroughs and does not pay disproportionate regard to any of his
pet projects.
We all
know that this Mayor—for example, in how he has sought to target
certain councils—has, as it were, a hit list. Referring again to
Hammersmith and Fulham, it recently wanted to bring forward a
development, which would have increased the housing supply in that area
and helped to address the broader housing affordability problems that
we face. However, the Mayor directed refusal of that application. Fair
enough. We can argue the merits: I think he was wrong, he thinks he was
right. What was striking was the way that the Mayor invoked the shade
of Shirley Porter. Hammersmith and Fulham was increasing housing supply
in its area, which it was elected to
do—
Mr.
Slaughter:
Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Michael
Gove:
I will allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene in a
second.
The council
was doing something that it was elected to do and that we all recognise
as wise, but because the proportion of affordable housing in that
development was not exactly right in the Mayor’s terms, he said
no, it cannot go ahead. As a result, what happens? The affordability
crisis in Hammersmith and Fulham is not addressed and affordable homes,
which would have been built, have been delayed. Again, deciding on the
merits of the scheme is up to Members here, and indeed the electors of
Hammersmith and
Fulham.
This Mayor, in
the way that he regards housing policy, has shown that his own ideology
and taste can influence his thinking. We need to know, when we come to
the allocation of money, what safeguards there are to ensure not only
that the Mayor will do more than take casual regard of the boroughs,
but that he will take specific account of their needs. We need to know
what measure of appeal there is. What will happen if the
Mayor—for arbitrary, capricious or ideological
reasons—decides not to give the boroughs the allocation that
they need? How can we be certain that the Mayor will respond to their
specific
concerns?
There is
another point. The provision of new housing in London, including
affordable housing, to an extent depends on the planning process.
Central Government no longer allocate housing grants to local
authorities allowing them to build socially rented homes. Those
Morrisonian days, for better or for worse, have gone. What happens now,
as most Members will know, is that new housing developments depend on
particular developers finding a site, seeking planning permission and
then, as part of their obligation, providing a measure of affordable
housing.
One
question in my mind is, what happens with a go-ahead
council—Conservative, Labour or whatever—that is anxious
to see development occurring? Barnet is a
case in point. It sees not just successful commercial development, but
successful residential development, and, as a proportion of that
residential development, wants affordable housing. Therefore, the
housing association, which is supposed to manage that affordable
housing, will go to the Housing Corporation to ask for money. However,
what will happen if the Mayor, in his allocation of the London housing
quota, says that north-west London can forget it and that east or south
London is his priority? What will happen if the workings of the market,
particularly strong leadership from a local borough, lead to an
expansion of housing and affordable housing in one part of London, but
the Mayor has already allocated the money from the pot elsewhere? Where
will the Housing Corporation turn in such
circumstances? Let us
say that there is a deserving housing association—again, for
example, in Barnet—that is desperate to fulfil the affordable
housing requirement there, but it cannot, because of the Mayor’s
direction that the cash should go elsewhere. What will happen in those
circumstances? Who will exercise Solomon’s
judgment?
One
other area that I should mention, as we are talking about affordable
housing and as we all accept that its provision is vital for London, is
the vexed question of the Mayor’s threshold. As we are all
aware, the Mayor has produced a particular threshold to ensure that
there is greater provision of social housing. The London plan says that
all developments of 15 units or more should include affordable
housing. That is a lower threshold than prevails in other parts of the
country. We can all think of good reasons why that should be so, but
there are, curiously, perverse
consequences.
In a
recent issue of Inside Housing—8 December
2006—some survey work by London Development Research shows a
spike in the number of applications for housing development with fewer
than 15 units, then a rapid falling off thereafter. Developers are
clearly attempting to get round the Mayor’s affordable housing
obligation. Why? They recognise that sometimes that affordable housing
obligation can make uneconomic a development that might in other
circumstances have been
economic.
My
contention is that the precise balance that should be struck to ensure
the maximum number of new homes, both affordable and market, depends on
the circumstances in each borough. The Government almost half
acknowledge that. By acknowledging that there should be a separate
threshold in London, distinct from the rest of the United Kingdom, they
recognise that the London housing market is different. Why do we not
recognise, as is obvious, that the sub-regional market in north-west
London is very different from that in east London? The requirements for
affordable housing thresholds and percentages might well need to be
different in both those areas and could be better managed by the local
authorities, which are already working successfully in sub-regional
partnerships.
I should
mention one other aspect of the affordable housing threshold. As we all
know, the Mayor insists, or requests, in the London plan that all new
housing developments be 50 per cent. affordable housing. That seems
admirable, but we all know that a recent development—the Olympic
park—will not have that threshold applied to
it.
3.45
pm
On building
housing for Olympic athletes, the Mayor has said that the developers
can only afford 30 per cent. affordable housing. The developer said
that it could not go ahead in a cost-effective way unless it accepted
that threshold. The Mayor said that that was right and, having looked
at the figures, accepted that it was so. Why, if he can accept that in
respect of the Olympic area, cannot he accept the same freedom for
other boroughs to negotiate in their own way on each development that
they encounter? The Mayor acknowledges that the Olympics is a special
case, so why cannot we acknowledge that each London borough is best
equipped to engage in such negotiations
itself?
We
seek a more devolutionary housing policy that recognises
Londoners’ specific, diverse housing needs. Although the
Conservative party is, broadly, unhappy with power being exercised
regionally, London is an exception in so many ways that it is
appropriate that the Mayor has the power to set a strategy. Such a
strategy could encourage best practice and champion, for example, the
creation of innovative new schemes like community land trusts, specify
areas where boroughs should work harder to meet their obligations and
offer encouragements and inducements to those that work most
effectively. However, the Mayor should not confuse his strategic
function with that of delivery. The boroughs and associated
bodies—primarily RSLs—are responsible for delivering. The
responsibility for delivering money is key. The Mayor should not be
primarily responsible for allocation of money: the boroughs should do
it, by working together and negotiating with the Government through the
Secretary of
State.
Tom
Brake:
This is quite difficult for me, because I support
some of the amendments in the group and not others. Clearly, amendments
Nos. 20 and 21 are about devolution—in other words, stopping the
Secretary of State’s interference—which I support.
However, amendments Nos. 19 and 22 are different. The official
Opposition spokesman stated that it was important that the Mayor had a
power to set a strategy. The effect of amendment No. 22 would be that,
although he may have such a power, in practice every local authority
could disregard the strategy. Is the hon. Gentleman happy with a
strategy that could never be delivered? Is that his definition of a
strategy?
Mr.
Pelling:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the scenario
he is complaining about—responsibility for a strategy without
power—is similar to one that he recently supported in this
Committee: being responsible for health inequalities without being
responsible for NHS
London?
Tom
Brake:
In relation to the NHS issue there would have been
a greater degree of control over the NHS if the Mayor had been granted
the powers to consult that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden was
advancing in her amendment. However, we are talking about a housing
strategy and we accept the principle that London needs a strategic
government. As part of that process, London will need a housing
strategy that can deliver. If amendment No. 22 were agreed, there would
be no guarantee that that strategy for housing in London could be
delivered.
There comes a point when the
official Opposition need to cease the constant repetition of the mantra
that we need more homes, if they are not willing and able to say how
they will be delivered. If amendment No. 22 were accepted, there would
certainly be no prospect that they would be
delivered.
The
Government could have gone for something stronger in terms of strict
conformity, but it is our view that general conformity will leave the
boroughs room for flexibility without losing the importance that we
acknowledge of achieving London-wide housing figures. I shall give a
couple of examples of when that has been the case in respect of the
London plan, for example, which has a requirement for general
conformity. There was a dispute in Southwark over land classified as
urban or suburban, which would have meant different housing densities
under the plan. I understand that Southwark fought its case. The
Government’s planning inspector ruled in its favour, but also
acknowledged that its proposal was within general
conformity.
I refer
now to Islington. The matter has not been resolved. It concerns annual
housing targets. It looked as though an outcome in Islington’s
favour would be secured, but the issue is still ongoing. It illustrates
the point that there is scope for local authorities to argue within
general conformity that their proposals are sound. There have been
examples of when the Mayor’s attempts to overrule local
authority plans have been rejected by the planning inspector. That is
not to say that the Government’s proposals should not be
questioned.
The hon.
Member for Surrey Heath has posed several such questions, but it is
worth repeating them for the record. What mechanisms will exist to
ensure that the Mayor’s spending recommendations provide
adequately for boroughs’ statutory responsibilities? What is the
appeal mechanism? What safeguards will ensure that the Mayor does not
direct boroughs how to use the money that is made available to them? We
have that argument almost daily with central Government when talking
about their relationship with local government. We do not want that
repeated and the Mayor directing local authorities about how they
should spend
resources.
What
safeguards are in place to ensure that, when the Mayor drafts the
London housing strategy, he considers the statutory duties, national
targets and local issues to which boroughs are obliged to respond?
Finally, will the Government make it clear whether they consider that
the statutory duties of the boroughs to their local communities will be
sacrosanct and that they cannot—and will not—be
overridden by the Mayor and anything he puts forward for the London
housing strategy?
If
we come to a vote, I will have a dilemma to resolve quickly about
whether my desire to see the Secretary of State interfere less is
stronger than my desire for London to enact a housing strategy that can
actually deliver the number of affordable housing units that London, in
particular,
needs.
Stephen
Pound:
I rise to support the Government’s proposal
and to oppose the amendments. I do not do so out of any partisan
ideology, but I have considered
the Government’s proposals carefully, have read the responses
from various agencies and have listened with great interest to the
points made by Opposition Members. I will confine myself more to the
statements made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath than those of the
hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. I shall do so not out of
disrespect for the latter, but I cannot help but think that, as the
hon. Member for Croydon, Central intervenes on the hon. Gentleman, a
certain frisson might arise from the current edition of The House
Magazine, in which the hon. Member for Croydon, Central describes
himself as visiting “Mrs Thoroughgood’s banana
stall” in Croydon—we dream of banana stalls in
Ealing—and then wrote about attending a public meeting at which
he was mistaken for the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. In
fact, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central was called
“Mr. Tom”. Having been confused with the
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the
Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan), an hon. Lady—one of us
blessed tonsorially and the other cursed—I understand how such
things can be confusing.
However, to turn to the point
raised by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, we have heard an enormous,
almost inordinate, amount about the internal mechanisms of the London
boroughs of Wandsworth and of Hammersmith and Fulham. In many ways the
hon. Gentleman made the Government’s case, because if one thing
has flowed through every aspect of our discussions, as wide and massive
as Old Father Thames, it is the link between executive and strategic
functions. It was brought out in the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I
was born in the London borough of Hammersmith and brought up in the
borough of Fulham. I am not sure which political party was in control
during my boyhood, but as I lived in Margaret Bonfield house, next to
Chuter Ede house and round the corner from Hartley Shawcross house,
over the road from Harold Wilson house on an estate that was, and still
is, called the Clem Attlee estate, it is entirely possible that there
was a Labour administration.
The points made by the hon.
Member for Surrey Heath illustrate the subtlety of the approach of my
ministerial colleagues, although I do not wish to insult them by
accusing them of subtlety. London is a city like no other—a city
of mosaics in which individual communities live side-by-side with other
communities of a totally different economic or demographic type. There
must be a balance between the understandable desire for local influence
over housing, if not quite autonomy, and the London-wide strategic
overview. One thing that has not yet been mentioned is the
Bill’s proposal that the Mayor consult not only within the area
covered by the Greater London authority but in the surrounding areas.
That shows a recognition that housing cannot be approached in
isolation. We can look even beyond that: any outer London
Member—there are a few of us in the room—knows that often
when we talk about housing issues people from Hertfordshire,
Oxfordshire or Buckinghamshire ask for their input to be heard. The
Bill allows for
that.
Above all,
housing cannot be a hermetically sealed issue, considered entirely
locally. There must be a
balance. I speak as one who was proud to wear not the civic chain, as we
did not have one, but the civic title of chair of housing management in
the London borough of Ealing, where I attempted to bring back
standardised paint on front doors and standards for garden cleansing. I
was known as the Stalin of W7, but I always denied
that.
Stephen
Pound:
I happily give way to the man who represents the
borough of my
birth.
Mr.
Hands:
It is a pleasure both to represent the borough of
the hon. Gentleman’s birth and upbringing and to support the
same football team. He seems to hold strongly the conviction that
housing should be a matter for the Mayor on a strategic, London-wide
basis. Looking through the debates on the GLA Bill, I can find no
record of his having expressed that view in 1999 or 2000. What has
happened in the intervening six or seven
years?
Stephen
Pound:
I do not study my words with quite as much
assiduity as does the hon. Gentleman. However, I seem to recall in
November 1997 making a
speech—
Mr.
Hands:
Your maiden
speech.
4
pm
Stephen
Pound:
Indeed, my maiden speech. The first and last decent
speech I ever made on the Floor of the House, many would say. I spoke
on the Greater London Authority Bill and for my sins I was then put on
the Committee of it. I made precisely that point, referring to the
glittering kaleidoscope of agencies delivering services across London,
which I said
“does not
delight the eye, but benumbs the brain”.—[Official
Report, 10 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 609.]
I seem to remember waxing lyrical about
the traffic signals control unit, which means something to those of us
who were involved in local government in the ’70s and
’80s, but happily not nowadays.
Like most people, I have
considered the evolution of the London mayoralty. We are used to Mayors
in London—we have even had a couple of Lord Mayors—but we
are still not used to the idea of a strategic Mayor combined with an
executive assembly. We have watched the mayoralty evolve. We are here
today because of the evolution of the role of Mayor and the need, in
many matters, to change it where circumstances have changed. Clause
28(3) exempts the Mayor from requirements established in section 41(9)
of the 1999 Act, in which targets were set within the London housing
strategy—the suggestion is that they are not less demanding than
targets and objectives set nationally. That change has come about
because of a recognition of the sub-regional housing supply situation,
and the need to ensure some level of national conformity and—to
risk re-introducing the debate on floors and ceilings—to set a
floor.
Mr.
Hands:
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that probably the
most significant change since that time is that during debate on the
1999 Act, the Labour party
controlled 18 of the 32 London boroughs—more than half—and
now controls only eight of them? That explains fully the political
reasons why the Government are seeking to transfer those powers from
the boroughs to the
Mayor.
Stephen
Pound:
This party cares for the people, not their
political allegiance. This party speaks for all London and all
Londoners. We care not where they cast their vote or what colour
rosette they happen to wear when it comes to considering matters of
moment for the whole city. We would never, ever be so politically
partisan as to cast legislation in line with some party political
prejudice. The Labour party is bigger than that. We look at this
capital city, this great city—a city greater even than
Lichfield—in terms of the needs of all its citizens. If the hon.
Gentleman is seriously implying for a moment that we would ever
consider partisan political advantage, he does us ill and he knows
little of this
party.
Returning—
The
Chairman:
Order. I am heartened by the word
“returning”.
Stephen
Pound:
The late and much lamented right hon. Member
for Bromley and Chislehurst, Eric Forth, once spoke for three and a
quarter hours on the placement of a comma. Every time the Speaker
looked as though he might rise to ask him to desist, he pointed to the
Order Paper and said “and returning”. Like most of us, I
heard much from
him.
My point is that
we have here a classic example of the dichotomy between the
Mayor’s executive and strategic functions. Whereas the hon.
Member for Surrey Heath seems to want to have his cake and eat it in
allowing local autonomy within a benign strategic city-wide framework,
that is simply not possible in reality. I shall mention a couple of
things that he did not talk about. Housing is not just about housing.
It is about climate change, energy conservation, transportation,
employment and life chances. Housing is, in fact, about everything. If
we are talking about housing in any city, and in this city above all,
we must bear in mind all those other factors.
As we all know, housing is the
single most important determinant of a person’s happiness or
sadness in life. If we are ill, we go home until we feel better. If we
lose our job, we go home and write applications for a new one. If we
lose our home, we have lost everything and we are on the street. There
are 101 reasons why that home can be unsatisfactory—the
condition of the property, the journey to work, the amount of
pollution, the noise or vibration or any other issue.
For that reason, I am utterly
convinced that the Government are trying to keep as much local autonomy
as possible so that local authorities can determine planning
applications to their hearts’ content. They can set their
unitary development plans, work within them and raise individual cases,
but they cannot do so in isolation, not just from the rest of London
but from adjoining boroughs and even, as we have seen, from boroughs
abutting the GLA area. It is simply impossible to deal with the problem
in that way.
The hon. Member for Surrey Heath
made such a persuasive intellectual case that I found myself swept away
by the majesty and power of his words.
Martin
Linton:
I was
not.
Stephen
Pound:
My hon. Friend has known him longer than I
have. I was greatly impressed and was casting around in my mind for any
way in which that fortunate juxtaposition could be arrived at whereby
we could have both city-wide strategic direction and complete local
autonomy. I cannot see how that can be done, but I can see how we could
get as close to it as possible, and that is through the Bill, which
represents the best possible balance, allowing those two powers to
coexist.
Finally—your favourite
word, Mr.
O’Hara—
The
Chairman:
I am further
encouraged.
Stephen
Pound:
Finally, the Housing Corporation was mentioned
earlier. The London Housing Federation and the Housing Corporation are
vital bodies. The Housing Corporation supports the proposals, despite
what the hon. Member for Surrey Heath implied. Before I was elected,
when I had an honest job, I worked for Paddington Churches housing
association. I was constantly frustrated by the inability to deal with
housing beyond the purely parochial, because housing throughout London
affects people. People in London move across the city. We are a mobile
city and we must recognise that city-wide mobility. We have on these
green pages possibly not legislative perfection—we do not
achieve that very often in this place—but a blueprint for a
better city, in which we manage to achieve that balance that we all
seek, for all Londoners. On that basis, I oppose the amendment and
support the position of the
Government.
Mr.
Hands:
I welcome you to your position, Mr.
O’Hara. I, too, am enjoying serving under your chairmanship of
the Committee. It is always difficult to follow the hon. Member for
Ealing, North, not least because he invariably manages to mention my
constituency many times. Indeed, it is possibly the most mentioned
constituency in this debate so
far.
Looking at the
Labour Benches, I was a little intrigued by the membership of the
Committee in the first place. I found a somewhat unlikely source of
guidance for how it came about earlier this week, when I was forwarded
the Christmas message from the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and
Shepherd's Bush, which explains how Labour members of the Committee get
appointed. In the hon. Gentleman’s Christmas
message—curiously, written at midnight on a Saturday just before
Christmas—he
said:
“Secretly,
I would prefer to speak on matters about which I know nothing at all
but are a bit more fun (like Statistics or Estate Agents—yes,
there are Bills on both subjects, and it’s my idea of fun, not
yours). As is customary, the whips took my speaking on the Second
Reading of the Greater London Authority Bill as evidence of enthusiasm
and have put me on the Standing Committee for the Bill, which meets in
January. This means many hours trawling through every clause of the
Bill line by line with the purported intention of testing and improving
it.”
I shall return to the matter of improving
it shortly. He goes
on:
“I’m
rather looking forward to
it”—
The
Chairman:
Order. This is very entertaining, but in the
interests of sparing both the patience of the Chairman and the
Committee, and the embarrassment of the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton
and Shepherd's Bush, the hon. Gentleman should move on to his
substantive
point.
Mr.
Hands:
Thank you for your guidance, Mr.
O’Hara. The hon. Gentleman’s message ends by saying that
his previously empty head is now filled with opinions on every
conceivable subject, and the Bill certainly seems to be one of
them.
Mr.
Slaughter:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the promotional
talk from my regular newsletter to my constituents. If anyone wishes,
they can go to my website, www.andyslaughter.com, and sign up for that
service as
well.
Mr.
Hands:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention.
If I were him, I would check out the person whose e-mail address is
snuggleskunk@gmail.com. He will probably find that they are not one of
his supporters.
My
point is this: I checked out the voting record of the hon. Member for
Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush. It is incredible and one of
the strongest in the House. He appears in something like 95 per cent.
of Divisions. Every single time he has voted in accordance with the
Government. He has never rebelled. I thought back to the Second Reading
of this Bill: the hon. Gentleman said that all the people who spoke in
that debate seemed to have been appointed to this Committee. I looked
around for people like the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), for
Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), for Islington, North (Jeremy
Corbyn) and for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) and was left
wondering why they were not put on the Committee at the same
time.
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
May I just point out to the hon. Gentleman
that the nomination to Standing Committees is in the hands of the
Committee of Selection? I hope he is not impugning its integrity
because it has the
power.
The
Chairman:
Order. It is certainly not the business of this
Committee nor of the
Chair.
Mr.
Hands:
Thank you, Mr. O’Hara. I just
find it a remarkable coincidence. It is tough to find loyalists in the
London Labour party these days. Remarkably, they are all on this
Committee.
Turning to
the main provisions before us, the provisions we seek to delete or
amend are significant. They will fundamentally alter the balance in
London between the Mayor and the boroughs. We were told two things
about the original GLA Act and the Bill
before us today. We were assured that the Mayor of London has a
strategic role in the management of London and secondly that the
measures proposed in 1999 and again today would be devolutionary with
powers coming from central Government and given to the Mayor. On both
those grounds these proposals for housing powers fail the
Government’s very own
objectives. The role
proposed here for the Mayor of London is far more than a strategic
role, but will involve the Mayor and his office and officers in very
localised matters. I will provide some illustrations in due course.
These powers come almost entirely from the boroughs and boroughs will
no longer have much say in their local housing strategies and will
apparently be at the mercy of the Mayor in seeing their funding
determined. For example, under new section 333A(3)(c) the Major will
recommend to the Secretary of
State
“how much of the
money allocated by him during the relevant period for housing in
Greater London should be granted to each local housing authority in
Greater
London.”
Subsection
(4)(b) refers
to
“recommendations as to
the number, type and location of houses which should be provided by
means of grant.”
It is
tempting to believe that those who were drawing up this Bill genuinely
had in mind that there would be a strategic role for the Mayor. I can
understand there being a strategic role for the Mayor. All Opposition
Members can. It might be in terms of determining the overall needs of
the private rented sector, home ownership, how much should be given to
social rented across London and so on. I supposed that that was the
Government’s intention. But the reality in the Bill is
fundamentally different. The reality is that the Mayor already tries to
get involved in the smallest schemes such as the Allied Carpets site in
Hammersmith and Fulham. It is directly on the boundary between my
constituency and that of the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and
Shepherd’s
Bush.
Mr.
Slaughter:
Can we be clear? It may be on the boundary, but
it is in my constituency and I spoke about it at some length on Second
Reading. Indeed, I was very pleased when we had a victory. I took part
in the photocall. It is just a pity that when the Conservative council
printed the photograph they cut me out of
it.
4.15
pm
Mr.
Hands:
I was trying to use that local example to
demonstrate a wider point. It seems that the hon. Gentleman still
cannot move on from his days as leader of Hammersmith and Fulham
council. I have been advising him for some time that it is time to move
on. I believe that even his own colleagues have been telling him that.
If he really wants to go back to Hammersmith and Fulham council he
would have great difficulty because his old seat is now held by the
Conservatives with a 427 majority.
I mentioned the Allied Carpets
site not because it is in Hammersmith and Fulham, but because the
scheme was turned down by the Conservative council and was refused on
appeal, but Mayor Livingstone then recommended it for approval. He
said:
“This was an excellent
scheme by Allied and Morrison, with a ground floor car showroom and a
part 4 storey, part 10 storey building with 50 residential units (50
per cent. affordable) that delivered many London Plan
policies.”
That sounds
interesting, but the scheme had only 50 units and the Mayor
was giving a view about the percentage content of a tiny development of
50 units. We were told that we would be talking about the
Mayor’s strategic powers, but a car showroom in Hammersmith and
Fulham with 50 units is hardly
strategic.
The
charter that the provision gives to the Mayor or his successors to
meddle in the 32 boroughs of London is immense, and we have seen how
the Mayor meddles. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath mentioned
another site that I shall use as an example. I am not fixated about my
local area, but the scheme at the Prestolite site is a good example.
The Mayor, using his existing powers, rejected the scheme in a press
release issued on Boxing day. If the Mayor wanted to co-operate with
London borough councils, would he issue a press release on Boxing day
and prevent the council from having a right of reply, despite the fact
that 65 per cent. of the scheme consisted of affordable housing? His
own officers recommended it and said
that
“on balance, the
application will deliver substantial numbers of affordable homes,
significantly above the overall strategic targets for
boroughs”
in London. The
Mayor is supposedly in favour of more affordable housing, but his
reason for rejecting a scheme consisting of 65 per cent. affordable
housing
was:
“Hammersmith’s
actions have the stench of Shirley Porter’s regime at
Westminster Council in the
1980s.”
We have many new,
young councillors in Hammersmith and Fulham, many of whom are under 35.
I am above the median age of the current councillors. Most of them had
never heard of Dame Shirley
Porter.
Mr.
Pelling:
They should learn about her in
schools.
Mr.
Hands:
Unfortunately, the schools in Hammersmith and
Fulham were Labour-controlled for the past 20 years and it was
difficult to learn much in
them.
At the following
group meeting, the councillors were passing round a book condemning
Dame Shirley Porter to find out who she was, which shows how far out of
touch the Mayor of London is with London
housing.
Subsection
(4)(b) states that the recommendations may
include
“the number, type
and location of houses which should be provided by means of
grant.”
That sounds like
an incredible charter for meddling in every small development. I
suspect that the Mayor will be able to influence the number and type of
homes, their location and pretty much everything, not in developments
of 50 homes, but in much smaller ones. In addition, he will need staff
to assist him. There will not be one individual poring over a set of
planning applications; there will be yet further growth in the size of
the bureaucracy supporting the Mayor and the GLA. I fear that the
Ministers behind that will be responsible for causing a nightmare for
London.
The power grab from the boroughs
on housing is a purely political move for two reasons. First, the Mayor
asked for the powers as a payback for his support for the Labour party
during its last difficult three or four years. Secondly, at the time of
the 1999 Act, Labour controlled 18 of the 32 boroughs and the Labour
boroughs did not like the idea of the present Mayor, or any other
Mayor, taking their powers. It is purely because of the change in the
political complexion of London that the Government have decided to
rerun the borough council election results from this year. That is no
way to run a democracy and it does not inspire trust in the Mayor and
the
boroughs.
Furthermore,
I foresee a number of legal rows between London councils—the
individual boroughs—and the Mayor about all the various
developments in which he will start meddling. The worst thing about
those legal rows is that the people will have to foot the bill, because
both sides will in effect be funded by the long-suffering London
council tax payer. The London council tax payer pays both for the
boroughs and for the Mayor and the Greater London authority. I foresee
many rows not only with Conservative councils but with Liberal Democrat
councils and probably even Labour councils. Probably the only exception
would be any council controlled by the Respect party, which seems to be
just about the only party that is closely aligned with the
Mayor’s foreign policy views these days. One disadvantage of the
GLA structure is that the funding of the Mayor is not very transparent.
I believe that council tax payers will
suffer.
I want to end
with some thoughts about whether the proposals are devolutionary. That
is the other plank of the proposals: first, they should be strategic,
and secondly devolutionary. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey
Heath mentioned, most if not all of the powers are coming up from the
boroughs. The London boroughs—I served as a councillor for eight
years on a borough in London—not only are much closer to their
residents but have a stronger electoral mandate than the Mayor.
Councillors are elected on higher turnouts and are not elected with
second preference
votes.
In turn, the
Mayor’s strategy also has to agree with national housing
strategies, according to the Bill. Amendment No. 20 would change that.
It would remove the need for the Mayor’s strategy to agree with
national policy and end the Government’s attempted
nationalisation of London’s housing policy. The proposals are
not just about moving powers away from the boroughs up to the Mayor but
about moving them up further, to the Secretary of State. That is a
bizarre result, given that the Bill has been lauded on the other side
of the Committee as
devolutionary.
To
quote again from the Bill, local housing strategies will need to be
“in general conformity” with the Mayor’s strategy,
which must in turn not be “inconsistent” with current
national policies relating to housing. How much individual choice will
be left for boroughs in London at all? The position of housing policy
is being transformed: it is being moved from democratically elected
local councillors all the way up the chain of command to the Secretary
of State. In a Bill said to reinforce the Mayor’s strategic
powers, powers are given on an incredibly localised basis, on the
location, funding and tenure balance of small
individual housing schemes. We have seen in Hammersmith and Fulham that
he wants to intervene even on schemes of 50 units. He is already trying
that, even before he gets the powers. He even gets involved in the
percentage balance of a development of 50 units. That is not
strategic. I support
the amendments and urge us to return to the principles that we should
have devolution in London and that the powers of the Mayor should
remain strategic. The new housing powers achieve neither, and I believe
that the Government will come to regret that in future years if the
proposals become
law.
Mr.
Slaughter:
I am afraid I thought that some of the hon.
Gentleman’s comments were a little inappropriate. If anyone is
obsessed with Hammersmith and Fulham council, it appears to be him
rather than me. My only interest is that it is a truly dreadful
council. My advice to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath is not to act as
a frontman for it in his contributions, first because it is about as
far away from the position that he tries to express on the Conservative
Front Bench as it is possible to get, and secondly because the
information that he is being given is simply incorrect. However, before
I correct those points, let me explain that most of what I am going to
say I shall go over only in outline, because much of it is more
appropriate to the debate on the planning provisions of the Bill than
it is to the housing provisions. Perhaps I shall make a longer
contribution when we reach that
point.
A number of
things have been said that cannot be allowed to rest and need to be
corrected. Before I go on to the housing matters, I must say that I
take exception to the comment by the hon. Member for Hammersmith and
Fulham about the education service in Hammersmith and Fulham. The front
page of the education supplement with today’s edition of The
Guardian has a picture of Phoenix high school in my constituency,
which is the most improved secondary school in the country under the
visionary leadership of William Atkinson and because of contributions
over 10 years from a Labour Government and a Labour council investing
in what was a failing school. The comments that the hon. Gentleman
makes are exactly the same comments that he and his colleagues made
when that school was failing. They were running it down, running off to
the Tory press to deprecate it and trying to get it closed by default.
Despite that, Phoenix high school is a fantastic success
story—the most improved school in
England.
To my horror,
I find that now that those people are in control of Hammersmith and
Fulham council they are doing the same to Hurlingham and Chelsea
school—the only other mixed-community school in the
borough—except now they have the power to close it. That is a
truly disgraceful record and I am sorry that the hon. Member for
Hammersmith and Fulham made such a flippant comment about the standard
of education in the borough, which overall is excellent. In fact, many
of his constituents go to those
schools.
On housing
matters, I said that I thought that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath
had been misled. I do not want to go over the details, except to say
that some of the developments that he talked about exemplify
what is going wrong in many boroughs—Hammersmith and Fulham is an
extreme example. I am surprised that he is associating the Conservative
Front Bench with that. If nothing else, the situation provides a good
reason for a strategic direction in housing powers in London because
the problems are simply not being addressed. Indeed, they are being
worsened by the attitudes, principally but not exclusively of
Conservative councils—the disgraceful housing authority in the
London borough of Islington is controlled by the Liberal
Democrats. In brief,
when the Labour party was in control of Hammersmith and Fulham council,
70 per cent. of all housing units being constructed were affordable
homes. The split was roughly: 50 per cent. shared ownership and 50 per
cent. social rented housing. That met and in fact exceeded the
Mayor’s 50 per cent. target for affordable housing, although the
target for social rented housing was 70 per cent. and for shared
ownership, 30 per cent. The second part of the target appeared not to
have been met, but in fact it was, given that the overall percentage of
affordable housing was 70 per cent. We were building as many rented
houses as we could and more shared ownership ones than was required. So
that lays one ghost to rest—the Labour party has no prejudice or
bias against shared ownership housing. Indeed, many of the policies of
the Government and the Minister for Housing and Planning, such as the
social homebuy scheme, have promoted low-cost home
ownership.
Michael
Gove:
Will the hon. Gentleman remind the Committee
exactly how many homes have been sold under the social homebuy
scheme?
Mr.
Slaughter:
I just said that it was an admirable policy. If
the hon. Gentleman wants that justification, he should go to the Front
Bench rather than me. I shall come on to his comments in a moment. He
might want to intervene then rather than continue the rather sterile
debate that I often see him have with my hon. Friend the Minister for
Housing and
Planning.
I have
highlighted the position under the Labour administration, which had the
best housing record in London. It still was not achieving the target of
ensuring that 70 per cent. of affordable homes were social rented,
although it pushed closer to it every year. However, land values in
that borough are very high—some of the highest property prices
in London and the country. I take no credit for it, but that was a good
record. The policy and practice of the Conservative administration has
been to drive down that percentage of affordable homes as close as
possible to the Mayor’s 50 per cent.
More significantly, the
administration is reversing the percentages of social rented and shared
ownership housing. It wants 70 per cent. of all social housing built to
be shared ownership. It does that cynically. The generally accepted
Housing Corporation and housing association equation is that shared
ownership housing costs about two thirds of its market value. Those
homes with about a 45 or 50 per cent. discount will retail for between
£200,000 and £400,000. The administration knows,
therefore, that given land values in Hammersmith and Fulham, most of
those properties will not be available to those with housing
needs. They are not even available to those whose income is two or three
times the average. They represent an important intermediate market but
do not address the primary area of housing need, which is why I think
that the Mayor’s 70:30 housing formula is the right one. Given
the cost of private sector ownership and rental in Hammersmith and
Fulham, or any part of north-west London, no one can say that there is
not a housing shortage. The figures speak for themselves. Most boroughs
in west London have 10,000 or more people on the waiting list and 2,000
or more families in temporary accommodation. Every one of those
families is costing the taxpayer a
fortune—usually—through housing benefit costs, or they
are paying those costs
themselves. 4.30
pm
Michael
Gove:
The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government are
committed to halving the number of individuals living in temporary
accommodation. Will he remind us of the number of people living in
temporary accommodation when the Government came to
power?
Mr.
Slaughter:
I remind the hon. Gentleman ofthis:
the Government’s initiatives on temporary accommodation,
particularly on ending the use of bed and breakfast accommodation, have
changed fundamentally the conditions in which people live. I remind him
also that because of the prosperous economy, particularly in west
London, house prices and rental values have gone up so much that the
squeeze on people who cannot afford to rent or buy in the private
sector is such that in recent years there has been an increase in the
number of people in temporary accommodation. The Government have now
pledged to address the problem.
Why does the hon. Gentleman
support Conservative councils that are going out of their way to thwart
the Housing Corporation, the Government office for London and the
Mayor’s attempts to achieve those targets and extract people
from temporary accommodation?
Michael
Gove:
As the hon. Gentleman’s response implicitly
acknowledged, the number of people in temporary accommodation then was
half the number now, so the Government’s target for solving the
temporary accommodation problem will return us only to the position
that they inherited when they came to power. As he knows, it is a
problem not only London-wide, but throughout the UK and in the east of
England in particular.
Mr.
Slaughter:
I understand why the hon. Gentleman does not
want to answer my question. I am sure that he does not want to take
advice from me, but I advise him again to dissociate himself from
events in Hammersmith and Fulham. “Porterite” is exactly
the right word, because Porterite means unacceptable political
influence in planning and housing processes. It also means incompetent
interference, because unless one is incompetent one does not get found
out.
The hon.
Gentleman may want to find out more about the Prestolite scheme before
he discusses it again in Committee. It was inherited from a Labour
council
and it included 75 per cent. affordable housing. The new Conservative
council made two demands of it: first, that it decreased the percentage
of affordable housing from 75 per cent. to 64 per cent.; and secondly,
that it swapped the allocations of rented and shared ownership housing,
so that instead of the scheme consisting of predominantly rented
housing, it consisted of predominantly shared ownership housing for the
reasons that I have given. It was cynical political interference, and I
hope that he does not approve of it.
The
hon. Gentleman mentioned Imperial Wharf. Not a day goes by when I do
not receive an e-mail or a telephone call from a housing association
operating in Hammersmith and Fulham, telling me that it has had
unreasonable demands placed on it. I shall provide one more example: a
100 per cent. affordable-housing-designated site, Bagleys Lane in the
Imperial Wharf area, which included 121 units of affordable housing.
The first demand was for one-third market housing on the site; the
second demand was for only 15 per cent. social rented housing on the
site.
Given what the
hon. Gentleman has said about housing need, particularly in London, I
do not understand how he can defend a Conservative council that
believes it is right to designate 15 per cent. affordable housing on a
site that was designated for 100 per cent. affordable housing.
He should put those questions to his hon. Friends rather putting
questions to me.
I
have more sympathy with the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham on
the Allied Carpets site issue, save that it was an observation in a
report which the Mayor did not pursue. He did not attend the public
inquiry, because it was an inappropriate development, I am pleased to
say, not because of the housing split on the site. The project was for
a tall tower in a residential area, but it was rejected, which shows
the robustness of the planning process. The example is a red herring in
this context.
It is
essential that in terms of housing policy in London, we build the homes
that people need. The Conservative boroughs have not merely failed to
deliver on that, and they have not merely derogated responsibility;
they have actively and callously gone out of their way to make it clear
to people in housing need that they are not welcome in Conservative
boroughs. I am surprised to find that the hon. Gentleman is prepared to
support that policy, as he indicated on Second Reading, rather than
that advocated by the
Mayor.
Mr.
Pelling:
I have been inspired by some comments made by
hon. Members and I want to respond to them. First, my hon. Friend the
Member for Hammersmith and Fulham does well to mention the significant
change in the party political balance across London. I am sure that the
Government would not want to be accused of returning to a cynical
approach of trying to abolish the role of one layer of government to
take revenge for political success at the ballot box, as previous
Administrations of another colour have perhaps been able to do in the
past.
I was grateful
to the hon. Member for Ealing, North for mentioning Mrs.
Thoroughgood. I am sure that she will be pleased to see her name in
Hansard. My predecessor made the great mistake of criticising
the quality of the bananas in Surrey Street market, which was probably
why he ended up losing.
Stephen
Pound:
Slipping on banana
skins.
Mr.
Pelling:
Indeed, it is amazing what one does during
elections. However, I want to be serious in this debate, because there
is a housing crisis in London and it is important that the legislation
is effective and meets the needs of the 62,000 people who are homeless
and the 360,000 people in overcrowded accommodation in
London.
It is
important for us to debate the efficacy of setting centrally driven
targets for housing, whether nationally or regionally. The current
system, particularly in London, has created a distortion in the supply
of one and two-bedroom flats, when what is really needed is the
provision of family housing, particularly houses with gardens. I do not
believe that being opposed to back-garden development is an appropriate
policy in Greater London. Such is the stress on housing in London that
that is one place from which housing has to
come.
Behind
people’s concerns in this debate is a lack of confidence in the
ability of local authorities to deliver on municipal and social
housing. That is not my experience with my local authority in Croydon.
I pay credit particularly to Councillor Dudley Mead, who led on housing
before 1994 and who leads on it now. I am pleased that funds have come
from the Government via the GLA for new council housing in Croydon.
That is important, when my constituents face extreme overcrowding and
are advised that their prospects for new social housing will see them
re-housed in nine to 10
years.
There are
significant votes in providing extra social and council housing in
Greater London, but it is people locally who will be strongest in
responding to that need and demand. It is more than likely that the
initiative taken by a local authority will be blunted by the need to
visit city hall and argue its case for one allocation or another. It
would be much better if this issue were driven upwards, rather than
downwards. That is the problem with the philosophy and approach behind
all the amendments. Our approach has been about taking power downwards
from the Government and the Government office for London and for giving
the GLA responsibilities for the NHS in London and the learning and
skills councils in London. Housing being built in localities in
response to local pressures is best delivered by local authorities
themselves.
Yvette
Cooper:
I shall respond to the points made on the
amendments this afternoon. I found the amendments confusing and
contradictory in their nature. Amendments Nos. 20 and 21 and a bit of
amendment No. 19 would reduce the influence of the Secretary of State
in relation to the Mayor. Amendment No. 22 would reduce the influence
of the Mayor in relation to the boroughs. However, amendment No. 19
would substantially reduce the influence of the Mayor in relation to
the Secretary of State and the Housing Corporation. The overall impact
of the amendments is not devolutionary, as the Opposition have
suggested, but centralising; they would hand power and decision making
back to the Secretary of State.
Michael
Gove:
Amendment No. 66 makes explicit the devolutionary
intent. I apologise to the Chair and to the Committee for the tardy way
in which the amendment was tabled, which means that it is not being
debated at the moment. If, however, the Minister’s intention is
to ensure that the whole spread of the Bill is as devolutionary as
possible, then we would be delighted if she accepted that on
Report.
Yvette
Cooper:
I apologise to the Committee for not reading the
hon. Gentleman’s mind and realising that there was another
amendment somewhere that would square the circle. Nevertheless, his
arguments were not devolutionary. They were all about returning power
to the Secretary of State and to the Housing Corporation. Regardless of
what other amendments he wants to table, there are fundamental
contradictions in the position of the
Opposition.
Mr.
Hands:
Will the hon. Lady give
way?
Yvette
Cooper:
Yes, I will, but I would then like to make some
progress before giving way
further.
Mr.
Hands:
I thank the Minister for giving way. Will she
explain why she thinks that the original Bill enshrines the principle
of devolution? The local housing strategies, the boroughs, have to be
“in general conformity” with the Mayor’s strategy,
which, in turn, must
“not
be inconsistent with current national policies relating to
housing”.
It is therefore
impossible to escape the impression that she is effectively dictating
policy that goes all the way down to the
boroughs.
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we currently
have national housing policies—set out in statute or in
guidance—which boroughs need to follow, just like local councils
across the country. They have immense free rein in other areas of
housing policy.
There
is an existing structure in housing policy and in the role of the
regional housing boards, which were set up by the Government so that
recommendations were made at the regional level rather than simply by
civil servants in Whitehall. We thought that an important devolutionary
measure. However, we now think it important to democratise that
regional voice in London and to give that voice to the Mayor. We think
it important to recognise the important strategic issues that reflect
the nature of the housing market as a whole, rather than simply local
areas and the bricks and mortar that are put
up.
Mr.
Hands:
I think that the Minister has already answered my
point about how this is different to the status quo. She may correct me
if I am wrong, but she is effectively arguing that this enhances the
power of the Mayor, but at the expense of
herself.
Yvette
Cooper:
In many ways the Bill does exactly that. The
effect of the Opposition amendments, particularly amendment No. 19,
would be to reverse that and simply put a lot of the spending decisions
back in the hands of the Secretary of State.
We have to recognise the way
that decisions are taken at the moment. The Housing Corporation
receives bids for affordable housing. We also have to make decisions
about how resources allocated for housing in London are to be carved up
between boroughs, perhaps to address problems of the supply of decent
homes, of overcrowding or of empty or temporary accommodation. Those
are the different ways in which the Government support investment in
housing in different areas across
London.
Decisions are
currently made either by the Secretary of State directly or by the
Housing Corporation on the Secretary of State’s behalf.
Currently, decisions are made subject to the Secretary of State
receiving recommendations from the regional housing board. The boards
are composed on the direction of the Secretary of the State, not by
decision of the Mayor, and consist of a small number of people whose
role is to make recommendations to the Secretary of State. We think
that those recommendations about the spending priorities across the
city as a whole would be far better coming from the democratically
elected Mayor who represents the city as a whole. He should be making
recommendations about strategic priorities for London as a
whole.
Frankly, if
recommendations are not made about money and the strategy does not have
an impact on resources, it will not have half the impact on the city as
a whole. Over two years, £1.5 billion will go into new
affordable housing for London through the Housing Corporation. That is
almost half the budget for affordable housing for the country as a
whole. That is a lot of investment going into the capital, and we think
that it is right that the democratically elected Mayor of London should
have a say and make recommendations about the priorities for that
investment. If we simply remove the Mayor’s spending
recommendations from the process, we will be back to where we started,
with the decisions being made by the Secretary of State and the Housing
Corporation instead. It is about having a devolutionary
effect.
4.45
pm
Mr.
Slaughter:
My hon. Friend may not have plumbed the depths
of the Opposition, who do not actually want the investment. I mentioned
some schemes earlier: on the Prestolite scheme, £30 million of
public funding was withdrawn because of the Conservative
council’s decision, and on the Bagley’s lane scheme,
£6 million was withdrawn. The Opposition do not want investment
in housing, in the same way as they did they want the decent homes
money for houses in Fulham.
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend may be right, but the
Opposition’s amendments may reflect disagreement about
particular housing policy issues between individual Conservative London
boroughs and the Mayor rather than a rational argument about
structure.
There is a
second contradiction in the Opposition Members’ approach.
Amendment No. 20 is about removing the role of the Secretary of State
with regard to the London housing strategy. However, Opposition Members
have asked for decision making to go back to the Secretary of State and
for safeguards to prevent the
Mayor from being capricious and from favouring one London borough over
another. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington has asked for
safeguards to ensure that the resources and spending allocations
reflect the statutory obligations of London boroughs, which is
important. It is also
important that the way in which the resources are allocated reflects
the obligations set out under national policy. We have retained a role
for the Secretary of State in order to ensure that the London housing
strategy conforms to national housing policy, which includes those
statutory obligations. A list of safeguards has been included, and we
have limited the Secretary of State’s role in these clauses.
That constraint is in place to ensure that the London boroughs are not
asked to do something by the Secretary of State and the statutory
framework, when the framework for delivering resources through the
Mayor and the Housing Corporation does not reflect those
obligations.
Michael
Gove:
The Minister is labouring under a misapprehension,
and is therefore tilting at an Aunt Sally. In our remarks, my hon.
Friends and I did not want the powers, particularly the powers of
allocation of funding, to remain with the Secretary of State. As
amendment No. 66 makes clear—it is on the amendment paper,
although it has not been selected—we wanted such decisions to be
made by London boroughs acting corporately. As the Minister will know,
that was an entirely satisfactory way of operating before the advent of
regional government.
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman should consider carefully
whether he is asking for London boroughs to decide how resources are
distributed between London boroughs. Which London borough should have
how much and how should those resources be allocated? It is inevitable
that each London borough will argue for resources for its area, which
it should be able to do. However, it is also important that the largest
London borough does not have the strongest voice and that particular
coalitions of London boroughs are not able unfairly to affect resources
for another London borough. Ultimately, it is important that a
strategic view is taken of the capital as a whole, which is why we have
an elected Mayor for the whole of the capital.
The implication of the hon.
Gentleman’s remarks is that he would prefer not to have a Mayor
at all, and if that applies to housing resources it presumably applies
to many other areas, too. The hon. Gentleman considers that decisions
should simply be taken as a result of discussions between London
boroughs; in fact, strategic decisions must be taken and, in the
absence of a Mayor, many of them would have to be taken by the
Secretary of
State.
Mr.
Hands:
I understand the Minister’s argument, but I
ask her to provide some reassurance. She says that decisions on funding
would be made by the Mayor, but other aspects of local authority
funding are determined by formulae and through transparent processes.
There appears to be no protection here from a Mayor who makes decisions
randomly and perhaps in a fit of pique.
Yvette
Cooper:
To clarify the situation, we have made it clear
that the clause is about the Mayor’s spending recommendations
and recommendations to the Housing Corporation as to how it should
exercise its functions. The Housing Corporation will still have to take
decisions about individual bids and take account of the fact that, for
example, there could be a situation in which, although a particular
priority had been set, in practice there were not sufficient
good-value-for-money bids put forward within a 12-month period to make
it possible to deliver on that priority. The Housing Corporation would
have to take that into account and accordingly make adjustments within
a year or two years to ensure that its overall programme is to deliver
the priorities set and is not compromised because of value-for-money
considerations.
The clause
also includes a recommendation to the Secretary of State as to how they
should make allocations to the Housing Corporation as opposed to
directly to local councils. Not all the money allocated for London as a
whole goes on new affordable housing, because some of it goes on other
issues such as decent homes. The Mayor should be making recommendations
as to what that balance should
be.
Martin
Linton:
Far from tilting at an Aunt Sally or setting up a
windmill, may I ask my hon. Friend whether she is convinced, because I
am certainly not, that all Conservative boroughs would want affordable
housing, if they had a completely free hand? I remind her that for
several years Wandsworth asked for 0 per cent., which was only changed
when it came to realise that if it failed to ask for affordable
housing, it would be forced to do so by the Secretary of State.
Eventually, Wandsworth was dragged kicking and screaming to ask for 25
per cent. affordable housing, and now it grudgingly provides 33 per
cent. when 50 per cent. is
demanded.
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend is right. There may be wider
underlying fundamental disagreements about policy, which are often the
real issues that divide us in politics, and we should not necessarily
hide them behind
structures.
There may
be real disagreements and hostility from Conservative boroughs to
levels of affordable housing. At a national level, I know that the hon.
Member for Surrey Heath has echoed my concerns that 200,000 new homes a
year should be built. However, he also knows that many London boroughs
are anxious about the overall level of house building and have rather
different views on new affordable housing. The hon. Gentleman was
enthusiastic in his endorsement of Wandsworth council, but, like my
hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, I
caution him on simply accepting a briefing from an individual council
and endorsing it so enthusiastically. The figures that I have from the
GLA suggest that in Wandsworth in 2004-05 only 20 per cent. of new
homes were affordable housing, and figures from the Housing Corporation
suggest that only nine new social rented homes were built in the whole
of Wandsworth in 2005-06. I accept that there are limitations on any
set of figures and that the figures will count different types of
housing in different ways. Nevertheless, I seriously caution the hon.
Member for Surrey Heath in being so enthusiastic in his support for
Wandsworth.
Mr.
Hands:
Equally, the Minister should be careful about whom
she chooses in this debate, because I think that the Mayor of London
has got things fundamentally wrong. If one looks at the Prestolite site
in Hammersmith and Fulham, which has been much discussed today, the
Mayor of London rejected 65 per cent. of the content of the
scheme—bear in mind that it seems that the rejected scheme will
not be built. There will be no affordable homes at all as it currently
stands. The Mayor’s own office
said:
“On
balance, the application will deliver substantial numbers of affordable
homes, significantly above the overall strategic targets for
boroughs.”
Why is the
Minister endorsing that
approach?
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman’s example, which has
been much raised, is perhaps more relevant to the planning powers that
we will discuss next week. I think that he knows that Ministers are
restricted in the way in which they can comment on individual planning
cases, which, for example, may go through the system of
appeal.
Mr.
Slaughter:
The solution to the negotiations between the
Mayor and the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is quite simple.
If Hammersmith and Fulham council agrees to a reasonable tenure split
of housing on the site, the scheme can be built tomorrow. It would be
being built had, as I think that I have made clear, it not been for
unacceptable political intervention not by the Mayor, but by the leader
of the council in Hammersmith and Fulham.
Yvette
Cooper:
My hon. Friend has made important points, subject
to the caveat that I cannot comment in detail on individual cases that
may still be live within the planning system. At the heart of this is
the anxiety among Conservative Members about the Mayor taking a view at
all on the overall level of social and affordable housing—and
housing in general—needed across the city. Instead, their
proposal is that this should be decided, as they put it in amendment
No.66, which I have now seen, by negotiation between London boroughs
and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has a clear role in
their amendment and would have to take a strategic view in the absence
of the Mayor being able to do
so.
We need to
recognise that decisions about housing, particularly major decisions
about the level of overall affordable or social housing in one borough,
have implications for the city as a whole. The way in which the London
housing market works reflects the London labour market and the fact
that millions of people travel every day from one borough to another
from where they live to where they work. Millions of people will move
around during the course of their lives to live in one borough and then
another and perhaps to move in and out of London
altogether.
There are
issues that affect London and the London housing market as a whole, and
there are issues around the way in which the London housing market
works that affect the national housing market and the national economy.
That is why it is important to retain a role for the Secretary of
State, because if the Mayor
and the London boroughs between them decided, for example, substantially
to reduce new housing built in London and new affordable housing in
London, it would have a substantial effect on the London economy and
the housing market of neighbouring regions.
The way in
which the housing market is linked between one region and another is
important and has national repercussions. It would be irresponsible of
the Secretary of State not to have some role in recognising the
implications that go beyond the city, whether it be for the London
economy, the wider national economy or the wider housing market.
Similarly, decisions in one borough can impact on decisions in another.
We know, for example, that if all the Conservative boroughs decided
tomorrow to halve the level of new affordable housing in their
boroughs, it would have a substantial impact on not only residents of
those boroughs but those who are on low incomes or who cannot afford to
buy their own homes in neighbouring
boroughs.
That
is why this is an important matter for the Mayor to take a view on and
why a London housing strategy is important. I say to Opposition Members
that the sum of affordable housing proposed by the individual London
boroughs does not reach the level of housing needed in London as a
whole—
5
pm
Michael
Gove:
Will the Minister give
way?
Yvette
Cooper:
No, this is my final point. If one simply takes
the sum of the affordable housing proposed by the individual London
boroughs, one would not reach the level of affordable housing needed by
the city as a whole. That is why it is important for someone to take
that overall strategic view, not simply to look at the individual
boroughs. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. That strategic
view should be taken by the Mayor rather than by the Secretary of
State.
Michael
Gove:
Having once again set up an Aunt Sally, the Minister
is now drawing a chimera with the illusion that Conservative councils
are somehow standing in the way of housing developments. The facts tell
a different story. In central London, the two boroughs with the best
performance in delivering housing—they are both increasing their
delivery and exceeding their targets—are Wandsworth and
Westminster. The best-performing borough in north London is Barnet. The
worst-performing authorities are Lambeth and Waltham Forest, which are
both
Labour-controlled.
In
my comments I try to refrain from making partisan points. It is a pity
that the Minister has not, but as she has put her head in that noose, I
am afraid that it is tightening around her neck rather
uncomfortably.
Yvette
Cooper:
The hon. Gentleman should be slightly cautious in
quoting housing supply responses by London boroughs, as he will know
from the 2005-06 figures that the worst-performing borough was
Kensington and Chelsea. He should be rather more cautious about quoting
figures on attitudes to housing and affordable housing.
The hon.
Gentleman and I probably share a common support for additional new
housing throughout the country. We disagree in that I think that it is
also right to support the mechanisms to deliver those additional homes,
whereas he would rather simply proclaim his support for them without
being quite so enthusiastic about explaining how and where they should
be delivered or what should happen if they are not.
[
Interruption.
] The hon. Gentleman is right. I
forgot; the hon. Member for Surrey Heath did say that he thought that
all the homes should instead be built on farmland. However, he was
contradicted just a few weeks later by his right hon. Friend the Member
for Witney—who I agree has not had quite enough mentions in this
Committee—who said that he was strongly against “the
metropolitans”, by which I presume he means the hon. Member for
Surrey Heath, who wanted farmers to grow only crops of concrete.
Although it was in fact a nice turn of phrase that I would normally
have attributed to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, given his
enthusiasm for speechwriting and oratory—I always presumed that
he would contribute to the speeches of the right hon. Member for
Witney—I thought that it was pushing his internal contradictions
too far to come up with a phrase criticising
himself.
To be fair,
the hon. Gentleman has occasionally suggested locations for homes, but
he has not been realistic about the mechanisms by which we can ensure
that they are delivered in practice, given the restrictions inevitably
and rightly placed through the planning system that prevent the market
from simply delivering all the homes that we
need.
Martin
Linton:
Do I take it from what the Minister said that the
hon. Member for Surrey Heath volunteered his constituency as the site
of a new
town?
Yvette
Cooper:
He did not. However, I noticed that in the same
article he attacked the Dartford warblers and nightjars that are, to be
fair to him, restraining and preventing development in his
constituency.
Opposition
Members have moved a series of amendments that do not even achieve
their own purposes. The Government do not agree with them. We think
them to be counter-productive. These are sensible measures to give a
stronger strategic voice to the Mayor rather than the Secretary of
State on housing issues affecting the capital. Clearly, this is simply
about strategic housing issues rather than local housing questions,
which must be matters for the borough. We think that the framework and
the balance are right, so I urge the Committee to reject the
amendments.
Michael
Gove:
I am sorry that the Minister feels it necessary to
reject the amendments, which were intended to fulfil the overall spirit
of the Bill as a devolutionary document. When it was introduced by the
Secretary of State, that was her stated intention. I am sorry that the
Minister feels incapable of accepting them, but given the hour, it is
perhaps appropriate that as she has expressed her opinion, we should
have an opportunity to cast our votes.
Question put,
That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee proceeded to a
Division.
Yvette
Cooper:
On a point of order, Mr. O’Hara.
Will you clarify whether we are voting on amendment No.
19?
The
Chairman:
We are voting on Opposition amendment No.
19.
The
Committee having divided: Ayes 5, Noes
9.
Division
No.
11
]
Smith,
Ms Angela C. (Sheffield,
Hillsborough)
Question
accordingly negatived.
The
Chairman:
I understand that the hon. Member for Surrey
Heath wishes to press amendment No. 20 to a
Division.
Michael
Gove:
Given our failure on amendment No. 19, we
appreciate that amendment No. 22, by implication, has fallen. However,
we should like to press amendment No. 20 to a
Division.
Amendment proposed: No.
20, in page 30, line 24, leave out from beginning to end of line 22
onpage 31.—[Michael
Gove.]
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes
8.
Division
No.
12
]
Smith,
Ms Angela C. (Sheffield,
Hillsborough)
Question
accordingly negatived.
Clause 28
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Further
consideration adjourned.—[Jonathan
Shaw.]
Adjourned
accordingly at eight minutes past Five o'clock till Tuesday 16 January
at half-past Ten
o'clock.
| 
