HOUSING, TOTTENHAM (Hansard, 16 December 1959)

§ Mrs. Joyce Butler (Wood Green)

I am very glad to have this opportunity of raising the problem of housing in my constituency, especially that part of it which is within the Borough of Tottenham, because the housing problem looms large in Tottenham. I shall confine my remarks in the short time at my disposal to a number of points on which I think that the Minister of Housing and Local Government can give some assistance in alleviating the problem. It is always assumed that local authorities can get on with the job of coping with the housing problems of this country and they have to do the best they can within the limits laid down by the Government; but very seldom do we have an opportunity of asking the Minister for his assistance on specific points.

The first specific matter I wish to put to the Minister relates to slum clearance. Tottenham has a considerable slum clearance programme. There are today 800 families awaiting rehousing from slum clearance schemes, some of which have been approved and some of which are awaiting approval. There may be another 600 or so families within a very short time whose homes are to be represented to the Minister as needing clearance. Very many of these slum clearance houses come within the Wood Green constituency although they are in the Borough of Tottenham.

Unfortunately, a certain slowing down of the slum clearance programme has taken place. I think that this is common throughout the country. In reply to a Question I put to the Minister on 24th November, he said that slum clearance was proceeding at the rate of 60,000 houses a year, and he hoped that it would continue at that rate for the next ten years, which rate would be necessary to deal with the clearance of all slum properties. If there is this general slowing down or a tendency in that direction, obviously, before the present slum houses have been cleared, at the end of ten years, we shall find ourselves with fresh houses needing attention, and 1612 we shall never get the job done. The matter is, therefore, a serious one.

Some of the causes of the slowing down of the programme are the Minister's responsibility. One of them has been rather acute during the summer, namely, the shortage of bricks. I have already drawn the Minister's attention to this as being partly his responsibility because of the cut in the housing programme at the time of the credit squeeze, which led to firms going out of business in the brick industry and, eventually, to a shortage of bricks when the Minister subsequently asked local authorities to expand their programme again. The shortage has eased, but it has meant a slowing down of the programme. In Tottenham, there has been some difficulty with contractors, also.

There is, however, another way in which I think the Minister can help considerably. Slum clearance is not a very straightforward operation. It is not just a matter of pulling houses down. It involves a very complicated dovetailing of clearance with rebuilding, and, very often, all the families from one area have to be divided up into separate groups for rehousing because of the size of their family units. Many of them are often elderly people, who go to special elderly persons' accommodation All this is a very complicated arrangement. If there is delay in carrying out slum clearance, it can mean considerable additional complications in an already complicated situation.

The Minister has to approve slum clearance schemes. He has to hold an inquiry and then confirm or otherwise whether a scheme is to proceed. It is here, I think, that he could be of great assistance if he could speed up the procedure. It is a common experience that he takes much too long, in the opinion of the local authorities, in, first of all, holding an inquiry and then confirming a scheme. I emphasise that houses are not represented as being ready for clearance until they really are in a rather shocking condition. Therefore, any delay which follows means that families have to continue to live in very bad houses for much longer than they need.

I have here a letter from such a family to illustrate what this means in human terms. They live in property which is to be represented to the Minister very 1613 shortly. The lady gives the address and, writing, as she says, on behalf of her children, she tells me: I have got four rooms for six children, one boy five girls; two rooms I cannot use fir dampness. All the bedclothes are thick with damp, and I have got the two young children down with bronchitis. I have had the doctor in, and he said it is a disgrace for children to live there. So I have got eight of us in one room". She cannot use the others because of the dampness. I have been ill on and off myself. I have had pneumonia and the boy has had it also. The property is very, very old and it is beyond repair and the roof is finished, and now I have got damp coming through in the kitchen, I don't think it is right for young children, for they are still young, and they get no chance in a place like this. I did not want to write to you but I feel I have got to do something … That is the kind of letter I get over and over again from people who are living in property of this kind. The local authority could make representations about such property more rapidly if the speed of slum clearance could be increased. But instead of being increased it is being slowed down, and this is something about which I think that the Minister could help if he would. Even when the case to which I have referred is represented, it may be something like two years before the procedure is completed, buildings pulled down and the family rehoused.

The problem of homeless families has worried me a good deal. I have raised this matter in the House on previous occasions. No record is kept in Tottenham of the homeless families which have been found accommodation by the council, but it has rehoused hundreds over the last few years. Last year fifty-six such families were referred to the Middlesex County Council. Such cases go to the county council only when it has not been possible to do anything for them locally or with the help of friends and relatives.

The great problem is that such cases are shuttled from one authority to another. The families approach the borough council which often has to say, "No, we cannot rehouse you, because if we did, it would mean that there would be fewer houses for those on the waiting list for houses." So they go to the county council, which can do very little, because its welfare homes are 1614 chock-a-block with those homeless families who have gone there and remained because there is nowhere else for them to go.

If nothing else can be done for a family, it means that the mother and the children have to go into a temporary hostel for three or four weeks and the father has to find his own accommodation. This often means that the family is broken up. Very often families who have been evicted refuse to take this course, however desperate their condition, because they are afraid of the consequences.

One such case which I referred to the Minister involved the British Transport Commission. I asked the Minister if he could help and I approached the Commission and the local authority. The case went backwards and forwards, and eventually I had a letter from the area welfare officer of the county council who said I should be interested to know that the bailiff went in on 2nd December and enforced an eviction order in the case of this couple who had not been able to find alternative accommodation. The wife is bedridden. Now she has been admitted to a residential establishment and the husband, who has secured temporary lodgings, is endeavouring to find suitable accommodation for himself and his wife. There is no prospect of finding such accommodation and the couple are getting on in years, so that family will be broken up. It seems tragic that this should happen to a bedridden wife who needs the comfort and support of her husband.

In another case the family refused to go to temporary accommodation because they were anxious not to be parted. The husband had been on probation. He was now working hard and keeping the family together with the help of the probation officer. His family were evicted but they refused to be separated and spent several nights walking the streets. Now the wife is in a mental home. The husband is carrying on working, but the probation officer does not know how long he can continue working. The net result will probably be that he will break down again, and, finally, if that happens, that the children will have to go into the care of the county council

That is the sort of thing that happens to these families when no suitable 1615 accommodation can be found for them. It is not anybody's fault. It is not the fault of the borough councils because they have their housing problems. It is not the fault of the county councils because they are doing their best to provide welfare accommodation in great difficulties.

It seems to me that this problem is likely to get worse for the simple reason that in Tottenham, as in other areas, the half-way houses which have been used for the accommodation of homeless families are requisitioned properties, and, as the Minister knows, these requisitioned properties will be given up in March next year. In Tottenham, as in many other places, they will be closed as half-way houses and will go out of existence.

I also understand that in Middlesex one voluntary society which has provided hostel accommodation for the homeless is also giving up that accommodation which, I understand, provided the Middlesex County Council with about eleven places. Therefore, the problem is not getting any easier.

I am asking the Minister to see whether it is possible for his Ministry to look at this problem of homeless families. There are a great many people, welfare officers and officers of voluntary societies who have been running hostels and doing a good deal of social work on these cases, who have a wide experience of the need and of how it can be met.

I really do not think that in this year —we are nearly at the end of 1959—it is economic, humane or sensible to allow these families to be evicted without proper provision being made or real responsibility taken for finding them homes. I do not think that we ought to allow this sort of thing to go on, and so I ask the Minister to give special attention to the problem. I am sure that there are enough people to help the Minister with the problem and to find a solution to it. I believe that one can be found.

Most of these families are evicted through no fault of their own. Even when they are evicted because of arrears of rent, this is sometimes because they have mistakenly withheld rent in order to force the landlords to do repairs. They may have withheld it wrongly, but 1616 sometimes they cannot think of any other way of getting the repairs done.

I ask the Minister particularly to see whether there is any way at all of preventing the eviction of elderly and infirm people. I raised this point both on the Rant Bill and on the Landlord and Tenant Bill. I again ask the Minister to see whether there is any way of amending the legislation so as to prevent the eviction of elderly and infirm people who, in the very nature of things, not only cannot find other accommodation but upon whom the shock of being removed from their homes has very serious effects.

The last point I wish to raise is the problem of the housing waiting list. Tottenham has 4,245 applicants on its housing list. I hope that the Minister is not going to judge from that fact that there has been a sudden improvement in Tottenham's housing position. The last time that I quoted a figure for Tottenham in the House it was very much higher. What has happened is that the borough council has re-examined its housing waiting list, and this figure of over 4,000 is the hard core of its problem.

Comparatively very few families are even taken off the housing waiting list. There are only three ways in which they can come off the list and be rehoused. One is through casual vacancies in existing council houses. Another is if they are lucky eough to get into a new town. As the Minister knows, the new towns are getting towards the end of their building programme to deal with families coming in from outside, and that applies particularly to those towns to which families from the north Middlesex area have been going. The third way is if the council can build outside its borders. There is virtually no building land left inside the Borough of Tottenham, apart from slum clearance. There is a small scheme approved at Cheshunt, but beyond that there is no hope of building outside the county without some assistance.

I have repeatedly asked the Minister whether he will assist Middlesex with the problem of overspill. The Parliamentary Secretary will know that the negotiations for a new town for Middlesex broke down virtually because of the difficulty of establishing the 1617 necessary machinery with the county council, which has no housing powers, and district councils, some of whom were in acute housing need and others of whom were not in such need. There was difficulty in getting a machine which covered those three groups. At present, the attempt to do that has broken down just because of this difficulty.

How does the Minister intend to help overcome this problem of overspill as affecting Tottenham and other Middlesex authorities? Is he prepared to authorise a new town under the New Towns Act? He has refused many times. Is he prepared to reconsider this? If not, his only alternative is to consider whether to increase the density of building in such areas as Tottenham. That would be a retrograde step, and I hope that is not the Minister's solution. If neither of these is his solution, what does he intend to do? This is a problem which cannot be solved by Tottenham unaided. It is a[...] acute problem, and I hope that the Minister will provide an answer.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph)

The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) has left me only a very few minutes in which to cover her meaty, sympathetic and constructive speech. I did not know exactly what she was going to raise, but I came prepared to compliment Tottenham on what it has already achieved in the way of slum clearance. In 1955 Tottenham found that it had nearly 2,200 unfit houses and it proposed to deal with 1,280 in the first five-year period. It has already dealt with 728, which is a very respectable performance.

Slum clearance in this country, particularly where most unfit houses are concentrated, may well take ten years or even more. One must view the problem in perspective. There were originally 850,000 unfit houses. We have already tackled a large number. In ten years we are building probably as many as 3,000,000 new homes, so that the slum clearance problem and the housing of the population should be vastly changed in five, and certainly in ten, years' time.

There is no question whatsoever of a slowing down of slum clearance. The figures this year will be very much the same as those for last year, and we expect 1618 the trend to continue. I accept entirely that slum clearance is a very complex operation, requiring detailed and skilled management to make it successful. If there is occasional delay in my right hon. Friend's Department in approving slum clearance schemes, it is only because the processes of the law require the protection of many citizens' rights. The law lays down certain processes which cannot be hurried. It is true, also, that we are looking at any one time at hundreds of different slum clearance applications, and the inspectorate is often overwhelmed. We are enlarging the inspectorate. If the hon. Lady knows of any particular case of delay, I should be most grateful if she would give me the details, and I will inquire into it.

The question the hon. Lady raised about the homeless is extremely important. I do not desire for a moment to evade it by quoting a circular, but it is a fact that all the things she and I want were made abundantly clear in Circular 17/59 which my right hon. Friend and the Minister of Health issued on 18th March, 1959. It particularly urged local authorities to anticipate any danger of eviction so as to keep the family together and not, if at all humanly possible, permit the family to be broken up. This is especially important where there is an infirm or elderly person in the family, or young children. It is a desperate tragedy if a family has to be broken up in this way, and I assure the hon. Lady that I do appreciate the disastrous consequences that may occur.

Local authorities, through their housing officers, should be able to anticipate such cases and, wherever possible, they should call in one of the public or voluntary services that exist, and which are nearly always able and willing to help and to anticipate trouble, and so avoid such eviction.

For those threatened with eviction from furnished or unfurnished lodgings there are various protections under the Rent Act, or from the rent tribunals, which can often meet cases of hardship. I do not know the case to which the hon. Lady referred. I can assure her that my Department is seeing what can be done, but I am afraid that I can hold out no hope of being able to do a great deal until we know more about it.

These cases of eviction result from the overcrowding that still exists, and 1619 the answer is to get on with building—and I shall come to Tottenham's chances there in a moment. I do not believe that the situation will get worse. It is quite true that Tottenham has done quite well with its derequisitioning programme, and as derequisitioning comes to its climax and final full stop in March of next year, more families will have to change their accommodation. But, at the same time, during that period many more houses will be built.

In the meantime, all I can say about these homeless is that I very much welcome the fact that the hon. Lady had drawn attention to the subject and that I will, in my turn, where necessary draw the attention of local authorities again to the Circular of 18th March, 1959, which sets our the main anticipatory treatment that local authorities are able, and should be willing and ready to give in cases where such tragic circumstances might occur.

I do not believe that in this country, whether through private voluntary bodies or through the public services such as the National Assistance Board, the Ministries, and the Part III accommodation which the local authorities control, there is any lack of resources to deal with this comparatively small number of tragic families—because I think that the hon. Lady will agree that it is a comparatively small number.

I come now to what Tottenham can do to relieve its own overcrowding problem. The housing waiting list there is 4,200, but it is probably fair to say that there is some duplication in that figure with other local authorities. I think that it is probably reasonable to presume that half of them stand in extremely urgent need.

As the hon. Lady knows, there are, at the moment, no less than 500 houses under construction in Tottenham—or for Tottenham. In addition, another 87 1620 houses have been authorised though their construction has not yet begun. On top of that, there are 33 acres available to Tottenham for building, either in the Borough or, as the hon. Lady has rightly said, in Cheshunt. That area should supply another 700 dwellings, at least, so there are now 1,300 houses in hand, or houses for which land is immediately available towards supplying the need of the 2,100 desperately urgent cases on Tottenham's waiting list.

In addition, as the hon. Lady knows, there are facilities for people to go to the new and expanding towns, and I would remind her that Tottenham has already sent 1,500 families either to new towns or to the expanding towns of Bletchley and Swindon. My right hon. Friend and the Government supply a subsidy for people moving to new and expanding towns, and I would only ask her to urge her local authority to do one more thing that it has not been doing with its normal vigour, and that is to build more for old people. That, too, attracts subsidy and, in addition to helping the old people, often releases for others from overcrowded dwellings accommodation that the old people have not been fully using.

Therefore, to the hon. Lady and to the old people for whom she speaks, I would offer the hope that lies in the fact that Tottenham has already very nearly 600 houses under construction and land for another 700. I would add that by slum clearance, new towns and expanding towns—quite apart from the vast surge of private building which, though it does not necessarily go to those who are worse off does release accommodation for them—there is ample hope that the progress already achieved will speed up, and bring quick satisfaction to those now on Tottenham's waiting list.