HOUSING, NOTTING HILL (Hansard, 15 May 1969)

§ Mr. Arthur Jones (Northants, South)

Notting Hill in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is a crisis area in which the long history of bad housing is taking its toll. The brunt of the overcrowding problem is borne by families of no greater than average size. In fact, this experience is general throughout the country.

The Interim Housing Survey, to which I wish to draw the attention of the House, states in paragraph 147 on page 77 . that about 75 per cent. of all statutory overcrowding is accounted for by households with three children or less. So we are dealing not with families where there is an excessive number of children but with those in average circumstances.

North Kensington, or Notting Hill as it is widely known, has been a crisis area since the 1840s. The OFFICIAL REPORT in 1849 recorded The majority of the houses are of the most wretched class, many being mere hovels in a ruinous condition, and are generally densely populated. In 1856 a Ministry of Health Report referred to One of the most deplorable spots, not only in Kensington, but in the whole Metropolis. Finally, the census report of 1969 reads: Single room lettings in multi-occupied dwellings between 1951 and 1961 more than doubled in North Kensington. In addition to the appalling housing circumstances, there is a notable absence of social provision. In fact, from a visit there any one can see clearly that squalor prevails generally.

1836 The area which is now the Golborne Ward, in which the worst overcrowding occurs, was built to provide accommodation for the working class in the 1860s. Added to the physical deterioration of the properties, it has been a focal point and "reception area" in which the underprivileged have congregated. This has happened over a very long period. Conditions there are not the result of recent immigration, which cannot be pleaded in mitigation.

The Notting Hill Summer Project 1967, the Interim Report, which has given rise to this debate, is founded upon the devoted work of a large number of people, some of whom give their whole time to community activity in Notting Hill. This project grew out of the Community Work Shop founded by George Clark in 1965 and formed part of the Notting Hill Social Council. This had been founded earlier in 1960 to keep together all the social agencies in the area and flourishes today under the leadership of the Rev. David Mason. Miss Illys Booker was actively involved in community development work until her death last January at the early age of 41. The Council also sponsored the Notting Hill Adventure Playground, in which Mr. Pat Smythe plays a leading role. It is interesting to visit it and see the facilities developed there.

The more recently formed Notting Hill Housing Service set up as the result of the Summer Project and the survey which has been produced aims to provide an advisory service to tenants in the area with a view to ensuring that they have information about their statutory rights and that it is available to all residents of the area. The chairman of this service is Mr. Donald Chesworth and the director is George Clark.

This Interim Report "Notting Hill Summer Project" is the result of a survey conducted in August, 1967, a highly organised operation which included 150 interviewers, necessary for organising a detailed scrutiny of the coverage and accuracy of the questionnaires.

The cost of carrying out and organising the interviewing was about £3,000, all of which was raised by public appeal, much of it being contributed by the volunteers themselves. The Summer Project as a whole cost about £4,000. The data processing was conducted by the social research unit at Sussex University, financed 1837 out of grants made by the Nuffield Foundation and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The interviewers were all volunteers, the majority being undergraduates from some 18 universities.

The Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has the highest density of population in London, 72.3 persons per acre, and is the smallest London borough in terms of land area. Notting Hill, which comprises North Kensington, has no fewer than 134 persons to the acre. Paragraph 30 on page 13 of the report states: Nearly three quarters of all household spaces are privately rented … the sharpest contrast of all between the Kensington and Chelsea tenure pattern and circumstances elsewhere is the large percentage of furnished accommodation, nearly 35 per cent. against the national average of 2 per cent. and an average of 4 per cent. for Greater London as a whole. This highlights the particular circumstances to which I wish to draw attention.

This, as will be well known, is the area of multi-occupation and exploitation where Rachman ran his disastrous course. In a report to the Royal Borough Council, the planning committee on 10th December last, referring to the Golborne and Colville areas, said that they: have become a reservoir of cheap privately rented accommodation, the houses are divided inadequately into furnished rooms, furnished and unfurnished flats without additional sanitary and other amenities. In Golborne, children make up nearly one-third of the population and as such are the major sufferers from the inadequate housing and other services. It is deprivation in terms not only of living accommodation, education and health but of a quality of life which is a reflection on our society.

The Government's recently announced urban programme—and I am grateful to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for the reply which he gave me to Questions on these subjects—was designed to give emergency assistance to areas of grave need. In a Parliamentary Question on 30th January, 1969, the Home Office announced—as reported in columns 365 and 366 of HANSARD—that under the first phase of the urban programme the project approved for Kensington was a children's home provided at a figure of £53,000. This is a highly desirable scheme, but it is one of the smallest allo- 1838 cations of capital sums in the list of approved capital projects, in the Greater London area.

It is clear in the reply from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to my Written Question of 11th February, 1969, that nothing further is planned for Kensington but that consideration is being given to what projects might be included in the latter phases of the programme. This is but a crumb of comfort to those having to cope with the problems in Notting Hill.

I will refer only briefly to the implications for race relations. These are important. In fact, 26.9 per cent. of the residents of Kensington and Chelsea were born outside the United Kingdom. In North Kensington the largest group born outside the United Kingdom are West Indians—16.1 per cent. Of this group, 63.5 per cent. live in furnished lodgings in multiple-occupied accommodation. On average they pay much more than United Kingdom-born residents by way of rent. About one-third of the West Indians pay £6 to £7 a week in rent for grossly overcrowded conditions. We read in paragraph 102 on page 51 of the Initial Housing Survey, Coloured families pay more for their accommodation than do white families. I turn to the Government's housing policy. This comment applies not only to the policies which have been followed by the present Government but to those followed by Conservative Administrations, too.

Despite the initiatives which both parties have taken in housing, little is being achieved in improving housing standards throughout the country and, indeed, nothing in such places as Notting Hill. On the Second Reading of the Housing Subsidies Bill on 15th December, 1966, the Minister said: The basis of our housing policy is twofold—first, to overcome the immediate and appalling need for more houses to let at reasonable rents, and, secondly, to help people to own their own homes. Our new Bill is based on that policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1966; Vol. 738, c. 666.] The Housing Bill, 1969, which has just completed its Committee stage, contains proposals for new and increased grants for the acquisition, improvement and conversion of older houses and the areas in which they are situated. In my view, again, this will not help places such as 1839 Notting Hill; it will make no contribution to the circumstances there.

The problems are those experienced in a score or so of black spots or crisis areas throughout the country. In a recent visit to Liverpool with the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, I saw conditions in one such area—District 8—and although it is not comparable in physical terms, because of the clearance areas in London, the properties which remain in that area are over-occupied and in multiple occupation similar to those found in Notting Hill. I see that Mr. Cutler, Chairman of the Housing Committee of the G.L.C., speaking in Hammersmith Town Hall today at the annual regional conference of the National Housing and Town Planning Council is reported to have said: I believe there are much worse places in London than Notting Hill. I mention those areas but I am sure—and I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) will agree with me in this respect, particularly with his knowledge of London—that there are other areas in London in which this deplorable state of affairs exists, as, indeed, it exists in other cities, particularly those which bore the brunt of the Industrial Revolution. Surely it is time we turned the direction of subsidies in the housing field to selected areas such as these rather than distributing on a non-selective basis, encouraging local authority building where needs are nothing like as great, leaving the crisis areas such as Notting Hill comparatively untouched.

We need a system of comprehensive renewal techniques across both the public and the private sectors and all that that term implies in clearance, rebuilding and renovation and conversion—a task, I think, beyond the capacity of the housing authorities in which these great problems exist. I listened with interest to the speech earlier today by the hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. George Rogers), in whose constituency Notting Hill lies. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a measure of this problem is beyond the capacity of the borough. This is not a reflection on the borough itself. It is really an emphasis of the degree of the problem with which it is faced.

Where these circumstances exist in London, clearly the help of the G.L.C. 1840 is required, particularly to meet the requirements for re-housing which are essentially associated with urban renewal. Urban renewal on this basis calls for a much broader concept of the function of the local housing authorities.

My plea is for a recognition of the limited number of intensely deprived areas, which I think it would not be difficult to identify, and for a concentration of resources for housing, education and social need, the initiative for which must come from the Government. The only effective policy is a concentration of resources, which I am sure would be acceptable to the country as a whole, and offer hope to those who are living out their lives in the appalling conditions clearly demonstrated in this Report.

I am sure that the House would wish to pay tribute to those responsible for the Notting Hill Summer Project, not only those engaged on the inquiry for the Report, but the many members of the voluntary bodies in Notting Hill which are tackling the serious housing and social conditions which are found there—a continuing commitment for many of them. Those responsible for this invaluable work and the hopes they have for future inquiries and programmes cannot be maintained by voluntary effort alone, although they are, perhaps, best organised by people using the voluntary principle. It is hoped that the Government will feel that they can help the Project in its future work—the Government have helped in the past, but further assistance is required—with both money and resources so that a true partnership between these voluntary organisations and Government can be maintained and extended. A new kind of community coalition is in a formative stage, and it is hoped that the Government will give what encouragement and help they can.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) in the tribute he paid to the very devoted work put in by those who organised the survey. As he and I know from organising elections, there is nothing more difficult than organising voluntary workers and getting them to work effectively. It was a very remarkable piece of 1841 organisation that the Project was able to do that. It has produced a very valuable insight into the problems of this area, problems which people who know London, and particularly that part of West London, would not find surprising, although they find the details extremely important and absorbing.

If I were to make any criticism of the hon. Gentleman's speech, it would be that he called for a revision of subsidies and for a new and comprehensive approach to urban problems but did not show any indication that he was aware of what the existing powers are that could be used. It is a little unfair to both the previous and the present Government to imply that nothing has been done to improve the legislation and fashion an instrument to do an effective job. The 1961 Act, of which I was a very severe critic, the 1964 Act, which was very much better, and our present Bill, which I hope will become the 1969 Act, together provide many opportunities for the detailed work both of obtaining effective management by management orders on multi-occupied property and of registering it to keep it under control, putting a limit on the numbers in a house, and preventing others taking the place of those who move out. These are important problems which a local authority should tackle.

The problem of clearing and redeveloping an area of intense overcrowding is not insoluble. The ward in Paddington which I represented for many years, only a short distance from the ward with which we are now concerned, was as bad as any part of London. It had the highest infantile mortality rate in London. There was appalling overcrowding in the whole area. That has been redeveloped and today there is very little left of the horrible problems that existed before the war. This was done very largely by the London County Council taking the area over and using its resources to re-develop the area.

If that were the only problem involved I do not think it would be difficult to tackle much more of Kensington than has been tackled, but there is still the difficult problem of what happens to the people. As long as there is a densely overcrowded population one must find somewhere to re-house people. That is the most difficult problem in the 1842 mechanics of the work, but I should have thought that local government in London could tackle it. London local government has been re-organised. London is not an area like Liverpool, which the hon. Gentleman quoted. My constituency is on Merseyside, and I know the difficulties, where there has not been a reorganisation of local government, of obtaining sites for dealing with overspill and so on. The previous Government decided that the Greater London Council was an effective unit. It has immense resources of men, and technical resources, and the quality of its staff is high. It should not be beyond it to tackle the problems of the grossly overcrowded areas in the middle of the metropolis. It has a much less difficult problem, relatively, than some other parts of the country.

I do not want to take time in criticising the London borough, because I hope that it will be possible to persuade it to do rather more than it is doing. It has not been energetic in what it has done. In no year has it achieved its housing programme—not just what we should have liked it to do, but what it had undertaken to do. I agree that slum clearance, redevelopment and rebuilding do not solve all one's problems. Such action leaves many difficult ones, but it is something with which one must start.

My right hon. Friend has invited the G.L.C. and the Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council to talk to him frankly about their problems and the weaknesses and lacunas in the legislation. From experience over many years I have told people that the time had arrived, under whatever government, when new housing legislation would be introduced and that the time to make constructive comments was then, not after the legislation had been passed. After the 1961 Act many people came along and asked for something better, more effective. We have gone to a great deal of trouble in the current legislation to deal with area improvements, to enable bigger grants to be paid. This provides substantial financial assistance.

The hon. Gentleman said we should concentrate particularly on the urban areas. To some extent that happens indirectly, because the fact that there is a cost yardstick which is very much 1843 bigger for London than the rest of the country—and we are dealing with improving the grant conditions for older houses, particularly in London—means that a larger subsidy is paid for new house construction than in the rest of the country. The Government are already able to pay very much more. What is holding up house building is not the reluctance of the Government to give approvals, or any failure of the Government to provide contributions by subsidies. London has been a priority area ever since 1964. We have said that we shall be glad to see authorities building the maximum number of houses, and that we shall back them. I hope that they will act on this.

I do not under-estimate the difficulties. The resources available, in legislation, finance and skill are rather greater than the hon. Gentleman suggested. The important thing is to see how the most effective use can be made 1844 of the existing legislation for dealing with multiple occupation, rent protection, prevention of harassment and so on. My right hon. Friend is anxious to co-operate with the G.L.C. and the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the local people, who have done so much devoted work. One of the things we mention in the legislation is that an improvement area should not be something laid down from the top, either by local authorities or by other outside people, but should be discussed and prepared by interested local societies and organisations. That is the way to get a real interest in these things. I hope that out of the unhappy and tragic situation revealed by this report we shall get a new desire and strength to take advantage of the resources available to solve some of these terrible problems.