§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Graham.]
§ 4.36 p.m.
§ Mr. Brian Sedgemore (Luton, West)The local Labour Party in Luton is deeply concerned about the bad housing policies of the Conservative Party in Luton. That is why a number of Labour councillors, led by Eric Haldane, together with myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton. East (Mr. Clemitson) 1899 had a meeting with the Minister at the House of Commons. This meeting was held last Thursday and was very serious and constructive. However, the fact that it was held at all produced paroxysms of rage from the Conservative housing chairman. One only has to look at the reports in the Evening Post and the Luton News to see the extent and the vulgarity of his outburst. Such behaviour can only discredit the town and its council.
The Conservative council has refused to ask for stress area status despite the fact that the Minister has indicated that he would be willing to consider it. Discredit and shame come from the fact that the Conservative Party policy is wrecking the housing programme drawn up by Labour. Discredit comes from the fact that there have been three rent increases totalling £1.50 in a year, and that there have been repeated attacks on people in rented accommodation—attacks that have been led by a mayor who lives in rented accommodation owned by a charitable trust. In the past he has led representations to get his own rent reduced while at the same time glorifying in the suffering resulting from raising the rents of council tenants to extortionate levels.
Discredit comes also from a deliberate attempt not to build for young married couples. Indeed, there are barely 50 new homes for them in the latest programme. When I consider that in the 12 months ending 31st October 1976 there were 1,088 new applicants for the general waiting list, 376 new applicants on the single person waiting list and 350 new applicants on the elderly list, I am completely at a loss to know what it is that motivates the Conservative council to turn its back on the problems involved, and, like Pontius Pilate, to wash its hands of the suffering that will follow.
But these are strange times when it comes to housing in Luton and elsewhere. Up and down the country Conservative councils are ignoring and/or distorting the housing need. They seek to define housing need in terms of waiting lists, although they know that in most towns housing needs are much worse than anything the waiting lists suggest. They are ignoring the problems of multi-occupation, lack of amenities and overcrowding, and they seek to play down housing needs as expressed by the waiting list.
1900 In Luton this had led the housing chairman to deceive the public by claiming that 40 per cent. of those on the waiting list are not in housing need. Allegedly there are statistics and a list to support this claim, but no councillor that I know has seen the list or the statistics. My letters to the town clerk have produced evasion. I have asked for the names and addresses on a random basis of the 600 families allegedly not in need—the total waiting list is 4,000—so that some research can be done to check the claim. This request has produced further evasion. Why is it that Luton's Conservative councillors fear legitimate research? Do they fear that the big lie will be exposed?
Then, of course, there is the question of the Bramingham Wood development, about which I have written and spoken to the Minister on many occasions. In defiance of local people and local need, the council has decided to provide homes and speculative developments for people who do not live in Luton and most of whom will spend most of their time commuting daily away from Luton. There is a bogus master plan, but everybody knows that the aim is to sell off plots of land to speculating builders and to let them cram as many houses as they can on those plots. Bad housing and bad planning are in store for our town. Bad times are in store for the homeless and the people who wait on the housing lists of Luton. This crazy scheme will mean that Luton will never be able to solve its housing problem, and certainly the surrounding Bedfordshire area will not help out.
Yet when the Minister provided funds under the Community Land Act, it was for a mixed residential scheme, mainly council housing for rent, but with some private house building, with shops, community and industrial facilities. In these circumstances is it any wonder that the scheme has been condemned by the county council, by local officers, despite denials that that is the case, and even by local organisations in the town?
My good friends in the Warden Hill Residents' Association have behaved with great credit as compared with the council, although they want a moratorium on the whole scheme. Builders should realise that this scheme cannot go ahead, because it will not be a success.
1901 When people are in the wrong they often, I regret to say, do nasty things. Thus, on Thursday 20th December 1976 the Conservatives on the council sought to deny on this issue free speech both to the residents of Marsh Farm and to Labour councillors. Labour councillors faced with these Fascist tactics—and I use that word deliberately—were forced to walk out of the council. What a mess that creates for our town!
On the same evening that Luton's Conservatives gave solace and the use of the town hall to the National Front they denied free speech to local residents and Labour councillors concerned with housing need. The right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition recently condemned Fascism in the Conservative Party. I can only believe that she was condemning Conservative Fascists in Luton.
I do not ask the Minister for very much in this debate. I have come to ask not for money or for anything that he cannot give. All I ask is that he and his Department should adopt a responsible public position about what is happening in Luton. I contend that the Minister for Housing and Construction and the Department of the Environment —and I speak as an ex-civil servant who dealt with housing matters—should not sit by like eunuchs pretending that these things do not happen and make no comment on what is going on in our town.
Respect for local democracy does not extend to silence in the face of criminal negligence. It is preposterous that a Ministry that calls itself the guardian of housing needs should not be prepared to speak out when a council is not trying to solve its housing needs. It is nothing short of absurd that Labour Ministers should be afraid to attack and criticise local Conservative councillors on these issues.
All I ask is that Labour Ministers should come out of their bunkers and peep over the top occasionally in order to find out what is happening on the ground. They should criticise those who do not respect our freedoms or who do not seek to satisfy the aspirations of our people. There are thousands of families in Luton who need the support of Labour Ministers and of the Department of the Environment. They are in a position to 1902 deal with the problem of housing need and they should not stand by and watch the council turning its back on these problems.
§ 4.45 p.m.
§ Mr. Ivor Clemitson (Luton, East)With the assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) and the Minister, I intervene briefly to support everything my hon. Friend has said. I quote from an article which appeared in the Evening Post, our local evening paper, earlier this week:
Luton's housing problem is one of the worst in the South East, says the Government-backed Housing Corporation …Tony Dowling, the corporation's chief officer for England south of the Wash, says conditions in Luton are 'as bad as anywhere'.This afternoon I checked with Mr. Colin Moore, the reporter who wrote that article. He confirms that those words are an exact quotation from Mr. Dowling.It will be recalled that Circular 80/76 designated certain stress areas. Included in those areas were not only the whole of London but Portsmouth and Southampton—both towns in Mr. Dowling's area south of the Wash. Of course, Luton was not on the list of housing stress areas but, as the circular says and as the Minister has said, it is up to Luton Council to represent its case to the Department and say why Luton should be included in the list of stress areas.
Far from doing that the present Conservative-controlled council has been going in exactly the opposite direction. It has attempted to understate the problem, as if by juggling with the figures the problem can be diminished if not made to disappear entirely. This is truly an "Alice in Wonderland" situation. The council hopes that a magic potion can be drunk and the problem will miraculously shrink. Housing need is not made up of figures on a piece of paper. It cannot be juggled with in the hope that it will go away. Housing need means people who need houses.
Need varies, of course, but it is still as true to say that the waiting list understates the problem as it is to say that it overstates it. Figures can be juggled, but the human problems will not thereby disappear. There is a total lack of willingness on the part of Luton council, under its present Conservative control, to acknowledge the scale of the problem 1903 of housing need. There is a total lack of will on its part to press for the special help that is on offer from the Department. Even if we take the juggling of the figures and the reduction of the waiting list, according to the council's own figures the housing shortfall will rise from 1,777 to 2,383 in the few remaining years to 1980.
My hon. Friend has referred to Bramingham Farm. According to the shrunk figures produced by Luton Council, a building ratio of three-quarters private to one-quarter public is assumed. Yet, in the Bramingham Farm development this shrinks to 85 per cent. private and 15 per cent. public. Further, the council housing is scheduled for the last stages of the development. If Bramingham Farm proceeds under the present plan we shall end up with a development which is totally unbalanced.
No one wants council house ghettoes. Everyone with any sense wants a proper mix between public and private housing. It is the Conservatives who seek to divide the private tenant from the council house tenant, not us.
I urge my hon. Friend, whose sensitivity to the needs of his fellow human beings in this area is well known, to put on record the grave disquiet which I am sure he and his Department must feel over what is happening—or, to be more accurate, what is not happening—in Luton. The Government have an overall responsibility for housing in the country as a whole. If an authority is failing in its duty—as Luton most certainly is at present—the Government have every right to stand up and say so.
§ 4.50 p.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) and Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) on their persistence in bringing the housing needs of the people of Luton before the House and keeping me, as the Minister, very much aware of the housing problems of the area that they represent.
This is the third debate in just over 12 months on this subject, and of course both of my hon. Friends have made personal submissions to me during that time. I have also received a first-hand account of the pressing housing needs of Luton 1904 from a number of Labour councillors who came to see me at the House of Commons with my hon. Friends the Members for Luton, East and West. It was a serious meeting in which real problems of housing need were considered.
Their case has been reinforced by the rather forceful comments of an officer of the Housing Corporation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East indicated when he quoted from a statement made by that officer. The Housing Corporation is playing a useful role in Luton, with 600 units of accommodation—that is a terrible way of describing homes, but I suppose it is the jargon—in the pipeline, as well as performing some valuable work in rehabilitation.
I share the concern that my hon. Friends have expressed very forcefully and clearly about the waiting list, which has been at about the 4,000 mark for too long. I assure my hon. Friends that we are not blinded by statistics or complacent about numbers. We appreciate that this means families and people in distress. With people still moving into the area, it is difficult to make inroads into the list, and if housing need—much of it desperatee—is to be met, we have to attack on a broad front.
A number of things are essential if a housing authority is to make such an attack fully effective. For one thing, authorities should be constantly concerned with the need to find ways to putting the existing housing stock to better use. Land must also be available for new building, and be put to the best possible use by authorities through good and thoughtful planning. Also, as we have stressed many times in circulars and speeches from the Department, housing authorities, in discharging their duties, should pay constant attention to the particular needs of those in their area who are, for one reason or another, particularly vulnerable.
One of my hon. Friends' concerns is that, with the change of control of the borough council from Labour to Conservative last May, the new council is proposing to alter the original plans for the development of one of the very few areas of land still available for housing within the borough, to the detriment of the needs of the more disadvantaged of his constituents. There are two aspects of this matter which, though related, 1905 are better dealt with separately: the use of this land and the meeting of Luton's undoubted housing needs.
I shall deal first with the land. Both the former council and the present council proposed to acquire this land under the Community Land Scheme. For the sake of completeness I shall run briefly over the facts concerning the proposed acquisition of land at Bramingham Wood, although of course my hon. Friends know the sitaution perfectly well. For many years, I understand, the borough council has been considering the development of 380 acres of this farm, and had conducted discussions with the owners, who were willing in principle, I am told, to sell.
Last May, the council put the proposed acquisition to the Department as a scheme qualifying for loan sanction in accordance with the initial arrangements under the land scheme. The proposal which it put forward entailed a roughly fifty-fifty split between public and private housing, with land reserved for education and private and public open space. The scheme was accepted as one for which loan sanction would be given for the acquisition of part of the land, the council having agreed with the owners on a phased programme of acquisition.
The Department subsequently, in July, heard from the council that it had decided on a different mix of development as between public and private housing, and the proportion would now be one to three. This in no way affected the acceptability of the scheme for loan sanction.
That, of course is what lies at the heart of the complaint made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West. While I understand the feelings that have prompted him to raise the matter today —I should have been surprised if he did not—I hope that he will accept that it is outside our rôle in central Government to intervene too closely in how the land scheme is being operated by the authority. One of the main objects of the scheme is to enable authorities to have a more positive means than they have had in the past to ensure that land needs in their areas are being met. The assessment of these needs is very much a matter for local consideration, and when it comes down to decisions about the exact propor- 1906 tion of public to private development on a given site, we are not in a position to use land scheme mechanisms to influence an authority against its own judgment of the local situation.
It is up to local authorities to get the balance right. Each local housing authority must make a careful assessment of its own situation and make sure that in using the land and the financial resources available to it—which, I must remind the House will continue to be limited—it gets a proper balance between extending owner-occupation and the very real needs of those dependent on the rented sector. This is so because statutory responsibility for reviewing and meeting the housing needs of the area also lies in the authorities' hands and they must make the decisions and justify those decisions to their electorates.
Indeed, in our approach to housing investment programmes we are eager to give more responsibility for deciding priorities to local housing authorities, for two reasons. First, we believe that the housing problem differs from area to area. and it is for those in the locality to decide whether the resources available can best be allocated. Second, we believe in local government and placing the responsibilities firmly on local authorities for deciding priorities and making decisions affecting their own people.
Of course, the Government and Ministers will continue to give their views on housing policy and the necessary priorities. In our first policy circular, No. 70/74, we made very clear that the first duty of a local housing authority is to ensure the adequate supply of rented dwellings. Whatever we are able to do to assist first-time buyers and those on council waiting lists who want to own their own homes, there will always be people who are completely dependent on public sector housing. Often they will be those who are in the most desperate need, and to these folk local housing authorities have an overriding responsibility.
The housing needs of Luton are still considerable and need a sustained drive to overcome them. This is not to belittle the efforts of the borough council over the years. It is true that, despite the growth of the population, the waiting list has not grown larger, but that, of course, 1907 is no consolation to those who are in desperate need today. The population growth has been due wholly to good employment opportunities, while the size of the waiting list has been affected by the trend to more but smaller households and by the increasing number of elderly persons.
Luton has a lot of old housing which successive councils down the years have rightly decided to improve and modernise rather than demolish. This inevitably means that a good deal of the borough's housing efforts have been concentrated on improvement work as well as new building. We believe that this policy is right and meets the wishes of persons to stay where they are rather than be rehoused 1908 elsewhere, and is particularly helpful to elderly persons who understandably wish to live near the centre of the town.
I assure both my hon. Friends that I am well acquainted now with Luton's needs. I was much impressed by the delegation which came to see me. I shall certainly do what I can to assist. I wish my hon. Friends well in their efforts to ensure that housing resources are used to the best possible advantage and that special regard will continue to be paid to those constituents who are particularly vulnerable.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Five o'clock.