§ 12.32pm
§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton)This debate is about public housing in Waltham Forest. I have to confirm that it is public housing in which people live, not public houses where drinks are consumed.
I congratulate the Minister on his new role. I assume that it is a promotion. I wish him success, not least because we wish to see decent housing in Britain. I shall draw to his attention a comment made by the previous Under-Secretary of State before she was given the chop by the Prime Minister. In a letter to me dated 21 July she said:
I do appreciate the housing problems in Waltham Forest, and in particular I applaud the efforts of the Council to avoid use of bed and breakfast in meeting their obligation towards those who are homeless.There are severe housing problems in my area. Many local people are in desperate need of proper housing. They face immense overcrowding and stress and that is reflected in the high figures for homelessness, the housing waiting list and the transfer list. I have to deal with innumerable cases in my advice surgery. I receive many letters and telephone calls, and if I went through them all we would be here all day.I want to deal with the issues in general. In 1987–88, 2,201 households presented themselves to the local authority as homeless, 801 of which were regarded as priority need. That was a 33 per cent. increase on the year before. The trend this year is still substantially upwards. I have some of the latest figures. They show that 520 families out of a total of 828 allocations were rehoused in July. Of those 826 dwellings, 386, were one-bedroomed properties which are not suitable for families. Four hundred and forty two were two-bedroom or larger properties. Therefore, 91 per cent. of the available family homes went to homeless families. The projection is that 950 dwellings this year will go to homeless cases. On a projection of 1.400 allocations, 600 are likely to be one-bedroomed and 700 to be family units. There will be a shortfall of between 200 and 250 family homes for 1988–89 for the homeless.
The council has avoided using bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and should be praised for that, despite the huge increase in homelessness at a time when many other councils have been forced into using it. As I have said, nearly 90 per cent. of all lettings go to priority homeless families. This year, for the first time, the council has had to put 100 families into one-bedroomed, high-rise tower block flats. That is not satisfactory. The council has also reduced its voids enormously. The empty properties have been reduced to only 337 as at 25 July. That represents 1.6 per cent. of the total council stock, an incredibly low proportion.
There will always be some void dwellings as properties stand empty for minor or major repairs. However, if we compare that level of vacancies with the private housing association sectors in Waltham Forest, we find that the council figure is an efficient one. As I have said, council vacancies are 1.6 per cent. of total stock. Housing association empties are 3.9 per cent., while in the private sector nearly 3,000 properties are empty, and that is 4.6 per cent. of the total stock.
That burden of homelessness eating up the available dwellings means that the current waiting list and transfer list are effectively frozen. Only 15 families were housed from the housing waiting list over last year's figure and 835 every one of those families was extreme in the extreme. The 10,362 families on the waiting list and the 4,000 plus families on the transfer list are bearing the brunt. They are in a trap of misery. In addition, 1,500 elderly people need special housing in the area and we have only 600 sheltered homes in Waltham Forest. That is one of the lowest figures in London.
We have a large number of low-income families for whom owner-occupation is not an option. We also have many serious harassment cases, including racial harassment, and many families need rehousing. There are road decants in the area. The M11 link road has caused 270 families to need rehousing. Seventy of the best family homes had to come down during the construction of the north circular road. There are system-built homes on the large estates and 3,500 of them need improvement and redevelopment. The previous Minister visited those estates and acknowledged that there was a case.
More than 16,000 houses need repair and improvement at a cost of £180 million over 10 years. Even the Audit Commission said:
Put simply, a further £10 million is required in each of the next 10 years if the council is to carry out its traditional housing elemental repair plan. Moreover, the cost of future maintenance and work revealed by the outstanding surveys will add further to the shortfall … Waltham Forest has all the information needed to put forward a reasoned argument in support of a request for a supplementary allocation.There is also disrepair in the private sector where more than 22,000 homes are considered to be in need of substantial repair. Many of them need some local authority assistance. However, improvement grants have been stopped in my area because of the cut in the housing investment programme.The borough's strategy is to spend more to provide new homes for the homeless and to repair and redevelop its homes and those homes in the private sector. It has calculated its HIP bid at £63 million, which is based on accurately costed figures from private consultants. However, last year the council received only £7 million. That was topped up by allocations and £15.3 million of its capital receipts to £24 million, which was for this year's programme. Even that has been hindered by the Government. For example, the Secretary of State's statement in March blocked a lot of schemes, including schemes involving the private sector.
The council had a deal with the Samuel Lewis housing trust to provide 32 homes for the homeless. They were to be built by a private contractor, Hastingwood Estates, on private land, funded by a private merchant bank, Brown Shipley and Co. Ltd. That was in my constituency at the old Leytonstone football ground. With other schemes, that would have provided 200 homes for the homeless. The scheme was shot down when the Secretary of State announced his restrictions on leaseback deals on 9 March.
The Government have realised that it was wrong to pull the rug from under the feet of many local authorities in regard to such schemes without announcement. They have invited bids for additional applications to cover the cost of some of those schemes. Waltham Forest has made an application, and I hope that the Minister will take its application seriously and will provide the supplementary allocation.
It was deeply unjust that those schemes were stopped, especially the one on the Leytonstone site, because the 836 housing association was already fully committed. It had signed contracts, it had borrowed the money from the bank, and it had even handed over 10 of the properties before 9 March. Twenty-two of the 32 properties have been counted as prescribed expenditure for the local authority, despite there being no prior notice and the fact that the local authority processing levels were within the rules at that time. That denied the local authority the opportunity to spend the money on other homes, as it had intended to do. I hope that the Government will reconsider that aspect of their policy.
On transforming the estates, the council has a major programme which affects many of my constituents living in Cathall Road, Oliver Close and Beaumont road. Many of those properties have major structural problems that need repairing. Reports have gone to the Government Building Research Establishment and to the Department of the Environment, whose surveyors have looked at them. However, for just a little more than it would cost to repair those blocks—which would even then leave a lot of problems—we could have new homes and flats, virtually all of which would be low-rise and many of which would have gardens.
The Government should give additional support to those schemes. Because of the enormous sums involved and the void rate being so low, it cannot be done privately without throwing out the tenants, but they have nowhere to go. Only the council can do that, and it should be supported by the Government. The Government should start by giving sufficient Estate Action funding for those specific schemes. I hope that the Minister will look at that, too.
I want to refer to the subject of disabled people's homes, because the way in which the Government have dealt with the Suffield Hatch site in Waltham Forest raises questions about how serious the Secretary of State is about providing such homes. It is a council-owned site which the council wanted to sell to a housing association called Habinteg, to build 18 units for the physically disabled, including wheelchair-bound people. The housing association agreed the funds. The council needed approval from the Secretary of State to sell it at below market value. It submitted its application for approval in 1987, and in November approval was given but was based on the wrong figures.
In February 1988 approval was based on the right figures, but in that year the property value had virtually doubled and by the time the authority went back to the housing association—it resubmitted the figures in April this year—it was told that it had to go through the whole process again. The Secretary of State's delay in giving approval has put a block on those disabled people's homes because of the price rise since. It is a Catch-22 situation —land prices rise while the Secretary of State delays.
The Government's proposals seem to be for a strict financial regime with no flexibility or room for the local authority to deal with its housing problems. People's misery will be made worse as the borough's problems are worsened. The Government recently produced their consultation paper, "Capital Expenditure and Finance" which will force local authorities to direct 75 per cent. of their capital receipts to pay off historical loan charges. That would be disastrous for Waltham Forest—it would mean a 40 per cent. cut and bed-and-breakfast accommodation on an enormous scale immediately. The borough has tried hard to avoid that option.
837 Just the other day the Government produced another consultation paper, "The New Financial Regime for Local Authority Housing", which says that housing revenue accounts will have to be self-financing. That proposal takes absolutely no account of the poor quality of housing which many people have to live with and for which the council has to pay out of the housing revenue account because of its duty as a landlord. It also takes no account of high debt charges, which are running at £20 million a year for my borough. If the Governments suggestions were put into effect, there would be a £6 a week rent increase. There would be a 30 per cent. increase for no improvement in services in 1990—exactly the same time as the poll tax hits local families.
The Housing Bill is no answer. More than 2,000 tenants have inundated the town hall and been to public meetings saying that they do not want private landlords. I have a letter from the Leyton Grange community association, which polled its estate and found that 85 per cent. of tenants wanted to remain council tenants. People want the council to be their landlord, and forcing tenants out seems to be the Governments alternative. That is not right.
I urge the Minister to give the local authority the supplementary approvals that it needs and a bigger housing investment programme allocation to help house my local people decently.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House to speak again?
§ Mr. TrippierI congratulate the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on securing this debate on so important a topic, and thank him for his kind comments about my new responsibilities for housing. His remarks were typical of him. Although we do not share many political views, it is established fact that the hon. Gentleman is a very popular hon. Member. I do not say that to damage his chances of reselection—I say it sincerely.
The hon. Gentleman has described in great detail the problems that confront his borough. I assure him that neither my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State nor I underestimate their scale. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) visited the borough earlier this year—as the hon. Gentleman suggested, to get first-hand knowledge of local housing conditions. I know that she had a most useful discussion with representatives of the council and had a tour of the borough.
What the hon. Gentleman said about the delay in the housing scheme for the disabled worried me, and I should like to examine the matter and write to him.
§ Mr. TrippierI shall summarise the main features of housing conditions in Waltham Forest. Nearly one quarter of the housing stock is owned by the council. The remainder is in private ownership. The council's stock includes many flats—about 3,500—in large panel concrete construction. The problems found in buildings of that type 838 are well known. As well as having structural defects, they are badly laid out and unattractively designed. I shall return to what can be done about that.
The council owns a lot of houses that were built before the war. They are now showing signs of age. New roofs and windows are often needed and heating and kitchen equipment need to be brought up to date. There are also problems with many of the post-war flats and houses. Many of the problems are structural and extensive remedial work is required.
Demand in the borough comes from those who are registered on the Councils waiting list and from those who are accepted by the council as homeless and in priority need. In 1986–87, 586 homeless families were accepted by the council. I echo the tribute that has been paid to the council for avoiding the use of bed-and-breakfast hotels to accommodate homeless families. That is an extravagant use of resources. Bed-and-breakfast hotels provide unsuitable accommodation for families, except for short periods in an emergency. The council has managed to avoid using bed and breakfast by reducing the number of empty dwellings in its housing stock. Its efforts and resourcefulness deserve credit. I am happy to put that on record.
Overcrowding is a problem, especially where there are insufficient larger dwellings in the existing housing stock. Further demands arise both from decanting families to allow improvement work to be done on housing estates and from road works. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that work on the A406 is to start soon. He also referred to the M11 extension.
Capital expenditure for local authority housing is based on the council's housing investment programme. Every local authority makes a bid for its share of the national allocation for expenditure on housing. The total amount available is always over-subscribed, and bids from local authorities have to be considered very carefully. We have already received Waltham Forest's housing investment programme bid and its housing investment strategy statement. Every year we have meetings with each of the local authorities to discuss their programmes. This year's round of meetings will start in about a couple of months.
I can understand that, with so much work needing to be done to the housing stock, the borough may think that allocations in past years have not been large enough. I reassert that they have been made as carefully as possible and that they have been dealt with as fairly as is humanly possible. We shall study its new statement with close interest and we shall listen to what the council has to say to us when it comes to see us.
I understand that the council is disappointed that the borough is included in group B for the admissible cost limits in the tables used to calculate housing subsidy entitlement. Group A includes mainly inner London boroughs where land and property values and works costs are highest. These groupings were made on the basis of available cost data and they will be reviewed annually. Any representations that the council may care to make will certainly be taken into account in the next review.
Waltham Forest's allocation for 1988–89 was increased from that for the previous year. It was one of only eight London boroughs whose allocation was increased. It also received two supplementary allocations. The first is to help it to meet its obligations to the owners of pre-cast reinforced concrete houses that were originally owned by the council. They were then bought by the tenants. If 839 defects occur in these houses, the council is required either to pay a grant towards the cost of reinstatement or, in extreme cases, to buy them back. The other supplementary allocation is to help the council with the cost of meeting its obligations towards the homeless. The allocation should enable the council to make some of its empty houses fit for use, as well as providing a hostel.
The housing investment programme allocation can be augmented by other resources—for example, capital receipts, including the sale of council houses and flats where the tenants have exercised their right to buy. We have received no recent figures from the council regarding its progress in dealing with right-to-buy applications, but anecdotal evidence suggests that that work is in arrears. If that were so, we should take a very serious view of it. It is frustrating the tenants' right, conferred by law, to become the owners of their own homes. Furthermore, it means that the council does not have the benefit of those capital receipts.
Many local authorities enter into leasing arrangements with housing associations and other bodies. There is no fundamental objection to that practice, provided that it helps authorities to meet their needs and represents good value for money. For example, it may make sense to take a two or three year lease of a house while the owner is abroad and to use it as temporary accommodation for homeless families. However, it has recently become apparent that the arrangement whereby leasing costs do not count as prescribed expenditure is being abused by certain authorities, who have signed lease and lease-back deals for 20 years that amount to new build council estates by the back door.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State therefore announced on 9 March that leases for longer than three years would, in general, count as prescribed expenditure. A later announcement provided that authorities could apply for additional allocations of prescribed expenditure for schemes that were both genuinely in the pipeline and did not result in an overall increase in the housing stock controlled by the council. Applications are due for that by the end of this month. I understand that the London borough of Waltham Forest has submitted applications in respect of schemes at Trinity close, Larkswood mews and Cogan avenue. I received them only very recently. They will be considered carefully and a decision will be conveyed to the council in due course.
I suggest that the council should think seriously about selling any surplus land so that it can be developed without the use of public funds and create a receipt for the council. The council has disposed of some 60 acres of surplus land entered on the Land Register, which is reasonable progress. Those registers were set up to ensure that unused public sector land that has a potential use is made available for development. That is most important in areas such as greater London where land for development is at a premium.
The Secretary of State has powers to give directions to authorities to dispose of Land Register sites where they could reasonably have put them on the market. Some directions have already been given. I understand that Waltham Forest still has sites on the register amounting to some 45 acres, so I urge the council to review those sites to see which of them can now be released. The council may 840 also find that when tenant's choice comes into effect the tenants may wish their estates to be transferred to other ownership. The council would then be relieved of the burden of having to manage and renovate those estates. Another way in which the council can increase its spending power is by bringing forward projects as part of the Department's Estate Action initiative. It has completed or is working on four projects which, together, have earned special allocations of about £350,000. The schemes include a controlled access system at All Saints tower on the Beaumont road estate. That is successful and has been well received by the tenants. It is no exaggeration to say that their lives have been transformed by the sense of security that it has brought about.
§ Mr. TrippierI am glad to see the hon. Gentleman nodding assent. The project is one of those listed in our booklet "Better Reception". We were delighted to include it.
That type of entry is being or will be provided for the other tower blocks at Beaumont road. No doubt the council will extend it to other estates. Other projects include new or relocated estate offices. They may be more mundane, but local management on estates is a key part of the Estate Action approach and fundamental to revitalising estates that have become run down.
We are now looking at four further projects from the council with a potential Estate Action allocation of £1.5 million. I emphasise that Estate Action is not just a way of getting extra spending. Successful projects are a balanced package of proposals that embrace all aspects of the management of the housing estates. We usually expect them to include an innovative feature that would not have been provided otherwise. I do not have to tell Waltham Forest that because it knows it already. I am glad to say that we have a good working relationship with the council on Estate Action.
The hon. Member for Leyton referred in general to public housing in Waltham Forest, but the council's responsibilities also involve it with the private sector. That will happen increasingly as councils move from being major providers of housing to enablers working with other agencies. One of the main ways in which councils are at present involved with the private sector is in making grants for the improvement of older houses. They may be given on application, although some types of grants are made at the council's discretion. However, sometimes it is more effective to target assistance on defined areas. I see that the council has adopted that strategy. With Circle 33 and Nationwide, it has also been working to provide a neighbourhood home improvement agency, to help those who might not understand the improvement grant system or who may not have funds available to pay for their share of the cost of the work.
It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that I dealt in Standing Committee earlier this week with proposals for changing the improvement grant structure. I gave an undertaking that when parliamentary time allows, it is our intention to repackage the number of grants that are available. I am the first to admit, having taken on these new responsibilities only recently, that perhaps we are in danger of confusing the very people whom we are seeking to encourage, with a catalogue of improvement grants. We are determined to repackage them.
841 One aspect of management where the council could do better is in reducing rent arrears. The latest figure put them at £2.7 million, or 14.1 per cent. of the rent roll, which is the eighth highest in London and the tenth highest in the country.
§ Mr. TrippierThat certainly is progress, and I do not ignore it, but much more could be done. We know that the council has problems and, obviously, these are not unique to Waltham Forest. It could adopt further initiatives to its advantage and I have outlined some of them today. I hope that the council will heed seriously what has been said this afternoon.