Planning (Provision of Affordable Housing) (Hansard, 4 July 2000)

§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to allow local authorities to stipulate that 50 per cent. of all new housing development should be set aside for affordable housing. I hope that this is a subject that has broad appeal in many quarters of the House.

In January, the National Housing Federation carried out a survey that revealed the sorry state of affairs that more than half of Britain's population believe that they or their children will not be in a position financially to buy their home in 20 years' time. If we are to change that perception of the future and provide the housing that our country needs, we need massively to increase the amount of affordable housing in the UK, especially in property hot spots such as London. My Bill would not mandate local authorities to do things, but allow councils effectively to set a quota that half of the housing developments in their area should consist of affordable housing and ensure that that rule guides councils when they give planning permission to developers seeking permission to build.

Many people's lives are blighted by the lack of affordable housing, and we should not presume that the problem is confined to urban areas, such as my constituency. At the weekend, I visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard) and discovered that the issue is significant in rural communities and small towns in her area. Urban, suburban and rural communities throughout much of England face a lack of affordable housing: the same challenge confronts the smallest villages and the biggest towns and cities. I was brought up in Herefordshire: my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) has discovered that almost no affordable housing is being built in large parts of that county, and I know that affordable housing is now entirely absent from the market in the village in which I used to live.

My surgery, like that of many other Members of Parliament, is packed every week with people who are trying to buy a new home or to move to a decent home, but are having difficulty finding an affordable property. My constituency has the largest proportion of electors living in local authority property of any constituency in England. Today, I checked the figures with my local council and discovered that there are more than 13,000 people on the waiting list, of whom 5,000 have no tenancy.

High and rising land values combined with increasing property prices mean that we are pricing many people out of the market. Of course, little local battles can yield results: on the south bank, we had a successful battle over Coin street in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and another over the Cherry garden pier site in the 1980s and 1990s; and battles are being fought to ensure that there are affordable homes around Tower bridge and on the Heygate and Dickens estates in Bermondsey. However, the problem is not merely one of numbers and statistics, but of keeping communities together, making it possible for people to remain where their family has lived for 186 generations, and ensuring that all communities have the key workers that they need to carry out the basic jobs on which every community depends for its support.

We could have a long debate about the definition of "affordable housing", and perhaps one day we shall. For now, I offer two definitions, the first of which appears in Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions circular 6/98. It states that, for the purpose of planning policy, affordable housing is Low cost market and subsidised housing…available to people who cannot afford to rent or buy houses generally available on the open market. The National Housing Federation states that rents are affordable if the majority of working households taking up new tenancies are not caught in the poverty trap or paying more than 25 per cent. of their net income in rent. My arguments do not apply solely to council or local authority housing; they apply equally to properties that people take out mortgages to buy, properties in shared ownership and properties that are rented from housing associations, trusts or private landlords. I commend Tower Hamlets council and Wychavon council—authorities in different parts of the country—for taking developers to court under planning law and succeeding in defending the interests of their communities by ensuring that the developers did not pull a fast one and reduce the amount of affordable housing provided.

In London, more and more people exceed the 25 per cent. of net income threshold. The National Housing Federation says that registered social landlord rents in 1998 were unaffordable for more than 70 per cent. of households with one or more persons in work. Between 1979 and 1998, the average rent for council dwellings in London rose by 600 per cent.—three times inflation, which rose 200 per cent. in the same period. The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) made that point well in a recent debate.

The general rate of inflation throughout the country has been 43 per cent. in the past decade, but it has exceeded 100 per cent. for housing in assured tenancies. In the past year in London, property prices have risen by approximately a quarter. The average cost of a home in this city is £163,000. The statistics speak for themselves. I do not need to tell any other London colleague, from whatever party, about the crisis that we face.

The position is a boon for property developers; it is heaven on earth for them. However, it is a nightmare from hell for people who cannot afford to remain in the community to which they belong or in which they need to work. In recent years, new housing has often been provided where it is least needed. Homelessness is increasing. Approximately six households per 1,000 throughout the country and nine per 1,000 in London are homeless.

The amount of social housing is decreasing. In 1993, approximately 31,200 social housing properties were completed. In 1999, the figure was 17,500. This year, only 13,500 affordable homes have been completed in England. Yet, according to the best projections, we need approximately 107,000 units every year for the next 10 years. Nearly 85,000 newly forming households, as well the 750,000 people who live in unfit housing, will need affordable homes.

The position is nonsensical. I am not talking about ensuring the provision of affordable, new-build housing. Approximately 750,000 houses in the United Kingdom 187 are empty. Many of them are in the wrong places to fulfil the need. That should be tackled. There are 150,000 homeless people. VAT penalises someone who brings old properties back into use; but VAT does not have to be paid on new-build housing.

I want to make an important point about key workers. I shall cite one example of a young woman called Rhian Williams, who is a special needs teacher. She teaches in Walthamstow and lives in Southwark. She earns less than £20,000 a year, and she has said publicly that she will have to move out of her flat at the end of July. It costs £287 a month. She cannot find anywhere else for less than £600 a month. She approached the Church Commissioners, who said that they would love to house her but that there would be a three-year wait. The result is that a special needs teacher, whom we need, will leave London and seek a job abroad. She is typical of many public sector workers who say that rising prices are beyond their control and that it is therefore increasingly difficult for them to carry on.

Unless there are opportunities for the teacher, the nurse at hospitals such as Guy's, the bus driver, the postal worker and the social worker to live here, we shall not have a community with the support that it needs. We are losing 10,000 key workers every year. We have an opportunity to remedy that.

The Green Paper has been issued for consultation. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister's statement that we shall enable local authorities to secure a proportion of affordable housing in larger housing developments in urban and rural areas. I welcome the statement from the Greater London Authority that it is about to hold an inquiry on housing, and the new Mayor's indication of support for a 50 per cent. proposal.

I hope that we can have a quota for affordable housing in all developments, not only new developments; a quota for small developments, not only big developments; an obligation on councils to consider the options and, if they wish, to go up to 50 per cent. I also hope that democratically elected local representatives, not developers, will determine what constitutes housing need. We need housing that is determined by need.