Housing Associations: Funding (Hansard, 4 March 1986)

§ Lord Hylton
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, the Government have no proposals to double the funds available to housing associations. In the present public expenditure climate, restraint is essential for our wider economic policy and there are other pressures on housing public expenditure.

§ Lord Hylton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his rather dead-bat reply. Do the Government want to see fewer families in bed and breakfast accommodation, fewer families in care, fewer single homeless people and more building workers employed? If so, the remedy is to their hand.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, yes, of course we want to see fewer people in bed and breakfast accommodation and more people employed in the building industry, but, as I said in my original Answer, this must be set in the general context of public expenditure restraint. I would point out to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that for next year, 1986–87, gross provision for capital expenditure on housing has been increased by £200 million. I readily accept that we have a little way to go, but it is at least a start in the right direction.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that housing associations are really the cure for the bulk of our problem on housing, especially housing needed for rented purposes? The reason housing associations are not doing better is that the Housing Corporation, which has control of the funds, just does not have enough money. Is the Minister further aware that there are literally dozens of sites in docklands upon which housing associations could start work tomorrow if only the Housing Corporation could and would find the money for them? I beg the noble Lord to look at this again. If he wants success in housing, give the right people the tools to do the job.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am perfectly prepared to take the advice of the noble Lord and to look at this again, but, as I said, we have made a small improvement in housing expenditure in our provision 80 for the next financial year. If the housing associations were the sole answer we could take money directly from the local authorities' HIPs, but it is quite obvious that this is not the sole answer.

The Earl of Selkirk
My Lords, if my noble friend is unable to provide additional housing association property, is he aware that year by year the number of tenanted houses is falling and that it is absolutely essential in the public interest to restore them? If he will not take this course will he arrange for those who have money—that is, mutual associations—to build houses for rent without liability for rent control? They will not build houses unless there is freedom from rent control.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, as the House knows, my honourable friend the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction has been looking in recent months at the future of the whole private rented sector. He has still to announce his decisions on that review. But I take my noble friend's point that this is certainly a way forward, and a realistic way forward.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we on this side support the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, in his appeal for more funds for housing associations? But is it not a little dangerous to pin a Question about the future role of local authorities on one sentence extracted from a very informed and long debate on housing? Bearing in mind that local authorities still cater for more than 5 million families in tenanted accommodation, can the Minister give an undertaking that if any further funds are to be made available by the Government for the public housing sector, local authorities will receive their fair and adequate share?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
No, my Lords, I cannot go as far as that, and the noble Lord well knows why I cannot. With regard to his substantive point on the original Question of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton: yes, to a great extent I agree with the noble Lord, but he goes further than the debate. The report of the inquiry into British housing says at page 45 that the role of local authorities should be, increasingly as enablers and co-ordinators, as opposed to their role as providers". So this has a follow-through from the report.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, on that point, the noble Lord knows as well as I do that that will not happen in the foreseeable future.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, on the basis that that was a question, I would say that all policies of any government take a certain amount of time to come to fruition.

§ The Earl of Lauderdale
My Lords, arising out of my noble friend's last reply, will he not agree that housing associations are a much better bet than local authorities, especially where rented accommodation is concerned? This is a very serious matter and this view has wide support all over the country and, I think, in all parties.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
Yes, my Lords, I would agree with my noble friend as far as he goes, but the solution to the problem does not lie simply in building a lot of new homes. After all, that approach saddled us with the unwanted enormous council estates we have today.

Noble Lords
Oh!

§ Baroness Fisher of Rednal
My Lords, the noble Lord tells us that the Government want us to be much more cost-effective and much more efficient but does he recognise that it is a complete waste of public money to pay out week after week for homeless people to live in appalling bed and breakfast accommodation when the Government could be spending that money on providing them with decent accommodation? I say that in the very kindest way. We are constantly told to be cost-effective, but the government practice is in completely the opposite direction.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
Yes, my Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that to put homeless families into bed and breakfast accommodation is a policy of absolute last resort. That is why ever since 1979—and I believe under the previous Government, too—local authorities have been encouraged not to use such accommodation unless all other avenues have been totally closed to them.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, is the Minister aware that all the evidence shows that the housing problem in this country is now approaching a critical situation? Is he further aware that this House will be pleased that his right honourable friend is conducting a review? Will the Minister tell the House what are the terms of reference of that review and when its findings are likely to be published?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
No, my Lords, I cannot tell the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition the answers to his questions. It is an internal review for my right honourable friend's own purposes; it is neither a statutory nor a public review. Nonetheless, when decisions upon it have been reached the House will most certainly know.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether, in view of the answer he gave to my noble friend Lord Selkirk just now, it is reasonable to assume that the rent Acts are under consideration with a view to modification, amendment, or repeal?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, if I answered my noble friend by saying exactly which aspects the review is examining I would be going further than I should properly go.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that in some parts of the country, such as Buckinghamshire, where I am the MSC area board chairman, there have for months been job vacancies that we are unable to fill because people coming from areas of high unemployment are unable to obtain housing? That matter must be a priority in any 82 housing review. I shall be grateful if the Secretary of State for Employment also will comment on that point.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am answering this Question at the moment. Nonetheless, I certainly take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. It only goes to prove that in this, as in any other, area of government priorities must first be identified and then realised.

Noble Lords
Lord Stallard!

§ Baroness Macleod of Borve
My Lords, while I welcome the extra money that the Government are to give, will my noble friend the Minister tell the House what proportion of that money will go towards rented accommodation rather than new building?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
No, my Lords. I am afraid that I cannot answer my noble friend on that; I simply do not know.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords—

Noble Lords
Lord Stallard!

§ Lord Denham
My Lords, we have been nine minutes on this Question already. The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, has been trying to speak for some time. The House may feel that if the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, asks his question and my noble friend answers it, we should than push on to the next Question.

§ Lord Stallard
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Does the Minister not accept that there is widespread acceptance of the proposition set out in the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton? Many of us do not see it as an "either or" proposition. It is not a matter of either housing associations or local councils; it is both. Will the Minister, as a witness to some concern about the housing problem, reconsider the Government's decision not to release moneys that local authorities have accumulated from the sale of council houses, so that they may begin again to build houses for renting?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I would do so if I could be assured that it would not lead to yet another increase in inflation, which I am assured by those economists who have advised me and my right honourable friend in the past that it most certainly would do.