Westminster Council: Housing Policy (Hansard, 1 July 1991)

§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, the Westminster proposals offer homeless and other families the choice of housing outside London, through the creation of voluntary partnerships with other local authorities. Against the background of the high pressure of demand for housing in central London, those proposals appear to be sensible and they do not conflict with government policy.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, bearing in mind the fact that other local authorities, certainly those in the major conurbations, are faced with an ever-increasing number of homeless people and families, does not the Minister think it rather bizarre that one of the greatest contributing factors to the situation in Westminster was the policy followed by the city council, under its former leader Dame Shirley Porter, when it deliberately kept properties empty until blocks of flats became available to sell on the open market? Is not that one of the greatest contributing factors, if not the major contributing factor, to the present situation in Westminster?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, where any local authority agrees that an unoccupied dwelling could be made available and two local authorities are in agreement about the arrangements to bring that dwelling into use; and a homeless person or family is willing to be accommodated away from London; and that agreed action reduces the number of homeless people; and the arrangement does not disadvantage anyone; that can only be a good thing and an imaginative way of addressing the problem.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that this is a somewhat synthetic Question? Was not the party opposite a strong supporter of the Greater London Council, which had a policy of building, renting and buying blocks of flats in places other than London for the sole purpose of exporting elderly people?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, my noble friend makes a good point. The Question attacks a very good scheme which addresses a difficult problem for Westminster. The Labour Party's record in office is not very good.

§ Lord Stallard
My Lords, will the noble Baroness reconsider her reply to her noble friend? The noble Lord makes no good point at all. There is no comparison between the scheme to which the noble Baroness referred and the scheme under the former LCC and the GLC. Does she agree that Westminster City Council is so obsessed with keeping down the rate 771 of poll tax that it cares neither about its responsibilities towards the homeless nor its respect for the dead?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord's remarks. I do not believe that Westminster's record is a bad one. It gives good value for money with its services. On the question of the sale of houses, Westminster council has sold 6,300 houses out of a total stock of 24,700 in the last 17 years.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, how on earth does the noble Baroness expect local authorities such as Swindon—I mentioned Swindon the other day; it has a housing waiting list of seven years and all re-lets have to be used for its own homeless people—to help authorities such as Westminster which have failed miserably to make proper provision? If she believes in that policy, will she allow the release of hundreds of millions of pounds of funds which the local authorities have earned from the sale of council houses to be used for the building of houses?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Lord totally missed the point of my response to the first two questions. The scheme is entirely voluntary. If a local authority has no spare empty property, it will not enter into a voluntary agreement with Westminster. However, there are many local authorities throughout the country which have spare property, either through mismanagement or simply because they happen to have spare property, and in those cases the scheme would be a good use of those properties.

§ Baroness Phillips
My Lords, does the Minister endorse all the policies operated by Westminster in order to keep down its poll tax? Obviously, we have no respect for the dead there. In addition—this is unique to Westminster—it sacks people from the education service and it behaves appallingly. Do the Government also endorse the expenditure that was incurred by the Lord Mayor when entertaining the ex-Prime Minister the other day?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the Question is about housing the homeless in Westminster.

§ Baroness Fisher of Rednal
My Lords, will the noble Baroness tell the House how many replies Westminster council has had from local authorities saying that they are willing to help it out? Will she also tell us which local authorities have all those empty houses to which the homeless people could go?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I understand that there has not been a great deal of interest, although Calderdale is one of the authorities that has shown some interest. The policy is well-intentioned and the fact that only a few authorities have replied is no good reason for not at least trying to address the difficult problem of housing the homeless.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, we read in the papers some time ago that Westminster council sold a couple of cemeteries for a few pence. It is no good noble Lords saying, "Oh!". That happens to be the truth. I am asking just to make certain. Is it not now possible 772 that those cemeteries which were sold for 10p or 20p each will be used by those who purchased them to build expensive homes? Are we not at least entitled to have some comment on what the Government think of that kind of behaviour?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, that is another question.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, is the Minister aware that I can well understand her colleague rising from the Back Benches to defend her answers to me, bearing in mind the fact that he was a Minister in the department when all this nonsense was taking place? Is she also aware that he is completely off the ball given the fact that, when I was in Manchester for example, the council built 30,000 houses outside Manchester? We are not talking about the same situation. Will the Minister comment on the rather uncharacteristic and unsympathetic remarks made last week by the Minister for Housing, Sir George Young?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I have every confidence not only in the past record of my noble friend, but in his prowess on the Back Benches. As regards my honourable friend, I am astounded that anyone could misinterpret his remarks. He has done a great deal to help the young people sleeping rough on the streets of London. He was drawing attention to the menace of professional beggars on our streets in London who have a home to go to and who prey on vulnerable youngsters who have nowhere to sleep, as well as on passers-by.

§ Baroness Ewart-Biggs
My Lords, can the Minister say how many homes Westminster has found in other local authorities and whether any other London boroughs are following the policy that Westminster has started?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the scheme has been announced only in the past few weeks, so I suspect that there have been no responses at this stage. However, I do not know precisely about that, nor do I know of any other local authorities that have started such a policy. There are empty properties in many local authorities and attempts are being made to ensure that the problem of the homeless is combined with bringing some of those properties back into use.