Debate on the Address

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the gracious Speech and, in particular, its commitment to the housing programme. I declare an interest: I recently became the chair of the Midland Heart housing association. Perhaps I should declare another interest, because my starting point in the housing debate was arriving as an immigrant in Birmingham at 16, not to a home or to a multi-occupied house, but to a multi-occupied room. It is no fun waking up in the morning in a room full of strangers and not even knowing how and when they entered the room. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, is not in his place, because I would remind him that, as we have heard today, some things never change. The argument in my day as a young immigrant in Birmingham was, ““Immigrants are taking all our homes and they are taking all our jobs””, but I would remind the noble Lord that, as an immigrant, I have taken only one job from the host community, that of general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, which I kept for 12 years. I was disappointed that the gracious Speech did not mention the constructive contribution of immigrants to the UK economy. If we are to build those 3 million homes, we will need those Polish plumbers and many more. I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to the new homes target. It represents a generational shift in social housing provision. Three million new homes will be built by 2020; it will be a costed, affordable programme; 70,000 new, affordable homes will be built per year—not for immigrants, but for those in housing need. It is an indictment of our society that essential workers—hospital and emergency workers, bus workers, teachers and many others—cannot afford to live in the communities where they work. It is an indictment of our society that rural communities are dying because local people cannot live in the area where they grow up. As a result, they cannot work in or contribute to their local economies. The housing programme presents us with a real opportunity to avoid the housing mistakes of the 1960s, when the culture was to build homes cheap and high. Those homes are no longer fit for purpose, and many of them should be demolished. New houses must meet the needs of this generation and those which follow. We must look for sustainability as well as affordability. The new programme must not be just demand-led, but quality-led, meeting the decent home standards. Encouragement of diversity of ownership—a mix of social housing, affordable housing and shared equity—is welcome. The voice of tenants must be paramount. By those means, we can meet our housing needs and rebuild communities for everyone—mixed communities for single people, couples, families, senior citizens and those who are vulnerable. I welcome the 10 eco-towns as a contribution to reducing our carbon footprint, but our objective and our ambition should be that all new homes make some contribution to that end. The housing programme gives us a real opportunity not just to build houses, but to find housing solutions, to rebalance the lack of cohesion in our communities and our society, and to build social capital to which we can all contribute. A decent home determines life chances. It should not be a lottery; it is an essential human right.