My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60, to which the noble Lord has just referred and said he will fully support, as will colleagues on his Benches—so I start off from a good place. Before I do so, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests: I am vice-president of the Local Government Association and a councillor in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, which, for those who do not know, is in West Yorkshire.
I am very pleased to be able to support Amendment 60, because looking back at the evidence from the right to buy of former council properties during the past 35 years is very instructive in determining whether there is any genuine, realistic hope of like-for-like replacements.
The example that I would like to share with noble Lords is from Kirklees. Prior to the right to buy, there were nearly 40,000 council properties in Kirklees. Now there are fewer than 24,000. Only a very small minority have been replaced by what we now call social housing. Indeed, in the last two years and within the period when councils have had the ability to enable replacements —which is rather different from ensuring that they are enabled, of course—403 homes in Kirklees have been sold under right to buy and only six have been built to replace those that have been lost. What provision is being made to ensure that we can get like-for-like replacements? Without them, we are pushing many people, particularly families, into private rented accommodation.
The provision of decent-quality housing for rent is vital. A particular case was brought to me by a local family. It illustrates why I am particularly concerned about the diminishing stock of social housing for rent. A young family with four children was renting a former council house which was subsequently run by a private landlord. It had what I would describe as 2.5 bedrooms and was semi-detached. It was about 50 years old. The rent was £600 a month—this is in West Yorkshire, not London and that is a lot of money in West Yorkshire.
The other half of the semi next door was still in council ownership under the ALMO that was set up when I was leader of the council, I am pleased to say. It was rented out at £320 per month, so the private rented accommodation was nearly double the price. That was not the only difference. The council house was in a good state of repair. The ex-council house had a leaking roof, which was why it was brought to my attention. The roof had been leaking for a while and the walls were damp, there was mould and the wallpaper was peeling off. The children had health problems, which the GP determined were partly caused by the state of the house. Obviously my first question to the mother who brought this problem to me was, “Have you spoken to the landlord? They should keep the house in a good state of repair. They have a responsibility to do that”. “Yes”, she said. “The only problem is that he lives in South Africa”, and getting action through the agent to the owner was well-nigh impossible, despite the so-called responsibilities and duties of the landlord to do so. Fortunately, I was able to help her find good-quality social housing for her to move into.
That account paints a picture of what is going on. So when the noble Lord, Lord Porter, says, “Don’t worry. We’ll gain one when one is lost because the house is still there”, yes, but what he did not say is that the tenure of that house can be just as important. The selling off of housing association homes will start once this Bill wends its way into law, and the experience of selling off council houses shows that we are pushing families who cannot afford to buy into private rented accommodation. Despite what the Minister and other noble Lords on that side have said, which is that it is important for people to have the right to home ownership, someone needs to explain to me how families that in my experience are often—not always—pushed into poor-quality and poorly maintained private rented properties will ever be able to own their own home. If that conundrum can be explained, I might have more faith in what is being done here. But currently all I can see is that those at the bottom of the income pile are pushed into low-quality accommodation, paying high rents that are not always covered by housing benefit, with little opportunity to put down roots in the community because the length of the lease is short and they have to move on. I know that we passed a Bill which said that if you complain you would not be pushed out, but it does not seem to have worked. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain that conundrum away for me.
8.45 pm
No family should be put into such a position. I taught history for many years and whenever we talked about the period of regeneration and innovation after the end of the Second World War, I would point out that the country decided as a principle that there would be a progressive housing policy in the sense that no matter who you were or what your income was, you had the right to live in a home of a decent standard. That was what was established and it continued to exist until the past few years under Governments of all colours. This is not a party point. But we are now in danger of creating a situation where families will be transient, with all the effects that will have on children
in terms of their education. The quality of the homes they live in will not be as good as the homes of those lucky enough to be homeowners.
We know that one of the factors affecting the quality of children’s lives is the standard of the homes they live in. That can affect their future health and certainly their future educational outcomes. I plead with the Government to think very hard about what we are doing to families that will be forced into private renting. How are they ever going to achieve what is said to be the aim, which is that of home ownership?