Clause 2 - Homelessness Reviews
Homelessness Bill
12:15 pm
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
That is absolutely right. There are two sides to the Empty Homes Agency. Last year, I was asked to speak at its annual conference in London when it gave awards for best practice and disawards for worst practice. It cited practical examples of how often small groups—not great authorities—came up with imaginative ideas and advice on how to convert eyesores into liveable residential dwellings.
The Government have had a second chance to deal with the homelessness problem, and I am amazed that they have not included a proposal about empty properties in the Bill, because the situation has become worse. The number of people who are homeless has increased. At the end of last year, 71, 890 people had been placed in temporary accommodation at a cost of £375 million at a time when the number of empty properties had increased, too—the general ballpark figure being 750,000. I am talking about a time when economic activity was high and money was likely to be around to convert empty housing into liveable housing, but that has not been happening. The urgent need for empty properties to be dealt with has heightened, yet there is no mention of that in the Bill.
When we discussed the subject in connection with the previous Bill, I talked about my experience in Sheffield. I was a parliamentary candidate in Sheffield, Brightside in 1991 but, alas, I failed to unseat the incumbent, who is now the Home Secretary. My photo call was in a street in Sheffield, Brightside that was virtually full of empty boarded-up houses with weeds growing in the roads. About a year ago, in my new position on the Opposition Front Bench, I visited the same street in Sheffield and had a photograph taken. The only difference was that a few more houses were boarded up, more tiles were missing from the roofs and the tarmac road was indistinguishable from a grass road. That is a testimony to 50 years of Labour government in Sheffield that has not been helped by the past four years of a central Labour Government. Those empty houses added to the degradation of the area at the same time as green fields on the outskirts of Sheffield were concreted over for new, largely executive housing, so the problem is getting worse.
I fear that the Minister will not seize her hon. Friend's amendment with enormous alacrity, as she should. What are the Government doing about the empty housing problem? We were promised legislation following the pre-Budget report last year, but what resulted was a ``tinkering on the edges'' pledge about reducing taxes on properties that had been continuously empty for more than 10 years. That involves only a small number, because of the difficulty of proving that a property has been empty for such a long time.
We were also promised stamp duty exemptions on properties in areas of deprivation, which would help with the problem of homelessness and could be targeted at empty homes. We were promised that by April, but still we do not have the definitions of where those areas of deprivation are or where the tax reliefs are supposed to apply. Has the Minister any hot news as to when we can expect those definitions?
Conservative Members want to see a more concerted effort at homesteading, so that a larger proportion of the three-quarters of a million empty homes can more urgently be taken over by young homeless people, or couples, who have little prospect of getting on the first rung of the housing ladder. In return for zero or reduced rents or shared ownership, those people would spend their resources, with grants and help, on doing up those empty properties to make them habitable. The Government have made no mention of homesteading. They have been silent on the issue, even though it would be a practical solution to the homelessness problem.
In his intervention, the hon. Member for Stafford mentioned the worst offenders list. The Government must take a lead and, literally, put their own house in order. The NHS and the Ministry of Defence are two of the worst offenders—approximately 11 per cent. of their properties are empty. That is more than twice the level that one might expect from the private sector, despite all the stuff that we hear from the Government about the problem of affordable housing for key public service workers, especially in my part of the world, in the south-east and in London. What initiatives have the Minister or her predecessor taken to make some of that empty housing available as affordable housing to key public service workers? When will the Government lead by their own example?
The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Stafford is long overdue and should have been included in the Bill. We have heard a lot of waffle and seen little action from the Government in tackling the homelessness problem and it has been left to agencies to do something about it. Given the revelation that, at best, a half of housing authorities have regard to an empty homes strategy as part of their homelessness strategy, this debate will send a strong signal and give a clear lead that dealing with empty properties is a fundamental part of dealing with homelessness. The strategy already exists—there is no need to wait for the funds to build new houses.
The Minister cannot even tell us how many new houses will be built. It is rather an admission that the new Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for housing has no idea—she is probably being given some in-flight refuelling—how many houses we can expect from the Government, given their appalling record of the reduced number of houses built in the past four years. Conservative Members thoroughly commend the hon. Gentleman's amendment, and we hope that he is not intimidated by his Whips on the Front Bench into wimping-out by withdrawing it.