TABLE Floor area of room Number of persons 110 sq.ft. or more 2 90 sq.ft. or more but less than 110 sq.ft. 1.5 70 sq.ft. or more but less than 90 sq.ft. 1 50 sq.ft. or more but less than 70 sq.ft. 0.5 Floor area of room Number of persons 110 sq.ft. or more 2 90 sq.ft. or more but less than 110 sq.ft. 1.5 70 sq.ft. or more but less than 90 sq.ft. 1 50 sq.ft. or more but less than 70 sq.ft. 0.5
Housing Bill
9:30 am
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington North, Labour)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce a proposal in a probing amendment on an important matter. However, before I start to describe it, I should like to draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. I write articles for Housing Today and receive some support on research from Shelter. The gang of four—my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King), for Edmonton (Mr. Love) and I—have been pushing the issue for some years. Some passion will be expressed this morning, and possibly later in our deliberations,
because this is the single most important matter in housing policy.
I supported the Bill on Second Reading last week, and I support it again this morning. I want the balance to be redressed. There is so much in the Bill that is important in helping us tackle serious problems in the delivery of housing standards, particularly in the private rented sector, for houses in multiple occupation and elsewhere. However, there is a glaring omission. We do not have the piece of work that would help us tackle the problem that afflicts social housing and some tenants renting privately, primarily in the south of England. It must be recognised that in housing policy, and in other areas including social policy, we have to deal with—[Interruption.] I love that fire alarm test announcement; it has no meaning whatever.
We must address the fact that two separate approaches are needed on housing policy. The real and serious problems of low demand, and the abuses that that can lead to—how some private landlords deal with their stock—must be dealt with. However, although there are some exceptions, that problem does not apply to much of the south of England, because it is plagued by high demand. This group of amendments, including the new clause, seeks to redress that balance.
In recognition of that fact, which I accept the Government have acknowledged, we recently set a target to end the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for families with children. I was thrilled by the setting of that ambitious target, which we are on the way to meeting. However, that has a perverse consequence—a problem that runs parallel to it. Families in secure tenancies are living in conditions as bad as, and in many cases worse than, those experienced by people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I say ''perverse'' because for admirable, sensible reasons, local authorities are trying to prioritise moving families out of bed-and-breakfast and temporary accommodation because that costs money. It does not really cost any money to maintain families in highly overcrowded conditions. Priority is given to moving people from temporary accommodation.
The housing health and safety rating system—which will be subjected to some tweaking during the Committee's deliberations—is a step forward. One of the things that it is designed to do is tackle hazards arising from overcrowding and lack of space, but it will be used only alongside the existing statutory overcrowding standards. As was discussed on Second Reading, that continues to be based on—and to reinforce the use of—unacceptable and out-of-date standards dating from the 1930s and even the 19th century.
I seek to replace the definition of overcrowding in section 324 of the Housing Act 1985 with one that includes ''the bedroom standard'' in addition to ''the space standard'', and to do away with the room standard proposals, with which I and other hon. Members have difficulty. I want the statutory definition to be brought up to date by introducing the new bedroom standard based on the measure of
the English house condition survey and by updating the space standards.
The proposals contain many technical considerations, and I would like them be adopted at some stage. However, we have rehearsed the relevant arguments so I do not intend to discuss the long list of proposals in detail—to debate what could be introduced to determine measurement and usable space. A key component is the removal of the expectation that a child up to the age of 10 is counted only as half a unit and, in so doing, allowing us also to update some of the gender expectations. Under current bedroom standards, it is theoretically possible for an unlimited number of children of the same sex to share a bedroom. In practice, it is completely unrealistic to allow that to continue, as every parent knows.
By retaining the status quo—by not agreeing to my proposals, or something similar that the Government might adopt at a later stage—we are continuing to reinforce a chronic problem that is serious and worsening. I have spent 14 years in public life as a local councillor and a Member of Parliament, and it is clear that the problem is spiralling out of control in much of London and the south-east.
A mere glance at the statistics of the English house condition survey show the extent of the problem that we face in London. Even on the current inadequate statistical measurement, 178,000 households are at least one bedroom below the acceptable standard. That is 6 per cent. of the total housing stock, which is double the UK average, and three times more than that which prevails in most boroughs—in the east midlands, for example. The figure for the north-east is only 1 per cent., but I am aware that it has other housing problems and I am delighted that that is not one of them.
The problem is serious, worsening and concentrated in the south-east. As has been said, if the status quo is maintained, it will be possible for there to be chronic overcrowding by any acceptable modern standard and for the ludicrously high hurdle in existing legislation still not to be cleared. I and other hon. Members have been told of many relevant cases. A family of six with twins of two, a seven-year-old and a baby count only as three and a half units for the bedroom standard, which is regarded as completely acceptable and not at all overcrowded under existing legislation.
In addition to the difficulty of clearing that hurdle, the lack of clarity in legislation leads to inconsistent determinations and policies. One of my local authorities, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, does not prioritise chronically overcrowded families via a homelessness-at-home policy, but the other one—Westminster city council, which also covers the constituency of another Committee member—does so. Therefore, of two families with identical circumstances of overcrowding, living 200 yd from each other in the same inner-city community, only one might be regarded as statutorily overcrowded and be removed, or placed on the waiting list to be removed, because their accommodation was not regarded as suitable to occupy.
In one case—and I am still working with the local authority to deal with it—that I used as an illustration in the debate, I was told, although I have not had an original letter from Kensington and Chelsea council confirming it, that a family of seven living in a two-bedroom flat were initially advised to create a bedroom in the space under their stairs. That lack of clarity about which rooms or areas in a dwelling can legally be used to provide a sleeping space results in inconsistent decisions and advice. Vulnerable families are losing out as a result.
In addition, families are falling through the net because of the way in which decisions are implemented. Since the debate, during last Friday's advice surgery, a family of a mother, father and three-year-old child came to me with a letter from Queen's Park Sure Start programme; Sure Start was worried about the child's safety. I discovered that 12 people—at least three households—were sharing a two-bedroom flat. There were 10 adults and two babies. When I pursued the matter, Westminster City council told me that it had already accepted a duty to rehouse the couple and child. However, there is another child in the flat whom we do not even know about.
The council accepted that duty because it regards the property as unreasonable to occupy. It has placed the family on the housing waiting list, but they are at No. 241. On current standards, they will be in their present accommodation for anything up to another year. I do not understand how anyone could interpret even the provisions of the 1985 Act as meaning that it is reasonable for 12 people to share a two-bedroom property.
It is essential that there is some clarity and modernity in our approach to the process. Of course local authorities are concerned about the implications for their housing stock but, as I have said, the core problem is a decline in the number of properties available for letting over a long period. The problem is not particularly to do with household change and an increasing number of applications. It is in no way acceptable for us to trap people in the conditions that I have mentioned, sometimes for years, simply because there are competing pressures on the housing stock and to avoid raising expectations.
We did not take that attitude to bed and breakfast, which is a comparable example. We did not say, ''There are a number of families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and that is utterly appalling, but there are many other competing demands on the local authority's housing stock, so we will not act.'' We were right to take the decision, and it would be equally right to translate that approach to stock.
There are a number of knock-on effects that we should also try to untangle, including the ludicrous situation whereby, because registered social landlords are setting their own policies on not overcrowding stock, they turn down nominations from overcrowded households and give priority to less overcrowded households. On a number of occasions, I have found
that families of five have been turned down for a two-bedroom nomination because technically they need three-bedroom accommodation. As there are no three-bedroom nominations available, and they have to wait five years for one, we are trapping the most needy families in the most intense deprivation. Until we untangle some of those problems, and send out the message that we want a modern approach to the problem, those difficulties will continue.
Now is the time. We have to seize the opportunity offered by the Bill to prevent a serious problem from becoming a great deal worse. If we do not, we will be failing hundreds of thousands of households in London and the south-east, and a few in other parts of the country—whose opportunities we have vigorously embraced on every other count through our anti-poverty strategy, the decent homes initiative, and so forth—and we will not have an opportunity in the next decade to pass legislation, to enact it, to work out the implications and to start delivering.
This is a probing amendment, and I will not press it to a Division, but for the sake of those families to whom I have referred I ask the Government to take full cognisance of our request, and to return with a commitment to legislate along these lines in the Bill.