Support for Women (Economic Downturn)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:15 pm on 5 March 2009.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Conservative, St Albans 5:15, 5 March 2009

I am conscious of the time, but I particularly wish to draw attention to one of the greater pressures affecting families across the country: overcrowding. Unfortunately, this Government have presided over a complete sclerosis in both the delivery of social housing and help to deliver housing that is affordable to rent. They went down the fundamentally flawed route of saying that everybody needed to buy, buy, buy. I wish to discuss housing and overcrowding, and its effects on women and families, because I believe that in this economic downturn, when people are going to lose their homes and when people may well be taking back "boomerang children" and other members of the family who are returning for whatever economic reasons, the pressure of overcrowding in homes will get even greater.

One thing that has not been mentioned is the fact that today is world book day, which got me thinking of a very famous essay that was made into a book. I, like many others, read it as a teenager as part of my school course for O-level, as it was at the time. I am talking about "A Room of One's Own", which is a sort of stream of consciousness, written by Virginia Woolf, about how if a woman had a room of her own and a small amount of money, she would be in an empowered state to be able to study, to better herself and to progress. I wish to read a little extract, because the book was written in 1928 and it is amazing how the sentiments are still so valuable today.

Virginia Woolf tells us that she had just received through her door a legacy of

"five hundred pounds a year for ever" from an aunt who had died in India and that she had also been made aware of the fact that she could vote. She continued:

"Of the two—the vote and the money—the money, I own, seemed infinitely more important."

She wondered why there were no colleges endowed for women to study, to better themselves and to get on. She came to the conclusion that the reason was that women who might have endowed colleges were busy bringing up children; they had not made wealth themselves to give to colleges. She concluded that without a small amount of money and a small amount of personal space to call one's own, one would never be able to progress, to think and to write great literature; one would instead be burdened with the responsibilities and worries, as a woman was then, of running a family, with little hope of making money and having independence.

That is why I wish to return to the idea of overcrowding. The Government set themselves an extremely ambitious target of building some 3 million houses, but more than 500,000 households in England still live in overcrowded conditions—those are Government figures. The survey of English housing and the 2008 labour force survey showed that 565,000 households live in cramped conditions. The tragedy is that the situation has got worse, and it is has done so in a boom time. It has got worse at a time when the Government were throwing money into supposedly relieving poor conditions and overcrowding. Only 1 per cent. of owner-occupiers were classed as being overcrowded, yet social overcrowding has become worse under this Government's watch.

Shelter, the housing charity, has said:

"It's shocking that in the 21st century we are seeing a rise in the number of people trapped in cramped, squalid conditions that have more in common with the Dickensian era than those of a modern nation."

Given that more and more people may well, as I have said, be living in overcrowded conditions, and more children will be staying at home, the Government have to accept that they have been part of this problem. The failure to provide enough housing for those most in need has been well established. Less housing has been built under this Government than under previous Conservative Administrations. The current level of construction of social housing is running at a fifth of what it was in 1997.

Women are being disproportionately most affected by this situation. The number of single women waiting on social housing lists has increased year on year since 2003—it has been rising by 77 per cent. across those councils that have specifically recorded information on women. The increase in the number of homes being repossessed, which will also mean that more and more will be seeking those scarce social housing vacancies, will, I am sure, lead to increased pressures and increased hidden homelessness, whereby women, particularly young women, will end up sofa-surfing or staying with inappropriate partners or in inappropriate relationships simply to have somewhere to lay their head for the night.

It was very interesting that the "Homes Fit for Families" report by the Family and Parenting Institute pointed out that the increase in house repossession may lead to a rise in family arguments, sleep deprivation, lack of privacy for parents and poor attainment at school. Nothing much has altered since 1928. Why have the Government burdened the housing market with the home information pack, which does not work, and why did they encourage people to take out inappropriate mortgages, when they should have been in either private or social rented housing that was affordable and within their means?

The report highlights the serious emotional turmoil of living in a cramped house. One survey found that as many as 74 per cent. of parents living in overcrowded homes are sharing their bedroom with children, which naturally leads to a lack of privacy. The stress of domestic tension caused by overcrowding affects women more, as was revealed in the press yesterday. Marital stress increases heart disease in women, but not in men, according to the medical profession. A strained relationship affects women's mental health, increases their blood pressure and the risk of obesity and leads to high cholesterol levels. All those factors contribute to increased risk of heart disease. How much will those problems increase if the Government do not deliver enough social housing or relieve overcrowding by freeing up the housing market?

The Government have to take responsibility. It is no good saying that all the bad loans started in the US: we were culpable here. Adam Sampson appeared before the Communities and Local Government Committee and I asked him whether we were enshrining a rump lower class by saying that people had only made it in life if they had bought their own home. He more or less agreed with that statement. When people were told that they must buy, no matter whether they could not afford to do so or how little a part of a house they could afford, very little emphasis was placed on delivering social housing, so this Government have presided over a massive increase in statutory overcrowding. That is not a record of which to be proud. It will haunt us in the future, with people facing job losses, home repossessions, returning to live with their mum and dad—who may be very elderly—or putting up members of their extended family. When people lose their homes, they lose their security. We will see a return to Dickensian conditions and, as Adam Sampson of Shelter said, the Government should be ashamed of that. In years to come, we will see the results.